Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive599

User Off2riorob

Resolved

 – User:DeanButlerFan blocked by User:Rklawton NawlinWiki (talk) 18:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Off2riorob is violating his position by removing referenced material from the talkpage for Gordon Brown. I suggest you block him for trolling. (DeanButlerFan (talk) 18:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC))

Somehow, I think that suggesting that Gordon Brown is autistic (based on a random blog) may perhaps be a slight BLP problem. Could some kind admin handle this sock? -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting it, it's a very well known fact taht he has Asperger's Syndrome. Hence his inability to live normally. Anyway, all the information is cited. Off2riorob is just a Labour supporter deliberately damaging the article. (DeanButlerFan (talk) 18:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC))

Can we please block the instigator of this report and close? TIA --Tom (talk) 18:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 19:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This is sooo not worth the time.

This kind of activity is what drives any sane person away.[1][2][3][4]. Wholesale revert, deletion and silence. That the well referenced and supported text could be improved is not even in the same universe as making every character printed vanish from the article entirely.99.141.249.226 (talk) 20:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh. What a surprise.[5] _99.141.249.226 (talk) 20:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Why is there no discussion of this on the talk page? –xeno^talk 20:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a range-blocked IP user 99.1xx (see SPI case and ANI report) back to his usual tricks. Re-blocking the IP is the best solution, but the 3-month durations seem a little light. Now he's flaunting the 3RR as an act of "civil disobedience?" Xenophrenic (talk) 21:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 before I saw this. Feel free to increase. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

71.196.72.160

71.196.72.160 (talk · contribs) continues to edit disruptively despite warnings and blocks. This IP has already been blocked 4 times. Twice for vandalism, once for vandalism and edit warring and once for just edit warring. Basically, they have been blocked several times for repeated behavior. Not only that, to continue their edit warring and disruptive editing, they used proxies and a sock. This can be seen with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/AFROdr. It seems like they moved out of the proxies and went back to their original IP. Is it possible to block this IP or protect the pages their editing? Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 22:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing vandalism today. I'm seeing a content dispute. Take it to RfC. Rklawton (talk) 22:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Problem is that they are not open suggestion and instead have gone ahead continued to edit war despite comments from opposing editors. Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 23:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

And the recommendation from RfC was? Rklawton (talk) 23:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Misread that there. Was thinking of something else. Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 23:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

They do seem to be involved in an edit war and are in violation of 3RR. Woogee (talk) 23:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Block evasion from AFROdr also? Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 23:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I've blocked for 3 months. That IP address has been consistently disruptive for nearly 2 months now. They just recently came off a 1 month block and went right back to what they were doing. I'm hoping that this longer block will make them give it up for good and move on to something else. -- Atama頭 00:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Michael Doret

Whilst I'm ensnared in the world of NFCC, could someone please look at Michael Doret and make a decision on whether that gallery of (tagged for deletion) NFCC images is a bit of a no-no as far as NFCC usage is. I have an idea but as I seem to have pissed off too many people this evening already I'll let an admin decide. By the way, sorry for the colon instead of a pipe. I keep moving round the house and one machine is a Mac and the other a PC and those symbols are in the exact opposite position on each machine! --Fred the Oyster (talk) 02:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Certainly doesn't look valid to me! Huge copyright violation. Woogee (talk) 02:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the claim that File:MDoret.jpg was published prior to 1923 may be... um... mistaken. Woogee (talk) 02:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The uploader is now claiming that the artist has released copyright claims for release to "his wiki". The uploader's baldfaced claim notwithstanding, we need proof of this release. Woogee (talk) 02:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Haida Chieftan's socks

Resolved

 – IP's were blocked --NeilN (talk) 04:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Haida chieftain (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been blocked indefinitely for disruptive editing, POV pushing, soapboxing and being a general nuisance on Canwest.

User:199.60.104.100, previously identified as Haida Chieftan logged out, is continuing to add his vital messages of The Truth (TM) concerning CanWest's financial predicament. Could someone block this IP for a bit (seems to be currently stable to Haida Chieftan, so perhaps 24 or 48hrs) - I want to go get some sleep. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

About time he was finally blocked. I said it would probably end up being necessary... HalfShadow 23:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(Mysteriously?) Deleted User:Praxidikai

Resolved

 – per Plaxico, I guess —DoRD (?) (talk) 04:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi there! I came across Praxidikai's user page user page and it seems to be missing without a deletion log or anything. What's going on?

In the talk page, there seems to be some accusation of "suck puppeting" by User:Rklawton, who appears to be an admin. So, what's going on here? --195.251.123.21 (talk) 23:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

An account needs to create a user page to have one; they don't just magically appear. Praxidikai has never done so. Deor (talk) 23:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

User ShortstopVM and the case of the serial uploading

Could an admin have a word with ShortstopVM (talk · contribs). In spite of pages of of copyright warnings this editor insists on uploading far too many NFCC living person images of the Zima girls (whoever the hell they are). It looks like this user is far too enamoured of these examples of eye candy to make any effort to learn the ways of Grasshopper and the philosophy of Copyright. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 01:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Done. This is Morton's fork: either COI or image policy violations. And creepy too if you really want my opinion. And it could be COI and image policy violations and creepy, in which case someone should win a prize. Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Cheers, though it may only be creepy if the uploader is my age! --Fred the Oyster (talk) 01:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It seems the uploader is a 19 year old women, so it's not so much creepy as, errr, fashionable.--Fred the Oyster (talk) 02:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think she's female, so it may be less creepy.  :) But she does say on one of the uploads that the image was found at http://tv.ign.com/articles/990/990458p1.html), so it's unlikely she's the owner. Woogee (talk) 02:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we could just chalk this up as a newbie who is inexperienced with the ways of the Wiki. Lets just hope that we haven't scared her off, as people that age are a dime a dozen. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Likebox deceptively sourced infraparticle

• Likebox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · logs · block log · arb · rfc · lta · SPI · cuwiki)
• Headbomb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · logs · block log · arb · rfc · lta · SPI · cuwiki)
• Finell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · logs · block log · arb · rfc · lta · SPI · cuwiki)
• Infraparticle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

If I may intrude here, but this is about me after all ...

I place my comments first, because I am, after all, the one affected. I ask that you not move them.

1. let me start with this: I have never deceptively sourced, or badly sourced, an article in my life. I have explained this to the blocking administrator, who agreed that he or she misinterpreted my comments. Nevertheless, I still have two blocks --- 3 months for vandalism and 1 day for edit warring--- on my record. I will say it here unequivocally: I am proud of these blocks.
2. It is difficult for me to believe that Headbomb, who read the sources provided, knew a few of their contents, and discussed one of them in depth, could possibly believe that the article was deceptively sourced. I used the sources to answer a few of his questions about Noether's theorem, and resolved one of his confusions about the electromagnetic current. If he thought they were deceptive, why didn't he say so on the page? Why didn't he give an example of a deceptive source?
3. The questions headbomb were asking were at too low a level. It would be as if an article said "Abraham Lincoln, the American president who led the U.S. to victory in the Civil War, was gay." And somebody then said "Oh yeah? You say he was American? Prove it!" The issues raised by headbomb and Finell were at too low a level for the artice, and the sourcing that I was providing ended up describing things that are not relevant for infraparticles, but just general background knowledge, things everybody needs to know. The only relevant source was Buchholz, the rest of the sources were a joke. This was exactly what I said on Wales' talk page. I can't understand how people misinterpreted it.
4. In the discussion below, Count Iblis raises the issue of sourcing mathematical derivations. These should be sourced not equation by equation, but in logical blocks, to texts that contain the same argument. The discussion should be paraphrased mathematically. There is no dispute about this. The citations to Buchholz are the block-cite for this article.
5. It is imperative that frivolous administrative actions such as this not be consequence free. I have had three specious complaints against me in the past few weeks: 1. Outing Brews ohare 2. IP socking 3. purposeful vandalism. This type of harassment is very bothersome.

I place my comments first, because I am, after all, the one affected. I ask that you not move them.Likebox (talk) 14:35, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments by Headbomb

Infraparticle was stubified after a deletion discussion (linked in the top of Talk:Infraparticle) to remove OR and other unsourced material. A while after, Likebox restores the old version, triggering a revert war between several editors (myself included) over whether unsourced material is appropriate. This also triggered several discussions over at WT:WikiProject Physics, and him filling an erronous WP:3RR report (here).

After several discussions, Likebox gives in and begins sourcing the article. He later admits during a rant on Jimbo's page that he deceptively sourced the article in order to prove some point, and that he's proud of his blocks.

Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 00:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I also request protection of the stub version of Infraparticle to allow us to ensure that the text reflects the sources. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I now request protection of the tagged version of Relations between heat capacities, Methods of contour integration, and Helmholtz free energy, based on the admission of Count Iblis that these are deceptively sourced as well. I don't know if a block is in order, but a strong warning sure is at the least. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You really do not get it, do you? I used only three examples out of many hundreds of articles containing good explanations that are difficult to source. Count Iblis (talk) 01:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Now that's creative: POINTY, disruptive, bad data, edit war. Most people just try one or two. I recommend an indef block. Rklawton (talk) 00:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

This is what you get when you demand sources for trivial statements. I will admit right here that many of my contributions to Wikipedia have also been deceptively sourced. I have written derivations that are just as OR as what Likebox has done. But my work has been on more elementary subjects and I'm a less controversial editor. In my case it wa susually others who put in sources over my objections, precisely becuase I'd rather have no source than a deceptive source. But in my case deletion of derivations/explanations was never an eiisue. In this case, however the explanation was going to be deleted unless it would be sourced, which is a ridiculous demand. Count Iblis (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Rklawton, Headbomb and Finell are the two who are in the wrong here. They were edit warring in a ridiculous way, by repeatedly removing an essential paragraph of the article. Count Iblis (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Example 1 Relations between heat capacities is improperly sourced. Why? Because someone demanded sources for trivial mathematical derivations. The source does not cover the derivations at all (it wasn't me who put in the source).

Example 2 Methods of contour integration is improperly sourced. I'm not involved here, though.

Example 3 Helmholtz free energy, largely rewritten by me is not adequately sourced. If it were made a demand to correct that, then I could put in some sources, but then the sourcing would be improper in the way Likebox meant. Count Iblis (talk) 01:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

After seeing this diff and in the light of their previous block history and the above, I've now blocked Likebox for three months. -- The Anome (talk) 01:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I really don't see how this is justified. Headbomb and Finell are ultimately to blame for escalating a minor problem to a huge ridiculous conflict. Headbomb, who unlike Likebox is not an expert in quantum field theory, some time ago made the mistaken judgement that the article was larglely nonsense and put it on AFD. The AFD discussion was conducted mainly by non-experts who decided to keep the article but remove an unsourced paragraph. Likebox restored that paragraph because as an expert in the field he knew that it was correct and also necessary for the article. Why headbomb decided to through in his weight and edit war over that paragraph, I cannot comprehend. Count Iblis (talk) 01:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If they think the block is unjust, Finell can post an unblock notice on their talk page if they wish. The normal conditions will apply. -- The Anome (talk) 01:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Likebox you mean? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• I would suggest anyone who is caught purposefully adding improper refs should be blocked on sight for sneaky vandalism. That type of deception is not allowed. β^_command 01:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Two wrongs don't make a right. There is clearly a problem here, but this is not the way to sort it. I suggest that all the editors involved find somewhere to discuss this, and attempt to resolve these issues in good faith before this escalates any further. -- The Anome (talk) 01:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well as far as I was aware, the problems stopped when sources began to be added, and we were all collaborating on the article. The revert to the stub is simply a precautionary measure because the sourcing has been deceptive (I've set a draft of the unreliable version on the talk page so we can keep working on it, and readers aren't mislead). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• To be fair, the block record quote is taken out of context. Somebody was trying to use his block record as reason to disallow his edits. HalfShadow 01:28, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

This was yet more edit-warring after a history of repeated blocks for the same reason. The quote suggests that they are completely unrepentant about this. -- The Anome (talk) 01:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

But LIkebox did not edit war, he stuch to 1RR as his probation demands. In this case, Headbomb is really in the wrong, not in the sense of violating Wikipedia's rules, but by defending such an unreasonable position. From the POV of an expert in the field like Likebox, this is extremely provocative. Count Iblis (talk) 01:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes he did, see the WP:AN3 thread. Where he admits to 2RR (and still unconvinced he's not the IPs). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

This is silly, as nearly every editor at sometime violates WP:POINT in order to make a point, as here. It's not vandalism to put in a cite for some mathematical transformation to satisfy some bunch of people who wouldn't know if it was needed or not. And it certainly cannot count as vandalism if you admit it later, to make your point, as here. Likebox wasn't "caught"-- he "turned himself in," after making his point. And his great sin? Adding cites for math steps inside the article, which explain the transformations in the proof, but aren't per se relevant to the article subject. So what? How else to get people who merely want more cites for a long article, to listen to the fact that use of experts on WP has major flaws? Yes, an "expert review needed" tag exists, but where are we paying attention to it, when we really need it? Not here. (I see no tag). Do I have to remind everybody that editors who actually understand any siognificant quantum field theory on WP, can be counted on one hand? I'm not one of them, but I know enough of it to recognize when somebody knows a lot more. The rest of this looks like people totally ignorant of the subject, who are flexing their wiki-muscles simply because they can. I see no vandalism (an unhelpful cite is not a vandalism-- it's simply an unnecessary cite). Even if there was vandalism (made-up cites, say) this is an IAR case, inasmuch as clearly Likebox's purpose is, and was, to improve WP. That is all the defense he really rationally needs. He was trying to write a detailed explanation of what an infraparticle is, and nobody would let him. SBHarris 01:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Please take this to an RfC

This has clearly gone beyond a simple edit war, and beyond simple admin intervention. Both sides have a point, and it's not my place to say which is right, nor is this the venue to sort it out. I suggest you file an RfC, and take this to arbitration. I'll reduce the block to 24 hours to let Likebox participate. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment. -- The Anome (talk) 01:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not beyond simple edit war or admin intervention, because that's all it is. All articles that've been found as potentially misleading should be tagged as such, and work can continue on the talk pages. If things turned out to be inaccurate, or badly sourced, the article will be rewritten and new sources will be found. If the articles are accurate, and correctly sourced, then tags will be removed. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

But did you really find anything? Likebox makes a comment and you happen to find what Likebox mentioned. I mention three examples and you have happen to find exactly those three (out of the many hundreds). And what I and Likebox mean is that the explanations cannot be sourced in the way you would like to see, not at all that they are misleading. Why not end your crusade right now and get back to editing? Count Iblis (talk) 02:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I would like Headbomb to stop tagging the three examples I mentioned. I simply mentioned them because these articles are vulnerable to the same problem that we have with infraparticle, albeit the articles are mostly at undergaduate level. Any article that does some nontrivial explaining will suffer fromm the same problem. usually editors collaborate and accept that you cannot source every clarification to make the material understandable (because a textbook will write for students). The three articles I mentioned are either not sourced in the way headbomb wanted for infraparticle (but this has never been seen to be aproblem by the involved editors), or they are sourced in a i.m.o. misleading way (the sourcing has been done by others over my objections). Count Iblis (talk) 02:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

To be very clear about this, I can easily expand the list of examples to a few hundred Wiki articles. Count Iblis (talk) 02:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Please do, I'll add {{accuracy}} to these as well so it adds them to the physics cleanup listing and reminds the readers to be careful when reading to particular articles. Using general references is fine, but certainly not references that have nothing to do with the sentence/passage supported. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 02:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

We're only talking about general references that suggest more than it should be. When I rewrote the thermodynamics articles in early 2008 I started a few discussions about the problems with the previous versions. Why Wiki-policies regarding sourcing alone were not enough to prevent huge errors etc. etc. That fell on deaf ears. I made some suggestions at the time onn how to improve the situation, but people did not want to listen. Half a year ago, I tried again by writing up WP:ESCA, and again what we saw was a knee jerk rejection by people who don't like these ideas. Anyway, the articles in question for which these ideas are necessary exist. I put in quite some effort to remove a huge number of stupid errors from thermodynamics articles. Likebox has done a lot of work on field theory articles, the article on the Ising model and other advanced topics. But to reject all these efforsts just because they seem to be incompatible on some very minor policy points is just ridiculous. Everything is verifiable from appropriate textbook but, of course, with going through the derivation, as any physics student has to do, not from literal quotes. Count Iblis (talk) 02:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Likebox's editing of Infraparticle should be dealt with here

I don't have time right now to discuss this at length or to look up old diffs. I will make a few quick points:

1. Let's limit this AN/I to User:Likebox and his editing of Infraparticle. I don't know enough about User:Count Iblis's conduct or the other articles he cites as examples, and that sounds like a broader topic. User:Likebox's conduct in connection at Infraparticle is, on the other hand, simple and can be handled easily here, without an RFC.
2. I don't know about the other articles that Count Iblis raised, but the challenged content that Likebox added to Infraparticle was not simple, basic, obvious statements about elementary physics. It was advanced physics with long blocks of equations.
3. When other editors objected to Likebox adding unsourced content to Infraparticle and reverted his material, he admitted to adding misleading sources to keep his disputed, challenged material in the article. He didn't just admit it; he bragged about misleading the other editors: "At the moment, the opponents can be distracted by smoke and mirrors."[6] Talk about hubris!.
4. In its context, Likebox's deceit was a tactic in his edit war over Infraparticle. Given Likebox's admitted disdain for Wikipedia's core policy of Verifiability, his deceptively using false source citations to evade that policy, and his block record for prior edit warring, he should be blocked until he demonstrates that he will abide by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, whether he likes them or not. Likebox's conduct jeopardizes Wikipedia's reliability, which is the reason for the Verifiability policy in the first place. Likebox's edits can no longer be trusted, and we cannot assume good faith when Likebox himself admits to conduct that is bad faith.
5. Likebox's deceit wasted other editors' time. Late last night, assuming that Likebox's source citations were in good faith (I don't have easy access to the sources themselves, so I assumed that the cited sources supported the statements for which they were cited), I spent almost 2 hours copy editing the content he added, adding missing wikilinks, fixing incorrect wikilinks, and fixing Likebox's citations (many of his citations were incomplete and therefore uninformative to the reader, he filled citation templates incorrectly, he cited a preprint without citing the published journal article, etc.). Headbomb spent time doing the same. (Almost half of what I did didn't get into the article because Headbomb made a lot of the same fixes at the same time, so I had an edit conflict when I tried to save a big block of edits. I copied my edited version to my user space to reconcile it later with what Headbomb did). All wasted time.
6. Likebox has additional relevant history that implies that his editing of Infraparticle has a particular POINT:
   • A few months ago, Likebox had a bitter edit dispute with lots of drama over his attempt to insert his own mathematical (or logical) proof into an article. I think it was Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Likebox claimed that his proof was a simpler equivalent to existing, published proofs. But, the proof was his own creation, i.e., OR, and other editors disputed it. I vaguely recall that there was a dispute about another of Likebox's proofs in another article.
   • During or in the aftermath of this dispute, Likebox and a couple of allies, including Count Iblis, then proposed to weaken Wikipedia's policy on OR. More drama, but the proposal was defeated by a very substantial consensus.
   • Around the same time, Likebox was one of 2 or 3 supporters of Count Iblis's ESCA policy proposal. The core of the proposal was that science articles should be edited, and editing decisions made, based primarily on "reasoning from first principles", rather than based primarily on reliable sources. A very substantial consensus defeated that policy proposal on the ground that it would seriously weaken the Verifiability policy. So, ESCA was converted into an essay. (I haven't done a detailed comparison, but my impression is that the current ESCA essay places more emphasis citing sources than did the defeated policy proposal). (Despite that resounding defeat, Iblis proudly proclaims on his talk page that he edits science articles as though ESCA were policy.)

Likebox's conduct here is a serious example of gaming the system. It cannot be tolerated, and a severe sanction is required to stop Likebox's willful violation of Wikipedia's policies.—Finell 05:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Finell, for your "few quick points". Perhaps you and Headbomb need to cool off? Infraparticle was making progress, which you've succeeded in reversing. Great work guys! --Michael C. Price ^talk 06:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was trying to help in that process too, when I thought that Likebox's sources were for real. He made fools of us, so it is back to the drawing board with the article, since Likebox's content cannot be trusted until every line is verified, or until someone competent and trustworthy rewrites it from scratch.—Finell 06:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Since this is a more concise version of all the brouhaha above, the only thing I have to add to this are links of convenience:

• Talk:Infrared
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Infraparticle
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics#Help_regarding_infraparticle
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics#Political_protection_for_technical_content
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics#Repeated_addition_of_unsourced_content_at_Infraparticle
• User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#An_old_quote

Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I also had in mind the diffs for my item 6, Likebox's relevant history. It's all just a vague, but unhappy, memory.—Finell 06:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find [7] summarizes the most recent iteration of the Gödel's incompleteness theorems trainwreck, which has been going on for quite literally years. 71.139.6.157 (talk) 06:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Let me address this for the record: "During or in the aftermath of this dispute, Likebox and a couple of allies, including Count Iblis, then proposed to weaken Wikipedia's policy on OR. More drama, but the proposal was defeated by a very substantial consensus. Around the same time, Likebox was one of 2 or 3 supporters of Count Iblis's ESCA policy proposal. The core of the proposal was that science articles should be edited, and editing decisions made, based primarily on "reasoning from first principles", rather than based primarily on reliable sources."

To be clear, ESCA or some other guidelines along the same lines are necessary for certain class of technical articles where simply sticking to sources is not good enough. In no way is anyone saying that sources should be ignored. To the contrary, in addition to sticling to sources, you need to do more nonrivial work. The essay gives some suggestions on how to act. I have discussed problems with thermodynamics articles to death here on Wikipedia a long time ago and it was my rewriting of them which ultimately led to ESCA about a year later. ESCA in its original form, took for granted that we all know that things should be properly sourced. The later version emphasize this more, precisely to deal with the comments from other editors who mistook it as licence to do OR. Count Iblis (talk) 13:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There is still a fundamental problem with Infraparticle. The main sources provided seem to be to the small school of researchers in algebraic quantum field theory, the followers of Rudolf Haag - Buchholz, Schroer, Doplicher, Fredenhagen, etc. This group is usually considered to be on the fringes of quantum field theory: the article does not make that clear. At present the lede is mathematically nonsensical, with its confused discussion of Hilbert space and Fock spaces. I suspect that this is due to the fact that (a) inappropriate sources are being used and (b) editors are writing beyond their level of competence. One of the other mathematics articles that has been mentioned, Methods of contour integration, essentially a list of examples, also has glaring problems. Why is there no mention of holomorphic or meromorphic functions in the lede or the main text of the article? There are huge numbers of classic texts (I added Titchmarsh's book, first published in 1932), yet it's hard to find these in the references. In all these cases, sources exist and should have been found before writing the articles. That is why both these articles seem rather odd. It has very little to do with special guidelines for writing scientific articles. Mathsci (talk) 07:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Outside inside view

Disclosure: I have met Likebox personally, and consider Count Iblis and Headbomb to both be allies of mine here at Wikipedia.

I think that this dispute argues for the need to have a Wikipedia:Science council. Both sides make good points, but both are talking past each other. Count Iblis and Likebox are correct that the rules for citation and prose control in mainstream science articles are necessarily relaxed due to the difference between pedagogical prose and primary source prose. At the advanced level of the best science articles in Wikipedia (and here I speak of mostly physics and astronomy articles of which I am familiar) the sourcing is at best approximate in order to accommodate the prose style of this encyclopedia. Headbomb is correct that sources are absolutely necessary, but it is not necessary that the reader of our articles must necessarily immediately understand the connection between the sources and the prose of the article. I could refer to a number of science articles that are Featured Articles where this is the case, but I won't for fear of stoking the fires.

In part, what's happening now with the maturity of Wikipedia is a need for quality control. There are cases where a novel approach should be excluded as original research and there are cases where a novel approach should be viewed as simply an appropriate paraphrase and simplification of sources that are not original research. It takes an expert to decide which is which. We are simply not equipped here at Wikipedia to determine that.

In this particular dispute, I believe that Count Iblis and Likebox are actually correct, though they are combative. Unfortunately, knowing the culture of Wikipedia, I'm afraid that what will happen is enforcement against the behavioral issues associated with these two valuable editors rather than what should happen which is a careful consideration of the results of the editing. The article is in better shape in the way Count Iblis and Likebox want it to exist.

ScienceApologist (talk) 09:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Block review

I am concerned the block is based on a mistaken reading of Likebox's statement here. The blocking admin evidently read this as an admission that Likebox himself had deliberately inserted false references. However, the way I read the statement, he was merely saying that references inserted by others had been false or irrelevant. The statement seems to have been taken out of context: it was evidently in response to Finell's preceding statement that "As a result of[...] work on the article by me and other editors [...], Infraparticle is now reasonably well sourced". Evidently, Likebox's response that "The "sourcing" of infraparticle was a joke" referred to those additions. – If this is true, the block seems fundamentally misjudged. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Almost. Likebox was actually saying that he inserted the references in spite of them being asinine. I've been on that end of the stick in writing here. While not the nicest thing to say, he was certainly not saying that there was anything intrinsically wrong with the references he provided, only that they were boneheaded and seemed to detract from the content of the article.

Imagine writing an article about Abraham Lincoln for the Simple English Wikipedia and having a bunch of editors complain that they didn't understand the words you were using. "Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States." you write, but they don't just want a source for that fact, they also want a source for the fact that the United States has a president and that there exists a number sixteen. Is it possible to find such sources? Of course. But if you are a historian trying to write about Lincoln, looking for such sources is really, really annoying. You might find some sources and insert them, but you'd find it ridiculous. The sourcing is a "joke" because it is so idiotic. That's what Likebox was saying. Nothing more. ScienceApologist (talk) 10:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep, I'm beginning to understand his point. He's explained it here himself now. Given this statement, I think we can safely say the charge of deliberate falsifying of sources should be dropped. This leaves the charge of edit-warring against consensus to be assessed. (Note: I only now notice Anome had actually already reduced the block from 3 months to a mere 24h for edit-warring, so maybe this part of the discussion was moot anyway, but then Anome didn't say he did so because he had dropped that serious accusation). Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, that's my fault. I already changed the block length and reason yesterday after reading the discussions many paragraphs earlier: I should have added a comment here when I did it. I still think this issue is just the tip of a much large science article iceberg, and I suggest that all involved should take this to an RfC. -- The Anome (talk) 11:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Update: I've now unblocked Lightbox, in response to their unblock request. -- The Anome (talk) 13:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see what there was to misinterpret in these 2 statements in Likebox's post on Jimbo's talk page:[8]

• "At the moment, the opponents can be distracted by smoke and mirrors." That can only be interpreted as intentionally deceiving his "opponents". Further, his characterizing other editors, with whom he is supposed to be collaborating to reach consensus, as "opponents" is another demonstration of his edit warrior approach to editing Wikipedia. I certainly didn't think that I was Likebox's "opponent" when I insisted that he supply reliable sources for the material he added to Infraparticle. I thought I was another editor trying to be sure that the article was accurate, and that enforcing Wikipedia:Verifiability was the way to ensure accuracy.
• "I am very proud of my blocks." These are his blocks for edit warring. He repeats that statement, this time in all italics for emphasis, in this AN/I.

Maybe Likebox need some form of counseling or mentorship. There are plenty of places where he can write what he wants as he wants. He can publish in a peer reviewed journal, if his material is good enough, or he can self-publish anything for free on the Internet. But if Likebox wants to help build this encyclopedia, he needs to comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.—Finell 00:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

There's absolutely no need of mentorship. Likebox's explanation of his meaning in User talk:Likebox#Blockedthis thread is clear, straightforward, and perfectly acceptable. What he did is completely within guidelines & policy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I want to point out that the last five or six items on my block record are for similarly silly things. I hope that editors do not use the block record to bias their decisions on cases here, snce it will cause Wikipedia to lose editors who are willing to do the hard work of confronting biased or misleading articles.Likebox (talk) 20:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

persistent POV at 1961 Indian Annexation of Goa

I am currently involved in a content dispute with a Portuguese editor(possible multiple) on 1961 Indian Annexation of Goa. The editor started off by dramatizing the events to focus on Portuguese "bravery" as an annon and now has one (maybe two) accounts:User:Goali and User:Olivença. Most of the user's claims have been unverifiable and he insists on mainitainig the number of Portuguese v/s Indian troops as 3300 v/s 45,000(more likely 30-35,000). Doesn't seem happy since I pointed to a Portuguese source that puts the number of troops at 4500 with a citation. Has reverted my edits claiming that the source doesn't cite the numbers[9],[10] while I have clearly mentioned it on the talk page [11]. Editor has now carried over his POV to other related articles: [12] and [13]. Im at my wits end.Im tired of this, please help --Deepak D'Souza (talk) 19:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the article for a while to cut down the IP and new account problems, and blocked the Olivença account per WP:DUCK as an obvious sock. I've also left Goali a warning about edit warring. You could have tried approaching them directly on their talk page; this might have achieved better results sooner :) However, hopefully they are now aware of the way we work, so if there are any further problems please re-report. All the best, EyeSerene^talk 08:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Sameboat

User:Sameboat is apparently not happy with the current state of this. The situation now is that after almost two weeks, they are the only user objecting to the removal of stock colours from the template, as well as having plenty of guidelines against them. They have decided that they don't want to listen. I have attempted to carry out the removal, it having become clear from the debate that the formatting (use of colour and boldface) was not appropriate. The other user is having none of it. There is now nothing more to discuss (there being more heat than light at this point), there having been no real progress away from the current consensus position of "remove the colours", so I closed the discussion (there being no need to delete anything), with what I believed to be an accurate summary, in an attempt to spare us all some blushes and save us wasting any more time on it (Sameboat refusing to allow anyone to make any progress at this point). User:Sameboat also apparently doesn't believe in non-admin closures of any kind (it being reverted with the specific reference to "user without administrative power").

I, for one, have no intention of beating dead horses, hence stepping well back from the keyboard for a while. I would appreciate if someone would suggest User:Sameboat to do the same, as I no longer have the energy or the patience to do so. 81.111.114.131 (talk) 06:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

When you create a section on this page, your are required to notify the user that this discussion is going on here. Woogee (talk) 06:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

User has been informed. Rgoodermote  06:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I have listend to the comment and agree to replace the colored text by colorbox in the {{HK-MTR lines}}. The anon disagrees becuase he suggests that the colorbox is inappropriate to appear in the prose of 300 articles. While the template is predominantely used in the tables and templates. The anon does not agree substitution by colorbox from the template as well in favor of the prose. The anon is obligated to perform the removal of the template from the article one by one manually because he is the only one to oppose the colorbox being used in the template. (Not to mention that he justifies it by saying he is supported by other discussion participant. But in fact they only agree on substitute the colored text.) Yet he intents to leave the hill of mess to me, the defender. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 07:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:OFFER unblock request of MyMoloboaccount

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

MyMoloboaccount is a sock of Molobo, who was blocked for a year in May 2009 per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Molobo/Archive. Molobo was later blocked indefinitely as a compromised account. MyMoloboaccount now requests unblock per WP:OFFER and promises not to sock again. As recommended at WP:OFFER, I am referring this request to the community for discussion and am placing the unblock request on hold. This is a procedural referral; I have no opinion about the merits of the request.  Sandstein  22:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• First, let me correct a factual misunderstanding that might arise from the above: "MyMoloboaccount" isn't a "sock", it's a straightforward alternate account created because Molobo apparently had concerns over the security of his original account. The socking for which he was originally blocked was unrelated to that; it was about Gwinndeith (talk · contribs) (see SPI case). Second, a concern: Molobo was centrally involved in the EEML case, being the owner and creator of the infamous mailing list, and IIRC heavily active in the coordination of the disruptive activities for which several of his friends got banned. It is my understanding that he wasn't implicated in the final remedies of the Arbcom case only because the arbitrators considered him already covered by the community sanctions anyway. Anybody who wants to consider unblocking should first make themselves familiar with the evidence page of that case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I have struck out part of the above. My apologies for getting Molobo mixed up in my mind with somebody else (Digwuren). Molobo was active on the list, but not among the most central figures. I no longer have the archives at my disposal and must admit I couldn't say for certain, from memory, just how problematic his conduct on the list was. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: Molobo is listed at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community, with the following entry:

User	Type	Sanction (quoted verbatim)	Special Enforcement Details	Expiration Date
Molobo Note: User subsequently lost control of account and is now editing as User:MyMoloboaccount	Revert limitation	Molobo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is limited to one revert per page per week, and should discuss all reverts he makes on the relevant talk page. If he violates this limit, he may be blocked by any administrator for any time limit up to a week.	After four upheld blocks due to violation of this restriction or other issues, the indefinite block will be reapplied. Sanction imposed from this discussion.	MyMoloboaccount has a 1 year block for sockpuppetry (see SPI conclusion on 1 Jun 2009 and block notice on 1 Jun 2009) which expires 1 June 2010, after which the restrictions are to be reviewed by the community.
	Civility supervision	If Molobo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) makes any comment deemed by an administrator to have been incivil, a personal attack, or an assumption of bad faith, he may be blocked for any time limit up to a week. Note: if Molobo is disrupting talkpages with tendentious filibustering, that comes under the civility supervision as well.

For clarity, I updated the final column, but otherwise I have had no involvement with this case. My thought is that the block is in force until 1st June, so it is too early to discuss this, so I would oppose unblocking. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 00:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Steve, Molobo is making his request under WP:OFFER which states that the editor needs to wait six months, rather than full term of the block before making the request. Molobo's waited eight nine - hence it's definitely not "too early" to make this request.radek (talk) 00:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

You are quite right, Radeksz. I have stricken my "oppose", as at the moment I have no opinion on this - I need to look into the history a bit before making a reasoned comment - obviously, if the 1-year block had been ArbCom-imposed, then that would be different, but as this is a community sanction, then it should be considered. Thanks for pointing out my mistake! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 01:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

As blocking admin, I cannot support this. — Rlevse • Talk • 03:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Rlevse, I believe you simply reblocked the account after the conclusion of the case. Likewise Future Perfect's block was procedural (and done on Molobo's request after his original account became compromised) - and as an aside FP's statement above is factually incorrect on several points (I have emailed him to notify him of his error). The actual blocking admin in this case was Avraham (who should be notified).radek (talk) 04:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

In general, I am a firm believer in affording people the opportunity to learn and grow, and absent evidence to the contrary (as some of our recidivist puppeteers have amply demonstrated) if a user wishes to come back and be a productive member of the project, by all means. However, I would suggest "trust, but verify" at least for a little while, and I would suggest that Molobo accept some form of mentorship or guidance. If someone here is willing to act as Molobo's "big brother/sister" for a while, and Molobo accepts that messing up this opportunity will all but remove any trust the community may place in him, then I personally have no issues with an unblock and a welcome back. However, I am just one voice among many, for what that is worth. -- Avi (talk) 04:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment I too, am in favour of second chances. In this case, the editor appears to have waited a reasonable amount of time. Any restrictions applied to the original account should be understood to apply to the alternate account, and the editor should be under no doubt that if unblocked, they will be under scrutiny and further problems will lead to a long block. If they want to contribute constructively, welcome back. Mjroots (talk) 06:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

As with Avi and Mjroots, I am also in favour of second chances. If the editor wants to edit constructively, then that should be encouraged - however, I also think that mentorship along the lines of Avi's suggestion would be a good idea - and also that this is a 'last chance' - if they cause problems, then they should be indef'd. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock:
  • Molobo (talk · contribs) aka MyMoloboaccount has been disruptive ever since he created an account in 2005 (block log, [14])
  • He was blocked for socking after he was conditionally unblocked from his second indef ban (see table above). This already was the n-th "last chance".
  • After he was blocked for socking, he continued to be one of the most active members of the EEML (Wikipedia:EEML#List_membership, WP:EEML/Evidence). Since I was the one who initiated the SPI that led to his last block, I was one of the targets of these activities, e.g. this attack Molobo initiated against me just after his block. His participation in the arbcom case showed no sign of acknowledgement of fault. To the contrary, he used his condidtional unblock during this case to sling as much mud as possible, particularily in my direction (see here). The case only closed in late December, and his participation there does not indicate any willingness to change his behavior. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• In addition to what I wrote above: second chances are fine and all, but with a user who was banned not just for sock-puppetry, but for persistent POV-related poor behaviour, with a block log as long as my arm stretching over several years [15], a "standard offer" of return should never work on the basis of a mechanical "has been quiet for so many months" basis. Instead, what we need from him is a firm commitment demonstrating understanding of the root causes of this disruption in his own attitude to the underlying content issues, and how he intends to approach these content issues differently from now on. If he can't make such a commitment, then all superficial "no more socking" or "no editwarring" or "no incivility" promises are worthless. – A second thing, if I'm not mistaken, when he was blocked for sockpuppetry last year he kept vigorously defending his innocence, and the dispute over the proof of his socking or lack thereof was causing quite a significant amount of meta-disrution. He now says he hasn't been socking "since last May". Does that mean he finally admits he in fact was socking back then? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree that some kind of mentorship + articulation on intended good behavior is needed. I also think that WP:OFFER, from reading what it says, was actually specifically designed for cases like these, where you got a problematic user who at the same time CAN make positive contributions (which is where the mentorship comes in).radek (talk) 11:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Request to uninvolved eyes - then consider this case take in mind this:
  • user's in question record breaking block log;
  • fact that user in question was already placed for indef ban for two times and only was saved by well know buddies of his.
  • fact that during his SPI case he denied being sock master, however now it seems that he admits it. Therefore conclusion can be drawn that he deliberately mislead community during SPI investigation back then.
  • that the most "proficient" defender of this user on this newest ANI thread, not only has historic ties per WP:EEML, but seemingly violates ban imposed on him by Arbitration as well. M.K. (talk) 15:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment On the face of it, I would be inclined to support the request (subject to someone mentoring them), as per AGF. However, although the unblock requests says that MyMoloboaccount will not sockpuppet any more, I note that MyMoloboaccount does not mention the editing restrictions, and I would be unwilling to support the request without MyMoloboaccount specifically mentioning these and confirming that they will keep to them, and that any further disgressions would result in an indefinite block, with no further "chances". -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

AGF is fine as long as there is no evidence to the contrary. Molobo kept on editing throughout his block, via his EEML proxies. The last such proxy edit was in December, just moments before his EEML proxies got restricted [16] (eg Radeksz, who is participating in this thread and did some of the proxying for Molobo before he got topic-banned). It seems odd to restrict the proxies and unblock the one who ordered the proxy edits. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• This looks like a reasonable application of the standard offer. Any editing restrictions that would otherwise be in place upon the Molobo account should be restored. Possibly new restrictions should be crafted as an alternative to mentorship, since it appears that no mentor is available. Durova⁴¹² 17:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

With regard to the editing restrictions, MyMoloboaccount sent the following email through Wikipedia to me:

If you mean the Revert restriction and civility restriction, then I am fine with them being in place. I didn't mention them since they were not the reason for block and therefore not a issue in unblock. But I assumed they will remain in place.

I am going to leave a message on their talk page asking Mymoloboaccount to confirm this there. However, subject to mentorship and/or further editing restrictions, I feel that this would be a reasonable use of the standard offer. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Update: Mymoloboaccount has confirmed this statement here -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 20:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced, and I am asking myself where this whole talk of a "standard" offer comes from anyway. How did people conceive of this notion that people get a routine get-out-of-jail card for simply "no more socking"? No more socking is the minimum requirement for not having one's block extended to indef, and nothing more. Any reasonable "standard offer" must include an editor addressing the root causes of what got them sanctioned. The root cause here was POV-pushing, and I'm not seeing any statement from Molobo indicating that he will be editing in a substantially different manner than before. Shockingly, I'm not even seeing anybody asking him about that. Revert limitations and civility paroles are just superficial make-up designed to contain a fundamentally disruptive editing disposition. What we need in such cases is something different; it is a fundamental change of stance. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Step 2 of WP:OFFER is "Promise to avoid the behavior that led to the block/ban." The standard offer isn't just "no more socking", that's only the first step. If the editor doesn't address the root cause of what got them sanctioned then they aren't honoring the provisions of the standard offer and it's rendered moot. -- Atama頭 21:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose per User:Skäpperöd. Molobo bypassed his ban via User:Radeksz[17]. Radeksz and several other EEMListers are currently banned from Eastern European topics. Molobo's return would most probably end up in proxying other EEMListers. HerkusMonte (talk) 14:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Spamming

[18] - Gibnews (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) freely acknowledges that he is associated with this site, which is currently subject of a discussion at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. Guy (Help!) 23:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Please inform Gibnews of this thread. Tan | 39 00:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Gib has been informed. I've commented that it's a conflict of interest for Gib to link to that site at the conflict of interest noticeboard because he is the person running the site, and it can be perceived as self-promotion. I believe he brushed off any COI accusations because they were originally brought up by an editor he feels has a grudge against him, and he has accused that person of harassment (see the noticeboard discussion). But others agreed with the concerns, and I think Gib would agree that I'm not biased against him. I definitely don't have a problem with him as an editor, I just think that he shouldn't be linking to his own site, and I'd like him to stop. If others think that the site is useful, they'll add it. -- Atama頭 01:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought the gibnews site was going to be blacklisted. Burpelson AFB (talk) 04:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm about a week out of date on this issue, but AIUI there are two similarly named sites - gibnews.net and gibnet.com, and it is only re the latter that there is talk of blacklisting. Thryduulf (talk) 09:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a backlog at the blacklist. Given the vindictiveness of some spammers I can understand why people are reluctant to join in there. Guy (Help!) 09:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Firstly the discussion about gibnews.net ended with the view that it can be cited for primary material.

In the case of gibnet.com Its my view that it has not really been gone into in enough depth. Lets get some things clear, firstly any references to the site are not intended to be 'spam' or site promotion, but to refer to original documents that are retained there with permalinks. If there are better links to the same thing great. If there are none at all it seems very negative to remove them.

Secondly Yes, I'm in the business of building websites for people. gibnet.com was the first one I created. Is it my personal site? no, its owned by a company. There is no element of 'self promotion' involved, indeed the site does not promote anything to do with me or web design services.

The website that DOES that is not mentioned or cited in Wikipedia, its a totally separate thing. I am not mixing business with wikipedia editing.

So the accusation of Spamming is unfounded as the site is not selling you anything. It may be that I have been over inclined to use it as a source for original documents in Wikipedia as I know they are there and some of them are hard or impossible to find elsewhere.

I resent the suggestion that everything I do, or have done for the last 15 years is in some way suspect. I've created over a hundred websites for clients, now just because I happen to spend some time editing wikipedia and contributing first hand knowledge about Gibraltar which upsets some editors who want a different view of it promulgated, is that so wrong?

In another discussion on an/i another editor asserted I was using socks, and was in fact an infamous banned user. That led to an online lynch mob assembling. None of that is true, and that attitude has biased any neutral review of this issue. The main area cited is the list of documents. I have not written any of those, simply designed web pages. So there is no conflict of interest, and the documents there all indicate their sources and status. --Gibnews (talk) 15:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, to Guy... The blacklist proposal seems to have been rejected. There's little support for it and I see no need for a blacklist, because we don't have multiple people spamming it. Per WP:SPB, the blacklist is a final resort when all other methods have been tried and failed, but really there's only one person adding the site (Gibnews).

To Gibnews, spam does not have to be financial in motive. WP:REFSPAM concerns references that are added for non-financial reasons. You said before, "I resent the suggestion that everything I do, or have done for the last 15 years is in some way suspect." Unfortunately that's how conflicts of interest work. At the very least, if you include information about a web site or link to a web site that you've been affiliated with, that will give your additions added scrutiny. When people object to the inclusion of that information, that COI just makes the issue worse.

The sockpuppetry accusation, you just have to let it go. Many legitimate editors get incorrectly identified as sockpuppets, even me! You keep bringing that up in every discussion, it's not helping. -- Atama頭 18:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

RH is making new accusations that I am using 82.23.144.48 to revert him removing references. Its nonsense but if you repeat lies often enough people believe them. Again, the CONTENT being removed is original not my creation. Its rather like banning references to a newspaper made by one of the printers or the man who did the layout. --Gibnews (talk) 15:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

No, Gibnews, there are for the last two edits that included gibnet.com (which I looked at) several other sources available. All we are asking is you to go into discussion, as you are connected with the site (as we would also ask the printers or the man who did the layout if he was too focussed on his own site). I see you have started to use other sites as well, and that is certainly recommendable, no-one banned you, no one blacklisted gibnet.com. You say that gibnet.com has the best information available, if you can show that RH is removing references that can not be replaced by anything else, then that would be reason for discussion, until now many can and have been replaced (also by RH). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

User:ADM violating the terms of his unblock from indef?

ADM (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log)

The above user was indefinitely blocked in February of 2009 for "Inappropriate advocacy". Discussion on the user's talk page indicated a distinct and definite bias, and the unblock was denied with explanations such as "Wikipedia is not the appropriate place to speculate about the insidious political leanings of others; we're here to write an encyclopedia, not to function as a blog." The user made a plea for clemency and claimed that s/he "solemly pledge[d] 1) to no longer make controversial edits on issues relating to the Vatican and the Jews (and other similar socio-political issues) 2) to no longer edit in an obnoxious newsblog pattern." As such, the unblock was granted.

However, it appears that ADM has reverted to his/her old patterns. Please see the article that s/he recently created: Jewish sex abuse cases, which engages, in many people's opinions, in speculative original research and synthesis, and the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jewish sex abuse cases, where the user accuses those who disagree with him/her as being "Jewish partisans and zealots" and has basically accused those trying to explain the concept of WP:SYNTH to him/her (mainly, myself) of trying to [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion%2FJewish_sex_abuse_cases&action=historysubmit&diff=345968489&oldid=345968209 "protect the reputations of noted child abusers.", somethnig I personally find rather disgusting and abusive.

I believe that ADM has violated the terms of his/her unblock and the indef block should be restored, but, obviously, I am biased as I am involved in a AfD discussion with the user and have been the target of said user's veiled accusations. Therefore, I am asking the larger wikipedia community to weigh in on the subject. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 22:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 22:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment : I did not find this to be controversial at all and did not expect ANY controversial responses. So, if I was involved in such a debate, it was purely on an accidental basis. I also forgot about my pledge, and was not aware that it was still binding after over a year without problems. I think most Jews on Wikipedia should not consider me as their enemy, and should also peacefully acknowledge that there have been abuse problems in the Jewish community, just like in the Catholic Church. ADM (talk) 22:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Not a particularly compelling defense. Indef block reinstated. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• I appreciate the indef block decision has already been made, but I hope it's still OK for me to add my support to it - I came back this morning to have another look at the AfD issue (which was still a civil discussion when I left it last night), and was horrified by ADM's personal attacks on people who thought the article should be deleted as "Jewish partisans and zealots", and further accusations that people who thought it was WP:SYNTH were accusing him of making the whole thing up. (For the record, I'm not Jewish) -- Boing! said Zebedee 04:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• For others wishing to check into this situation I have been concerned about numerous talk page posts on various articles that weave a narrative linking Jewish people, pedophilia, LGBT people and, at times, Michael Jackson. They all follow an innocent enough sounding "I think the article should include" or "it's interesting to note" and then too often cites possible sources that are wildly inappropriate. Most of those were quickly dismissed by other editors including myself but this had been going on for months as a low hum which borderlined as soapboxing. I didn't realize their were issues elsewhere. -- Banjeboi 15:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Note: rights alteration

Jrcla2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
I've blocked this contributor for 24 hours for repeated copyright infringements. I subsequently removed autoreviewer, since copyright issues make that inappropriate, and rollback, since he used it to revert contacts on his talk page about copyright issues. I believe given the note at Wikipedia:Rollback feature that "The rollback feature is a fast method of undoing blatantly unproductive edits, such as vandalism and nonsense" and the subsequent note that "If there is any doubt about whether to revert an edit, please do not use this feature. Use the undo feature instead, and add a more informative edit summary explaining your revert. Misuse of rollback may cause the feature to be revoked by an administrator." that this removal was appropriate. Block notices and copyright violation warnings are not vandalism or nonsense, and using it in this fashion is inappropriate. No question about the block (since he had been warned long ago), but I'd welcome review of the rights reversion. This is the first time I've done that. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Rollback can be removed at any time. Using it to remove copyvio warnings on your talk page seems like as good a time as any :) No problems here. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised you only blocked for 24 hours, but I suppose that's your call. As for the rights removal: I'm not so sure on the revocation of rollback. On the one hand, what you say is true; on the other, removing things from your talk page for any reason is generally considered acceptable. But considering that he was using rollback to try to hide copyvio concerns, I suppose it is fair to remove it in this circumstance. NW (Talk) 23:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Support both, if not longer block. Use of rollback to remove legitimate warnings is not what it's designed for. If the warnings were bogus, ie vandalism, then that'd be okay to me as that's what rollback is intended for. NJA (t/c) 08:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I support too. I agree with NW, that everyone is allowed to remove anything they want from their talk pages, with some exceptions (like declined unblock notices while the block is in effect). But you don't use rollback for that. -- Atama頭 17:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Libelous vandal, multiple IPs

74.207.32.212 (talk · contribs), 74.207.62.36 (talk · contribs), 74.207.35.218 (talk · contribs) has been making libelous edits to a number of articles in the past day or two. The above IPs are obviously all the same user/group of friends at Luther College. Not sure what the standard response is for this situation (a rangeblock of Luther is probably draconian), so I'll hand it off to other admins.--Father Goose (talk) 05:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and placed a SharedIP notice on the remaining two IP talk pages. Sometimes these tags (especially when they are so descriptive like these) are enough to get them to stop as it scares the living daylights of them. It's probably because they assume they are "anonymous" and can get away with things. We're then proving them wrong. Doesn't always work, but this technique has proved it's merits on a several occasions for me. Rgoodermote  06:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I've blocked all 3 with a schoolblock. Shouldn't hurt anyone else really, there were no other edits from those IP addresses. Might not help either, I guess. I watchlisted male prostitution. Dougweller (talk) 06:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ha ha! I'm sorry, but I can't help it. "I watchlisted male prostitution" just seems like a classic line. :) Good blocks, by the way, but I'm still laughing. -- Atama頭 18:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Reset 1rr restriction for user Radiopathy

Resolved

 – User placed on an indefinite 1RR restriction. --RegentsPark (talk) 21:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

---

• Radiopathy notified
• Abecedare notified
• Xeno notified
• Zero0000 notified
• John Cardinal notified
• Timothy92834 notified

Radiopathy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) George Harrison (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This user was placed on a 1rr restriction at 22:36, October 29, 2009 UTC for 6 months. They were also blacklisted from twinkle per their using it to edit war. They have since violated it several times, and have created maybe two ANI threads requesting it be rescinded, which were both declined. I will try to find and link said happenings if required. Those happenings, however, are not at what is at issue here. What is at issue, is his most recent behavior, where he violated his 1rr restriction, and even violated 3rr after being told by an admin and another user(not me) that he was at fault. The timeline is as follows(earliest at top):

• 00:45, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 makes a change
• 00:48, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts with edit summary: a) factually incorrect & b) too lengthy for lead in any case
• 00:55, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts
• 01:01, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy warns user Timothy92834 of vandalism with level 1 warning
• 01:04, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(1rr broken) with edit summary: rv vandalism
• 01:14, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts, adds more info, with edit summary: Added information about Harrison's cancer battle and death with references
• 01:04, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy warns user Timothy92834 of vandalism with level 2 warning
• 01:34, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy explains his position on User:Timoth92834's talk page
• 01:36, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(2nd past 1rr) with note about earlier explanation(take note of the edit summary here, which speaks of possible automation)
• 01:43, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts with edit summary: Edits are factually correct and include multiple references.
• 01:48, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy warns user Timothy92834 of vandalism with level 4 warning
• 01:48, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 posts to article talk page
• 01:49, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(3rd past 1rr, 3rr broken) with edit summary: rv vandalism
• 01:53, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts with edit summary: Added back in references and documentation
• 01:57, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reports User:Timothy92834 at WP:AIV for vandalism
• 02:08, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:John Cardinal replies on article talk page
• 02:16, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Zero0000(admin) declines report with content dispute tag, telling RP that the edits are not vandalism
• 02:18, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(4th past 1rr, 2nd past 3rr) with edit summary: rv vandalism
• 02:24, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts with summary: Vandal adding incorrect information and remove references
• 02:32, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(5th past 1rr, 3rd past 3rr) with edit summary: rv vandalism
• 02:39, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts, with edit summary: Added back referenced material and deleted personal opinion
• 02:40, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy replies to admin User:Zero0000's decline, disagreeing with them
• 02:42, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(6th past 1rr, 4th past 3rr, 1st past 1st admin warning) with edit summary: rv vandalism
• 02:44, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts with edit summary: removed vandalism. Added back referenced material and deleted personal opinion
• 02:45, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:John Cardinal reverts with edit summary: Take content dispute to TALK!!!
• 02:48, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy posts to User:John Cardinal's talk page telling him that it isn't a content dispute(second time RP has been told that it's a content dispute)
• 02:48, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts with edit summary: removed vandalism. Added back referenced material and deleted personal opinion
• 02:52, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(7th past 1rr, 5th past 3rr, 2nd past 1st admin warning)
• 02:57, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts with edit summary: removed vandalism. Added back referenced material and deleted personal opinion
• 03:00, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(8th past 1rr, 6th past 3rr, 3rd past 1st admin warning)
• 03:01, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts with edit summary: removed vandalism. Added back referenced material and deleted personal opinion
• 03:03, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(9th past 1rr, 7th past 3rr, 4th past 1st admin warning) with edit summary: rv vandalism
• 03:05, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts, with edit summary: removed vandalism. Added back referenced material and deleted personal opinion
• 03:05, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy posts to User:Timothy92834's talk page, asking user to discuss their edits
• 03:06, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(10th past 1rr, 8th past 3rr, 5th past 1st admin warning) with edit summary: rv vandalism
• 03:11, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Timothy92834 reverts with edit summary: removed vandalism. Added back referenced material and deleted personal opinion
• 03:14, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Radiopathy reverts(11th past 1rr, 9th past 3rr, 6th past 1st admin warning) with no edit summary
• 03:18, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Zero0000(admin) fully protects article with edit summary: Protected George Harrison: trying again, blocking for 2 days ([edit=sysop] (expires 03:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)) [move=sysop] (expires 03:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)))
• 03:27, February 21, 2010 UTC, User:Zero0000(admin) deletes report with edit summary: article protected for 2 days, situation under control for now :)

There is a bit more, but I don't believe that is needed. Per the above, I am asking that his 1rr restriction be reset back to 6 months instead of the 2 that are left.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 09:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Radiopathy's statement

Your statement here

• Forget the 1RR sanction; let's talk about a rise. Radiopathy •talk• 03:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• I meant a rise in my pay for the time I spend here. It was an attempt at humour, but I forgot I was at Wikipedia, where the whole concept is foreign. You can extend your 1RR for the rest of time for all I care. I wouldn't be surprised if I came back in six months to find a discussion about me still going on. It's obvious why Wikipedia is an international laughingstock. Get a fuckin' life already. Radiopathy •talk• 23:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Radiopathy = blocked for a week, so I don't think a statement from him will be swift in coming unless copied from his talk page. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 09:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Double EC: Nevermind, Daedalus is a step ahead of me. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 09:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Already taken care of. A section from his talk page is transcluded here.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 09:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Easy call, by the looks of it. Guy (Help!) 12:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

What I don't get is that someone blocked the newbie who was most likely never aware of any of the policies. Too bad. May have just scared away a potential good editor. Oh well, damage is done now.--Jojhutton (talk) 13:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how Radiopathy missed the sundry inline (and handily online) citations eleven times. The edits he was reverting were straightforwardly not vandalism. This said, further down the article does say the LA County death certificate listed metastatic non-small cell lung cancer as the cause of death, although the source cited there, while mentioning lung cancer, says nothing about a death certificate. Hence, it looks to me as though Radiopathy, at least, truly believed the sources supported lung cancer as the cause of death but made a very big string of mistakes by reverting a good faith edit eleven times. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like User:Radiopathy is retired again. I guess he trying to break Brett Favre's record.--Jojhutton (talk) 13:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Disregard it. His attempts to retire never stick. I don't know how MO regarding them, but discussion should continue.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 21:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, he likely hasn't really retired, and is only using that tag as a way to halt discussion in lieu of oh, he's required, I guess the proposal is moot now. ..Especially considering that he posted his unblocked request(04:40, February 21, 2010 UTC) after he replaced his talk page content with a retired tag(03:49, February 21, 2010 UTC). Retired? I don't think so. Discussion, as said, should continue.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 21:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Daedalus969, his "retirement" should be irrelevant to this discussion. He's done it before on several occasions when he gets frustrated with other editors. As for the other points, I have no doubt Radiopathy was doing what he thought was best. However, as shown before, Radiopathy doesn't care when his ideas cross with policy. I'd support the 1RR completely, as the edit warring line appears to be very blurry for him. Dayewalker (talk) 21:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment - The block of Timothy92834 was completely appropriate. I may be the editor who Daedalus969 is referring to when he wrote above, "and even violated 3rr after being told by an admin and another user(not me) that he was at fault". If so, that's not correct: I didn't tell Radiopathy he was at fault. I did say it was a content dispute, and not vandalism, and while I agree with the block of Radiopathy, Timothy92834 is more at fault than Radiopathy. Timothy92834 ignored messages from Radiopathy, me, and Zero0000 to stop reverting the page and discuss the issue on the talk page. He made no attempt to do so. I don't think he is a true newbie; he has few edits from his account, but his edits indicate someone who knows how wikicode works, WP policies, etc., more than a real newbie would. If he comes back after the block and repeats the revert, he should be blocked again.

Both users were wrong to call each other's edits vandalism, and that is an ongoing issue with Radiopathy. In some cases, if he disagrees with a content change, he calls it vandalism, and then feels free to revert at will without regard to 3RR (and more recently, his 1RR restriction). It's too bad; he has made a lot of good edits and defends a lot of articles from real vandalism. In this case, I think he was correct to revert the original change(s) by Timothy9283. The sources are not air-tight either way and discussion was required. On the other hand, Radiopathy should have used other means to respond when Timothy92834 repeated the edits and refused to discuss the issue. Radiopathy did try ANI, and was told it was a content dispute, which was true, but not the whole story. — John Cardinal (talk) 13:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

At first blush I did worry that the block of Timothy92834 might not have been called for, but when I looked into it, saw he hadn't heeded the messages and only fed the edit war with Radiopathy. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Radiopathy, please explain your position more clearly. As it is now, it is rather vague.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 03:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• Some background: I first came across the editor while handling 3RR reports at WP:ANEW in Oct'09 and since then have had occasion to: (1) block the editor for 3RR violation; (2) lift the block early assuming good faith after emailed and on-wiki assurances that the editor would not edit war anymore; (3) apply a 6 month 1RR restriction after consultation at the 3RR board since the editor resumed edit-warring within hours of being unblocked! (4) caution the editor at least twice for subsequent violations of 1RR; (5) block the editor twice for violation of 1RR and 12(!) RR. What's amazing is that I have had to take so many admin actions w.r.t. Radiopathy even though I don't follow his/her contributions, nor do we have any apparent overlap in the articles we edit or watchlisted. All these actions were solely in response to occasional patrolling of the 3RR board, or complaints posted on my talk page by other editors - and thus possibly represent only a fraction of the infractions. Abecedare (talk) 14:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Support/Oppose reset of 1rr restriction back to 6 months

This section is to make support or opposition of the proposal easier to follow.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 23:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support - For the reasons already stated above.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 23:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support indef - Change to indef. The user does this thing where they 'retire' for a few months then come back. It will be like the restriction never existed. Indef puts a stop to that.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 08:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
• Extend it, to indefinite ideally, since he seems to be having trouble acquiring WP:CLUE. He can ask for a review when some months have gone by without incident. Guy (Help!) 09:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• Extend to indef, per Guy - though frankly, I'm not convinced that 1RR alone would necessarily be sufficient either. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• I have to agree that an indefinite 1RR restriction is needed, which can be lifted once the editor has clearly demonstrated that they can avoid edit-warring without such external limits. (see more detailed background above. Abecedare (talk) 13:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• Since 1rr is a helpful notion for any editor to follow, most of the time, I see no worries about making this indefinite until he shows some willingness not to edit war. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support I think 12 months is appropriate now. Good job on this Daedalus, both sides went overboard there. Doc Quintana (talk) 19:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• Extend to indefinite, user clearly incapable of getting the message per previous ANI thread. GlassCobra 19:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support extending it to indef, based on his last comments on his page. He doesn't care about getting it, it seems. It's a shame a good editor is undone by civility and common sense, but that seems to be the case. Dayewalker (talk) 00:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

To prevent premature close

This is simply to prevent the bot from archiving this thread before an uninvolved admin has reviewed and closed it.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 05:50, 24 February 2010 (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.

Involved admin using their powers in a BLP dispute

Resolved

 – Issue has been handled via OTRS. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

A BLP concern has been expressed about the inclusion of WP:REDLINKs for amateur athlete on 2010 United States Women's Curling Championship. These women are private citizens, amateur athletes who are not competing at the highest level of their sport (which in curling would be the Olympics and World Champsionship) and per WP:ATHLETE do not qualify for an article much less a redlink with it shiny target for vandalism. Responding to these BLP concerns, I removed the names of most of these non-notable amateur athletes. One of the editors who reverts this was an admin, User:Earl Andrew. I then started a section on the talk page where the BLP concerns were clearly laid out. Earl Andrew not only ignored these BLP concerns and revert back but also protected the page under the auspices that my actions were vandalism. I know that at least one of the women involved has filed an OTRS so the BLP issue is being escalated on that avenue. What concerns me here, and the reason why I'm bringing this to AN/I, is an involved admin using his powers in a dispute involving BLP issues. At the very least Earl Andrews should have gotten an uninvolved admin to look at the matter. Can an uninvolve admin look into Earl Andrew's behavior and counsel him on how to handle these types of BLP issues in the future? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

A national championship is clearly the top level of a sport so that argument is fallacious. Also, almost all curlers are amateurs, even those competing now in the Olympics (only the Chinese teams and two of the British men are full-time curlers, the rest all have day jobs), so their amateur status is also irrelevant as an argument. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect. For US Woman's curling it is the Olympics and World's are the top levels. Nationals are distinctly the third rung down on the ladder. These woman only need to sign up for a spot to be one of the 10 teams that compete in nationals, except on the rare year when more than 10 teams sign up. This is not like Canadian curler where they have to go through club, region and provincial play downs. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 21:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, I bow to your knowledge of the actual situation. I agree that there's no reason the names should be redlinked, as there's no reasonable certainty that an article on them will pass notability requirements (and an article can always be created if they move up in status), but I do think that having their names there is reasonable. My suggestion, then, is to leave the tables in place, but remove the redlinks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Admin is clearly involved, so I unprotected the page. They should use WP:RFPP if the content dispute persists.

That being said, I'm not entirely sure I understand how this is a BLP concern. If the list of participants is sourced, it seems fine for inclusion (even if they don't have individual notability for their own articles - in this case, wouldn't simply delinking be a better choice?). –xeno^talk 20:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the objection is to the redlinks, not the names themselves. Tarc (talk) 20:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, but reporting user is deleting the names outright [19]. –xeno^talk 20:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yea I see that now, lopping off the 2nd, 3rd, etc... finishers. Well to Agne27 then, would you object to a non-linked entry for the others? Tarc (talk) 20:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The OTRS ticket mentioned above: ticket:2010022210032133. Endorse Xeno's unprotection of the page. NW (Talk) 20:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The BLP issue is both the redlinks (which per WP:REDLINK we shouldn't have for non-notable subjects like these amateur athletes) but also the prominence of Wikipedia pages showing up on Google searches. The presence of a redlink is an invitation for people to create an article with personal details or vandalism. Also, as I've been informed by some of these women (who contacted me because they know I'm a Wikipedian) there has been a rash of cyber stalking so having their names so prominently featured on Google searches is a concern in this regard. It is highly unusual for the Vices, 2nds and leads of a curling team to have their names published. Normally the teams are just known under the skip name. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no BLP issue for simply listing the participants in the tournament when they are clearly listed on the USCA site. The listings here are merely the names, and don't include anything else (unlike the USCA site, which lists their hometowns). I do agree that removing the links for those unlikely to have articles created is a good thing, but I don't see how listing their names in any way violates the BLP policy.

Also, please stop edit warring on that article. If you continue, you will likely be blocked for it. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The website of the organization that run the Collegiate Cheerleading Championships list the rosters for the events but would we ever dream of including the roster name of all the participants in those articles? What about the rosters for the Texas Football Classic? Neither of those events are the highest level in cheerleading or football, just as the woman's nationals are not the highest level for curling. We wouldn't make those edits because there would be valid BLP concerns to listing the name of non-notable athletes and no encyclopedic benefit--only the potential for harm to the subject whose name is being listed. Plus, as another editor astutely noted, there are no independent 3rd party sources that list the rosters only the organization-much like how local softball organization list the rosters of teams on their league. That doesn't give justification to invade the privacy of non-notable amateur athletes who are not competing at the highest level of their sport. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 21:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Any national championship is considered one of the highest levels of competition for any sport, and your attempts to change things to otherwise are disingenuous. The Olympics are a special event which happens only every four years, and are on-par with the annual world championships of any sport. Listing a name of a sporting event participant is not an invasion of privacy under any interpretation of the BLP or any other policy, especially when the official site of the organization sponsoring the event lists the participant publicly on their website. Your close connection with the complainant in the OTRS ticket is likely clouding your judgement here. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that you are not familiar with curling, much less US women curling. If I want, I could ask 3 random US women Wikipedians on this board if they want to form a curling team with me. I could pay their membership dues at any club in the US and sign up for next years national championship. If less than 10 teams sign up....guess what! We get to go and participate in a national championship. We don't have to know a lick about curling or have ever step foot on the ice before. All we have to do is be members of a club and pay dues. Granted, we'll get our butts kicked but, still, we're competing in a "national championship" and would apparently warrant having our names featured in Wikipedia. If more than 10 teams sign up, we would only then have to play for the spot but that rarely happens (usually only during Olympic years-most years around 7 to 6 teams sign up). It is not like the United States Figure Skating Championships which you have to qualify to get into. Heck, it's harder to get into the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest than it is the Woman's US nationals most years. That is why the nationals are not considered the highest level in US curling. In the Olympics, you have to actually get through the Olympic trials and to get to the World's you have to actually compete and win something. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 22:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As for my connection, yeah I belong to wine clubs with a few of the women listed on that page and have met others on that list at curling events. Several of them knew me as a Wikipedian because of my wine editing so I got to be the one trying to explain to them why Wikipedia is invading their privacy when they really haven't done anything to warrant being in an encyclopedia. They didn't participate in crime or notable event and they certainly haven't competed at the highest level of their sport--some of them even have no such interest to ever compete at that high level. They are just curling for the fun of it. They just signed up for a week away from work and the kids and now they are open up to their names being prominently featured on Google via Wikipedia. As someone who believes in the higher ideals of Wikipedia and its endeavor to be a responsible and credible encyclopedia, yeah it is a little embarrassing to have people you know ask you why your fellow editors are so unaware of the real life consequences that their edits have on the lives of regular, non-encyclopedic worthy people. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 22:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Having a person's name listed is not an invasion of privacy as no other identifiable information is listed about them, making it very difficult (if not impossible) for them to be personally identified. If they're really concerned, they should get the USCA to remove their names as that's where the information was likely taken from. There are no real life consequences to having a name listed as a participant in a tournament, no matter how you try to trump things up to be more than that. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to "out" one of the names who is dealing with a persistent stalker issue but if you search for her name in quotes with curling in Google, the Wikipedia entry for the Kalamazoo games is front and center while the USCA page is buried several pages back after non-related links about different people/things. So thanks to Wikipedia, this woman's stalker was able to figure where she was going to be next week MUCH easier than if the name of this non-notable amateur athlete was never added to the page. THAT is a very pertinent real world consequence. And for what encyclopedic benefit? What does Wikipedia gain in listing the non-notable participants of an event that is not even the highest level of their sport? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I certainly have every sympathy for your friend. I certainly hope the authorities deal with this stalker like they should, and not like they usually do. But regardless of if the name should be there or not, the villain is the stalker. The name was put there in good faith. A desire to give a full roster of those competing. It was only added from info already publicly available and no other personal info was added. From what little experience I have with stalkers, once it's out there they find it. That's what makes them obsessive stalkers.--Cube lurker (talk) 23:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't doubt the good faith of the editors who originally added the information or reverted my removal the first time. What is troubling is when editors are informed of concerns about content relating to real, living people and they either insist on re-adding it or, as Nihonjoe does above, dismiss those concerns are invalid. Several of the women are dealing with stalkers, with different levels of severity, and they understand the risk of the USCA website. But when they choose to curl in this event, they never expected Wikipedia would be compounding their risk because their participation, alone, was not notable. Wikipedia's presence on Google is much stronger than any other website which non-notable people are often listed on. There is more risk being listed here. We must be careful with what we feature here and we must respond when concerns are brought up. Making an innocent edit is fine but it is how you respond afterwards that is the most telling. I hope this is just an isolated incident but all editors should be mindful of the real life consequences of our edits and not dismiss them as casually as NihonJoe and Earl Andrews appear to have. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) This is one of those matters where I wish we didn't have OTRS or BLP to begin with. Is the US National Curling Championship notable? Then the people who are essentially involved are notable -- & determining which are "essentially involved" is an issue for the article's Talk page. Can a hypothetical stalker find out where a person is through expected use of other sources? (There is such a thing called newspapers which have a sports section, & which contain the results of sporting events like this -- there are other ways of learning things than using the Internet.) Well, sure we can redact a person's name from Wikipedia, but that's only plugging one hole in a very leaky boat: the scumbag is going to find out what he wants some other way. The ugly truth is that every notable & semi-notable woman probably has a stalker out there; I've been told from a knowledgeable source that every woman newscaster in my home town has a stalker. (Which I freely admit is a creepy fact to know.) Removing their articles & names from Wikipedia is not going to much towards stopping them -- but will cripple our mission to provide information on all notable topics. -- llywrch (talk) 00:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(EC) My concern is just the reality of the situation. If this stalker is already googling this persons name with curling then he's obsessed enough to scroll to page 2 or 3 of the google results. If it's as serious as you describe it's a false sense of security to think that a stalker won't find out about info that's there on the internet. I don't know who your friend is, but 3 or 4 names I picked at random all came up with USCA of the first page. If it was farther down for your friend, that was luck to be blunt. Right or wrong I just think you're overstating the wikipedia factor here. I wish I had the answers, but I think that's for law enforcement.--Cube lurker (talk) 00:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

We're missing the forest through the trees. Yes, a committed stalker will find information but there is no reason for Wikipedia to make it easier for them especially when (and these are the most important points) A.) The subject is non-notable and are participating in an event that does not make them notable per WP:ATHLETE since it is the not the highest level in their sport. The Boston Marathon is a notable event but we don't list all the marathon participants-only the winners or maybe those who go on to Olympic or World events. Neither do we list all the participating rosters of the Collegiate Cheerleading Championships. B.) There is no encyclopedic benefit to having information about non-notable team members in the article when curling teams are known by their skip name and, finally, C.) BLP concerns have been expressed by some of the real, living people who are impacted by their names being included in Wikipedia. We have WP:BLP1E and other policies that remove names of criminals and other people from articles for much less compelling reasons but ultimately we do it because it is the responsible thing to do. Given the very low encyclopedic notability of these women, it is a reasonable request that their names stay off the article. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to add my two cents here. I'm surprised Agne claims to be knowledgeable on the subject of curling. I don't know of any articles he's contributed to on the subject... I recall an AFD debate in the past that stated that allowed an article on a curler to be kept was that they were a competitive curler on the World Curling Tour, which is definitely the highest level curling tour in the world. I think most of the curlers in question play in the WCT. Also, we have articles with some red links and complete lists for the equivalent Canadian championships. -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

First off, I'm female and just because I spend my time editing wine articles doesn't mean I can't respond to a BLP concern by an acquittance who knows I am a Wikipedian. It doesn't mean I'm not a curling fan who knows the sport and attended events. Please read this discussion and reconsider your actions. This blatant disregard for the BLP concerns of amateur women athletes is troubling. There is no valid reason for their inclusion. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Wait, Missing the forest through the trees? If by tree you mean a real life person with a real life stalker I believe I've expressed great concern about the reality of her situation. Are we talking about a real life situation or general theoretical notability concerns?--Cube lurker (talk) 03:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I mean getting caught up in the details of the stalker for this one person when their BLP concerns applying to all. The vast, vast majority of these women will never qualify for an article under WP:ATHLETE yet they are all subjected to having their names prominently featured in Google searches via a Wikipedia page. This does have real consequences that range from aiding and abetting stalking, to inviting vandalism to the page, to just the general sense of violated privacy that some of these women feel. These women signed up for a week of curling and Wikipedia is thrusting them into a spot lot beyond the scope of their accomplishments. They are not competing at the highest level of their sport that would warrant Wikipedia's notoriety. The forest through trees is the simple fact that we offer more WP:BLP1E consideration to criminals and internet memes than we do women curlers who never asked for their names and future locations to be published in Wikipedia. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 04:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If we're not talking specifics than I think there are different levels. Not all people should have an article. We shouldn't add personal information. I have seen nothing here though to convince me that it's some great danger to take a name from a roster that's been published on the internet and to add it to an article. Google will find it either way. You are also mistaken on BL1E. Just because we don't write articles about those criminals you speak of doesn't mean we don't name them in related articles. This has drifted away from the original incident however.--Cube lurker (talk) 04:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I am all in favour of removing the redlinks to the non notable curlers listed on the page, but I think removing the names would take away from the encyclopedic integrity of the article. A curling team is a team of four individuals, and for encyclopedic purposes, they should be listed. I would argue playing in the US championship to be noteworthy enough for an article, but I would be satisfied with just having the WCT players having articles in this instance. Regardless, I think the stalking issue is a matter that should be dealt between law authorities and Wikipedia. As I was saying to Agne, I can't see how a would be stalker would use Wikipedia to help him in anyway. How pray tell would they do this? -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(out) This whole megillah is quite silly. The USCA website has biographies of the curlers, complete with hometown and date of birth. This much more complete information is public, where anyone can find it, and all we're talking about here is simply listing names. There's no excuse for User:Agne27 to stand in the way of that quite reasonable compromise. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The biographies DO NOT mention where any of those curlers are going to be next week. Also, for many of these women's name (especially those with somewhat common names), their USCA page is buried several pages on Google. It doesn't show up as link #1 like a Wikipedia page. As anyone involved in SEO knows, Wikipedia is a whole other ballgame. As for compromised, I have have no problem including a separate section for notable curlers and leaving a USCA link for the full rosters. That way we have all the encyclopedic information that a curious reader could find but we avoid thrusting private citizen's name into Google's limelight by needless including the name of non-notable athletes on the page. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 05:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Listing some curlers, and not others is not very encyclopedic at all. Again, anyone who wants to know where these women are, are going to find out one way or another. They are listed on the USCA site, and they will all be listed on curlingzone that week. -- Earl Andrew - talk 06:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

@Adne27: I'm sorry, your arguments are not convincing, and consensus here is clearly firmly against you. Please do not continue to edit war to force your preferred format against that consensus. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Consensus is that the majority of these women are not notable--which I totally agree with. Even Nihonjoe has noted that consensus hasn't fully supported their inclusion. I, again, have no problem with leaving an external link to the USCA or even Curling Zone pages. Both of those sites are far less visible on Google and doesn't pose the type of harm that having the names of non-notable private citizens on Wikipedia can have. This can be an acceptable compromise since it maintains the encyclopedic information for the curious reader coming to that page but it keeps the names of these non-notable living people from being so prominent featured on Wikipedia. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 06:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Your understanding of notability is not correct. If someone tried to start an article on these people, on the sole basis of their participation in the event in question, then you would have a point, but everyone so far has agreed that the individual particpants are not per se notable for that reason. However, they are participants in a notable event, and, as such, it is completely legitimate to include their names, sans links, in an article about the championships. Regardless of the procedure used to qualify participants, these are the US National Championships of an Olympic sport, and that, in and of itself, confers notability. If the participants didn't want to be recognized, they should not have crossed the boundary between private behavior at the local curling club, and public behavior at a national championship. By their freely-made choice to participate, they left behind a certain degree of anonymity and stepped into the public arena. That doesn't mean that anything goes, but it does mean that their names are going to be listed on Wikipedia, on the curling association's website, and in any media coverage they should happen to get. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Please note that this, the source for the information on Wikipedia, is a press release. It ends with contact information for the publicist to talk to for more information. The USCA released these names into the public domain, with the intent of getting whatever publicity they can get to further the attendance and interest at the event. It's generally the case that participants in an event whose names are provided in this manner have signed a release which allows the information to be made public. In this case, more than likely, it was included in the application for participation in the event. If all that is the case, and all of that is entirely the usual course of business in these situations, then the person you're trying to protect needs to talk to the USCA about pulling back their name, in which case, more than likely, the USCA is going to decline to do so, saying that if you partiicpate, you do so under these conditions. But if the USCA should issue a revised press release without that person's name, then Wikipedia should, of course, present the most up-to-date facts and remove or replace the name.

Until that happens, though, there's nothing that you can do about it. Your friend has apparently given her permission for her name to be used in a pres release, and it's not in any way reasonable to ask Wikipedia to suppress information that has been released publicly for the purpose of getting publicity. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Agne is exactly right

This is a sport whose presence in a country is so minor that the women's national championship accepts walk-ins. Any female can sign up, pay a fee, and compete. A few take that opportunity with the rational expectation that it would result in little more attention than a bottom tier result in the racquetball championship at the local YMCA.

Wikipedia's notability guidelines for athletics were structured on very different assumptions that bear little resemblance to this situation, but its BLP policy exists to compensate. We hear choruses of BLP trumps all other policies; where is that chorus now that one of those minor competitors wants off our site because she has an actual real world stalker?

If she had anticipated that signing up as a walk-in for that sports event would get her into Wikipedia then she wouldn't have done it, but she really didn't foresee that this website could be that dogmatic and nonsensical.

Some of the posters assert that they don't see what harm could come of her inclusion here. For the last two and a half years I have been working with an editor who also has a stalker (the real kind) and who has been unable to get his biography deleted. I would not wish his wiki-problems onto anyone, and per WP:BEANS will not state onsite what they are. Any administrator who wants to ask is welcome to email me.

Now please be reasonable and do what Amber is asking. Durova⁴¹² 19:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

She and you may be exactly right and I may just be dense. This is just the part I'm not comprehending. In this stalker situation how is it different for this roster to be published on the USCA site, easily accessed by google and to have that information duplicated here with no additional details. If I could see how this information wasn't already in the stalkers hands the second it hit the internet I'd eagerly hop to your side of the issue.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The BLP policy trumps the notability guideline. Obviously the notability guideline wasn't intended for situations where a national championship accepts walk-in registrations. BLP has clear relevance here. Anyone who wants to know specifics about the actual BLP/stalking problem needs to inquire by email; those details will not be forthcoming onsite for obvious reasons. Durova⁴¹² 19:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry I don't buy the beans for this reason. You type any of those names and curling together and the USCA site comes up. Game over for the stalker. Now we can talk about the value of the information, but the safety issue makes no sense. The stalker already knows the info before it was coppied to wikipedia. If we were talking about information that wasn't already press released on the web I'm on your side. If someone added home adresses and phone numbers I'm on your side. But once the USCA released the names publically they're public no matter if they're in the article or not. I really don't care if the names are there or not because without ANI I'd never have ever wandered to that article. I just think there's no logic in thinking it was all fine untill the info ended up here.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Add me to list of dense people right after to Cube lurker: I still don't see the problem here. Not only is the information available elsewhere in the Internet (as well as in newspapers, periodicals, etc.), but I don't see how this tells anyone where a given person will be in the future. If this event hasn't happened yet, then providing the names of any participants is looking into a crystal ball & making predictions -- it shouldn't appear, period. If it has happened in the past, then just because someone was a sports meet in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota or South Succotash, Indiana last week does not provide necessarily useful information where she or he will be next week. (Unless the given stalker is so well informed about the person that they can make accurate predictions with that information -- in which case, Wikipedia still can't help matters by suppressing information.) Invoking BLP or complaining about stalkers here only makes the matter more murky, it does not help any of us to agree to a solution. -- llywrch (talk) 19:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Three times is the charm: if you don't already see the problem, email and ask. It's about real stalking; it's sensitive and can't be discussed onsite. Closure of this thread may consider all responses that disregard this invitation as invalid by default. Durova⁴¹² 19:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Checked the inbox: zero inquiries. Durova⁴¹² 19:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC) This needs trout.

Something's come up and I'll be afk for an hour or more. Durova⁴¹² 19:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Cube/Llywrch, to answer your question, I think the claimed difference is, if you Google the names without including "curling", the fact that Wikipedia ranks so highly in Google brings these pages to the fore. Otherwise, the USCA pages are buried a few pages back. Now, I actually agree that it seems far-fetched that anyone is being stalked IRL, but their stalker is relying solely on Wikipedia to gather info. But I'm sympathetic in this case to the fact that this is not like the National Championship of, say, figure skating, and these people have a reasonable expectation that their names aren't going to show up in a top-ten website, and they are suddenly the at the top of the Google list.

  In other words, neither opinion is unreasonable, neither side is being insensitive/unintelligent, it's simply a close call. And in a close call like this, I suggest Agne27' compromise, because it's the decent thing to do when someone asks. Remove all but the skips (which is how teams are identified), and at the bottom include an "other notable participants" list for anyone bluelinked. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If that's the case I see the concept, However that's not the conversation I walked into. I don't want to "out" one of the names who is dealing with a persistent stalker issue but if you search for her name in quotes with curling in Google, the Wikipedia entry for the Kalamazoo games is front and center while the USCA page is buried several pages back after non-related links about different people/things. was the post at 23:38UTC above and the first post here I replied too. I think my position is where it first was. If the situation is what was described. That there's a persistant stalker who knows her name, and knows she curls then the information was already there for him. If we're taking curling out of the search I think a persistant stalker means someone who does more than glances at the top couple results, but what do I know. I really have no desire to ram someones name into an article I'll never look at. I'm just unconvinved that the danger factor dramaticaly changed. I know I sound like a cliche but I seriously wouldn't wish that situation on anyone and i hope law enforcement can intervene.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

FYI, the article in question is the 2010 United States Women's Curling Championship, which has yet to take place. This has nothing to do with WP:ATHLETE, because that's a guideline about individual biographies. Pcap ping 20:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I just want to express that I agree entirely with Agne and Durova that the names should be removed, and I'm somewhat baffled as to why Wikipedia's prevailing philosophy has suddenly become "if the information is published anywhere, it belongs in an article here." Even without anyone raising BLP concerns, it seems like in many cases, this information could be removed simply because the names of entrants in a contest that's open to virtually anybody is not notable information. Even if the names were published in a reliable source, the coverage would probably be considered trivial. This is not a hill for "right-to-publish" advocates to die on. Propaniac (talk) 20:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Then leave the article as a stub until it has happened. After it has happened, discuss who should be mentioned in the article. End of problem, no need to invoke WP:BLP or to send Durova an email -- & I couldn't do the latter since I was out shopping at the grocery store until ten minutes ago. (And I'm tempted to stubbify the article then protect it until the Championship has taken place, just to solve this problem without giving the BLP fanatics a precedent to steamroll over everyone else in future cases.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh, fine with me. (You seem to think I've played some part in this dispute -- all I've done is read about it here an hour ago. I'm not remotely a BLP fanatic, but in this case I think people are going much too far in the other direction.) Propaniac (talk) 20:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Propaniac: my comment was addressed to the general readership, not to you. I'm just grouchy because people are treating WP:BLP as a magic passkey which will allow them to do whatever they want to a given article. Had Agne, Durova & everyone else concerned about this person's privacy mentioned that simple fact -- this event has not happened yet -- long before you did (instead of shouting "BLP! BLP!"), the most likely reaction they'd get to removing names from this article would have been a disinterested shrug & a murmur of consent. (Even if there wasn't a stalker involved, I think it's overkill to put the names of every player who will be involved in a future event like this; speaking as an inclusionist, there are times some of my fellow inclusionists go too far.) -- llywrch (talk) 00:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

We do sometimes leave out information that may harm an individual's privacy, though this decision is done on a case-by-case basis. The classic example is Star Wars Kid (specifically Talk:Star Wars Kid#Why Not Named, where the real name of the subject is avoided in the article even though it is mentioned in the first source used in the article. -- Atama頭 20:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Where's the proof that they are accepting write-ins? I don't believe this is true. Every curler in the national championship has a profile page on the USCA website. Curling is an Olympic sport, and we shouldn't favour one sport over another, especially if they are both Olympic sports. We would include a full list of the figure skaters in the US national championships, the same should go for curlers. It's not fair to pick and choose sports. -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It happens most every year in US women curling except for, on occasion, during Olympic qualifying years. Here is one of the competitors' own blog which talks about just signing up an go. (Note: This is a skip, who to my knowledge, doesn't have a BLP issue and obviously puts herself out her on the web) The "sign and go" is how it is most years and often the 10 team limit is not even met with 6 to 7 teams going. US women curling is not like how it is in Canada or even US Men's which usually does have qualify events. While some of these women have Olympic aspirations, a lot of them are just regular women signing up for a week of curling away from work and the kids. These are the type of people that do not belong on Wikipedia, and obviously, quite a few of them don't want to be. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Also further proof is even in the article itself with the USCA press release (FN#7) which says, quote, "The 10 women's teams advanced directly to the National Championships as they were the only 10 to sign up for the national playdowns in a season one year removed from the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Curling." (emphasis mine). Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Checklist

A simple three step checklist would solve this situation.

1. Notability: Is WP:ATHLETE inapplicable to walk-in registrants who do not place in a competition?

a. If yes, then delete.

b. If no, move to point 2.

2. BLP: Does WP:BLP allow for courtesy deletion per subject's request?

a. If yes, then delete.

b. If no, move to point 3.

3. Harassment: does a real life stalking problem merit consideration per Wikipedia:Harassment or Wikipedia:Ignore all rules?

a. If yes, then delete.

b. If unsure, email Durova.

c. If no, play this audio file and return to the top of the checklist.

So far nobody has emailed me, which means either people are convinced or they're cycling through the checklist. ;) Durova⁴¹² 21:31, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with durova in this instance. Some common sense needs to prevail. This person is all but barely notable and is in my eyes inhereted purely from her playing once in the nationals not that she is a notable athlete herself. On top of this she has harrassment concerns. Lets stop playing games and take this RL issue seriously. There is no need for the list to exist. Remove and move along please people. Seddon ^talk|^WikimediaUK 23:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

No, common sense dictates that somebody should have mentioned that this is an event in the future which, as Agne27 points out, is not as notable as other "National"-level events, & that someone is trying to add a complete list of all of the people who might play in it. Wikipedia does not predict events, nor should Wikipedia try to cover every notable event exhaustively. (Quick -- what happened 28 hours & 25 minutes into the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention? Okay then, can you recite more than 10 people who were delegates to that convention? If your answer to both questions is no, then why should we list everyone who has signed up for this curling championship meet?) What Durova is not considering by using the BLP argument is, at best, she is creating another divisive issue for Wikipedians which will lead to the frustration & WikiDrama that attended the Free Image/Fair Use conflict not so long ago; at worst, BLP is being strengthened into a tool which will be wielded by public relations flacks to sanitize articles about unethical, if not criminal, individuals. If people continue to cut-&-paste slabs from the "BLP" policy to force edits they advcate, I will start replying with "But think of the children! We must remove all of that bad material from Wikiepdia!" -- llywrch (talk) 00:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This proposal aims to help real world stalking victims on a no questions asked basis and it's as simple as that. Llyrwich has made no attempt to substantiate his wild speculations. Please withdraw the scurrilous personal attack. Durova⁴¹² 01:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What scurrilous attacks? That is, if you are referring to me; there is no "i" in my user name. And if you mean me, as for "wild speculations", maybe you'd like to peek at my Talk page where a well-known WikiDrama-monger made hostile & emotional attacks for my comments about the importance of WP:BLP policy: I still remain unconvinced that this is important, & comments like yours aren't going to persuade me otherwise. -- llywrch (talk) 04:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion has moved here. Durova⁴¹² 04:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"No questions asked" is a horrible attitude to take, and leaves us open to WP:GAMING. If someone is a stalking victim, I'm sure OTRS can help much better than the drama you get on ANI. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

One really ought to have one's facts in hand before writing those words. All it takes is a scroll upward to see that OTRS was already tried before this thread started and that the thread was underway for half a day before I found out about this situation. OTRS failed this person. Durova⁴¹² 16:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC) See correction below; OTRS did handle it properly but the information got restored afterward. Durova⁴¹² 21:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

As a close to my twisted path in this discussion let me back away with this. I've probably repeated too many times the arguments that I have trouble with. That said I have gotten a tad sidetracked because when it comes down to it I'm not really bothered if this page doesn't have every member of every team listed. I can't speak for others, but to quote Frank Pentangeli I want everyone here to know -- there's not gonna be no trouble from me!--Cube lurker (talk) 00:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

OTRS ticket 2010022210032133

Extended content

I've got the full story now on the circumstances behind this thread. This is very serious. And there are two options for dealing with it neither of which I like: try to find out the name of the OTRS volunteer who handled this ticket, or go over that person's head straight to the Foundation. This much can be said onsite: the Wikipedia listing has had a direct nontrivial effect on this stalking victim and if OTRS had corrected the problem before it had gotten into the mirrors the harm could have been undone. This isn't "drama" I detest that word it's the real deal. Situations like this are why the BLP policy exists; they're why OTRS exists. Last night I spoke with an OTRS volunteer and it took about ten minutes to communicate the seriousness. He wasn't at liberty tell me the name of the volunteer who handled this ticket; I want to speak to that person. If you are that person please email me. I've got the followup; I can tell OTRS volunteers from the right queue what an impact it has had. You can correlate that to the ticket and see how closely the facts dovetail. This isn't about pointing fingers; we need to make sure that mistakes as serious as this don't happen in the future. Durova412 16:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC) This issue has been resolved. All revisions of the article containing the BLP violations have been removed. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC) I should also note that the first message received by OTRS was more than two weeks after the article had been initially created. The mirrors would have had the problem long before anyone contacted OTRS. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC) I should also, also note that I have submitted a request to Google to update their cache of the page to remove the offending information from any search results. This usually takes care of it within just a day or two, though no guarantees on that. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Good news: a chain of good faith miscommunications have gotten straightened out and the OTRS ticket was handled correctly. Several hours afterward information was readded into the article, and that sequence wasn't clear to the people who followed up on the problem. Durova⁴¹² 21:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick and his disrespectul comments

Hello, the subject is long so I will sumarize. We had a long discussion on the Spanish empire talk page (very long, no need to read it all over, talk:Spanish Empire) in which The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick was positioned against depicting "claims" as parts of the empire maps. My personal opinion is that Patagonia should be included in another colour as part of the Spanish empire, while The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick thinks that only fully-controlled areas should be included. Well, I thought that it should then be the standard for him so I made a map for the British empire page, which is very good anyways. In the British empire map, The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick depicted Antartica as part of the British empire, while it is an unrecognised claim with no direct control (numerous countries have bases on British claims). Based on his own opinion, this area should not be included, but my surprise comes when I try to to discuss about it and change it ( talk:British Empire ), and I only receive disrespectful comments like my country being 3rd world, The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick constantly labelling me as a troll, and what is more offensive, he claims that I am a blocked user using another account Cosialscastells without any kind of evidence, qualifies my edits as "pure rambling", and has even posted this image File:DoNotFeedTroll.svg to try to ridiculise my edits labelling me as a troll. Probably because he knows he has no other arguments or any kind of source. I am not saying that my edits should be done at all costs. I am saying that if an editor has an opinion in one article and then he has the opposite oppinion in another article, then he seems to be biased depending on what the article is about. And on top of this, being disrespectful. I was very offended by him and by Wiki-Ed who said that my country was a 3rd world country without being provoked. That is why I request some kind of help so that The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick and Wiki-Ed mantain a respectful stance. Fireinthegol (talk) 01:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

An SPI request has indeed been filed on this editor, who displays a curiously similar level of Spanish Empire map-based obsession (not to mention curiously identical internet provider) as a permanently banned sockpuppeteer. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 02:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the sockmaster you've tried to link this person to hasn't edited for more than a year. Even their latest confirmed sock was blocked almost a year ago. The information that checkusers could use to technically link this editor to a past editor isn't kept around forever, so if it has been too long they can no longer check. I am reasonably certain that Fireinthegol is not a new editor, based on their initial edits, but I'd have to do some more checking around later when I had more time before I was certain enough to do anything about it. -- Atama頭 04:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Having Telefonica as the same provider is not any kind of evidence, The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick. It is as accusing me because I am using "Windows" the same OS as a blocked user. I have another account which is Enriquegoni, but I was not blocked or anything. What The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick should do is stop accusing and labelling other users in the European empires to push his POV. Fireinthegol (talk) 09:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Please see WP:SOCK#Alternate account notification. You should make the connections between those two accounts clear, and any other accounts you may be using or have used in the past. Doing otherwise may result in a block, or at the very least a large amount of suspicion (as you've already seen). The more open you are about such things, the more trust others will place in you. -- Atama頭 18:14, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, sorry I didn't know about that, but The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick has accused me without any kind of evidence, only taking a look at my IP, as Telefonica (my ISP) provides internet service to around 47 million users. Indeed, everytime an editor opens a discussion about an empire map, he accuses him of being a blocked user without evidence, like in this respectful edit: "Fireinthegol (AKA Cosialscastells) - your ramblings above are pure original research. The map is fine, leave it alone.The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 14:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)" (Cosialscastells is the blocked user). Also, I would like to know, please, if comments like this by Wiki-Ed are allowed on talk pages: I'm not sure that it is really necessary to change the colour of disputed territories - it would mean we would have to change and accept alterations for the Falklands and Gibraltar and presumably anywhere else where the government of the nearest neighbouring 2nd or 3rd world country has domestic problems If they are allowed, then I did wrong opening this thread, sorry. Fireinthegol (talk) 19:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I said before that I was going to do some checking around before. I think that I have enough behavioral evidence to confirm sockpuppetry. I'll explain what I found.

The most recent confirmed sockpuppets of Cosialscastells, per the SPI, are Resvoluci and Emiliojcp. Cosialcastells was focused very much on maps of the Spanish Empire, even going so far as to leave this message on RHPF's talk page. Resvoluci made this edit to push a particular map of the Spanish Empire on the article, and it was the last act before they were blocked. A bit more than a week after that block, Emiliojcp came out of many months of activity to make the same edit before being blocked. Enriquegoni, who Fireinthegol has admitted to being a prior account, made this edit to the talk page of that same article as one of their earliest edits, yet again trying to push the same map onto the same article. I had my suspicions from the beginning, and that seems to confirm it for me, per WP:DUCK. -- Atama頭 21:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I've now blocked Fireinthegol and their older account as sockpuppets. -- Atama頭 22:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for spending the time to investigate - I know how long this detective work can take. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 22:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Herostratus

Herostratus (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is an administrator who, according to their userpage, is no longer allowed to have access to the internet, and has given the password of their admin account to someone else to edit on their behalf "UPDATE: Rather than improving, my situation has deteriorated. Now I am no longer allowed access to the internet, amd am forbidden to watch television or listen to the radio. Nor am I allowed to view any periodicals published before 1960. The only way I can make edits is to mark up a printout and pass it to my majordomo to be typed into Wikipedia. Frustrating!" diff. Not realising they were an admin, I blocked them as arrangements like that are not allowed. They have just unblocked themselves, so rather than slipping into a possible wheel war, I am asking for some advice from others. Viridae^Talk 03:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that arrangement is allowable. Who exactly is doing the editing and more specifically who is controlling the admin bit? JodyB _talk 03:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I support the block. Compromised account = bad, compromised admin account = worse, and while I'm not sure why he's not allowed access to the internet, it can only be for ill. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 03:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I've heard of admins being de-sysopped and indef'd. Never heard of one being "grounded" before. Is this on the level? What "incident"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Not sure, but review his edit history. I have my suspicions, as do others. I have just emailed arbcom. Viridae^Talk 03:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking further at his talk page, it seems like (1) it was a couple of years ago and (2) possibly involved something illegal. Not good. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Oops, he got us - hook, line and sinker. See below. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

His response to the block was awfully quick for someone who purportedly has to go through the tedious process of reviewing print-outs, annotating them, and then giving them to someone else to perform the edit. However, I would like to see Herostratus explain his situation in enough detail that we can make a reasonable decision about what to do here. Everyking (talk) 03:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

For goodness sake, can't you people recognize a joke when you see one? Under what conditions on this planet is a person "not allowed to view periodicals published after 1960", for crying out loud. Good grief. How about a note to the talk page before a block, hmm? Herostratus (talk) 03:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That's what initially raised my doubts. If you were being held on some kind of morals charge, it's likely they wouldn't let you read anything published since 1960. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Totally agree with Herostratus. This is nonsense. Please think before you act. Woogee (talk) 03:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, it's a joke. That said, should an admin be joking about someone else operating his account? Not wise, in my view. ReverendWayne (talk) 03:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Despite my support for Herostartus in this, Herostratus should not have unblocked himself. Woogee (talk) 03:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If that was a joke, it was a pretty irresponsible one, and you can hardly blame people for reacting as they did, Herostratus. Please edit your userpage to clarify matters. At the same time, I hope that no one will pursue penalties at this point. Everyking (talk) 03:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec)If this was all a joke, it was in extremely poor taste and not exactly what I'd like to see in terms of maturity and common sense in an administrator. Tarc (talk) 03:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That joke was about as funny as telling people in an airport that you're carrying a bomb. You should really know better. -- Atama頭 04:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Loosely quoted from some things Eddie Murphy once said "Ha, Ha. Very funny, m----r f----r." "See, a joke's supposed to be funny." —DoRD (?) (talk) 04:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Trouts, anyone? —DoRD (?) (talk) 04:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I dont know, I just read thru this thread, and laughed my ass off. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 04:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Shady. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 05:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, very droll. You know what would fit right in with such stylish japery? If a steward were asked by Arbcom to pull his sysop bit and have him blocked until he could prove he was always in control of his account, since he actually said he wasn't. --StaniStani  05:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, please. Woogee (talk) 05:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's unreasonable. And I thought we had a pretty much zero tolerance toward admins unblocking themselves? RxS (talk) 05:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• ArbCom is aware of this situation. There's nothing much more than can be done here. –xeno^talk 05:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
  • ArbCom is aware of what situation? The inappropriate block? Woogee (talk) 06:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
    • I suppose the committee will have to decide which aspect of the situation demands their attention, if any. Best, –xeno^talk 06:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Herostratus unblocked himself. Should the block be reimposed? I thought you were not allowed to unblock yourself, even if you'd blocked yourself accidentally. Mjroots (talk) 07:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• The Arbitration Committee is indeed aware of this situation. No, the block should not be reinstated. We will look at the behaviour of all parties involved in this situation. Risker (talk) 07:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for your reply, Risker. Mjroots (talk) 07:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• Damn, I found an admin account on eBay and was hoping it was Herostratus' so I could claim bragging rights on all his content contributions. Now I'll just have to write my own. Guy (Help!) 13:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Had to comment here, as this is quite possibly the most ridiculous ANI thread I have seen in a long time.

First, regarding the joke:

"Ever since The Incident — you probably read about it in the papers — they have greatly restricted my computer access, therefore I have not been and will not be as active as I would like. For a while. After a certain period of good behavior the Local Council may restore my computer privileges. Thank you for your patience.

UPDATE: Rather than improving, my situation has deteriorated. Now I am no longer allowed access to the internet, amd am forbidden to watch television or listen to the radio. Nor am I allowed to view any periodicals published before 1960. The only way I can make edits is to mark up a printout and pass it to my majordomo to be typed into Wikipedia. Frustrating!"

— (links added and tags added)

I'm not quite sure how one could take that seriously, even when apprroaching with pure logic and no humour. "The Incident"? What kind of Local Council deals with computer privleges? No periodicals before 1960? Plus, how would he know what changes to make to Wikipedia, and where in the article to make the changes, if he cannot view Wikipedia to begin with?

The fact that this thread is even here right now astonishes me.

However, there is something I am concerned about. Why is ArbCom wasting time looking at "the behavior of all parties" in this situation? That's not very productive.

And last: Don't worry Herostratus, at least I got it :) (although you should make sure your future jokes don't contradict themselves)

Inferno, Lord of Penguins 20:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes you just have to read ANI for the lulz. Woogee (talk) 21:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sam (koala)

The subject of this article is related to a legal dispute. The article is being edited by Mary-ann martinek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who may have a conflict of interest in the matter. Although most edits are cited and could be broadly acceptable, I am concerned there might still be WP:NPOV issues and possible undue WP:WEIGHT to the "controversy" (excessive detail on the legal filings and such for example) as a result of significant editing by an apparent party to the topic's controversy.

Also views please on the use of the user page for self-promotion, given the user's few-ish edits seem to relate to promoting of own interests.

Disclosure: I was asked by User:DragonflySixtyseven, who created the page, to look at the history of Sam (koala). Having done so I agree there is a concern needing more eyeballs. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 06:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd say there is a serious COI issue and NPOV issue. Specifically everything in that section pertains to Mary-Ann Martinek's side of the legal matter and is not giving due weight to the other side of the legal matter. Rgoodermote  06:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be at WP:COIN? Woogee (talk) 06:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Another thought accorded to me, she is looking to be a single purpose editor. Her interest seems to be only that article and the legal part of that article. Although they are cited (and some what properly actually) it doesn't take away from the fact that she is putting too much weight and interest in that part of the article. The issue is only made worse given that the part of the article in which she is fixated on pertains to her and a legal case in which she has been/is involved in and that she is placing the view primarily from her vantage without considering the other view in question. However she is using proper sources and should be congratulated for attempting to follow the rules. My suggestion is that the user's edits be kept, but edited heavily with newer sources that remove the slant. The user in question should be banned from the article or watched carefully while making edits to the article. The user should also be made aware of our policies on COI and citing sources in order to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. The user also should be given a strong suggestion to change her user page or action should be taken if it violates any policies. The user should be given a rather warm welcome and should be monitored for a little while and we should all hit the watch tab. Addition: Woogee I'd say that this fits incidents as it has many layers that aren't just related to COI but also to POV. Rgoodermote  06:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• The user should be restricted to the talk page. The Controversy section should probably be removed. Guy (Help!) 09:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'm leaning towards deleting the section myself. The sources in that section are questionable at best - I'd regard the Australian Journal of Herpetology as self published and unreliable, and the two statutory declarations, (if we are inclined to accept them at all), are housed on the site of the main protagonist. As far as I can tell, the only parts that are or can be reliably sourced are the first three sentences. - Bilby (talk) 10:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• In any case, citing direct to the filings is WP:OR. This either needs to be rewritten from reliable independent secondary sources or removed as WP:UNDUE. And as I say the user should be topic banned fomr the article itself though allowing them to post on the talk page is probably OK at present. Guy (Help!) 11:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• I agree about the OR - I've removed the most questionable portions and raised it on the article's talk. The topic ban is a different issue. However, it does seem that the the original account of the trademark dispute was incorrect, which would possibly justify the editor's initial involvement. That's not the same as justifying the OR, of course, nor the COI. - Bilby (talk) 12:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

based on the above I've trimmed down most of the rest. Concerns over the user page remain. Thoughts? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd say bring the page to MfD. There's nothing at CSD that would apply, but that userpage is almost 3 years old, if they were legitimately using it as a sandbox they should have turned it into an article by now. It's also acting somewhat as an ad for Slouch Hat Chocolates. -- Atama頭 18:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Posted a note to that effect, to the user [20]. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Speedy Delete nominating a large number of articles indiscriminately

User:Srikantkedia has been Speedy Deleting a large number of articles indiscriminately using Twinkle; see his Special:Contributions/Srikantkedia. This is out of hand, he has not or will not respond to notices on his talk page. Some are legit speedy deletes; but things like this and this are a bit much. Please help. Thank you. Outback the koala (talk) 07:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

He isn't speedy deleting anything, he is nominating them for deletion. Woogee (talk) 07:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Amended header. –xeno^talk 18:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

And you haven't notified him of this discussion, which you are required to do. Woogee (talk) 07:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Notified. It does seem somewhat strange to me as well. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't know I needed to notify him. Thank you for doing so Seb. Outback the koala (talk) 08:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

For the future, if you discuss any active editor on this board, you must always notify them. It is sufficient to leave {{subst:ani-notice}} on their talk page, if you don't want to do anything else - but you must leave some notification. — Gavia immer (talk) 13:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

A possible exception would be if the editor has firmly instructed you not to post on the editor's talk page: then one must decide which is worse, posting against their clearly stated wishes or failing to notify. In the latter case, saying here that you have not notified them, so that someone else can, seems to be the Done Thing. That being said, nominating large numbers of articles for speedy deletion is unkind, as it clots the queue, even if the nominations are reasonable. In this case, that doesn't seem to be a huge number, and mostly are already done or look ok on short review.- Sinneed 16:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC) The editor has since been warned about the (or some of the) ones that were not, also. - Sinneed 16:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Some of the speedy tags are appropriate, and I see that most are being deleted properly. The AFD noms linked above, though, are problematic, and the user has been warned by WereSpielChequers. If the editor continues to nominate and tag, without discussing these issues or acknowledging their understanding of the Deletion process, then a block would probably be appropriate. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 18:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Just an aside, I see 21 articles nominated for deletion either through CSD or AfD. Of those 21, 11 are now deleted. Certainly not a "good" ratio, but it shows that it's not all disruption. Then again, looking through even the deleted ones I see that often the wrong tag was used, such as Borders of Kaliningrad Oblast which had a C1 tag applied, but was deleted as A10. Or Kelate.net, which was given an A1 tag but deleted per A7. It seems like even their successes are accidents, so this person really needs to learn more about the deletion policy or at least be more careful before trying to get more articles deleted. -- Atama頭 18:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Security concern at Qp10qp

Qp10qp (talk · contribs) hasn't edited since November 2009, but his e-mail account may have been compromised. Does any preventative action need to be taken on his Wiki account? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so but it does bear watching. A compromised email account, which is separate from the wiki account, does not necessarily suggest a forthcoming problem. But if odd edits resume we might think twice. JodyB _talk 18:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, he can reset the password from in there. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no indication that he's aware that his e-mail may be compromised; if others will remember to watch his account, it may help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:OWN on song article

Politics, Religion and Her (song) is being WP:OWNed by Wikibones (talk · contribs). I have tried several times to redirect this to the album per WP:NSONGS which dictates that such a redirect is acceptable. Every time, he undoes my redirect, basically saying that "it charted so it's notable" and saying that the article's content is "lost" — even though the album article and discography articles clearly state every single fact in the song article. I have tried to prove to him that there are no secondary sources which discuss the song at length, so it is therefore a permanent stub — but he still argues that redirecting will "lose" the info in the permastub.

Since he stubbornly REFUSES to let the redirect stand, and is WP:OWNing and edit warring, I am strongly suggesting that the article be redirected and locked. (What's even stranger is he came out of a 20-day pause JUST TO UNDO THE REDIRECT.) Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Use the proposed merge process. –xeno^talk 19:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If I recally correctly, I already tried that before with If I Was a Drinkin' Man, now deleted. Even though there was a clear consensus to merge (most likely from Caldorwards4, Eric444 and BravesFan2006, three of the most prominent country music editors), Wikibones circumvented consensus and undid the merge. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Whatever happened in the past isn't really relevant. Go through the proper procedure and if an uninvolved party closes it as 'merge', then Wikibones will be hard-pressed to ignore consensus. –xeno^talk 19:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

And yet he still will ignore consensus anyway. I know his style. He re-created If I Was a Drinkin' Man only days after it was deleted. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

No - he didn't - at least not according to the deletion log. And what you said above didn't happen either, you guys simply flip flopped over various redirect targets and a merge tag - the merge discussion never happened. Go through the proper procedure and you will have something to bring to ANI. Until then, this is a content dispute that doesn't belong here. –xeno^talk 19:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I was wrong about that then; I thought for sure I already had. I still have every reason to believe that he will circumvent consensus and claim that the article is his his his. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 20:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Prior AfD looks like a weak merge consensus to me, but was closed as no consensus; either way, protecting the page for three days to avoid edit warring and encourage discussion. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I would think that a permanent lock would be best. Given this editor's history, he's going to undo the redirect the instant the article's unlocked since he doesn't believe in consensus. If he does, please to be blocking. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Help: El Paso-Juárez Metropolitan Area

Resolved

 – Article histories have been merged. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I recently created El Paso-Juárez Metropolitan Area and nominated it for DYK. User:Polaron put some banners on the article without explanation. When I insisted on explanation he/she provided what I consider WP:OR (no sources; personal opinions) and proceeded to rename the article, remove references and content, etc, etc. I requested that such changes not be made without consensus, particularly considering the article is up for DYK, and tried to revert the changes. Polaron promptly changed everything back and hasn't been willing to provided any more info as to the motives.

I don't want to get into an edit war but I need this restored before the article fails DYK. Basically I need a "don't do things unilaterally or you'll be blocked" intervention here.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

--Mcorazao (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This looks to be a content dispute. I don't see anything for admins to do here, unless you get into a move war. The Guest Life article seems to be a weak reed to hang the DYK hook on, and even if Polaron were not in the picture, passing verification at DYK would not be a simple matter. There is some discussion over at T:DYK. Better to try to persuade the DYK reviewers that the article verifies than to wait for admins to do something. I have notified Polaron of this discussion. EdJohnston (talk) 01:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm....and then when s/he gets into an edit war because nobody would help, s/he'll be roundly condemned as being just as bad as Polaron. Sounds familiar to me. Isn't there some way of instructing Polaron that he has to engage in discussion about things he wants changed when there's disagreement? His refusal to discuss before things reach the edit war stage is a repeated problem, as I know you are aware. It may be a content dispute, but if he refuses to discuss it, what's the other editor SUPPOSED to do? Lvklock (talk) 15:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Lvklock, thanks.

I removed the DYK nomination. Still this needs to be dealt with. EdJohnston, I am disappointed in your attitude. Your personal opinions about article content are not relevant. If you have concerns in that regard (and I welcome them) there is a place for you to discuss that but this isn't the place. The issues here are administrative. --Mcorazao (talk) 17:37, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I haven't reverted any content even a single time. I moved the article to a non-misleading name. Mcorazao did a copy-paste move back when he could have simply moved it back. I only undid the copy-paste move as that was not the proper way to move an article. --Polaron | Talk 19:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

If there is editor consensus that the former title should be restored, El Paso-Juárez Metropolitan Area, I can do that, or any admin. It is up to the judgment of editors whether there are enough sources to support that form of the title. If no agreement can be reached, WP:Requested moves is suggested. EdJohnston (talk) 20:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh-huh. And once again Polaron makes a unilateral move that is then treated as status quo while trying to discuss it with him is like pulling teeth. I do not understand why repeated issues like this with Polaron are not addressed. Lvklock (talk) 01:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

EdJohnston, I don't understand what your bias is here. Polaron made a changes based on WP:OR with no sourcing. I have simply ask that the damage be corrected so that discussion can continue. I will not discuss "moving it back". That is unprofessional. The article is reasonably well sourced (there are some places where more is necessary). We can discuss Polaron's proposals on the article page at such time as Polaron is willing to substantiate the opinions put forth.

The policies are there for a reason and need to be enforced dispassionately. At the moment I am forced to continue editing with a split history which makes the situation uglier and uglier.

--Mcorazao (talk) 20:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Please move the article back properly. Because you didn't use the move function and did a copy-paste move instead, an admin needs to move it back. Once it's moved back to its original title (with admin assistance), we can start a discussion. In the meantime, please edit the original article if you want to change the content. Creating content forks is against policy. --Polaron | Talk 20:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not an admin and cannot do any move as you are very well aware. I did edit the original article and am continuing to do so. I hope one of the admins will merge this soon so that your fork doesn't become a problem. --Mcorazao (talk) 20:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

So go and ask one. Also, you are the one creating a content fork. I edited the original article and didn't create a new one as you did. You can always edit the original article too, you know. --Polaron | Talk 20:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I've merged the article histories (but not the talk pages) to El Paso–Juárez region (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Any further move discussion should take place pursuant to WP:Requested moves.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:AIV Backlog

Resolved

 – Empty now --Taelus (talk) 21:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:AIV is developing a bit of a backlog. Can a few admins please stop by? Thanks! --ElKevbo (talk) 20:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sess44

Resolved

 – User blocked for 24 hours for going waaaaay over the line. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 21:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sess44 (talk · contribs) - While not liking an annoying editor such as I is understandable, this seems to be a bit overboard. Editor has made a few useful edits. Notified the editor of this section.- Sinneed 21:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

User:DBaba

DBaba (talk · contribs) is again pushing his POV at Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, and disregards my objections stated at length on the talk page. He has admitted in clear words to having a POV against Goldstein in [21] and [22]. I have recommended him to refrain from editing this article because of that. [23] He states himself that he insists on editing against my reasonable objections. [24] In the past he has accused me of being racist here on wp:ani [25] I see no option but to ban this user from this specific article, because in contrast to other editors involved, he does not care for consensus seeking. Debresser (talk) 21:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Debresser has been obstructing progress at that page. I have tried to reason with him. It is not my intention to edit war, I only thought that, if treated with cool reason and legitimate edits, he would let it go. His interest in the page stems from his association with the Chabad movement, which has often sympathized with the motive of the killer in question, and proffered revisionist historical views in defense of the massacre;[26] Debresser has stated in the past that his role of rabbi in the movement gives him a "POV towards Chabad".[27] I think his edits bear this out quite clearly. The intensity of his emotional involvement with the page his caused him in some cases to misread edits and difs and statements by me, including some he is referencing here (e.g., I "admitted in clear words to having a POV").

I didn't quite call him a racist, despite his introducing sources associated with the racist Kach party ([28] see hyperlinks on page of that ref), and his suggestion that I must be an Arab.[29] It is a damned tragedy, Wikipedia's treatment of these murders, and the shame of it is that Debresser is only the most prominent obstacle to doing justice to the events...

We do need help. Thanks, DBaba (talk) 22:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Why DBaba hammers on about my "association with the Chabad movement" I have no idea. I find that quite discriminatory. My religion has nothing to do with this. I demand action against this discriminatory editor.

I have not suggested that DBaba is Arab. I have asked him. It would be a possible explanation for his strong POV.

DBaba's edits are POV and disregard reasonable objections presently under discussion on the talk page. That is called edit warring and POV pushing. In view of this I see no other option but to (temporarily) ban this editor from this article. Debresser (talk) 10:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

He has "no idea", I must just be discriminatory. DBaba (talk) 14:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Debresser, your diffs do not support your accusations that DBaba has "admitted in clear words to having a POV"; very much the opposite. I see DBaba appealing to sources and asking that the text accurately reflect the sources. It reflects very poorly on you to yet again dig up that old ANI thread where DBaba called you an "ethnonationalist". He apologized, and you accepted. For you to bring that up again shows that you hold grudges and can't let things go, and want to stir the pot. I very strongly suggest you drop this. Also, if you insist that DBaba would have a strong POV because he is an Arab, you're just giving strength to the idea that you might be a racist, so I'd suggest dropping that line of reasoning as well.

As to DBaba, the Chabad Movement arbitration ended with no proposed remedies, and nothing actionable; in essence it was a non-issue. Bringing that up to paint editors in a poor light is counter-productive, it's like calling someone a criminal for going to trial when a judge dismissed the case as having no merit. -- Atama頭 18:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Since you don't see DBaba's POV in the diffs I provided I shall quote (from those same diffs): 1. And as far as "putting Goldstein in a bad light", well, wow, I guess I did not know there was a neutral alternative. 2. it is important to articulate vividly this difference, as many extremists, including some affiliated with your own Chabad movement, have promoted and held sympathetic views of the killer. Which implies that DBaba sees it as imperative to prevent readers from forming a positive opinion about Goldstein. BTW, the reference to Chabad is unsourced and was made only to insinuate I have a POV myself.

As to my grudge. I was only showing you a pattern of POV and agressive/discriminatory edits by DBaba, without implying any personal grudge. It is precisely this which I come to show here, and therefore the link to that old discussion was relevant. In addition, technically, although he appologised initially, he continued later in the same discussion with other insulting remarks in the same vein. Debresser (talk) 21:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I never said DBaba doesn't use sources. I explained on the talk page at length that he copies them too much, in fact. We don't have to copy every phrase written or spoken about a subject into that subject's article. Only what is relevant to make the point. Just like we don't need to quote every positive/negative review of a movie e.g. And we should definitely not blindly use the same words these sources do, which 1. may be written with a certain POV in the back (or front) of the writer's (journalist's) mind, and 2. is more often than not not encyclopedical (news items e.g.) This is explicitely in my talk page posts and should be obvious to any editor on Wikipedia. Debresser (talk) 08:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

DBaba should remember that WP:NPOV is one of the most important policies on Wikipedia. I do agree that statements like "I guess I did not know there was a neutral alternative" are troubling. Neutrality isn't something to laugh off or dismiss, it's a cornerstone of the project, and people who don't make every effort to treat subjects with neutrality can't edit here. I still think that questioning a person's motives because of ethnicity (being Arab) or religion (following Chabad) is very wrong and both of you are admonished on that point. Focus on improving the content of the articles, not each other. You'll never get anywhere if you continue down that path, and the both of you may end up with topic bans or even site bans if this escalates. -- Atama頭 19:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes of course. It was only a question, and came in the process of a civil conversation on my talk page. Nothing offensive or accusing. At least I did not intend it that way, and I think and hope DBaba understood that. It is the POV pushing issue and the evident decision to ignore a consensus seeking process on the article talk page (called more straightforeward "edit warring") which worry me here. Debresser (talk) 21:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The statement that I made indicates that the neutral depiction of a mass murderer is necessarily a 'bad light' (unless you really really hate Arabs, of course). I stated that to depict a mass murderer in a 'good light' would necessitate the violation of neutrality. I was defending Wikipedia's standard of neutrality in that statement, not deprecating it.

Is there anyone who wants to take the initiative to examine Debresser's behavior at Cave of the Patriarchs massacre? It's quite something. All of this exchange is a cloak for his violation of the spirit of Wikipedia in pursuit of nationalist ends. The conflict between Debresser and I is a result of me adding cited material, and him blanking it and claiming it is unimportant or irrelevant, or POV despite the fact I only ever use the language from the sources themselves. His taking me here to ANI is only part of the project of obstruction he is engaging in at that page; he resorted to this only because he realized how doomed he was on the talk page. DBaba (talk) 23:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You are kindly requested to not make assumptions as to what I realise. So far, I am quite content with the measure I have been able to refute your arguments. Debresser (talk) 01:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Is this a sock revealed by mistake?

Resolved

 – Not an AN/I issue. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 22:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

revealing diff, Special:Contributions/198.185.66.249 , Special:Contributions/Sulmues , historyMegistias (talk) 21:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The IP has no blocks, but the account 5.Megistias (talk) 21:14, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That is my IP. I edited unlogged, then realized it and signed off. --sulmues (talk) 21:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ip user

Resolved

 – Not the correct venue for this report. Please go to WP:AIV or WP:RFPP. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 22:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This IP has been vandalizing pages, and so on, user, talk page, historyMegistias (talk) 21:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Please file a report at WP:AIV to report the IP for vandalism across multiple pages or WP:RFPP to have a single page protected if the vandalism is confined. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 22:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Persistent vandalisam of NLB League article by unregistered user

Resolved

 – Not the correct venue for this report. Please go to WP:AIV or WP:RFPP. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 22:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

User at IP 94.189.255.31 persistently modifies MVP information. To ensure this is not a content issue, a link to the appropriate source was provided, to no avail. Maybe a temporary, short-term ban on edits of article by non-registered users would be appropriate?Miden (talk) 22:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Please file a report at WP:AIV to report the IP for vandalism across multiple pages or WP:RFPP to have a single page protected if the vandalism is confined. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 22:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Eyes requested

It appears that this article on a California company may be part of that company's pre-IPO publicity blitz. The company's website, linked from the article, shows a countdown clock for tomorrow at 9:00 am local time. Given that just a few contributors wrote most of the article over the past few days, is this cause for concern? User:LeadSongDog come howl 21:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It has some POV issues. I tagged it and I plan on letting it sit until they forget about it and just go to work. I'm going to notify the editors of neutrality though. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This was interesting. A tech startup about to roll out an energy product, very hush-hush about what it is. They've already raised $400 million in venture capital but haven't offered stock yet. The company article was created 3 days ago with cherry picked quotes and a coatracked mention of NASA in relation to the CEO. Only a single sentence of criticism at the very end. Possible astroturfing campaign: actual press coverage was mixed; each time I added a source that mentioned skepticism an IP editor shuffled or added material so each paragraph ended in warm glowing praise. Managed to get it balanced though. It turns out a writer from Wired located a 2009 patent award which names the possible secret ingredient...now nominated at DYK as Template_talk:Did_you_know#Bloom_Energy:

• ... that Bloom Energy was awarded a patent in 2009 for a power device that utilizes yttria-stabilized zirconia?

Created/expanded by Tri400, 58.179.137.71, and Durova. Nominated by Durova. Durova⁴¹² 07:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
The great big press conference with The Governator is scheduled for 9am tomorrow. It might be kinda fun if this DYK runs on the main page to coincide. ;) Durova⁴¹² 07:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC) whistles innocently

Here is an article about the product. Definitely timely to have the DYK, because that's either going to be a revolutionary product, or a famous bust. -- Atama頭 19:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The hook is already approved. Just needs an admin to put it into the queue. Durova⁴¹² 23:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

And it's in, although I personally think that having it occur in the DYK loop at exactly the same time as the announcement would be pretty cool. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually the press conference happened about nine hours ago. Still quite close. Thanks for the help; it also yielded a very fun blog post.[30] Probably no need to block the SPA IP that was POV pushing and making personal attacks; the DYK notice plus summary about page view statistics seems more eloquent. ;) Cheers, Durova⁴¹² 02:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User:R12056 again

Resolved

Can someone revoke this user's Twinkle access? I can't find the other thread here at ANI on him (forgive me if mistaken), but his excessive requests to RFPP that lead to the block, and most recently, CSD/MfD nominations of his usertalk/userpage have all been done, with Twinkle, which make it way easier to do such things. Could someone blacklist him from twinkle? Thanks. Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The previous thread is here. —DoRD (?) (talk) 03:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Judging from his recent edits, I think he wants to get gone. I don't think any other admin action is needed here. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 03:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the input. Connormah (talk | contribs) 04:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

SockPuppet/Vandalism

Resolved

 – all blocked by NuclearWarfare Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello,

I hate to be abrupt like this, but I need something taken care of fast. Someone is rapidly creating accounts all over the board and has targeted me, my user page, and WikiProject Bob Dylan. These users: Lined-papier (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (vandalized WP:DYLAN page); Hail Hail Radiohead (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (vandalized my user page) Commie-copulation (AKA Commie-F*CKER) (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This has all occured within ten minutes. Please look into these accounts - they've disrupted enough, and I'd like them blocked so I can get back to editing. I'll post back with more examples when I have time. Many thanks for your understanding. - I.M.S. (talk) 03:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Look at this history, this edit. - I.M.S. (talk) 03:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested_articles#Topic_areas_in_applied_arts_and_sciences has been vandalized

Resolved

 – Minor vandalism, easily fixed. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 04:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles#Topic_areas_in_applied_arts_and_sciences

All the sections appear corrupted in some way. Click on any of the topics to see. -- Dougher (talk) 04:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It was just some random IP vandalism on Wikipedia:Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences. It's fixed now. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 04:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Newman Luke

Newman Luke (talk · contribs) is a it again. In disregard of previous discussions here and on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Judaism#User:Newman_Luke and the warning on his talk page, he made 89 (!) edits to Jewish views on marriage today, completely rewriting the article, with no prior discussion. Debresser (talk) 15:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

An RfC has been filed Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Newman Luke. -- Avi (talk) 17:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

In view of that it is probable best to close this thread. Debresser (talk) 21:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

A block may be needed to protect the project

Despite being discussed many times here, on wikiproject talk pages, on his own talk page, and despite being the subject of an RfC, Newman Luke (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) is at it again making unilateral massive changes to articles and disregarding the consensus of AfDs. Can an uninvolved admin please look at his contributions and see if measures need to be taken to maintain the projects integrity? Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 02:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I subscribe to this. He seems to be on some kind of attack... [31], [32], [33]Debresser (talk) 10:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The Blue Cross - COI and edit warring

Looking at the last few edits at The Blue Cross and Northiam, there appears to be a small ongoing edit war. One user, claiming to represent the Blue Cross is removing details of a current news event [34] which an anon IP is reinstating [35]. The addition seems to be a copyvio of the article source.

In my opinion, it appears to be a personal protest spilling over into Wikipedia. There is conflict of interest, the removed text is poorly cited and I cannot decide what action to take. I have come here hoping to have a more experienced editor have a look Putney Bridge (talk) 01:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I live in the region, so can give some background here. It has been reported on regional TV that Blue Cross are considering the closure of their centre at Northiam and subsequent sale of the land. There has been much criticism locally of this plan. Whether or not this puts Blue Cross in a good light, it should be included in the articles. Mjroots (talk) 06:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Obviously the reverted edit is bad, since it cites only a primary source, but if sourced properly it might well be considered significant. Guy (Help!) 08:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I've now notified both parties, and will remind PB about the need to do so. Mjroots (talk) 08:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Adi Da, User Tao2911, reverting, insulting other users, WP:Own, WP:Point

User Tao2911 has been making it very difficult for progress to be made on the Adi Da article. He reverts edits, even after consensus has been reached among other editors in the article. On top of this, whenever proposals are made for new edits, or even when simple questions are asked, he repeatedly insults other editors in Talk:Adi Da. His tone is angry and aggressive, and I feel that it is obstructing the editorial process of this article, at this point. Other editors feel the same way. For this reason, I am requesting Administrator Intervention. WP:Own and WP:Point, are also concerns.

Previous complaints against this user include: August/Sept 2009, February 2010 (Section 88: Outside View), February 2010, and February 2010

Thank you.--Devanagari108 (talk) 05:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Below are some diffs showing contentious behaviour; these are just from this evening. It is like this every time he participates. There is also a possible sock puppet: User:Chaschap. I have notified Tao2911 of this complaint.

• Changes headers of sections in an attempt to scuttle reasonable discussion occuring on the talk page [[36]]
• Takes ownership of page [[37]]
• re-added material that was removed through consensus [[38]]
• Takes ownership of page [[39]]
• Tries to scuttle sensible content discussion by making threats [[40]]
• Questions Diannaa's right to edit the article [[41]]
• Insulting remark to Jason [[42]]

Perhaps an administrator could have a look, with an eye towards instituting a ban of this user. Thank you. Sincerely, --Diannaa ^TALK 05:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

This looks to me to be essentially a content issue that's become complicated by adherents to the subject's religious teaching objecting to elements of the article. There may be some issues with WP:OWN, but in another light these could also be seen as an attempt to ensure the article isn't whitewashed into becoming a mere puff-piece. The complaints and diffs linked above don't really support the contention that Tao2911's editing is the problem it's being presented as.

It's true that Tao2911 has been combative and less than civil on occasion (although not egregiously so in my opinion); they have already been cautioned about this and will face sanctions if it continues. There has also been some edit warring from a number of editors; all parties please note that this can lead to sanctions on any involved editor and also note that reverting edits made against consensus is not an exception to WP:3RR. I've protected the page for a week to allow discussion to continue without editors worrying about what's happening on the article. However, I see nothing else that would require admin action and certainly nothing that would support a ban on Tao2911. I also note that the parties have made a request for mediation, which was accepted two days ago. Given that, I don't believe this ANI report was particularly well-timed; instead I suggest letting the mediation run its course and seeing how things develop from there. EyeSerene^talk 10:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, Eyeserene. The parties were not aware that the request had been accepted. Thank you for pointing it out. I am filing the sock puppet report on the appropriate forum. --Diannaa ^TALK 13:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I forgot to mention that. I meant to suggest that you take the sock stuff to WP:SSP (which you obviously have/are); for what it's worth, there does seem to be enough similarity to justify a report, but not enough for me to act unilaterally per WP:DUCK. If an editor has been tempted to sock, that would be both unwise and unfortunate; if it's proven then the sock will be blocked and the main account's credibility will inevitably suffer. EyeSerene^talk 14:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested move: Mary, Queen of Scots

Resolved

 – Mary I of Scotland moved to Mary, Queen of Scots

• Despite an overwhelming consensus that the article on Mary, Queen of Scots, should be at the title "Mary, Queen of Scots", and an overwhelming number of reliable sources that use the term, the requested move at the talk page has been closed as "no consensus" by an involved party who has contributed to the debate.[43][44]
• I wish to request that the discussion be reopened, and closed by an uninvolved administrator. DrKiernan (talk) 11:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
• OK, sorry. I have reverted the closure. Counting boldface tabs shows 14 support / 4 oppose, and there is much inconclusive discussion, some of which expresses opinions for "oppose". I had closed it as "no concensus after 15 days". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I've closed it as a fairly clear consensus to move under WP:NCROY #2. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Bojan174

This user has twice created an article about Nemanja Nikolic which has twice been speedily deleted under criteria A7. He has now recreated the article on his own userpage and then moved his/her userpage to Nemanja Nikolic painter. Thus any CSD waring appears on the talk page of the article rather than a user page. I had previously removed a redirect from the user page to one of the previous incarnations of the article but am unsure how to proceed here to propose a further CSD for the article and warn the user. NtheP (talk) 16:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I moved back the page to User:Bojan174 for now. --Cyclopia^talk 17:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

...and the editor moved it back again when I was trying to notice him/her of this AN/I discussion. Hmmm. --Cyclopia^talk 17:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I moved it back (twice) and left a note on his page. --Smashville^talk 17:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Repeated copvios on Ottawa Police Service

Resolved

 – Was already semiprotected.

Durova⁴¹² 22:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

72.1.194.43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), a possible COI editor, has been repeatedly inserting copyright violations into Ottawa Police Service. I don't detect a malicious intent to harm the article, just unfamiliarity with WP policies, so his/her actions are probably technically not vandalism. Nevertheless, the editor will not pay attention to his/her talk page, so I'm requesting a temporary block so that the article can be sorted out. At present the editor's repeated reinsertion of copyvios and unsourced contributions are making that impossible. --Rrburke^ekrubrR 20:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

An enthusiastic IP - 72.1.194.43 (talk · contribs) - has been copying the Ottawa Police Service website into the article on a wholesale basis. It's continued after warnings and the article's a mess. I could block for massive copyvio and remain within policy, but it'd be better if someone who hadn't been editing the article and engaging the editor (unresponsive so far) was to deal with it. I blocked the IP a while back for spamming the OPS Gift Shop in the article, of all things. I suspect a volunteer is getting too carried away. Acroterion _(talk) 20:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotection, anyone? Durova⁴¹² 17:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, I thought I had forgotten something. Semied two days ago last night, for a month. I expect this marks it as resolved for now. MLauba (talk) 17:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC) my sense of time is a bit off these days... I blame internet time, where days pass twice as fast. MLauba (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Please block me at once

Resolved

 – Obliged by User:Nakon. - 2/0 (cont.) 22:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Please waste no time in doing this. I am using a public IP address. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by I am useless (talk • contribs) 22:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Seems like an incredible waste of time to create an account to get it banned. Are you trying to prevent that IP address from being used for evil? --King Öomie 22:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

And we waste even more time by catering to this sort of silliness. Why do we bother? Bielle (talk) 00:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this request should have been honored. This sounds to me like a prank where someone snuck over to the computer of an innocent party and got them blocked. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Has a CU investigated this? → ROUX ₪ 19:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Brews ohare block review

Resolved

 – Misfiled request. The community does not review arbitration actions. Arbitration enforcement appeals go to the Arbitration Committee.

Durova⁴¹² 22:31, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

---

This user was blocked for a AE sanction violation. He was blocked by someone not in Arbcom and for reasons that seem to be trivial. He has requested unblock under the claim that he wasn't violating his sanctions. It hasn't been reviewed for 2 days. I Strongly recommend a lift of the block or a review by a impartial admin that will rule on the merits rather then let someone who was atempting to aact in good faith hanging. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 01:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I am actively considering this block; but I am also awaiting comment by Sandstein, the blocking administrator. AGK 01:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Support unblock.--Mbz1 (talk) 01:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Support unblock (sandstein acted correctly, but it is an unusual case).--Likebox (talk) 03:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose unblock. FWIW, I don't see how Brews has not violated his restriction, so I'm not sure why he should be unblocked. It may have been well-intentioned, and I think allowances can and should be made at the beginning phases of enforcement (and many allowances were made after the case closed). But there's a limit to everything. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I was asked by email to clarify my view. I did consider voicing a view of lifting the block as time served as I felt it was well-intentioned. But some of the comments I'm reading, both here and on Brews ohare's talk page, make it clear to me that an unblock would be taken the wrong way and would prove dangerous to well-imposed blocks by administrators. Sandstein's block was the means of enforcing an existing sanction, it wasn't against the wider community opinion, and in such circumstances, was the correct response to the AE request. There was a very simple way to convince me that the block is worthy of at least being lifted as time served, but jointly, the editors involved (including Brews) managed to do the total opposite. My opinion is unchanged. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to refer to my AE block rationale. I've not, so far, heard an argument why that rationale was wrong. While I am unfamiliar with the circumstances under which the arbitral topic ban and Tznkai's supplemental sanctions were imposed, it appears to me that their clear intent was to make Brews ohare (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) disengage from the disputes he had previously habitually engaged in. In the current discussion among arbitrators at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment#Request to amend prior case: Speed of Light, all participating arbitrators have declined to grant a request to lift the topic ban, believing that it is still needed. I am therefore opposed to lifting this block. Evaluating administrators should consider this motion before lifting it.  Sandstein  06:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sandstein, It's far from clear what ARBCOM's intent was when they first imposed the sanctions on Brews ohare, and this lack of clarity has been confirmed by the recent failure of the arbitrators to engage on the issue at the still ongoing 'appeal', in the face of considerable community consensus to lift the sanctions [45]. There was considerable community opposition to your blocking action and you archived the thread before the discussions were finished. You even removed the comments of one editor on the grounds that you had archived the discussion a few minutes earlier[46]. That was very high handed behaviour on your part. The view was expressed on that thread that the entire enforcement action was only brought about as a means of settling private scores in relation to the ongoing appeal. David Tombe (talk) 07:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I should make it clear at the outset that I have no real interest in this. I'm simply curious as to the reason for mentioning the "the current discussion among arbitrators at 'Speed of Light'"? I'm only asking because that seems like such an obvious non sequitor, based on the way that it's written above. Thanks!
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 08:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The arbitrator discussion is relevant because it concerns a request to lift the topic ban on Brews ohare that he violated in this instance.  Sandstein  08:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

David, I do not see anything like "considerable community consensus" to lift the sanctions. Brews was a highly disruptive influence on some articles and caused a lot of trouble, and he appears to be largely unrepentant (on the gorunds that he remains firmly convinced that he is right and the rest of the world wrong) so keeping him away from his hot-button topics is a great way of achieving that while allowing him to continue to contribute to Wikipedia. I have no real opinion on the current block but I do strongly support the arbitration sanction. Guy (Help!) 08:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Ohm's Law, I think that a major part of the problem is that there hasn't actually been anything that could be properly described as a discussion amongst the arbitrators at 'speed of light', at least not one that we have all been privy to. This whole problem could be resolved if ARBCOM would step in and clarify exactly what they meant when they said that Brews was forbidden to discuss physics related topics. Did they mean that he was forbidden from discussing topics that are connected with physics? Or did they mean that he is forbidden from discussing non-physics topics in conversations that arose as a secondary effect of physics discussions by other people in which Brews wasn't involved. I would have taken it to have meant the former. I believe that it is only a cheap play on words to suggest that it could have meant the latter. At any rate, it would be a great help to everybody concerned if ARBCOM would answer my request to clarify this issue. David Tombe (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

David Tombe, your continued comments here probably violate your restriction from "beginning or commenting on threads on all administrative boards which involve or derive from disputes stemming from physics-related content, or meta-discussion (policy, guidelines, essays, polls, RfCs and the like) concerning the editing of scientific topics in general, or physics in particular", as logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light#Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions, but I will leave that determination and any sanction to other admins.  Sandstein  08:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sandstein, As a man who likes to enforce the letter of the law, I think you ought to know that there was not a single basis in the letter of the law that allowed Tzntai to instigate that supplemental ban on me in the first place. Under the letter of the law, Tzntai's supplemental ban is therefore illegal. Tzntai's supplemental ban was instigated on the false premises that I had broken my terms of probation when I raised an AN/I thread about a certain matter. That matter was cleared up amicably with the person involved who even came to my defence at the relevant arbitration enforcement action and pointed out that I had not breached any of my sanctions. Tzntai nevertheless went ahead and imposed his supplemental ban which is totally contrary to any natural justice, and which was instigated illegally on the back of a totally dishonest interpretation of the facts, and contrary to the consensus expressed on the relevant AE thread. Tzntai's supplemental ban was actually a retrospective attempt to outlaw the actions which he had hoped to be able to punish me for in the first instant, but which were in actual fact not actionable. Tzntai moved the goal posts.

But lets' not take the low road in these issues. The main issue here is that Brews ohare has been blocked for a week on a totally frivolous premise, and for the sole purpose of allowing Headbomb to settle a private score in relation to the ongoing appeal to have Brews's sanctions lifted. It was very bad timing for such an enforcement action. And Brews was giving good faith advice to the parties in a dispute which arose between Likebox who instigated the appeal, and Headbomb who was the most vocal opponent of the appeal.

I believe that you have over reacted on this occasion. It should not be too difficult for you to reverse your decision for the sake of harmony and lift the block on Brews.

Guy, I am not going to comment on the issue of whether Brews was right or wrong on the physics issue. You have stated your own opinion that he was wrong. Brews and I are not allowed to comment because we have been gagged. Come back and ask me that question again some time in the future when there is a more level playing field in operation. On the issue of consensus, you obviously didn't read the case very well. There were seven editors asking for a total lifting of the sanctions, and most of the rest agreed to a relaxation of the sanctions. David Tombe (talk) 09:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Endorse block I don't see any problem with the block by Sandstein enforcing a topic ban placed by arbcom, that User:Brews ohare quite clearly violated. Given that this is not his first block for such violations, and the fact that the topic area of the ban was clearly stated by arbcom, and made even more explicit by User:Tznkai, I don't see any justification for shortening of the 1 week block either. Secondly, an appeal to modify the topic ban was recently rejected unanimously by all participating arbitrators, and I think the constant rehashing of the same disputes by the same set of editors at multiple venues is beginning to get disruptive (in User:David Tombe's case it's arguably violating a topic ban placed as a result of the same arbcom case). Abecedare (talk) 09:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

In general, topic ban and restrictions are broadly based and content based. Broadly based means edits about that topic are not allowed. Content based in that the edit self is questioned. For example, if someone's topic banned in the area US Politicians, editing an article about a porn star is not a violation. Making an edit that links the porn star to a US Politician IS a violation of that topic ban, even though the porn star is not normally considered in that area. I will recuse in determining whether this edit was a violation of the topic restrictions (as this likely will be back at ArbCom at some point), however, I would like to remind all that a full and complete discussion must be taken before undoing any action taken as a ArbCom Enforcement of a sanction. SirFozzie (talk) 12:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Support modifying block to time served I have already given my reasons elsewhere so I will not repeat them here. The violation, if any, was small. We live in a panopticon here. Every action by any editor is visible and scrutinised relentlessly in Wikipedia and anywhere on the Internet for that matter. More so of a stigmatised editor like Brews. I have made my straitjacket and The Iron Shroud analogies already so they will not be repeated here. I will add another one however, from The Prisoner. The white bubble will rise every time from the water as soon as there is an escape attempt by Number 6, sorry I meant Brews, from the village of sanctions. So the security and safety of Wikipedia are safe and guaranteed. Given the low level of the current infraction, the only thing at risk here is the orthodox interpretation of the rules. This is my last comment on the subject. I came to discuss Brews' plea in good faith but I refuse to engage in further discussion with walls. The Wall of Orthodoxy has been erected as a means to debate. I feel that I have nothing more to contribute here. In closing I wish to thank AGK for at least trying to see past the wall. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 13:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Not only unblock him, but also overrule ArbCom and immediately lift the topic ban. Guy wrote above: "keeping him away from his hot-button topics is a great way of achieving that while allowing him to continue to contribute to Wikipedia". This is big misunderstanding. Physics was all he used to contribute to, not surprising for an engineering professor. Now, of all the things he did within physics, it were only a few topics on which he is not an expert that were causing problems. These problems were simply that he dominated the talk pages too much. It really didn't have much to do with him being wrong on the issue. Even if you are right, if most other editors disagree, you have to accept that. Brews had difficulties doing that. He is now editing other topics on which he isn't an expert either and that without cousing any trouble. So, he has learned his lesson and should be let back to his areas of expertise on which the prospect of him causing trouble should be even less than on the topics he now contributes too. Count Iblis (talk) 16:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• The same accounts show up time and again to help Brews ohare promulgate disruption of multiple pages on Wikipedia. When will we be ready to put an end to this disruption? Is the volume of beneficial editing sufficient to justify all this overhead to the project? Please keep the block in place, and consider enforcement action against David Tombe. Jehochman ^Brrr 16:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't think so. I am not one of these accounts Jehochman. And I am surprised to hear this from you.I always considered you a thoughtful and fair admin. You have to admit this transgression is a light one. Blocking Brews for a week seems excessive. That's what drew me into this bitter mess. Rest assured I hate these conflicts with a passion. But I also hate persecution. So no. Please do not dismiss me as one of the Brews pack, whatever that may mean. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 20:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Support unblock. Count Iblis has spoken well.Clayt85 (talk) 16:44, 25 February 2010 (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.

MarkAldred45

MarkAldred45 (talk · contribs), previously editing as 70.126.138.182 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) until he was blocked for abusive language is refusing to discuss an edit and laying out abuse on Charly. Also being abusive to a lesser extent on A Date With The Health Inspector and The Passion of Reverend Ruckus. GDallimore (Talk) 13:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I've blocked them for 48 hours for the attacks and edit warring. You should be aware that I considered blocking you too; the history of Charly for the past few days isn't pretty and you've crossed WP:3RR yourself. Given the length of time you've been here you should have known better than to get into a revert war, so take this as a warning that further reversion from either party will lead to more blocks. MarkAldred45's edits are most definitely not obvious vandalism (or copyvios, illegal material or BLP violations), and the three revert rule has no other exceptions. I appreciate that it's difficult dealing with opinionated editors, but please try to follow the advice on WP:BRD. If the other party refuses to discuss constructively, follow dispute resolution channels and if necessary seek admin intervention for behvaioural issues. EyeSerene^talk 15:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's clear dispute resolution would never have worked. He is now evading the block as 95.211.27.5 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). GDallimore (Talk) 19:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, so much for WP:AGF :) I've semiprotected the article for a couple of weeks and blocked the IP. EyeSerene^talk 20:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Cool. It's a low traffic article anyway ona topic with zero decent sources despite being an oscar winning film, so two weeks protection will do no harm! GDallimore (Talk) 21:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Why does Wikipedia keep thinking I'm "Doughnuthead"?

Moved here from WP:RD/C by User:Mo ainm

Today, Wikipedia declined to allow me to add some comments to this page, indicating that they think I am someone called "Doughnuthead". I hope it wasnt just a gratitous insult. This "Doughnuthead" has been blocked until the 19th. of March.

My questions are: 1) why is not Wikipedia aware that many ISPs share IP addresses among many users, and allocate them at random when a new session starts? Thus if you block such an IP address, you simply inconvenience many innocent users, while "Doughnuthead" or whoever is off using many other IP addresses. I thought this had been common knowledge for years. Isnt blocking the IP address in addition to the user-name over doing it?

2) I turned my modem off for several seconds, then turned it on again to get another IP address, and also cleared cookies. Yet you still thought I was "Doughnuthead". So I repeated the proceedure and deleted history as well. Now you've stopped calling me "Doughnuthead". So my second question is, what does Wikipedia store on the user's computer computer apart from Cookies? If it looks at past history, isnt this an invasion of privacy?

I did try to draw your attention to the fact that I was not "Doughnuthead" while Wikipedia thought I was. I was told to leave a comment on "Doughnuthead"'s talk page, which was impossible to do as I'm not that person and therefore I cannot log in as them to leave a comment. Thanks 78.146.70.111 (talk) 14:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

1) Wikipedia admins are aware of this. But sometimes in extreme cases entire ranges of IPs are blocked.

2) An entire range of IPs are blocked. Wikipedia is not secretly tagging your computer beyond the normal login cookie.

APL (talk) 17:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Could you just register an actually account perhaps, rather than editing via IP? It sounds like you're being hit by Mr. Donut's autoblock. Tarc (talk) 18:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

78.146 - for future reference, you can leave a message on any user's talkpage. You don't need to be them to do that. The only exception would be in the unusual circumstance that the talkpage was protected for some reasonElen of the Roads (talk) 19:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I couldnt do that earlier today. 78.147.93.182 (talk) 20:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Is this "block" going to be lifted now? If a whole range of IP addresses have been blocked, then its a "guilty until proved innocent" strategy, where you arrest everyone in town. 78.147.93.182 (talk) 20:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

That isn't quite the strategy. WP has limited tools to protect itself. IP address range blocks cause collateral damage, and are avoided when practical. Wikipedia:Why create an account?#Blocked? should provide a way for an account to be created for you that would allow you to edit. You may also find it easier to go to another location, create your account there. I, for example, had to use a library, as the range of IP addresses my ISP provided me was blocked. Hope this helps.- Sinneed 20:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The IP addresses in the sockpuppet category are in several different ranges, so a range block is unlikely, however your ISP may allocate specific IP addresses to areas or groups of users, this could be another explanation. If you are attempting to edit the same article, it's also possible that the page with the autoblock message is in your browser's cache. Wikipedia would not be able to read this, but it could appear that your IP address is blocked when it is not. snigbrook (talk) 01:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Armenhammer11

Resolved

 – User pointed towards OTRS. NW (Talk) 23:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

This editor was making edits to the page Christian Audigier. He was making edits such as blanking the page or making edits that could be challenged and not referencing them. Myself and another editor reverted them because of this and when reverting one edit I noticed that the user put in the edit summary that he worked for this person. I sent the user a message telling him that it is recommended that he does not edit articles he is associated with and that they read WP:OR and WP:COI.

In reply the user has sent me this message:

hello there, I've been trying to remove the Christian Audigier page because it contains incorrect information, not to mention slanderous comments, ie "Deuches" and a lot of other innappropriate statements. His birthday is wrong, his place of birth and overall summary is awful. I work in marketing at Ed Hardy corporate, and my responsibility and focus is to maintain a proper on-line presence. Legal has asked me to get involved in this or they will. Please make sure you remove and keep the wiki page removed until we upload a new bio and ref info.

Thank you.

Armen Ohannesian (Removed)

As you can see, he is now threatening legal action saying part of the article is libellous and has asked me to blank the page and keep the Wikipedia page whilst it's sorted out???? I don't have the authority to remove Wikipedia pages and I certainly have no intention of blanking them. I've advised the user of this but am also advising yourselves as he's threatening legal action. --5 albert square (talk) 22:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Someone as directed him to WP:OTRS. I think its best to let that process play out. Of course he could be blocked for making a legal threat WP:LEGAL but I chose not to do so at this moment. Let's see what happens. JodyB _talk 23:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Need an oversighter to remove personal info from this post, and this should be sent to (arbcom?) for action ASAP. Frmatt (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

If you see material that you think qualifies for oversight, please remove it immediately, then request suppression. This minimises the amount of collateral damage we inflict when suppressing the material. Nonetheless, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Happy‑melon 23:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Happy Melon, yes normally I would've removed any material that I think is libellous but as I don't understand what the comment means and I can't see anything else libellous in the article that's why I let it be. I've never even heard of this person before all this --5 albert square (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Happy Melon's comment was directed at me, he (very correctly) told me that I should have removed the personal contact info (which violates WP:OUT) before flagging it for immediate action by an oversighter. Other than posting the info here, you've done nothing wrong, thanks for bringing it to the attention of other people! Frmatt (talk) 00:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Article protection on General of the Armies

Resolved

 – article protectedJodyB _talk 23:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

We need an emergency protection on General of the Armies until we can sort things out with a certain user User:Corwin8 who is becoming disruptive. Corwin appeared on the article a few days ago, professing that Washington was a seven star general, superior in rank to John Pershing [47]. After much negotiating with this user from four other editors, Corwin backed down about this and agreed to work with others. The entire article was rewritten, incorporating much of the suggestions from both sides in the dispute. A day later, Corwin made some minor changes, all of which were fine, but then today launched into a major edit spree where the user altered the order of the article, to place George Washington's section before all others the user appears to have a great amount of respect for Washington and appears to want the article to be mostly about him). He also removed an agreed upon warning notice that no attempt should be made to state Washington was a seven star general [48] The user also began to state that Pershing wasn't "really" a General of the Armies since no promotion order was ever located (two sources for this were found in about five minutes). Once sources were added, Washington put back in the correct chronological order, Corwin reverted all the changes and altered the article again to state Washington was a General of the Armies in 1776 [49]. He also launched into an angry rant on the talk page [50] The 1776 reference is completely against every source in the article, including an in-line citation from Wiki-Source. At this point, this is no longer a content dispute - this is disruption of an article, inserting of heavy POV edits, and a refusal to cooperate with others. I ask that the article be protected to the last agreed upon version[51] which incorporates the correct references in the correct historical order. We can then work with Corwin to find out why the user is behaving this way. Thank you! -OberRanks (talk) 23:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User reverted again to the POV version [52], now at the fringe of breaking 3RR. Also cleared the angry statement from the talk page [53], apparently realizing it was a violation of WP:NPA (which doesn't change the fact the attack was made). -OberRanks (talk) 23:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Protected. Work it out on the talk page and let me know if you need help. JodyB _talk 23:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It would be helpful if we could restore the article to the last good version reached by consensus since the current version contains unsourced POV and OR statements, but I totally understand if it must stay at the current version. -OberRanks (talk) 23:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't you know that admins always restore the wrong version? They teach us that in Admin 101. JodyB _talk 23:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Dwanyewest

The above mentioned user has done a number of questionable things associated with a flurry of recent AfD nominations:

• Canvassing: He is inviting those who do not like these particular articles to the discussions. See also this request that someone who seems to be arguing to delete in one of the discussions come join two others Dwaynewest nominated.
• Indiscriminate copying and pasting of comments: Regarding this reply, User:Dwanyewest has actually posted that exact same "It fails..." line across a host of Afds: see for example [54], [55] (the MAIN villain in a series with multiple episode appearances and that was made into an action figure that appears on a top ten list), [56] (one of the principal locations of the He-Man universe with appearances on television, in cartoon booklets, and as at least one playset that yes, I still have somewhere...), [57], [58], [59], etc. In fact, he nominated about THIRTY articles listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Fictional elements from the C.O.P.S. and Masters of the Universe franchises with near copy and paste nominations. Writing the exact same worded nominations and subsequent comments for episodes, characters, and locations does not feel right. These are not the same things. Moreover, the characters and locations vary considerably one from the other, i.e. how could the same worded argument possibly apply to a henchman with no action figure and who appears in one episode versus the main villain with multiple episodes versus the main villain's headquarters that also appears in comics and as a playset and especially when checking Google Books, these same characters and locations get different amounts of sourcing? What is more, I am seeing no reason presented as to why many of these could not be merged or even redirected as they are not hoaxes, libelous, or copy vios and a clear redirect location exists. Additionally, the same "original research" line is being applied to even ones that actually do have out of universe information sourced from a secondary source or two. I do not see any reason why per WP:BEFORE and WP:PRESERVE merges and redirects are not being discussed and considered first and it does not even appear that sources are being looked for prior to the nominations or that the individual notability of each article is actually being considered. It looks more like as someone said in one of them, the nominator is just indiscriminately mass nominating from categories.
• Double voting: See for example this in a discussion concerning an article he nominated.
• Removing friendly notices from the talk page: See for example this.

Warnings from other editors concerning AfD behavior include: from Jmcw37, from Janggeom, fromJJL, from DGG, from Dream Focus, from EEMIV, etc. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Dalejenkins, possibly? –MuZemike 19:03, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I share the concerns over Dwanyewest's flurry of inadequately considered AfDs and PRODs. He seems insufficiently familiar with the procedures and policies. See also the discussions at the Martial Arts project's page. JJL (talk) 19:56, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

He has been here for too long in my opinion to be Dale. I could be wrong though if Dale never edited his other socks on this IP, thus escaping the checkuser's attention. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

• I will grant that there have been a couple of them that were questionable, but by and large, many of the articles I've personally looked at were a bit questionable. First, making the big issue about PROD's is a tempest in a teacup. So what, it got PROD'D. PROD's are ridiculously easy to contest and they give you 7 days to do it. All prod's are listed at the prodsum page. I became involved in this when a number of martial arts related prods were removed, not by addressing the reason for the prod, but with a cut and paste message telling him to go to the martial arts project to discuss it. I expressed my disapproval of that at the MA Project page. But the end result was good. We all reached common ground, constructed a plan to methodically clean up articles in the project and so overall, the outcome was positive. The other thing that I've observed in the process is that some people are of the opinion that a trivial mention of something is enough to establish notability or that a couple of trivial mentions can be added together to equal significant coverage. Then they take that opinion and (sometimes rudely) begin making accusations of bad faith actions. Rubbish! The AfD discussion is where that can be debated. People can, in good faith, hold one opinion or the other and dabte it and see what the community decided. I've nominated things that I still, to this day, don't feel have significant coverage, but the community feels a one paragraph review is significant. Ok, I have to accept that the consensus opinion differs from mine. Likewise, I've nominated things that others argued hard hhad significant coverage, but the community disagreed with them. That doesn't mean that they were acting in bad faith to argue the keep. Let the process function and abide by the consensus. But this is a non-incident and my biggest fear is that Dwaynewest will end up with some ridiculous sanction over what he believes is good faith action and something I don't see as being that disruptive. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Unless he is a sock acting in bad faith I would advise him to continue on. Most of the articles he has nominated shouldn't be here in the first place. ThemFromSpace 22:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You advise him to continue double voting and spamming discussions with copy and pasted comments? Or how about in some cases, not even providing a reason? Nothing that he has nominated should be redlinked. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Mentioning in the edit summary that he is PRODding an article would be most welcome. He removed criticism in this regard from his Talk page. I missed some PRODs I would have wanted to have known about in this way. JJL (talk) 01:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• Let's have a look at A Nobody's accusations one by one, shall we?
• First the accusation of canvassing. Dwanyewest contacted two people, one whose advice he was asking, and one whom he'd had previous discussions with about the articles in question. You'd have to try pretty hard to assume bad faith to infer canvassing here.
• Next is the claim of copy & paste comments at AfD. When you're nominating many articles which all suffer from very similar problems, it is only natural that the nominations will be similar. Insisting on original wording for each one seems to me to be an unnecessary and pointless restriction, especially since A Nobody has never shied from flooding AfD discussions with copy & paste comments himself.
• I've seen many discussions where the nominator has cast a single "delete" vote themselves, and nobody has ever complained before to my knowledge. Not an issue.
• Removing notices from your talk page is allowed. A Nobody does it on his own talk page quite regularly.
• Dwanyewest corrected himself when it was pointed out that he hadn't provided a deletion rationale, and now the editor who objected agrees the article should be deleted. No need to whinge about it on ANI.
• That brings us to the multitude of people complaining on Dwanyewest's talk page. I'll point out that EEMIV didn't object to the articles being nominated, just that the nominations weren't completed properly. Most of the other complainers were the usual suspects from the Article Rescue Squadron claiming D hadn't done enough searching for sources before nominating. And that brings me to the major issue. I've looked at a number of D's nominations and examined a good number of the "sources" being presented there as reasons to keep. They're mostly crap. Irrelevant fluff being presented to us as substantial coverage. I mean, just look at this load of rubbish sampled from several of the articles in question: a blog, a book that does not appear to contain the information claimed, an Amazon page where the DVD is for sale, a single paragraph advertisement on the Disney site, and two single-line snippets from TV guides [60], [61]. Pretty feeble, if you ask me. And if anyone can tell me what this is supposed to prove I'll be eternally grateful. If this is the best the pro-keep side can do, then I think it's pretty clear that the subjects of these articles are pretty well non-notable and the fervent objections of the ARS ring pretty hollow.
• So to sum up, not one of A Nobody's litany of bitter complaints against Dwanyewest has any merit. If anything D should be barnstarred forthwith, and the perpetrators of this attempt to mislead the Wikipedia community with bogus sources admonished very strongly. Reyk _YO! 10:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Reyk's totally false comment above is deliberately misleading and consistent with his battleground distortions of reality to advance his biased agenda: "I'm off to fly the Deletionist flag over at AfD", "keepmongers," repeated use of WP:JNN and WP:ITSCRUFT, etc. We are not naive. That is why no neutral observer does not correctly sees the problems of these indiscriminate nominations, as the carelessness is revealed in the double voting, not providing an edit summary until told to, copy and paste spamming, etc. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Everything I have said is correct. Address the points instead of attacking the editor. Reyk _YO! 18:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
      • I cannot address distortions. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Yet this whole attack on Dwanyewest is a distortion. I have refuted all your points, you have failed to address a single one of mine. Oh, but wait, I used some snarky language in a discussion once so I must be wrong. Reyk _YO! 18:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
          • You are attempting to defend the indefinsible. You have not refuted anything, just presented a bias and inaccurate distortion of what is pretty clearly indiscriminate nominations that violate WP:BEFORE and WP:PRESERVE. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
            • Whatever you think. I feel I have made some pretty convincing arguments, and drawn attention to the misuse of sources that's been happening lately, that I hope the closing admins here will take note of. You can continue to point your fingers at me and go "OMG an evil scary kitten-eating battleground deletionist" or you can actually argue the point. I won't be holding my breath. Reyk _YO! 18:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
              • • I am happy to argue with objective and neutral points, not ones that are presented as part of "flying the Deletionist flag," i.e. that are inherently slanted. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
            • It's the violations of WP:BEFORE, the lack of informative edit summaries on PRODs/AfDs, the malformed AfDs, and the general lack of understanding of policies [62] that's most problematic for me, though the volume of the flood of martial arts nominations is also an issue--there's only so much time and energy to keep refuting AfDs of notable pages. JJL (talk) 18:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
              • WP:BEFORE is not policy, nor even a guidelines for that matter, and can be safely ignored if a user chooses to do so. The other issues seem more of a matter of unfamiliarity with the AfD process rather than a willful disregard. A bit of instruction from a wiki-veteran or two would be preferable to being dragged to an AN/I bludgeoning first. Tarc (talk) 00:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I propose that A Nobody be banned from raising new matters at AN/I or other similar venues until he has substantively, and constructively, addressed the myriad matters raised in his own RfC/U. ++Lar: t/c 19:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• I second that. Reyk _YO! 22:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• Indeed. There was no call for this. Tarc (talk) 00:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
  • This is just ridiculous. Start another case if you are serious about this. Two people who often criticize the Article Rescue Squadron, are now just being uncivil towards one of its more vocal members. Dream Focus 00:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• In response to Reyk's comment that "Most of the other complainers were the usual suspects from the Article Rescue Squadron claiming D hadn't done enough searching for sources before nominating." I'd like to point out that they were actually from the Martial Arts group first, others then pointing out the same thing as he kept nominating things elsewhere. The complaints are all valid, regardless of who gave them. You should always do some searching yourself BEFORE nominating anything at all. How many dozens or hundreds of AFD and prods should someone be able to do in a week's time? If most end in Keep, will the person stop mass nominating things, or keep on going? Dream Focus 00:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Let's put it this way, Dwaynewest has been sending multiple articles to AFD with the same rationales, despite the topics being entirely different, and when someone else makes a comment at one of the several AFDs, he copies and pastes his own version of that comment across every other AFD where he believes it is applicable. And he has copied and pasted directly aspects of policies and guidelines on notability to make it seem like he is making a point. Someone who has been on the site for this long should know how AFD and PROD and other deletion processes work. Why would a deletion rationale for a fictional character be the same for a television episode?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Whoa! Are you saying Dwanyewest should not cite policies and guidelines? I know those pesky things are inconvenient for people who write and defend the sorts of articles D has been nominating, but I think they're important. And I think given the way many of the AfD discussions are going, particularly on those execrable C.O.P.S character bios which are tending towards consistent consensus to delete, you'd be hard pressed to argue these are bad faith nominations. A few misfires early on, perhaps, but nothing to justify A Nobody going running to ANI over. This is a troublesome and insubstantial whinge from someone who is fast becoming ANI's version of a vexatious litigant. Reyk _YO! 08:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
  • That is in no way what I said at all. I said he should not be directly quoting policy directly (copy-pasting from the policy page) or copying and pasting things as subsequent comments on AFDs he has already started. If he has something to say, he can do so in his own words without going to WP:GNG or WP:whatever and copying and pasting the text directly.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Irrelevant objection. The policy and guideline pages are not copyrighted, and say what they're intended to say in very clear language. There is no problem with quoting them directly, none at all. I have occasionally quoted sentences out of them myself and nobody has ever complained. Insisting that he paraphrase them in different words is a pointless and arbitrary restriction. Reyk _YO! 09:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
      • That'd be fine and all if he didn't copy and paste the text from the page itself, including the references and other formatting aspects.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Ahahaha. Ahaha. Ha. You do realize he removed the formatting tags a minute later, right? Of all the inexplicable things to complain about, this has got to be the weirdest. Reyk _YO! 09:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
          • Not the fucking point. He is making uninformed AFDs and using the same blanket reasoning on the AFDs despite the fact that aspects of WP:GNG/WP:PROVEIT that he is directly quoting/copy-pasting are being addressed. I found multiple references for the articles that I watch that he sent to AFD. That did not stop him from posting the same shit across all of those AFDs and the other ones.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
            • If that's not the point, why bring it up? And if his AfDs are so uninformed, how come so many of them are heading towards "delete" or "no consensus"? Riddle me that. And not everyone thinks as much of your "sources" as you do: I know I'm not the only one that considers them mostly insubstantial puffery. Reyk _YO! 12:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
              • You appear to be in the minority of that thought still.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 13:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Although I have been one to warn him, I still assume good faith. I think he is a bit too passionate in his belief that any article without excellent sources should be immediately deleted. It is true that in the Martial Arts Project, we have had a simmering problem about article quality: both inclusionists and deletioninsts have been frustrated. As Nightshift mentioned above, we have a good solution now and Dwaynewest is working well within this group. I would not recommend any sanctions against him for his work on the Martial Arts articles. jmcw (talk) 12:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
  • But these problems are beyond martial arts articles. This includes articles on fictional characters, articles on television episodes, etc. It just seems that if he does not deem the subject notable and the sourcing is poor, he sends it off to AFD. He did provide some semblance of a forewarning but it's still "I think these should be deleted. I'm sending them off to AFD in 24 hours." He also did this exactly one year ago, threatening to take the pilot episode of a notable television series to AFD and threatened the same thing. Mythdon's AFD for the five-part episode/five episode miniseries is probably what stopped him then.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 13:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
    • And yet, exactly one year later, Day of the Dumpster is still little more than a plot summary sourced to tv.com's episode guide. If this user need a bit of a behavioral adjustment, then fine, work on that. But as far as getting rid of mindless fancruft like this, he's spot on. Tarc (talk) 14:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
      • Thats because I nuked all of the fan-based information which wasn't sourced. It's the first episode of a sixteen years running television metaseries. I'd call that notable. Anyone would be hard pressed to find tertiary sources for individual episodes of a children's television series, even though they do exist in some form.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 14:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
        • If no one is talking about it, then it isn't notable. Tarc (talk) 13:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
          • People are talking about it. Just no where near the level that they do for every episode of Lost or every episode of Star Trek.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
      • WP:ITSCRUFT is not a valid reason for deletion. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
        • And I didn't say it was, which you goddamn well know. It should have been deleted because it is just a plot summary of an episode with no attribution to reliable sources. Tarc (talk) 13:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
          • We do not delete that which can be merged and redirected per WP:BEFORE and WP:PRESERVE. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
            • BEFORE is neither policy nor even a guideline, and it would do you a world of good to stop citing it as such. Deleting non-notable articles does not violate PRESERVE. Tarc (talk) 17:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
              • Subjective use of "non-notable" is not a valid reason for deletion and certainly not when the articles under consideration have valid redirect locations. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
        • But a badly sourced plot summary is. Persistent essaycruft and ididnthearthat should be in some cases a reason for banning though. How many times have you misused this and similar essays by now? Fram (talk) 08:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
          • I have never misused any essays, only responded to antagnoistic misuse of a nonsense non-word. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
            • I suppose you mean the rarely used meaning of the word "never" which is synonymous with "consistently"? Fram (talk) 09:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
• Second Thoughts Perhaps I have assumed too much good faith: [63] jmcw (talk) 01:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I begin to expect him soon to demand the deletion of his own user page for lack of references. jmcw (talk) 01:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What are you actually referring to with your link here? I may be dense, but I fail to see the involvement of DwanyeWest, or the problem. Fram (talk) 08:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

In this link, Dwanyewest is demanding the deletion of the articles about the more reliable sources in martial arts. I see this as lacking perspective and knowledge. jmcw (talk) 13:03, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Moreover, we are still seeing "delete votes" added by the nominator in discussions after someone else has argued to keep. Normally, if the nominator wants to include a bolded "delete", it is part of the nomination rather than added somewhere in the discussion after someone else comments, which whether intentional or not gives the appearance of a double vote as obviously the nomination is a "vote" to delete. Moreover, the wording of this bolded delete "vote" is a practical repeat of the nomination anyway. That example is also another good one for what we mean by the indscriminate nature of these nominations. The nominator claims there are "no reliable third person sources" and once again dismisses a character who is central to the plot of a theatrically released film and who subsequently was adapted as a toy, in comics, etc. as "non-notable." It took all of a minute on Google Books to find multi-page references in such publications as Cinefantastique that reveals who plays as the character, which character from the show this film character is based on, as well as who designed the character, a description of the character, and the character's relevance to the story, which I have incorporated throughout the article. There appear to be a couple dozen other published books we can use to further improve this article. And as pointed out above, this character is not just in the movie, but also as a toy as well as cover character of a publication. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• The deletion process requires that people be reasonable and give reasons in all aspects--otherwise it's a cross between a popularity contest and , not a discussion based of rational arguments. The most rational argument in this sort of question is sources, and sending multiple articles to be deleted because they are presently unsourced for notability, rather than unsourceable , is an abuse of process. 95% of Wikipedia articles are not really adequately sourced. I could nominate them all for deletion with that as the rationale, and although everything I said would be true, people would be very quick to judge me disruptive. I'm not going to go thru all of the nominations involved, but they seem as a class many of them thought out and reckless. Frankly, the solution is make WP:BEFORE and WP:PRESERVE required, and reject any nomination that does not deliberately address those concerns. I think anyone who wants to delete properly would do this, and the only people who continue to oppose are those who want to delete everything that on its face looks a little inadequate. without caring whether or not it is done in appropriate cases.

The issue of what is need for a fiction article is unresolved. It's agreed that the Wikipedia coverage of a work must not be entirely about plot, but it is not agreed whether it applies to individual articles about elements of the plot. In terms of sourcing to meet WP:V, everyone agrees it is essential. But the consistent decision at the RS noticeboard has been that the facts about a work can be taken from the work itself, and we do this routinely with all sorts of articles on media. The expressions of some of the people above are either representing unresolved questions as if they were resolved the way they would like them resolved, or trying to make resolved questions, like the nature of sourcing , quite opposite from the way it actually is. What truly distresses me is that some of these people have been closing AfD discussions in terms of their own erratic opinions, and refusing to restore histories on the basis that the material is based on a primary source only. What distresses me even more is the comment of three respected people above that A.N. should be prevented from defending articles. The example he gives directly above shows his remarkable ability to source them. This sort of attempt to eliminate a powerful and effective opponent looks like bias about either the issue or personally about the editor. No admin who thinks this way should be closing disputed AfD discussions in which he is involved . It is exactly the same as if I were to close disputed afds that have been brought by Dwanyewest. We can't help having our feelings about editors-- but we cannot express them in such a manner as administrators. DGG ( talk ) 04:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

This appears to be referring to User talk:Cirt#Highway (C.O.P.S.) (WP:Articles for deletion/Highway (C.O.P.S.)). If a user is not satisfied after discussion with the closing admin, the venue for appeal is WP:Deletion review. DGG, do you approve of A Nobody's merges and use of {{Copied}}? Flatscan (talk) 05:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Also User talk:Beeblebrox#Snake Mountain (television). Flatscan (talk) 04:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

New issue

(Moved from below)

Dwanyewest (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been engaging in rather...spurious behavior on a couple of AFDs he's opened. He's !voted multiple times despite being the nominator, giving the impression of a larger consensus to delete than there actually is. He's also posted, as a separate !vote, an attempt to assassinate the character of one person who !voted keep. I'd just delete these, but I've already !voted keep on a couple of those AFDs, so I'm not in a position to do it myself. The AFDs are: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Countdown to Destruction (four !votes including one character assassination) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Once a Ranger (2nd nomination) (two !votes). jgpTC 01:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Dwanyewest currently the top section of this page... is this the same thing? Should this be moved there? ++Lar: t/c 01:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

He needs a longer block, but I'll do the reverts. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

On second look, this is starting to look a lot like Dalejenkins, even though the CU turned up negative. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• In the AfD for Countdown, I see two votes, not 4. And that was a few days ago, he's had that explained to him since then. I only see one vote in the Ranger one, that being his nom. I think you are confusing his repsonding to other people as "!votes". Niteshift36 (talk) 01:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
• What Niteshift said. It's not unknown for people to add a "delete as nominator" to their nomination. Doing that after someone else has already put in a vote is highly unusual, but I don't think it's particularly problematic- particularly since Dwanyewest has already agreed to stop. For the rest, it's obvious that jgp has mistaken comments for votes. Reyk _YO! 02:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
• In at least three of his recent Martial arts nominations, there were good sources in the first page of either the google news or google books searches. I don't always have the time to add references to all of these under-referenced but otherwise perfectly good articles but am finding myself increasingly worried that they are being nominated with no apparent effort to fulfil WP:BEFORE. In order to stop wikipedia losing more good pages for no reason, I would like to suggest that Dwanyewest (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is blocked from nominating articles for deletion until he agrees to properly follow the AfD guidelines for nominators WP:BEFORE, especially item 4 Before nominating due to sourcing or notability concerns, make a good-faith attempt to confirm that such sources don't exist. If he will not agree to do so then I would suggest he should not be permitted to nominate articles for deletion at all.

For example for Lian Padukan, I quickly found the following:

• http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/11SILLAT/Article/
• http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/11SILAT/Article/

For Bakti Negara, there were 48 hits in google books, for example: Weapons and fighting arts of Indonesia By Donn F. Draeger p168--180

These are reliable sources, and they should have been checked before nomination. Francis Bond (talk) 08:05, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

User:RanJayJay

See his mass-!voting "delete" in many random deletion discussions [64]. No way this is a new user. –MuZemike 20:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

So? Unless you're accusing them of being a known and unwanted ex-user, the votes seem to be reasonable on the evidence given. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

At the very least this is (likely) a violation of WP:ILLEGIT; "Undisclosed alternative accounts should not be used to edit in project space ("Wikipedia:" pages) or project talk space, including in any vote or dispute resolution". NW (Talk) 21:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

So tag the !votes with {{subst:spa}}. —Psychonaut (talk) 00:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Not certainly a new user. I suspect he is related to B2C Jewels Ganesh J. Acharya (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Considering the vast majority of his AFD posts are more or less meaningless towards consensus per WP:IDONTLIKEIT and other noted "arguments to avoid during deletion discussions" I think worst action should be taken per NW's point. If someone can find anything additional (e.g. sockpuppetry) then we take it from there. Nefariousski (talk) 04:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Odd edits by HoundsOfSpring

I came across HoundsOfSpring (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) a little over half a year ago when he made a few edits to Tokusatsu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Most were beneficial. However, he began inserting {{fact}} and {{whom}} tags in November, such as adding {{whom}} after the word "dubbed" when it does not refer to being called something but the filmmaking technique. In January, after he added all of these tags back, I put a message on his talk page concerning his errors and how all of the tags he added were covered by other referenced statements in the text. He added all of these back tonight. I left another message on his talk page and then I went through more of his edits and found more superfluous additions of these kinds of tags. I even found a {{whom}} tag added to hidden text because the word "considered" was used.

I can see these edits and other problematic edits (such as only stating that "cl" or "edit" and other simplistic edit summaries) as well as edits that break the formatting of the page (putting in extra carriage returns around ref tags, thereby making the text pressed together). I can only find one edit he has made outside of the article space and that was making his user page. He has been at this for a year. He does not respond to talk page messages and he certainly does not contribute to anything other than articles where he repeatedly makes the same mistakes in editing and comprehension of the article text.

What should be done? Also I am aware I have not left a message on his user talk concerning this discussion. I find it highly unlikely that he will pay attention to it, as he certainly has ignored all messages to him in the past.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I've notified them of this thread - hopefully they'll drop by and explain themselves. However, if they don't, I think a block to forcibly get their attention may be the only option left to us. EyeSerene^talk 10:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I see nothing problematic with my edits. "Fact" and "whom" tags aim to encourage more detail and to avoid weasel-worded passives. Extra carriage-returns break up the text in edit-mode and make it easier for all editors to see the structures, especially where we have imbedded references. Since a lot of my edits simply fix up sequences of little details here and there it can become difficult to imagine more meaningful edit summaries, but I'll certainly listen to suggestions. Hope this helps. HoundsOfSpring (talk) 05:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

But the "Fact" and "Whom" tags are either covered by the text, other references, or are not relevant where you put them.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to note that he's still using {{whom}} despite what has been said here.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that's crossing into WP:IDHT and WP:DISRUPT territory. I notice they've also reverted the removal of some of their tags; I'll leave them a final request to stop. EyeSerene^talk 09:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

4chan attack

Heads up; User talk:Jéské Couriano looks like it may be under attack by 4chan again (or a similar such group; Grawp/Hagger/4chan are all related, right?). A couple of extra eyes over there just in case would be most welcome. MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 00:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Protected by User:NuclearWarfare. --Taelus (talk) 01:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually it was unprotected as the attack seems to have subsided, however I'm keeping an eye on it (as well as some others, including NW I'm sure) and should be able to set up a filter at the first sign of the attack recurring. (He generally prefers that his page not be protected.) --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I requested it unprotected shortly after NW protted. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 01:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

These "attacks" are generally fleeting in nature, mostly due to the fact that the average lifespan of a thread at /b/ is an hour or two. Not worth much concern, IMHO. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 05:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The attack threads even less - Not even 45 minutes most times lately. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 09:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Constant tendentious editing at Genesis creation myth despite RFC, 2 RMs all supporting current consensus.

WP:TLDR, this belongs in a content RfC. Feel free to flag specific and actionable items for admin attention. Guy (Help!) 08:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

This Genesis creation myth article has recently gone through a long RFC (concluding thread here) since there was a concern that use of the term creation myth would give readers the impression that the events mentioned in Genesis did not take place. Throughout the course of the RFC it was found that there were problems with the old article title. As a result a Requested Move was initiated with a couple of suggested titles in order to foster collaboration, both in the article title and in writing a lead sentence that everyone was happy with. After a week of discussion the current title was settled on. A week and a half later an IP filed another Requested Move, which after another week of discussion was closed since it did not gain consensus for a move back to the old title. Throughout the discussion there have been several recurring problems, listed below. While the intention is not to rule out future discussion, requested moves, etc, I do think it's time to move on from the creation myth discussion for the time being and continue developing the article in other ways. With this in mind I request that a general ban on discussing the inclusion/exclusion or usage of the term "Creation Myth" and further editing tendentious editing be instated including changing the title name, removing the term from the article or altering its wikilink to the main creation myth article. Relevant Policies and Guidelines Below are the policies and guidelines that have been cited repeatedly over the past 2 months to support the usage of "Creation myth" and to support keeping the article in its current state. WP:WTA#Myth and Legend (relevent sections) "Formal use of the word is commonplace in scholarly works, and Wikipedia is no exception...be consistent; referring to "Christian beliefs" and "Hindu myths" in a similar context may give the impression that the word myth is being used informally." Being that the usage of "Creation Myth" in articles (and their titles) about creation myths is near unanimous across different belief systems changing this convention for Judeo-Christian related articles violates the word and spirit of WP:WTA. A sample of the other articles are as follows: Chinese creation myth Sumerian creation myth Ancient Egyptian creation myths Pelasgian creation myth Tongan creation myth Mesoamerican creation myths Creation Myth Keeping in mind that this isn't a case of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS since WP:WTA makes a specific example for uniform usage and the usage of "Creation Myth" is clearly the dominant usage for Religious and Supernatural cosmogenical articles. WP:RNPOV Usage of "Creation Myth" is clearly in line with this policy. The policy states "Wikipedia articles on history and religion draw from a religion's sacred texts as well as from modern archaeological, historical, and scientific sources." The latter three almost unanimously use the term "Creation Myth" while the first describes it as a historical fact (which we should not use for a myriad of reasons that I'm sure everyone reading this understands). At best if any reliable sources can be found that are critical of usage of the term "Creation Myth" (not myth as a stand alone since the Electoral College can not be classified as a College any more than definitions of myth, particularly the informal/colloquial definitions can be applied to the term "Creation Myth") a section discussing this criticism should be added to the article and the main Creation Myth article but shouldn't contradict usage of the term per "Some adherents of a religion might object to a critical historical treatment of their own faith because in their view such analysis discriminates against their religious beliefs. Their point of view must be mentioned if it can be documented by notable, reliable sources, yet note that there is no contradiction." Per the section that states "Several words that have very specific meanings in studies of religion have different meanings in less formal contexts, e.g. fundamentalism and mythology. Wikipedia articles about religious topics should take care to use these words only in their formal senses in order to avoid causing unnecessary offense or misleading the reader." editors of this article have, in good faith, created a FAQ, cited formal definitions, wikilinked to the main Creation myth article (which also has a detailed formal definition) and added a footnote to the the term "Creation Myth" to further clarify formal usage. All of which meet and possibly exceed the due diligence required to ensure that the formal meaning is understood. WP:UCN Usage of "Creation Myth" in the title has been furthermore contested after the first article RM, another RM was started about a week later to remove the term from the title, that RM also was declined and closed (albeit with some arguement and complaint regarding it possibly being closed too soon). UCN tells us "Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article. In determining what this name is, we follow the usage of reliable sources, such as those used as references for the article", considering the vast majority of cited sources including archaelogical, scientific, historical and other scholarly/academic writings use the term "Creation Myth" as opposed to other colloquial variants the title meets UCN. Furthermore the usage of "Creation Myth" abounds in reliable sources doing a quick google search shows that its use clearly meets the "common usage" section of UCN "Common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name" UCN also tells us "Where articles have descriptive titles, they are neutrally worded. A descriptive article title should describe the subject without passing judgment, implicitly or explicitly, on the subject. " alternatives such as "Story" or "account" imply value judgements regarding veracity one way or the other (Story most often being defined as fiction, account commonly being used in factual / historical context). Additionally changing the name causes a loss of precision (also discussed in UCN) since "Creation Myth" is the formally defined academic term and as such doesn't allow for any ambiguity (only one definition) whereas other alternatives do. Some editors have brought up different variants of google tests that show "Creation Story" or some other suggestion to have more "hits" than usage of "Creation Myth" again we look to UCN for guidance and see "Titles which are considered inaccurate descriptions of the article subject, as implied by reliable sources, are often avoided even though it may be more common. For example, Tsunami is preferred over the more common, but less accurate Tidal wave." which tells us that accuracy should value accuracy above hit counts when colloquial and non-arcane formal terms are in consideration for a article name. WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV Using terms and phrases such as Creation account/story or Creation according to... Violate NPOV policy since they either provide a value judgement regarding the veracity of the creation myth in question or they assume that there is only one interpretation of the creation myth (in the account of "Creation according to Genesis". Being that even amongst religious circles significant interpretation and variation of Genesis exists usage of language like "according to", which implies a single interpretation invalidates alternative interpretations or opens the door for a myriad of alternative articles like "Creation according to Genesis (Mormon Interpretation)" et, al... WP:NOT#CENSORED Included for reasons already stated and re-stated above Additional information regarding policy, context, sources etc... can be seen in the article's FAQ Some problems Repeated arguments (WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT)[65][66]here's a particularly good one (more or less the first 150k of the RFC is rife with examples) Constant invalid arguments [67] Votestacking you may have to open the archived RFC to view Persisting with discussion after an RFC and two RMs. (last two or three current sections These unfortunately include some unpleasant accusations and attacks) Enforcing a lock down of changes to the article: User_talk:Swift_as_an_Eagle#Justification Aggressive editing without discussion: Talk:Genesis_creation_myth#Moving_forward:_take_two Confirmed Sockpuppets used in discussion: user:Templeknight Some quirks (nothing necessarily wrong with these actions though they may be pertinent) User:EGMichaels has invited every editor who voted against the current title ([68] etc) to a thread on User_talk:EGMichaels. The second RM was almost a keep, but it seems the closer went with no consensus instead. The only reason given was that the closer didn't like the title either, which seems an odd move considering that the closing admin should normally be uninvolved and impartial, lest they appear to be motivated by their own opinion. User:Weaponbb7 started User Conduct RFC as result of a conflict with an editor involved during the second move discussion. Relevant reliable sources For non-experts: Oxford's Dictionary of the Bible: The biblical myth of the origin of the universe. Oxford's Dictionary of the Bible: In Genesis the Creation and the Fall are myths. The Oxford Companion to World Mythology: The creation myth of the Hebrews, sacred also to Christians and to some extent to followers of Islam (Muslims), is found at the beginning of the biblical Book of Genesis. Oxford's Dictionary of Creation Myths: Genesis contains the creation myth that forms the basis of the Judeo‐Christian tradition. Encyclopedia Britannica: Thus, for example, all theology and speculation concerning creation in the Christian community are based on the myth of creation in the biblical book of Genesis and of the new creation in Jesus Christ. About the state of scholarship: Marcus Borg's note about Genesis containing mythical material being a mainstream view Apologies for this being so long for ANI but it's hard to sum up such an insane amount of discussion into a nice small package Nefariousski (talk) 04:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Begin responses Comment Im new this article, today is the first day I've ever seen it. After reviewing the Talk page archives, it appears that there has been a long-standing battle between religious apologists (in the technical sense, meaning "defenders of the faith") and secular/scientific advocates. It seems to me that this encyclopedia has room to permit all scholarly data to be presented ... but not all in one article. The religious aspects of Genesis are best covered in existing articles like Creationism and Book of Genesis. Conversely, the article Genesis creation myth is best suited for the literary/sociological study of Genesis (for instance, focusing on how it relates to other creation myths; and how it relates to early middle-eastern societies like Babylonia, Sumeria, etc. Very important: I do not see any other article in the encyclopedia that does address the genesis creation myth in a scientific (not theological) manner. See Creation myth, which is a good example of a scientific (not theological) analysis of creation myths: but it is one level too high, and does not focus on Genesis. It appears that there are about a half dozen religious-apologist editors (again, using the term in the technical sense) that are trying to convert the Genesis creation myth article from a secular/scientific article into a theological article defending a faith. I would recommend restricting the content to scientific/sociological/literary aspect of the myth, and eliminating the theological content. --Noleander (talk) 04:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Support - the request by Nefariousski for a general ban on discussing the inclusion/exclusion or usage of the term "Creation Myth" and a ban on further tendentious editing . --Noleander (talk) 05:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Comment The version of events above is so distorted as to beggar belief! Where to start? Perhaps with following the link in Nefariousski's quote "The second RM was almost a keep, but it seems the closer went with no consensus instead." Vegaswikian, both at the link talk page and in his actual close clearly states that he does not regard the current name as satisfactory, and envisages further discussion and debate until a better one is found. Numerically there was a large majority in favour of the move, though there was evidently some canvassing. There are certainly a large number of POV editors on the talk page - not in the article itself, which almost no one seems interested in except as to whether and how it uses the term "creation myth". There are certainly many creationists or similar who object to the term, either in any context, or at least as a title. There are a number of strongly atheist editors who insist on the term in the title. But there are also many editors, like myself, who have stated they have no belief in the literal truth of Genesis, but object to the term in the title on other grounds. In my own case that is mainly because, despite constant assertions to the contrary from Nefariousski and others, the current title performs extremely poorly in usage among academic RS, and does not come close to passing WP:COMMONNAME. Enormous amounts of effort have been expended demonstrating that creation myth is a general term often used in scholarship of many types to describe the Genesis account, but until Dbachmann came along, almost none to establish what are actually the most common specific terms for the Genesis account. These turn out to be permutations of "story", "account" or "narrative" rather than "myth": Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL books 324, scholar 74 Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWLbooks 375, scholar 97 Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL books 655, scholar 467 Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWLbooks 712, scholar 997 Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL books 636, scholar 361 Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL books 656, scholar 610 Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWLbooks 455, scholar 105 Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL books 613, scholar 174 Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL books 608, scholar 122 The two "story" searches produce 1,464 gscholar hits vs 181 for the two "myth" searches, over 8 times as many. The rfc concerned use of the term "creation myth" (nb, as opposed to myth) in the article text to describe the Genesis account; I & other editors have no objection to that at all - it should be there. The very different issue of what the title of the article should be was hardly touched on. The first requested move debate, which the second no consensus close defaulted to, had only the nom + one "support" in bold, and closed after only 4 days. A ridiculous amount of WP:OWNership has been shown by the "myth" party, who have plastered the top of the talk page with highly tendentious "FAQ" & other notices, attempting to suppress discussion. At some point a further move request to a title that can be justified under COMMONNAME - probably Genesis creation story - will be proposed, and should succeed. The last close by Vegas saw the need for further discussion before such a proposal, and that is what is happening. Any intervention here should concentrate on WP:OWN issues, & those of conduct by some editors. Johnbod (talk) 05:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC) It follows conventions of other similar articles, it is the accepted scientific nomenclature, and I say go with "Creation Myth". Conservapedia is always available, other wise. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 07:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC) To clarify one point that might be confusing, the "RfC" that's already been done is from the article talk page and isn't an organized discussion or community view. Guy is, best I can tell, suggesting this be shipped out to the "official" RfC leagues, to which I would agree. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 09:14, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Comment. Further to Johnbod's numbers above, I've checked the ISI Web of Knowledge to see what records it holds on this subject. Use of "Genesis" in the search term seems to narrow things too much for sweeping statements, so here are the numbers for the more generic "creation myth", etc. In each case, I looked for occurrence in a paper's title and its "topic" (which I assume means abstract). As it happens, the results of this trawl run against my own perception (that "myth" should definitely be favoured over all alternatives), although they do seemingly discount "narrative" and "account". Since my experience of WoK is confined to the sciences I'm probably overlooking any number of caveats here, not least that books are omitted. But since it deals with (a subset of) academic treatments of "creation", it has some bearing on the matter at hand. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 10:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Term Use in TITLE Use in TOPIC "creation myth" 34 44 "creation story" 33 49 "creation narrative" 10 13 "creation account" 4 8

Disruptive refusal to sign at the reference desks

Resolved

 – A rangeblock was agreed to, and it's now in place. EdJohnston (talk) 14:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

There is an anonymous user (from the 82.43.89.x range) that has stubbornly refused to sign his posts, pretty much 100% of the time, for months now. Sinebot has warned them probably dozens of times. However, their IP address jumps around every few weeks (because of his ISP, I think). His most recent IPs have been 82.43.89.27, 82.43.89.90, and 82.43.89.14. It really shouldn't be that big a deal, but it has unfortunately become disruptive on more than one occasion, so I feel something needs to be done. He doesn't vandalize, but on several occasions things have gotten ugly:

• Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 67#Mocking the OP (see the collapsed tangent)
• Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#2 Trolls
• Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Correcting typos or grammar

In these three discussions, while most editors simply ignore them, one editor (a different one for each incident) have gotten fed up and called him on it, though they unfortunately took the form of ad hominem attacks in the midst of the rest of the discussion. 82.43.89.x got defensive, and things become incivil (almost identically each time). After the first two incidents, I tried to resolve it, but didn't get anywhere:

• Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Two previous discussions
• User talk:82.43.89.90#Discussion on WT:RD

Even though I tried to address these concerns outside of the conflicts that they had already had, people were still bitter, and he remained defensive and irreconcilable. His IP then changed to the current one, and I forgot about it for a while, but after I saw the most recent incident I thought it should be dealt with.

I didn't want to go ahead and directly ask for an IP range ban (because of the tag here), so I wanted to see if we could use SineBot to enact a sort of conditional topic ban, by automatically removing any unsigned post made to the reference desks from this IP range, instead of enabling them by continuing to just sign their posts. I posted this proposal at slakr's talk page, but I have since learned that he hasn't been active on Wikipedia for over a month (I guess you could say slakng off ), so I decided to bring it here. —Akrabbim^talk 17:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

For me it is just not that big a deal, and is best dealt with by ignoring it. Penalising people - especially those unfamiliar with wikipedia or who just do not parse helpful information we push their way, is not the way to go. Given that SineBot signs unsigned posts, is there actually a problem worth our time to consider? And whether there is or not, is AN/I the right place to discuss it? --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

These are not newbies. It's basically one guy who jumps from IP to IP and consistently takes an "up yours" attitude toward registered users. He knows he can't be indef'd, which is why he sticks with an IP address. He knows that IP's get special treatment that's not afforded to registered users. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Anon editors get a special treatment, true, but it's both good and bad. They can "get away" with more because it's difficult to track their edits, and they are less likely to be indefinitely blocked for even the worst offenses because of collateral damage with shared IPs and because it's usually easy to just get another IP so it has less effect. But they are also restricted from certain things, they have no input at RfA, their arguments are given little weight or outright ignored at AfDs, they can't edit semiprotected pages or create new articles, they may have years of unrecognized contributions (the downside of being unable to track edit history) and are often treated with suspicion in general. As I see it, the benefits and penalties of anonymous editing have a reasonable balance and it's really their choice whether they want to register or not. -- Atama頭 18:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Correct. There is a double-standard. If you have an account and refuse to sign your posts, you get blocked. If you are an anon-IP and try to start fights by refusing to sign your posts, everyone says it isn't a big deal and praises you for being an asshole. So, I'm using civil disobedience by refusing to sign my own posts. Perhaps I'll eventually be regarded as a praised editor like the 82.43.* pest. Replacing this post from User:Kainaw, inadvertantly removed when I posted elsewhere on the page. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 18:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Seriously? If you don't sign you'll get blocked? Does that really happen? WP:SIGN is a guideline, not a policy, and it certainly doesn't say anything about blocks as a penalty for not signing. Do you block people for not signing? Staecker (talk) 01:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

They were threatening to block Docu indefinitely because he wouldn't sign the "prescribed" way, even though he always ended his comments with "Docu" in plain text. The poor depraved dears had to make a couple of extra keystrokes to be able to link back to him. But the IP's? Oh, that's different. They can do anything they want. Except to vote in AFD's and the like. Big freakin' deal. They get treated special. And they know it. And that's why they don't create user ID's, because they know they can get away with trolling, and unlike a registered user, they can't be stopped. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Kainaw, above, has decided to stop signing his posts in protest of 82.43.*'s behavior. In addition to being a clear violation of WP:POINT, Kainaw's refusal to sign is considerably more disruptive, because his posts are not auto-signed by SineBot (cf. Atama's post about downsides to IP's). Kainaw also persists, despite correction, in claiming that his Reference Desk colleagues "praise" 82.43.* for not signing his posts. Most of us have criticized 82.43.* for his failure to sign, and simply feel that the response by Kainaw et al. is disproportionate and unhelpful. -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

His pointiness is a good point, though. The user Docu, who actually did sign his posts, was about ready to be court-martialed for not doing it the prescribed way. IP's? No problem! They can leave it unsigned, and even if Sinebot signs it, you still don't have a clue if it's the same guy that refused to sign earlier. Every IP could be a different user every time, yet they demand to be respected at the same level as if they were registered and identifiable in some sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Docu signed his posts in an unlinked manner, and in so doing, prevented SineBot from automagically adding links. Kainaw is apparently unsigning his posts entirely (I'd been assuming thus far that it was some kind of glitch). 82.x is skipping the signing functionality, but is not inhibiting identification or linkage. One of these things is not like the others. — Lomn 19:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

But you knew immediately that it was Docu. With the IP's, there's a delay, and also there's no way to know if it's the same guy or a different guy - or if another IP is a different guy or the same guy who was just on another IP - because IP's in general never provide anything resembling an identifier. Yet they complain when they're treated like the drive-by trolls that they often are. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

SineBot doesn't act on users with over 800 edits, which is why Kainaw's are not getting signed by SineBot. Also, I doubt Slakr is going to modify SineBot as proposed above. Even if he had the time, I doubt he has the inclination. –xeno^talk 20:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Bugs, I think your commentary on this matter would improve if you'd drop "drive-by" and "troll" from your responses, as they're an unnecessary prejudice to the discussion. In particular, 82.x is unquestionably acknowledged as a single editor, thus "drive-by" is entirely wrong. A good portion of his contribs have been perfectly reasonable apart from signing, and what bad behavior exists is largely being matched by registered users in this thread, so I dispute "troll" as well. If you prefer, I'll grant that trolling behavior exists -- though as noted, it exists on both sides.

That said, I don't see this drastic difference. I'm inclined to recognize 82.x as being this particular personality. I'm well-versed in other individuals who I might identify as 69.y or 327.z. I'm aware that this may lead to a mistake in identity, but (a) that's part of the risk of being an IP editor and (b) user text signatures are no guarantee of identity, either.

I'll try to reach a conclusion: content is the primary driver. If 82.x posts good content, allow it to stand. If the content is bad, consider stripping it out. At the same time, though, I strongly advocate removing the deliberately baiting responses that show up around 82.x. I imagine a good thorough removal of both sides would largely end the drama. — Lomn 20:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

So you agree that if 82* posts a baiting comment, we can zap it as trolling and put the brakes on it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If and only if we also zap your baiting comments. — Lomn 21:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You could do that. Or you could ask me about it. Unlike the IP family in question, I actually respond to questions. Maybe it would be better to line through the IP's comments or alter them to small print when they're irrelevant, just as many of us have taken to small-printing side comments. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

82.43.89.x should not be compared to Kainaw or this Docu guy. The main point of WP:SIGN is that it is good practice and polite, which is why we have come up with this guideline. Now we have someone who intentionally ignores this guideline, and people are offended, because it has been agreed on that it is impolite. 82.43.89.x knows this, but continues anyway. This is the nature of the disruption. I am certainly not condoning Kainaw's actions, but he isn't the root of the problem here. He is just responding very poorly to the original problem. —Akrabbim^talk 20:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The links I saw here indicated not only did he refuse to sign in some way, he didn't even acknowledge the request. I recall another case (maybe the same guy, maybe not) who objected to being called a "drive-by" and said he would start signing if I would stop calling him a drive-by. As if his signing were about me somehow. That's the kind of arrogance we have to put up with from some of the IP's. You can talk to me. You can't talk to an IP. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That was the same individual. See the first discussion that I linked to in my first post. —Akrabbim^talk 20:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Surprise, surprise. It may sound hard to believe, but names are distinctive, and IP addresses are not. From my viewpoint, they are at once all one guy and each one a different guy. There's literally no way to know, unless they say, "Hey, I'm the same guy as earlier", and even then you would have to take their word for it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This is not an "overall general problem" at the RD - it is one specific person, covering a specific IP range, that has consistently refused to sign his posts, and so has on several occasions provoked incivility in his own as well as other editors' conduct. He has so far acted with impunity, because, as Kainaw is so impolitely demonstrating, every time he is called on it, it is overshadowed by the misconduct of the other editors. Note: I have switched from "they" to the less gender-ambiguous "he" to clear up the possibility of people thinking that this is a general anon-IP problem, and not the behavior of a single person. —Akrabbim^talk 19:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If the admins won't impose a long-term range block, the best solution might be to delete any posts from that IP range. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The double-standard is very clear. If an IP makes a point of not signing his posts, he is just impolite. If I don't sign my posts, I am being disruptive. I have made it clear that this is merely civil disobedience. I am not attempting to get anyone to argue with me about signing my posts. I am only trying to bring attention to the fact that we have this double-standard firmly in place. 82.43.* is highly protected and will continue to try to lure others into arguments that disrupt any conversation he joins. I feel that is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kainaw (talk • contribs) 21:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the better solution would be to simply stop using the registered user name and start using IP addresses. Don't bother signing or indicating who you are, as IP's in general can do whatever they want. And then instead of being hassled by certain users, they'll defend us against those mean old registered users. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

Civil disobedience is a blockable offense, Wikipedia doesn't have any Bill of Rights giving you a right to protest. I hope you know that you can be blocked for this. I'm not going to do so, at this point, but someone else might. -- Atama頭 22:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Really? It's come to this? I'm extremely disappointed. For what it's worth, here's my advice for dealing with the problem. When 82.43.* doesn't sign his posts, ignore it. When Kainaw doesn't sign his posts, ignore it. When someone makes a comment during a discussion of another topic about either one not signing their posts, ignore it (or if multiple comments, maybe collapse them so they doesn't clutter up the discussion). I think that if we don't make such a big deal about it, it will cease to be a problem. Buddy431 (talk) 22:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You are demonstrating what is frustrating with this user. It isn't about the fact that he doesn't sign his posts. If you are stuck on that, then you simply don't understand the problem. He complains and chastises other users for not doing things that he decides are necessary - and then refuses to sign his posts as he does so. It is painfully obvious that he is attempting to bait others into an argument with his "You need to do X while I refuse to do Y" tactic. The big problem is that people do take the bait. They do argue with him. The simple solution is not to ignore him. The simple solution is to remove his baiting arguments. However, that cannot be done because there will always be someone who doesn't know the entire situation and makes the claim that a few users are ganging up on some anon IP just to pick on him. Hence - we have a double-standard. A well-known anon-IP can act in a manner that purposely disrupts the reference desk and users run to his protection. If a user with an account simply decides that he doesn't want to sign his posts, he is threatened with being blocked or banned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kainaw (talk • contribs) 23:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Then you need to explain the problem better. If it's not about signing, then don't call this section "Disruptive refusal to sign". If 86.* is guilty of other offenses, then enumerate them. When does he say "you need to do X"? I don't see him making any demands in the links you gave, other than demanding that people not edit other people's posts, which is pretty uncontroversial. I'm a regular reader of the RD talk page and I have nothing to complain about 86.*. He's certainly no more demanding than other RD regulars when it comes to the way people act at the RD. Staecker (talk) 01:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

(EC) (@ Kainaw, mostly) You're absolutely right. The biggest problem is that people do take the bait... Hence my post above.

(@ Everyone) And honostly, it doesn't matter at all to me whether it's an IP or a user account who doesn't sign, as long as sinebot gets them. I realize that my view may not be the majority one, but I have no more problem with Kainaw not signing (providing the post does get signed by someone) than an IP or new user not signing. It's hard to make a point if you can't get a rise out of others... Buddy431 (talk) 01:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"The big problem is that people do take the bait." And this is, of course, the problem with any troll. Over many painful years we've learned how to, and how not to, deal with trolls, but the lessons are hard ones that we keep forgetting, like when we let a troll work us up into a lather like this, attacking each other and all. WP:RBI, or if r and b are for whatever reason problematic, then please, just i. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Or delete. Or collapse. Or range-block. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protection prevents editing by unregistered contributions. It can be applied by an admin to the Ref. Desk discussion page. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 00:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

And then unregistered and new users can't ask questions. Sort of semi defeats the purpose of the reference desk, doesn't it? —DoRD (?) (talk) 00:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It would amount to mass-punishment resulting from the belligerence of one guy. It might be worth trying, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It would not be worth trying. If the suggestion is serious, then we have lost all sight of what the reference desk (and discussion page) is really for (here's a hint, it's not a clubhouse with a "no gurls" sign hanging on the front). Buddy431 (talk) 01:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's for hit-and-run IP's to post anything they bloody well feel like, because anybody who stands up to them will get yelled at. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

That's right. In my opinion (which may not reflect the consensus), the ref desk is (in part) for new users, or even people who have never edited Wikipedia and never gotten an account, or people who have edited Wikipedia but don't have an account (basically, anyone, including Bugs' "hit-and-run IPs") to post questions about anything they are wondering about. Semi-protecting the desk or discussion may take care of this particular problem, but at the cost that this 'solution', as DoRD puts it, "semi defeats the purpose of the reference desk". Buddy431 (talk) 07:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I've been wondering for a while since this whole not-signing started whether I should bring this up or not. I presume I'm not the only one who is aware of this. But for what it's worth, 82.43/82.44... is the former Avril Lavigne troll who has been back under several names including User:Avrillyria and been semi constructive under those names but been blocked for various reason. I'm not going to bother to provide any evidence other then [69] since from previous discussions with them they don't deny it. Personally I feel that 82.43/44 is resonably reformed but the occasionally do silly things, this signing example is one however poorly it's been handled. They also have rather strong views on various issues which many find problematic for a variety of reasons. I left a very, very long comment to User talk:82.43.89.27. While directed at this user, this paragraph "Your views are clearly on the extreme side..." somewhat explains my views of this user and the rest of the paragraphs after that is my suggestion to the user of a course of action from here Nil Einne (talk) 01:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A rangeblock of 82.43.89.0/25 (anon-only) would cover the recent IPs that were causing trouble at the reference desk. I am willing to enact this rangeblock unless people think it's unwise. There would be little or no collateral damage. EdJohnston (talk) 01:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Please give it a try. He can still edit his talk page(s) if he wants, right? In case he feels like actually talking about it. Then we could archive this megillah. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I was about to state that when a similar block against Freewayguy's use of a range of IP addresses came up, there was a very loud opposition. Then, I realized that the opposition came from 82.43.*. My opinion from the start (which was long before the recent rash of problems) is that this user purposely tries to see how close he can get to retribution for his behaviour and then sticks right at the line. My further opinion is that those who purposely toe the line over and over should be treated more harshly than those who accidentally bump it now and then. Therefore, I suggested a while back that this user be blocked for a very short time - not long enough to really stop anyone from using Wikipedia, but just a block. It would be a notice to the user that nudging too close to the line will result in a block - so stay away from it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kainaw (talk • contribs) 02:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's unwise. What I think is unwise is Kainaw's repeated and loud taking of the bait that keeps getting laid out. Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion to semi-protect the Ref. Desk discussion page is a serious one (@Buddy431). The main Ref. Desk pages would not be affected and questioners there would notice no change. (@DoRD). The collateral damage is that very new or unregistered users would not be able to post on the discussion page but they can still pursue any subject on the main Ref. Desk pages or contact an individual responder. This is damage reduction not a panacea. (@Baseball Bugs) It is worth trying because we can expect an immediate cleansing of the present situation, the semi-protection can be applied for a limited time and it will preserve the usefulness of the discussion page as a unique forum for working responders (gurls too, @Buddy431). @Kainaw, what do you think of my suggestion?Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Ooops a range block resolved this while I wrote the above. It's good that admins don't waste time. I am still happy to hear any thoughts from Kainaw. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I feel that a semi-protect will stop persistent vandalism. It is a good tool for that. This particular case is not persistent vandalism. The user is not dumb enough to do that. His method of operation is very simple, but hard to recognize. He scans the talk page. He finds a way to make a comment that follows the basic pattern: You aren't doing XXX. For example, he chastised one user for not providing diffs. At the same time, he doesn't sign. So, it is bait. He wants someone to say, "You told him to XXX and you didn't sign." Then, he follows a very basic trollish argument method of ignoring what the other user said and making baiting comments to continue the argument. A semi-protect will keep him from extending an argument, but not for laying the bait in the first place.

My opinion is that the bait should be deleted. There is a big problem though. Most users do not recognize it as bait. It looks like a simple request to add a diff or post a message or use a template... It does not look like bait. So, deleting one of his comments will look like users unjustly ganging up on someone just because he uses an anon IP.

Further, there are some very good editors who purposely use anon IP accounts. The most common one (who I think is gone) is the one who used 74.something. I discussed it with him and he feels that having an account is counter-productive to the purpose of Wikipedia. So, he refused to create an account. I disagreed with all of his arguments that he based his opinion on, but it was his opinion and choice to use an IP. I don't like the idea of blocking someone from him from using the talk page. -- kainaw™ 18:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I think some of the people involved in this fight should go back and read their comments about "IP editors" while substituting "the N word", because judging a class of editors as is done above is about the same. Focus your comments on individuals, if really necessary, but don't apply your comments to groups. --LarryMac | Talk 13:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Old image revision

Resolved

Question and notification combo: I reverted to an earlier version of Image:Mos.jpg and want to know if the version I reverted needs to be deleted, as the image licensing doesn't apply to it, and it may be unfree. If this is supposed to be deleted, then you are hereby notified, and also is there a WP:CSD template for this? I couldn't find an appropriate tag for the image. Thanks! — Bility (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Deleted that revision under CSD G6 (housekeeping); it was clearly uploaded in the wrong place. EyeSerene^talk 11:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive refusal to sign at the reference desks

Resolved

 – A rangeblock was agreed to, and it's now in place. EdJohnston (talk) 14:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

There is an anonymous user (from the 82.43.89.x range) that has stubbornly refused to sign his posts, pretty much 100% of the time, for months now. Sinebot has warned them probably dozens of times. However, their IP address jumps around every few weeks (because of his ISP, I think). His most recent IPs have been 82.43.89.27, 82.43.89.90, and 82.43.89.14. It really shouldn't be that big a deal, but it has unfortunately become disruptive on more than one occasion, so I feel something needs to be done. He doesn't vandalize, but on several occasions things have gotten ugly:

• Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 67#Mocking the OP (see the collapsed tangent)
• Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#2 Trolls
• Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Correcting typos or grammar

In these three discussions, while most editors simply ignore them, one editor (a different one for each incident) have gotten fed up and called him on it, though they unfortunately took the form of ad hominem attacks in the midst of the rest of the discussion. 82.43.89.x got defensive, and things become incivil (almost identically each time). After the first two incidents, I tried to resolve it, but didn't get anywhere:

• Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Two previous discussions
• User talk:82.43.89.90#Discussion on WT:RD

Even though I tried to address these concerns outside of the conflicts that they had already had, people were still bitter, and he remained defensive and irreconcilable. His IP then changed to the current one, and I forgot about it for a while, but after I saw the most recent incident I thought it should be dealt with.

I didn't want to go ahead and directly ask for an IP range ban (because of the tag here), so I wanted to see if we could use SineBot to enact a sort of conditional topic ban, by automatically removing any unsigned post made to the reference desks from this IP range, instead of enabling them by continuing to just sign their posts. I posted this proposal at slakr's talk page, but I have since learned that he hasn't been active on Wikipedia for over a month (I guess you could say slakng off ), so I decided to bring it here. —Akrabbim^talk 17:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

For me it is just not that big a deal, and is best dealt with by ignoring it. Penalising people - especially those unfamiliar with wikipedia or who just do not parse helpful information we push their way, is not the way to go. Given that SineBot signs unsigned posts, is there actually a problem worth our time to consider? And whether there is or not, is AN/I the right place to discuss it? --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

These are not newbies. It's basically one guy who jumps from IP to IP and consistently takes an "up yours" attitude toward registered users. He knows he can't be indef'd, which is why he sticks with an IP address. He knows that IP's get special treatment that's not afforded to registered users. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Anon editors get a special treatment, true, but it's both good and bad. They can "get away" with more because it's difficult to track their edits, and they are less likely to be indefinitely blocked for even the worst offenses because of collateral damage with shared IPs and because it's usually easy to just get another IP so it has less effect. But they are also restricted from certain things, they have no input at RfA, their arguments are given little weight or outright ignored at AfDs, they can't edit semiprotected pages or create new articles, they may have years of unrecognized contributions (the downside of being unable to track edit history) and are often treated with suspicion in general. As I see it, the benefits and penalties of anonymous editing have a reasonable balance and it's really their choice whether they want to register or not. -- Atama頭 18:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Correct. There is a double-standard. If you have an account and refuse to sign your posts, you get blocked. If you are an anon-IP and try to start fights by refusing to sign your posts, everyone says it isn't a big deal and praises you for being an asshole. So, I'm using civil disobedience by refusing to sign my own posts. Perhaps I'll eventually be regarded as a praised editor like the 82.43.* pest. Replacing this post from User:Kainaw, inadvertantly removed when I posted elsewhere on the page. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 18:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Seriously? If you don't sign you'll get blocked? Does that really happen? WP:SIGN is a guideline, not a policy, and it certainly doesn't say anything about blocks as a penalty for not signing. Do you block people for not signing? Staecker (talk) 01:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

They were threatening to block Docu indefinitely because he wouldn't sign the "prescribed" way, even though he always ended his comments with "Docu" in plain text. The poor depraved dears had to make a couple of extra keystrokes to be able to link back to him. But the IP's? Oh, that's different. They can do anything they want. Except to vote in AFD's and the like. Big freakin' deal. They get treated special. And they know it. And that's why they don't create user ID's, because they know they can get away with trolling, and unlike a registered user, they can't be stopped. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Kainaw, above, has decided to stop signing his posts in protest of 82.43.*'s behavior. In addition to being a clear violation of WP:POINT, Kainaw's refusal to sign is considerably more disruptive, because his posts are not auto-signed by SineBot (cf. Atama's post about downsides to IP's). Kainaw also persists, despite correction, in claiming that his Reference Desk colleagues "praise" 82.43.* for not signing his posts. Most of us have criticized 82.43.* for his failure to sign, and simply feel that the response by Kainaw et al. is disproportionate and unhelpful. -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

His pointiness is a good point, though. The user Docu, who actually did sign his posts, was about ready to be court-martialed for not doing it the prescribed way. IP's? No problem! They can leave it unsigned, and even if Sinebot signs it, you still don't have a clue if it's the same guy that refused to sign earlier. Every IP could be a different user every time, yet they demand to be respected at the same level as if they were registered and identifiable in some sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Docu signed his posts in an unlinked manner, and in so doing, prevented SineBot from automagically adding links. Kainaw is apparently unsigning his posts entirely (I'd been assuming thus far that it was some kind of glitch). 82.x is skipping the signing functionality, but is not inhibiting identification or linkage. One of these things is not like the others. — Lomn 19:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

But you knew immediately that it was Docu. With the IP's, there's a delay, and also there's no way to know if it's the same guy or a different guy - or if another IP is a different guy or the same guy who was just on another IP - because IP's in general never provide anything resembling an identifier. Yet they complain when they're treated like the drive-by trolls that they often are. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

SineBot doesn't act on users with over 800 edits, which is why Kainaw's are not getting signed by SineBot. Also, I doubt Slakr is going to modify SineBot as proposed above. Even if he had the time, I doubt he has the inclination. –xeno^talk 20:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Bugs, I think your commentary on this matter would improve if you'd drop "drive-by" and "troll" from your responses, as they're an unnecessary prejudice to the discussion. In particular, 82.x is unquestionably acknowledged as a single editor, thus "drive-by" is entirely wrong. A good portion of his contribs have been perfectly reasonable apart from signing, and what bad behavior exists is largely being matched by registered users in this thread, so I dispute "troll" as well. If you prefer, I'll grant that trolling behavior exists -- though as noted, it exists on both sides.

That said, I don't see this drastic difference. I'm inclined to recognize 82.x as being this particular personality. I'm well-versed in other individuals who I might identify as 69.y or 327.z. I'm aware that this may lead to a mistake in identity, but (a) that's part of the risk of being an IP editor and (b) user text signatures are no guarantee of identity, either.

I'll try to reach a conclusion: content is the primary driver. If 82.x posts good content, allow it to stand. If the content is bad, consider stripping it out. At the same time, though, I strongly advocate removing the deliberately baiting responses that show up around 82.x. I imagine a good thorough removal of both sides would largely end the drama. — Lomn 20:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

So you agree that if 82* posts a baiting comment, we can zap it as trolling and put the brakes on it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If and only if we also zap your baiting comments. — Lomn 21:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You could do that. Or you could ask me about it. Unlike the IP family in question, I actually respond to questions. Maybe it would be better to line through the IP's comments or alter them to small print when they're irrelevant, just as many of us have taken to small-printing side comments. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

82.43.89.x should not be compared to Kainaw or this Docu guy. The main point of WP:SIGN is that it is good practice and polite, which is why we have come up with this guideline. Now we have someone who intentionally ignores this guideline, and people are offended, because it has been agreed on that it is impolite. 82.43.89.x knows this, but continues anyway. This is the nature of the disruption. I am certainly not condoning Kainaw's actions, but he isn't the root of the problem here. He is just responding very poorly to the original problem. —Akrabbim^talk 20:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The links I saw here indicated not only did he refuse to sign in some way, he didn't even acknowledge the request. I recall another case (maybe the same guy, maybe not) who objected to being called a "drive-by" and said he would start signing if I would stop calling him a drive-by. As if his signing were about me somehow. That's the kind of arrogance we have to put up with from some of the IP's. You can talk to me. You can't talk to an IP. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That was the same individual. See the first discussion that I linked to in my first post. —Akrabbim^talk 20:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Surprise, surprise. It may sound hard to believe, but names are distinctive, and IP addresses are not. From my viewpoint, they are at once all one guy and each one a different guy. There's literally no way to know, unless they say, "Hey, I'm the same guy as earlier", and even then you would have to take their word for it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This is not an "overall general problem" at the RD - it is one specific person, covering a specific IP range, that has consistently refused to sign his posts, and so has on several occasions provoked incivility in his own as well as other editors' conduct. He has so far acted with impunity, because, as Kainaw is so impolitely demonstrating, every time he is called on it, it is overshadowed by the misconduct of the other editors. Note: I have switched from "they" to the less gender-ambiguous "he" to clear up the possibility of people thinking that this is a general anon-IP problem, and not the behavior of a single person. —Akrabbim^talk 19:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If the admins won't impose a long-term range block, the best solution might be to delete any posts from that IP range. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The double-standard is very clear. If an IP makes a point of not signing his posts, he is just impolite. If I don't sign my posts, I am being disruptive. I have made it clear that this is merely civil disobedience. I am not attempting to get anyone to argue with me about signing my posts. I am only trying to bring attention to the fact that we have this double-standard firmly in place. 82.43.* is highly protected and will continue to try to lure others into arguments that disrupt any conversation he joins. I feel that is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kainaw (talk • contribs) 21:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the better solution would be to simply stop using the registered user name and start using IP addresses. Don't bother signing or indicating who you are, as IP's in general can do whatever they want. And then instead of being hassled by certain users, they'll defend us against those mean old registered users. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

Civil disobedience is a blockable offense, Wikipedia doesn't have any Bill of Rights giving you a right to protest. I hope you know that you can be blocked for this. I'm not going to do so, at this point, but someone else might. -- Atama頭 22:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Really? It's come to this? I'm extremely disappointed. For what it's worth, here's my advice for dealing with the problem. When 82.43.* doesn't sign his posts, ignore it. When Kainaw doesn't sign his posts, ignore it. When someone makes a comment during a discussion of another topic about either one not signing their posts, ignore it (or if multiple comments, maybe collapse them so they doesn't clutter up the discussion). I think that if we don't make such a big deal about it, it will cease to be a problem. Buddy431 (talk) 22:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You are demonstrating what is frustrating with this user. It isn't about the fact that he doesn't sign his posts. If you are stuck on that, then you simply don't understand the problem. He complains and chastises other users for not doing things that he decides are necessary - and then refuses to sign his posts as he does so. It is painfully obvious that he is attempting to bait others into an argument with his "You need to do X while I refuse to do Y" tactic. The big problem is that people do take the bait. They do argue with him. The simple solution is not to ignore him. The simple solution is to remove his baiting arguments. However, that cannot be done because there will always be someone who doesn't know the entire situation and makes the claim that a few users are ganging up on some anon IP just to pick on him. Hence - we have a double-standard. A well-known anon-IP can act in a manner that purposely disrupts the reference desk and users run to his protection. If a user with an account simply decides that he doesn't want to sign his posts, he is threatened with being blocked or banned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kainaw (talk • contribs) 23:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Then you need to explain the problem better. If it's not about signing, then don't call this section "Disruptive refusal to sign". If 86.* is guilty of other offenses, then enumerate them. When does he say "you need to do X"? I don't see him making any demands in the links you gave, other than demanding that people not edit other people's posts, which is pretty uncontroversial. I'm a regular reader of the RD talk page and I have nothing to complain about 86.*. He's certainly no more demanding than other RD regulars when it comes to the way people act at the RD. Staecker (talk) 01:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

(EC) (@ Kainaw, mostly) You're absolutely right. The biggest problem is that people do take the bait... Hence my post above.

(@ Everyone) And honostly, it doesn't matter at all to me whether it's an IP or a user account who doesn't sign, as long as sinebot gets them. I realize that my view may not be the majority one, but I have no more problem with Kainaw not signing (providing the post does get signed by someone) than an IP or new user not signing. It's hard to make a point if you can't get a rise out of others... Buddy431 (talk) 01:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"The big problem is that people do take the bait." And this is, of course, the problem with any troll. Over many painful years we've learned how to, and how not to, deal with trolls, but the lessons are hard ones that we keep forgetting, like when we let a troll work us up into a lather like this, attacking each other and all. WP:RBI, or if r and b are for whatever reason problematic, then please, just i. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Or delete. Or collapse. Or range-block. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protection prevents editing by unregistered contributions. It can be applied by an admin to the Ref. Desk discussion page. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 00:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

And then unregistered and new users can't ask questions. Sort of semi defeats the purpose of the reference desk, doesn't it? —DoRD (?) (talk) 00:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It would amount to mass-punishment resulting from the belligerence of one guy. It might be worth trying, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It would not be worth trying. If the suggestion is serious, then we have lost all sight of what the reference desk (and discussion page) is really for (here's a hint, it's not a clubhouse with a "no gurls" sign hanging on the front). Buddy431 (talk) 01:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's for hit-and-run IP's to post anything they bloody well feel like, because anybody who stands up to them will get yelled at. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

That's right. In my opinion (which may not reflect the consensus), the ref desk is (in part) for new users, or even people who have never edited Wikipedia and never gotten an account, or people who have edited Wikipedia but don't have an account (basically, anyone, including Bugs' "hit-and-run IPs") to post questions about anything they are wondering about. Semi-protecting the desk or discussion may take care of this particular problem, but at the cost that this 'solution', as DoRD puts it, "semi defeats the purpose of the reference desk". Buddy431 (talk) 07:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I've been wondering for a while since this whole not-signing started whether I should bring this up or not. I presume I'm not the only one who is aware of this. But for what it's worth, 82.43/82.44... is the former Avril Lavigne troll who has been back under several names including User:Avrillyria and been semi constructive under those names but been blocked for various reason. I'm not going to bother to provide any evidence other then [70] since from previous discussions with them they don't deny it. Personally I feel that 82.43/44 is resonably reformed but the occasionally do silly things, this signing example is one however poorly it's been handled. They also have rather strong views on various issues which many find problematic for a variety of reasons. I left a very, very long comment to User talk:82.43.89.27. While directed at this user, this paragraph "Your views are clearly on the extreme side..." somewhat explains my views of this user and the rest of the paragraphs after that is my suggestion to the user of a course of action from here Nil Einne (talk) 01:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A rangeblock of 82.43.89.0/25 (anon-only) would cover the recent IPs that were causing trouble at the reference desk. I am willing to enact this rangeblock unless people think it's unwise. There would be little or no collateral damage. EdJohnston (talk) 01:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Please give it a try. He can still edit his talk page(s) if he wants, right? In case he feels like actually talking about it. Then we could archive this megillah. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I was about to state that when a similar block against Freewayguy's use of a range of IP addresses came up, there was a very loud opposition. Then, I realized that the opposition came from 82.43.*. My opinion from the start (which was long before the recent rash of problems) is that this user purposely tries to see how close he can get to retribution for his behaviour and then sticks right at the line. My further opinion is that those who purposely toe the line over and over should be treated more harshly than those who accidentally bump it now and then. Therefore, I suggested a while back that this user be blocked for a very short time - not long enough to really stop anyone from using Wikipedia, but just a block. It would be a notice to the user that nudging too close to the line will result in a block - so stay away from it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kainaw (talk • contribs) 02:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's unwise. What I think is unwise is Kainaw's repeated and loud taking of the bait that keeps getting laid out. Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion to semi-protect the Ref. Desk discussion page is a serious one (@Buddy431). The main Ref. Desk pages would not be affected and questioners there would notice no change. (@DoRD). The collateral damage is that very new or unregistered users would not be able to post on the discussion page but they can still pursue any subject on the main Ref. Desk pages or contact an individual responder. This is damage reduction not a panacea. (@Baseball Bugs) It is worth trying because we can expect an immediate cleansing of the present situation, the semi-protection can be applied for a limited time and it will preserve the usefulness of the discussion page as a unique forum for working responders (gurls too, @Buddy431). @Kainaw, what do you think of my suggestion?Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Ooops a range block resolved this while I wrote the above. It's good that admins don't waste time. I am still happy to hear any thoughts from Kainaw. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I feel that a semi-protect will stop persistent vandalism. It is a good tool for that. This particular case is not persistent vandalism. The user is not dumb enough to do that. His method of operation is very simple, but hard to recognize. He scans the talk page. He finds a way to make a comment that follows the basic pattern: You aren't doing XXX. For example, he chastised one user for not providing diffs. At the same time, he doesn't sign. So, it is bait. He wants someone to say, "You told him to XXX and you didn't sign." Then, he follows a very basic trollish argument method of ignoring what the other user said and making baiting comments to continue the argument. A semi-protect will keep him from extending an argument, but not for laying the bait in the first place.

My opinion is that the bait should be deleted. There is a big problem though. Most users do not recognize it as bait. It looks like a simple request to add a diff or post a message or use a template... It does not look like bait. So, deleting one of his comments will look like users unjustly ganging up on someone just because he uses an anon IP.

Further, there are some very good editors who purposely use anon IP accounts. The most common one (who I think is gone) is the one who used 74.something. I discussed it with him and he feels that having an account is counter-productive to the purpose of Wikipedia. So, he refused to create an account. I disagreed with all of his arguments that he based his opinion on, but it was his opinion and choice to use an IP. I don't like the idea of blocking someone from him from using the talk page. -- kainaw™ 18:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I think some of the people involved in this fight should go back and read their comments about "IP editors" while substituting "the N word", because judging a class of editors as is done above is about the same. Focus your comments on individuals, if really necessary, but don't apply your comments to groups. --LarryMac | Talk 13:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Article writer deleting negative !votes from AfD

Resolved

 – Already blocked by another admin. –MuZemike 23:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Could an admin please rein in Milanbijoux (talk · contribs). He/she seems intent on deleting "delete" !votes from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mona Lisa Brookshire.

I'ms sure the fact that they he/she wrote the article has nothing to do with it!!! --Fred the Oyster (talk) 22:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A footnote, we appear to also have had some IPs editing the AFD, all resolving to Uganda Telecom - the company for which the subject works. Seems under control now, but I've watchlisted the AFD just in case. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Old image revision

Resolved

Question and notification combo: I reverted to an earlier version of Image:Mos.jpg and want to know if the version I reverted needs to be deleted, as the image licensing doesn't apply to it, and it may be unfree. If this is supposed to be deleted, then you are hereby notified, and also is there a WP:CSD template for this? I couldn't find an appropriate tag for the image. Thanks! — Bility (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Deleted that revision under CSD G6 (housekeeping); it was clearly uploaded in the wrong place. EyeSerene^talk 11:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Debra Medina

Resolved

 – Article has received outside attention. —DoRD (?) (talk) 16:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Can I get some additional eyes on Debra Medina (politician)? A new editor has added material that I feel fails RS and as this is a BLP, that's not good. This has been a very long day and I'm not running at full speed, so I haven't done a very good job of explaining things to the editor, Eclipsemenow‎ (talk · contribs), with edit summaries, their talkpage, or the article talk. The source they're using, which appears to me to be a blog, is http://truthdig.org and the edits are here. Other editor notified. Thanks —DoRD (?) (talk) 02:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to go through it and do the typical cleanup routine for now before looking into it further. A lot of it is (unsourced) trivia and grandstanding. I also see the user is at their third revert and that a warning for that has been left, so another and... yeah. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 03:12, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Self follow-up: For simplicity, while its gone over I just decided to revert it to the last unwarred version being "clean". Thankfully there's a precise line on where the productive citation additions ended and this started. Does still need cleanup. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 03:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Scheer's stuff, depending on how major it is, seems to end up at a reliable source sooner or later. If the information is accurate, it ought to be returned if it gets to an RS. It's not likely, as Medina is miles from the mainstream and probably won't make any real electoral inroads. It's much ado about nothing, or much ado about a candidate polling at 30 fewer points than the incumbent. Şłџğģő 05:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

After next Tuesday, this article probably won't get much attention, anyway. —DoRD (?) (talk) 16:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Gotham (TV Series)

Resolved

 – speedied - just a hoax. JohnCD (talk) 15:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I would like an admin to have a look at Gotham (TV Series) - it looks fishy. It will (if nothing changes in the next 5 hrs) be deleted shortly, but it was created by Greenjelly10 within 10 mins of his first edit - has been edited by a number of editors then on 19 February, the same editor blanked the page and PROD'ed it with Project does not exist. Written under false information.

I can find nothing on the production company or on the show - so expect it is a Hoax am just worried about the motives of the parties and before it is deleted wondered if a admin with more experience may like to cast an eye over it to see if there is anything more to it. Codf1977 (talk) 13:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I have deleted it WP:CSD#G7, Greenjelly10 was the only contributor of substance. G3 blatant hoax or A7 would have done as well. Nothing sinister, I think, just a simple hoax. JohnCD (talk) 15:13, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Bond fan original

[71]. Death threat? Insults? Other threats? Or, is this a compliment? You be the judge. Regardless, the user is removing orphaned tags from images that are still orphaned (as of this writing) [72][73][74][75][76]. This started because I removed a whole host of images from "List of" type articles that were being used as per-character images in violation of WP:NFLISTS. I explained this to the editor at his talk page. Apparently for naught. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

That sent a chill down my spine. Blocked indef. Blueboy96 15:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I've just declined his unblock request. Syrthiss (talk) 15:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

007: Do you expect me to talk?
Response: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.
da da, da da, da dum

If this user were really James Bond, he'd edit in a more witty fashion. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 18:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

More eyes needed at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement

Do you enjoy solving complex disputes where few or none of the parties are completely clean? Are you committed to the principle that all editors should be here to build an encyclopedia, and we should encourage as many people as possible to do so? Can you cut to the pith of conflicting claims of reliable sourcing, civil POV pushing, baiting, off-site encouragement and coordination, and bad faith conduct accusations in the service of content disputes? Then there is an opening for you in the fast-paced and exciting topic area of the climate change probation!

• Starts: immediately
• Payscale: N/A
• Benefits: the satisfaction of not pleasing everyone anyone Fixed. NW (Talk) 01:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
• Open to: everyone, but experienced administrators receive a 1.618x pay multiplier

Swing by Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement or recent changes related to the climate change probation area today! - 2/0 (cont.) 20:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I may be masochistic, but I'm not completely insane. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Wait... so you're saying BozMo, LessHeardVanU, Guy, NW, 2/0 and I are??? hmmm... ++Lar: t/c 04:12, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Masochism Tango? - 2/0 (cont.) 22:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Needless to say, I don't agree with Jehochman's response here. I hope other admins will take a moment and give it a look. I believe this incident was fairly simple. Cla68 (talk) 21:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree with the sanctions anyway as I believe they get in the way of the smooth running of the area and were imposed without any real advertising of the debate (I was not aware that it was going on and I am active in that area!) so they are not a community consensus at all and hence should be invalid but I promise if I ever get admin status that I will steer well clear of this topic, which I edit in from time to time, and I encourage admins to just treat the area as they would any other area of wikipedia. Polargeo (talk) 09:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Kudpung.

Resolved

 – does 'culture clash' cover it? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

[77] [78]

It's nearly 2am, I'm not going to write out a thinly veiled partially inflammatory rant to explain why this behaviour is obviously inappropriate. Sceptre ^(talk) 01:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Not notifying a user about an ANI thread involving them is also inappropriate. User notified here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AKudpung&action=historysubmit&diff=346220026&oldid=346183993 Frmatt (talk) 02:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I have nothing more to say in this matter other than this edit summary by Sceptre who after a continuous history of immature action, obscene and inflammatory editing and talk participation, right up to the present, ironically, now complains to ANI:

• Revision as of 18:28, 29 July 2006 (edit) (undo)

Sceptre (talk | contribs)

(→You're cool.: Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but Shirley was all behind the bike sheds sucking off Matt so she could show him her Egg McMuffins)

and this:

• ...you're fucking joking, right? Isn't every AfD brought about by the nominator thinking an article should be deleted? Sceptre ^(talk) 19:43, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

--Kudpung (talk) 04:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You're going to have to provide diffs for those claims, or retract them immediately. Woogee (talk) 05:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:The_Halo&curid=3948992&diff=66510087&oldid=66509470
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sceptre/Archive14#Edit summary
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aidan Davis

Some of Sceptre's edits are positively disgusting and obscene. If according to Sceptre's opinion, children should be protected from appearing in an adult world, then probably our stance ought to be that they (Sceptre) should also be protected from becoming editors and admins of this encyclopedia. Rather a lot of Sceptre's comments on his own and other's talk pages, and on other discussions, are unnecessarily combative, and inflammatory. It's no good Sceptre preempting his own insulting behaviour by providing an advance blanket apology: "But be warned, I am rather sarcastic or sneering at times," Continuing trying to look clever by using foul language on this encyclopedia will not gain him more respect from his more mature peers, and will ultimately cause some mild mannered editors, such as me, to lose patience. In spite of his many years of contributions and high edit count, this kind of thing only gives more fuel to fire of the contenders that the Wikipedia is being run and administrated by children. A lot of the work Sceptre has done is good, and he should keep it up, while perhaps avoiding inviting situations that spoil it and scar his reputation. Such voicing of personal prejudices and ideology might not be shared by others, or aye, may even be politically uncorrect.--Kudpung (talk) 07:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oh grow up. This is fatuous. Guy (Help!) 08:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Ditto. None of it excuses essentially making your userpage an attack page. Especially when, as far as I can tell, the only diff you even provided here did not involve you and appears to be a joke that was either a movie reference or an inside joke among wikifriends. --Smashville^talk 14:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. In fact, the diff given would be instantly recognisable to any British person with a television to be a Little Britain reference. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Huh. Whaddyaknow. I even linked to the Vicky Pollard article in that edit! Sceptre ^(talk) 16:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll give Kudpung the opportunity to apologize for the personal attacks, in light of the explanation given by Spectre and others for a racy edit summary. If not, I'm blocking for a clear violation of WP:NPA. -- Atama頭 19:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

•  Done--Kudpung (talk) 21:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you, Kudpung (I'm surprised to see you reply so quickly since it's 4 AM where you live). I will assume that your attacks were a misunderstanding based on what was admittedly strong language from Spectre. I suggest we all just drop this now? -- Atama頭 21:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

And one of the "supporting" links is an archive page from 2006. But apart from that, what have the admins ever done for us, eh? Guy (Help!) 19:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like vandalism. Second opinion needed

Resolved

 – not vandalism, but image deleted anyway Beeblebrox (talk) 17:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

On the WP:VANDALISM page, User:OmniWikia added an image, marking the edits as minor edits [79]. There was no discussion about adding an image to the page, so I'm strongly suspecting this wasn't supposed to have been added. Not horrible vandalism, but a second opinion would be nice.Niteshift36 (talk) 00:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Well given the user's history. I'm more than willing to concur that this is vandalism. Rgoodermote  00:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

What the hell are you guys talking about? I like the image, I think it's a good symbolic representation of what Wikipedia vandalism is, I don't see anything indicating it was done in bad faith but rather a rush to assume bad faith, and I don't see any reason to run straight to ANI without discussing it with Omni first. Not every edit must be discussed first, most users are comfortable with WP:BRD. I certainly don't see any need for any admin action on this. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:31, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Whether we like the image or not isn't really the issue. Changes to policy pages should involve discussion, shouldn't they? And when images are added, they shouldn't be marked as minor edits. That's what made me suspect the vandalism. Then I came to ANI and ASK for a second opinion. Don't start screaming about assuming bad faith. I wrote him on his userpage and asked for a second opinion second opinion here. Niteshift36 (talk) 00:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• WP:BRD huh? I guess we should completely ignore that banner at the top that says "Changes made to it should reflect consensus." Niteshift36 (talk) 01:31, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

On second examination (the first I didn't to do well admittedly). It does appear to have been in good faith. Rgoodermote  00:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• It may very well have been good faith. What made me suspect otherwise was the repeated marking of the edit as minor. Obviously adding an image is not a minor edit and he's been here long enough to know that. Had it been once, I'd have thought maybe it was accidental. But it was marked as minor multiple times. Niteshift36 (talk) 00:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

well, you know what they say: even a broken clock is right twice a day. doesn't really apply in the age of digital clocks, but still... --Ludwigs2 01:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• 5 succesive edits marked as minor. That was the main thing that made me suspect it wasn't on the up and up. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Can somebody explain how OmniWikia owns File:Wikipedia-vandal.png, when it's derived from the copyrighted Wikipedia image? Woogee (talk) 00:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Now that is a problem indeed. I do believe that image is a WP:COPYVIO. Rgoodermote  01:22, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Deleted as such (derivative work). --Orange Mike | Talk 01:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

just out of curiosity, what was the problem here - I kind of liked the image. it was well done, and kind of cute in an irreverent sort of way. why couldn't we keep it? --Ludwigs2 01:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

P.s. - let me add, if other like the image I will happily recreate something similar and upload it as a freebie. --Ludwigs2 01:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• I liked it too. But not liking it wasn't what brought me here. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Just be sure you don't derive it from a copyrighted logo. Woogee (talk) 02:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

well, I can base it on the wikipedia logo, can't I? I assume that's public domain. I'll just find something appropriate on commons and play with it a bit... --Ludwigs2 06:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the Wikipedia logo is not public domain. That's the problem. Woogee (talk) 06:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

ah... well, I'll work something out then. give me a bit, and I'll post it over there. --Ludwigs2 06:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Redid, re-uploaded put in appropriate license, my history I am sorry for, my preferences mark it always as mnor edit. Sorry for any problems. -~OmniWikia 19:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Possibly unforeseen issue is the use of this image as vandalism itself example. Rehevkor ✉ 19:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

No, still a copyright violation. You are not the copyright holder, and therefore it is not valid for you to be assigning any licenses whatsoever. This is still a problematic copyright problem, please re-delete. Woogee (talk) 19:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Could an admin stop by this open SPI?

Resolved

 – Blocked by Floquenbeam -- Bfigura ^(talk) 22:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

An AfD on Criminal creology that I started seems to have opened up a drawer full of socks, and led another editor to start an SPI which has been open for a bit with no action (although it has accumulated 9 possible socks). Would an admin mind weighing in? -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Character article

Resolved

 – Moved to RSN

I've come across an article about a character from a book (made into movies and plays). The article has zero references (other than a really low quality YouTube video which I've deleted). The entire article (Violet Beauregarde) is clearly original research. I suspect most of the content is verifiable if you read the book, see the movie, etc. In the case of plays, none of the included material is verifiable. My thought would be to shorten the article to basic facts specific to each media (book, movie 1, movie 2) and turn the page into one for disambiguation. However, I'm certain that this case isn't unique and that most big movies/books have articles written about specific characters. I would think that unless a character has been the subject of published secondary material from reliable sources, book/movie characters don't rate their own articles. But that may be just me. So may main question here at AN/I is this: what are are standards for articles about book/movie characters? Rklawton (talk) 22:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, to start with, ANI is for reporting problems that require direct intervention by an administrator, so this discussion doesn't really belong here. The village pump is probably a better venue. To address your question, the general notability guideline applies to all articles, regardless of topic. There is a more specific standard proposed at WP:FICTION, but it is in a wiki-netherworld of uncertainty it seems. I believe there has been some discussion of this around WP:RSN lately as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. I'll copy this thread over to RSN. Thanks! Rklawton (talk) 22:31, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Haida chieftain - what's the next step?

Haida chieftain (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been for disruptive editing and sockpuppetry before finally being indefinitely blocked on 16 February. In the last 30 hours, at least three IP addresses from the same subnet have edited the Canwest article in patterns consistent with the blocked user. He all but admitted to using the sockpuppets today. One of the IPs, 199.60.104.100 (talk · contribs), also made a blatantly offensive unblock request.

Multiple editors have tried to work with him. His response has turned from ignoring our help to outright defiance and incivility. It occurs to me that some combination of the following four steps are the best process from here:

1. Denial of recognition of his disruption by quiet reverts and blocks of the IPs in question.
2. A range block of the addresses he is using to evade his block (downside: collateral damage to other users in a public library).
3. Semi-protection of the Canwest article.
4. A formal community ban of Haida chieftain.

Recommendations? Other options? —C.Fred (talk) 00:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the article for 3 days, hopefully that will be enough to discourage him. I think the first option in your list is a pain considering how relentless he is, the second one isn't needed since there's only one article being abused, and while the last option isn't a bad idea it won't do anything to stop him from using IP socks. -- Atama頭 00:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I rather liked the idea of contacting the public library myself, and asking if they have a regular who is a slightly wild looking, English as second language speaker, with shares in Canwest. If so, can they please ban him from using the computers. Other than that, the article hasn't been edited by an IP who isn't Haida Chieftan this side of Christmas, so I'd vote to extend the semi. 3 days is no way long enough. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I second the approval of the contacting of the library. Maybe we should just ask them to keep a log of who signs on to the computer, and then compare it to the vandalism, thus catching them. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Note: he's now frantically refactoring his talk page (17 edits in as many minutes). Don't know what that's all about. And he still thinks we've located him by GPS, rather than doing a WHOIS lookup on the IP addresses, which of course are all registered to that public library.Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that his user talk page is in clear violation of WP:UP#NOT #9. I think a courtesy blanking is in order. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 03:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protect the article for two weeks and protect his talk page as he shouldn't still be pushing for article changes without addressing his block. The IP's whois record gives 3 email addresses, 2 of which seem to go to specific people. If others think it's a good idea, I'm willing to email the contacts and explain how one of their patrons could be causing issues for their other visitors wishing to use Wikipedia. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

SupportElen of the Roads (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support - I was trying to be cautious with the protection, but probably too cautious (I know that's a fault of mine). I think the extension of protection and attempts to contact the library are a good idea. -- Atama頭 21:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Now he's adding accusations of meatpuppeting and paid editing [81]. Some please lock his talk page. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Quite. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Well, here come the sockpuppets. Ravenfeathers (talk · contribs) starts editing with Talk:Canwest and the talk page of one of the blocked IPs. —C.Fred (talk) 23:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

And a legal threat on the IP talk page at that. —C.Fred (talk) 23:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I told you guys getting rid of him was going to be like dealing with a roach infestation. Enjoy your new problem, because I wash my hands of it. HalfShadow 23:14, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Grundle2600 violating his topic ban?

Resolved

 – Blocked 48h, escalating blocks for recurrence. Guy (Help!) 22:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive572#Grundle2600: continued problems Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive594#Topic ban clarification: Grundle2600 This week Grundle2600 (talk · contribs) created articles about climate change exaggeration and climate change delusion (since changed into a redirect), both of which seem to be in violation of his topic ban. When this was brought to his attention, he wrote: "I am allowed to edit articles on climate change, as long as I stick to the science." How many "last chances" will Grundle2600 get? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 05:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC) I wrote the article about science, not politics. Regarding my topic ban, this is from the admin who enacted my original topic ban. The bolding is mine: "*Political depends on what you are trying to change in the article. Medical cannabis looks fine for now. If you wanted to add a long section that talked about the politics of medical cannabis, that would probably be covered, especially if it singled out particular politicians for scrutiny or criticism. You can post the addition to the talk page and if other people like it, they can copy it to the article for you. "Politics and politicians" is somewhat narrower in intention than "political" -- just about everything could be described as "political" these days. It is not my intent to have the topic ban interpreted so broadly as to give other editors a club to pound you with for edits to unrelated topics. So I am allowed to edit articles on climate change, as long as I stick to the science. Grundle2600 (talk) 05:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC) In order to save everyone from wasting huge amounts of time in this discussion, and in order to avoid an indef block, I am willing to accept a 24 block right now. The article that I created is almost certainly going to be deleted anyway. Grundle2600 (talk) 05:31, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Why did you create it if you're already resigned to it getting deleted? Şłџğģő 05:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Grundle, this is the article as you initially created it. You claim that it was simply a scientific article, with no political content. Yet you mention Gallup polling data and the way climate change exaggeration can hurt the environmental movement, which is at least partially, if not primarily, a political movement. Not to mention that you should know how politically charged climate change is, especially when the article itself is about how climate change is portrayed to the public, not the actual science of climate change itself. Looking at the article as it is now, the political aspects are fleshed out even more, showing what your true motive was in creating the article. This is a pretty blatant violation of your topic ban. Of course, your participation at the deletion discussion for the article is breaking the ban even further. I don't see any reason not to indefinitely block you, it seems clear to me that you just can't edit Wikipedia without diving into the areas where you keep stirring up trouble. -- Atama頭 07:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC) FWIW, even independently of any previously imposed topic ban, the creation of climate change exaggeration, a blatant tendentious POV-fork, was clearly irresponsible disruptive editing. I was considering a block even before I knew he was already topic-banned. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Atama is essentially correct; he went beyond mere scientific editing and was editing in political aspects. Notwithstanding, Fut.Perf also raises a valid point. Grundle has posted a template saying he is on wikibreak; it seems clear to me based on the circumstances of this case, that despite the wikibreak (which I would usually be sympathetic to), he should still be blocked (indef) until he satisfies the ordinary conditions of an unblock. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC) For the record, Grundle is referring above to an earlier topic ban, which has since expired, when he cites a diff of a comment from User:Thatcher. As far as I know (and admittedly I may have missed something given how long this has gone on) Grundle remains under an indefinite community sanction (based on this discussion) wherein "he is prohibited from editing any pages relating to US politics or politicians." Recently I think Grundle has either forgotten about or is ignoring that indefinite sanction as he keeps referring to one that expired back in September. This is literally about the fourth or fifth time we've had this sort of discussion about Grundle2600, and to my mind it remains unfortunate that the indefinite block of December 13th (see log) was reversed five days later after multiple unblock requests from Grundle, one of which finally succeeded. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:14, 26 February 2010 (UTC) The topic ban mentioned by Bigtimepeace is logged at WP:RESTRICT. Mjroots (talk) 09:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Having looked at Grundle2600's recent contribution, I've not seen any evidence of editing articles covered by the topic ban. If I've missed something please show me where. Mjroots (talk) 09:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC) That does not appear to be a violation. The topic ban is specifically related to articles about US politics and US politicians. That edit appears to be a good one per WP:BLP. Mjroots (talk) 10:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC) The topic ban is for any pages that relate to US politics and politicians - not articles. This was imposed with the view that any edits on the topics of US politics and politicans are not made by Grundle2600; Atama (above) has pointed out how Grundle2600 is repeatedly testing the boundaries of his ban rather than spending time in an area where his editing won't be stirring up trouble. In fact, this "testing the boundaries" was one of the reasons I opened the discussion that led to the now-enacted topic ban. Even with its obvious BLP value, I've brought up this very specific edit so that you can see a clear and direct edit regarding a US politician in the midst of already controversial editing. Does that make sense? Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC) It is sort of making sense, the exact text of the topic ban is this - subject to an indefinite topic ban - he is prohibited from editing any pages relating to US politics or politicians. My interpretation of that is that it specifically means articles on those subjects. The actual article on climate change isn't covered by that restriction. Given what has been said about Grundle's pushing the boundaries, then maybe the solution is to give an absolute final warning here, and extend the topic ban to cover sections of articles that are specifically about US Politics and/or US Politicians even if the article itself is not specifically about one of those two subjects. Mjroots (talk) 13:22, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Ah, but the words were specifically chosen in the restriction - "relating to". The restriction need not specify "a particular section of the article that is specifically about US politics", because it's a ban from any page that is relating to US politics. Arguably, if there is a section in a page about politics, it does relate to politics in some form - but we've lost any ability to overlook the ban when an edit specifically goes into the politics section. Does that clarify? Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC) So, if a US politician is even mentioned in an article, Grundle is banned from editing the page? Is that what you are saying? Mjroots (talk) 15:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC) If he confined his edits to parts of the article that did not concern politics that might be ok. But in the diff linked by Ncmvocalist his edits consisted of deleting a paragraph describing a U.S. senator's opinions. I don't see any way to construe that edit as being not about U.S. politics. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC) The paragraph was unreferenced, and its removal was in accordance with WP:BLP. Mjroots2 (talk) 20:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC) That's as may be, but it doesn't contradict the fact that by removing it Grundle violated his topic ban. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Time to start the escalating blocks. He's not listening. Guy (Help!) 08:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC) I agree. The diff posted above by Ncmvocalist is a clear violation of the topic ban, which clearly calls for escalating blocks to be the consequence of a violation. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC) As a totally uninvolved admin, I have placed a 48 hour block as a first action in enforcement of the listed topic ban. The deleted paragraph is a pretty straight-forward a violation of the ban IMHO. - TexasAndroid (talk) 17:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC) I should note that of the two articles created by Grundle in apparent violation of his restrictions, Climate change delusion has been redirected but Climate change exaggeration is currently up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Climate change exaggeration. The closing admin might want to take the circumstances of the article's creation into account. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC) I should note that ChrisO is politicking rather than encyclopedia building with the above edit (00:51). How does it help the encyclopedia -- as opposed to attempting to help a particular point of view -- to conflate an AfD decision about an article with a behavior decision about an editor? Editors are here to build NPOV articles and to try to come to agreement on how to do it with discussion and honesty. Editors are not here to use a behavioral issue to leverage support for a content issue. There has been a very longstanding, very wide problem with the WP:BATTLEGROUND atmosphere and POV pushing (on both sides) concerning the AGW articles. Anyone concerned about manipulation of the encyclopedia for POV pushing should now look suspiciously at ChrisO, given his statement above. (By the way, I don't disagree with ChrisO about the AfD issue.) -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Reference removing vandal

For the past two months I have been dealing with a vandal who removes every single reference from a series of articles (all info here). I've brought this up on the board in the past. I've contacted edit filter creators and administrators to attempt to stem the abuse. But nothing stops this guy. The latest IP used is 75.36.130.249 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and the one before that was 76.202.59.224 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). The only reason there aren't more IPs this month is because of four rangeblocks put in place to prevent this guy from editing. All four of these are set to expire in a week's time. The ranges that have been blocked are:

• 75.36.136.0/21
• 76.200.100.0/22
• 76.204.76.0/22
• 76.205.24.0/22

The following two ranges have also been used but were not blocked a month ago due to the fact that they did not have as many edits from them that could be attributed to this person (as is not the case now):

• 75.36.128.0/21
• 76.202.56.0/22

I do not want the articles affected semiprotected. Other IPs produce helpful edits. I don't know if an edit filter was made and was disabled due to inactivity. I just know that blocking these ranges are the only effective way of preventing this vandal from editing. I'm requesting that the ranges that are currently blocked (but with less than a week remaining) to be reblocked for an extended period, the two ranges that aren't blocked to be blocked for the same time period, and that the blocks allow account creation (this guy probably won't bother making an account as he hasn't in the past few months). If there is a narrower range that could be blocked instead, then please mention it.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

And he was just editing on 75.36.131.25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Can the ranges be all reblocked?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:AIV backlogged

Resolved

Please help clear it out- the vandals who went past a final warning and waited to be blocked have begun to see it as an empty threat and have resumed vandalizing. ALI ^{nom nom} 18:31, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Appears to be resolved for the moment. — Kralizec! (talk) 00:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Rock It! (Prime Jive)

Attacks other users, asks them to shut up. Was indefblocked at Russian Wikipedia for the same reason. vvv^t 20:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Their first edit on the English Wikipedia was an attack on another editor, and then they edit warred to keep the attack on the user's Talk page. Not encouraging. The COIN discussion is absurd, as well. Woogee (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I've left a warning on the COI itself telling him to wise up regarding his etiquette or get blocked. SGGH ^ping! 21:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

You have to give the editor credit. He doesn't beat around the bush, and is eager to share in his assessments of others. Is there a barnstar for providing uninhibited character observations? A Glass Bubble (talk) 01:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

3RR

Resolved

blocked 31h by User:John. —Crazytales (talk) 01:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

This should be an open and shut case [82] - can an admin please action it? The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 23:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Personal attacks: expletives and 2 against 1.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The English Wikipedia is not the English Wikinews. They have their own methods of dispute resolution; please follow them. NW (Talk) 01:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

---

• The following users are choosing to be violent and offensive and trying desperately to egg me on: User:Blood Red Sandman and User:Microchip08. Judging from their userpages, they might be the same person or collectively badger other users. Here is the link to the communication: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Integrate_WN_into_WP_Infobox The hidden text should also be considered. I am assuming that because this took place in WikiNews they feel exempt from Wikiquette guidelines. I think these users should be blocked, at the very least, for a good number of days. --Soy Rebelde (talk) 01:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
• P.S. They are also diverting/sabotaging the topic I addressed. I doubt anyone will feel comfortable contributing without feeling they're getting "involved." --Soy Rebelde (talk) 01:25, 27 February 2010 (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.

Is this a joke? --Soy Rebelde (talk) 01:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Dispute resolution process for wikinews. Please follow it. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 01:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

User:John

Resolved

User:John has been very impolite and abusively using reverts, as well as starting a personal vendetta against me. He insisted on using a German word for "Nazi Germany", reverts a common infobox addition to a long list, and used automatic warnings on me, an established user and frequent editor of philosophy articles. All of my recent edits to any article was reverted by him. He also threatened me with block. Administrators please take action to stop his behavior. Wandering Courier (talk) 05:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it looks to me like John's correct. You seem to have not fully accepted our core policy on verifiability and our guideline on what constitutes a reliable source. Providing credible sources for your edits is not negotiable. We are all aware that many (if not most) Wikipedia articles fall below this standard, but it's site policy nonetheless. I appreciate that it can be frustrating, especially where you've been working from personal knowledge because it may seem like an attack on your integrity. However, it isn't - we're all subject to the same rules and it really isn't all that arduous to take the extra few minutes to produce a source (in fact, eventually it becomes habit). I see no evidence that John has been discourteous to you or targeted your edits, bearing in mind that when potential issues are noticed with an editor's work, it's normal practice to to check other contributions from that editor. This isn't a vendetta, just common sense. I suggest the only solution is that you provide sources as required by policy. EyeSerene^talk 09:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your first diff, two edits later he made an edit that merely put "the" in front of your word choice, leaving it in place rather than what he reverted to the first time, that doesn't look like "insistence" to me. Regarding your second diff, did you provide a source at the time of the first insertion? No. And your response: "if John insists on adding reference to infobox listings, i will add a reference, but John, you'd then require ref for ALL infobox listings of influence, which is impossible, sir" is unreasonable. As EyeSereen says, articles may fall short, but that is no excuse for making the problem worse. I note from your talk page that John is not the only person to have warned you about this matter. I think you need to up your game. No problem found with John's actions, I endorse them. Recommend close, no action. ++Lar: t/c 12:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

What I have said yesterday was too polemic, and I think my intention was misunderstood. I am not here to argue that it is not necessary to use references. From my edits I used many, many references from different places, book and web. However, it is quite unreasonable to populate infoboxes with reference tags. For philosopher articles under the "influenced" and "influences" row generally there is a list, and there has been no imperative in the past whatsover to put reference tags into them. It is shown by precedents and common practice that references are only used inside articles for substantive facts, and not summaries on infoboxes, as anything inside the infobox is implied by Wikipedia article. When Plato is put into the "influences" section of Aristotle, there shouldn't be a demand for a reference tag for that. If John is willing to be consistent, he would need to delete all infobox "influences" and "influenced" rows, and a massive truncation would be done on philosophy articles. I believe in established consensus and tradition as shown in continual agreed-upon practice. There has been almost no reference tag in any of philosophy infoboxes, so I think it is inappropriate for John to start a revolution on the practice with all of my edits. Besides, many of my additions to the influences section are simply reciprocations, in which the article on philosopher A indicates he was influenced by philosopher B, it would be common sense to add on the entry about philosopher A that his influences include philospher B. Wandering Courier (talk) 23:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Policy that references are required for any item that is at all questionable is very clear. That an area didn't have references in the past doesn't mean that new additions are not subject to policy. (It also doesn't mean that we MUST delete every unreferenced thing all at once). However, infobox items don't need refs if they are repeating things sourced in the article body. Are these additions already sourced in the body of the article? If not, could they be? (if they can't be sourced, why are you adding them?) I'm still not seeing where John did anything wrong in enforcing policy in this area. To a certain extent this may be considered a content dispute, but in my view, policy is pretty clear. ++Lar: t/c 04:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

That's pretty much my take too. That references haven't been insisted on in the past is no indication they aren't needed; consensus can't override policy. Incidentally, most of my article work is on military articles where infoboxes do tend to be referenced along with everything else (see, for example, Battle of Villers-Bocage). Taking the example you've given—that philosopher A was influenced by philosopher B—that's certainly something that requires a reference and ideally an in-line citation, coming as it does under the "material that is [...] likely to be challenged" clause of WP:V. Whether that citation is on philosopher A's article or philosopher B's, it should be easy enough to transpose it from one article to the other. This does't mean we have to remove every such item from every infobox immediately, but we have to start somewhere. Citing these claims can be a gradual process, especially if it affects many articles... but it should be done. EyeSerene^talk 09:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

So, if an edit changes a German word for an English one, or if it inserts an unsourced item in a bunch of other unsourced items, it is OK to use rollback ("the rollback feature is a fast method of undoing blatantly unproductive edits, such as vandalism and nonsense.") and template the author? Way to go. I thought ANI was about user counduct, not about content disputes. (End of helpful comment). No such user (talk) 10:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the support and feedback. This was the edit that brought this editor to my attention (note the edit summary, note that this is a BLP article, note the poor-quality source, note that it was a revert). No such user is probably right that technically I should have used undo rather than revert. When I investigated, I saw quite a few problematic edits from the same editor though, which all needed to go, so it was more convenient for me to use rollback to accomplish this, which has exactly the same net effect. Note finally that several other editors besides have removed poorly-sourced contributions from Wandering Courier, and there are a bunch of other warnings to the user over quite a period regarding poorly sourced additions. I'll continue to keep an eye on this editor, though it looks like they have raised their game and are no longer doing the sort of edits I had to warn them for, which is good. --John (talk) 17:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you everyone, I will be much more careful in the future. Wandering Courier (talk) 22:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Personal Attacks on Talk: Law & Order

Hello, an anonymous ip has been leveling personal attacks against me on Talk: Law & Order for about a week now.[83][84][85][86][87] Is there anything that can be done about this? It's coming from non-static ips, mostly in the range of 146.187.xxx.xxx and 67.110.212.171. Both ips are out of Cheney, Washington. I know that semi-protecting a talk page is not an ideal solution, but it's getting old reverting this stuff, especially when it's the same juvenile comments being leveled against me constantly and they're sometimes being left up for some time before I have time to notice them. Is a temporary rangeblock possible? I know the 146.187.xxx.xxx ips belong to a university, but it's getting out of control. Redfarmer (talk) 10:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I should add that the 146.187.xxx.xxx ip is not contributing in any other way to Wikipedia. Their ip is solely being used for attacks. Redfarmer (talk) 10:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Page semi-protected for a month. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 03:06, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Distasteful images

Resolved

An IP left a message at User_talk:A._B.#Wikipedia_content about certain distasteful images on Wikipedia. It's probably a simple WP:CENSOR case, but I note it here as the IP wanted administrator attention and A. B. has not been active lately. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Just tell them about WP:NOTCENSORED and point them to Help:Options to not see an image if they feel offended by images they see here. No need for any administrative intervention as you correctly assumed. Regards SoWhy 14:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I left the IP a note along the lines SoWhy suggested. ⇦REDVERS⇨ Say NO to Commons bullying 14:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Death is not pretty, but it's educational. I've seen worse here on wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Joke/attack page in user space?

Resolved

 – Userspace fork deleted. Risker (talk) 02:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Smitz (talk · contribs) is inactive; User:Smitz/cheese looks like it's using the Tourette syndrome article to play a joke on someone (by real name, which could be a BLP vio). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:41, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Gets better; that page leads to Donald Ewen Cameron, which looks like another bio mess. Maybe Smitz was a prank account, and all contribs need to be checked? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The contributions aren't an issue as they existed here for around three years before leaving. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:34, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I've deleted the userspace fork, which contained clearly incorrect information and lacked proper attribution. The Donald Ewen Cameron clearly needs work, however; while there are probably enough links there to consider it sourced or sourceable, there is an obvious POV exhibited in the article. Risker (talk) 02:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Risker: I don't have times to work on the Cameron article (got my hands full :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Range Block Needed

Alot of vandalism is coming from DAKTEL.COM or Dakota Central Telecommunications in Carrington, North Dakota. Some of the edits are redirect vandalism, some moving vandalism, some downright pure vandalism as you will see in the links below. All have a pretty small range, so I am hoping this will work.

• 69.178.195.231 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.178.194.242 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.178.193.154 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.178.192.140 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.178.193.150 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.178.194.55 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.178.192.207 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.178.195.228 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.178.195.165 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Two of these have active blocks (of one week) applied recently. The last one on the list has been vadalizing in the last hour. Is it possible to range block these or just long term block them? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

69.178.192.0/22 would cover all of the reported IPs. I'll have a closer look. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 04:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Even the 69.178.193/194/195 IPs would be covered? (Not really read up on range blocks and ranges for that matter). Thanks for taking a look :) - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• Just a note: 69.178.195.165 has been blocked for 24 hours for "vandalism" by Cirt. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Blocked 69.178.192.0/22 for 1 month. A review of the contributions from this IP range show it is being used almost exclusively by this vandal. This guy has been a pest for at least two years now. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 04:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Will that cover the 69.178.193.XXX, 69.178.194.XXX, and 69.178.195.XXX IPs? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

It covers 69.178.192.1 thru 69.178.195.254 caknuck _° needs to be running more often 05:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

You will need range ban 69.178.192.0 - 69.178.255.255, NET-69-178-192-0-1 (NDTC), and NET-69-178-192-0-2 (Daktel). • Zimmbotkiller (talk) 05:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

So far, I think we'll be OK with the /22 block. This vandal's address range seem pretty restricted. It's possible Daktel allocates its IPs geographically, meaning that as long as this user stays put, so will his IP range. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 05:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, as long as we can block the range coming from Carrington, North Dakota (which is probably the 69.178.192.1 thru 69.178.195.254 range blocked) we are good. That is where all the edits are originating from. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 05:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Request Copyright Violation block.

Jam2jam has copyright violations. I've warned the page creator his response was to remove the csd tag and copyright tag and leave copyrighted info. This article has also been deleted more then once suggesting the same issue. User talk:Dillonsc is the responsible party and is making no attempt to interact with the community. Requesting block and deletion of page including a good long salt. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 05:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Page deleted. Unless they recreate the page with the copyvio text, I don't think salting/blocking is required. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 05:31, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

User:86.58.102.208

Resolved

 – Blocked user for 31 hours. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 19:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

This user insists on changing the attendance for the match between Porto and Arsenal in the 2009–10 UEFA Champions League from 40,717 (the attendance officially reported by UEFA) to 45,600 (a value seemingly plucked from thin air, as the anon refuses to provide a source for this value). I have requested that they stop this on their talk page, but they refuse to talk. Any help available? – PeeJay 18:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Blocked for 31 hours. There have been enough warnings & reverts to let the IP clue in. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 19:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Every source I can find has the attendance as 45,600, so I have reverted your edit. The 40,717 figure appears to be the one plucked from thin air. Blocked for correcting a mistake, what sort of encyclopedia is this? --88.109.169.136 (talk) 09:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

DUCK! - NeutralHomer • Talk • 09:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

FYI, check this page for the official UEFA-recorded attendance figure. I have yet to see an actual link to any source for the other figure. – PeeJay 13:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Clearly User:88.109.169.136 needs blocking too. They are obviously attempting to evade a block and are also seemingly on a crusade against me, having also made contrary edits to England cricket team against Pakistan in UAE in 2009–10. – PeeJay 13:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

BBC, SkySports, Guardian, ESPN and Arsenal's official website all have the 45,600 figure. --88.109.169.136 (talk) 13:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

And why should we believe those sites ahead of the competition organisers? The BBC, Sky Sports, ESPN, et al. all take their info from the same source (the Associated Press), so of course they will have corroborating figures. – PeeJay 13:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Obvious sock is obvious

Resolved

 – Two accounts blocked. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:29, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Cryogenic phil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an obvious sock of indef'd Keegscee.[88].--Crossmr (talk) 06:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not a sock of Keegscee. This checkuser case has garnered a lot of attention from PCHS-NJROTC's many followers, me being one of them. I would have just as soon alerted him to the outcome of the case, but I couldn't write on his talk page. I saw that Crossmr was also involved in the case and slinging around crazy accusations, so I thought I would let him know as well. No harm intended. Cryogenic phil (talk) 07:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Someone might want to block this troll as well. [89] [90] Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Both accounts blocked. Obvious sockpuppets or meatpuppets. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:29, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Robert Kubica

There is disagreement whether Robert in 2005 won a championship called "World Series by Renault" or "Formula Renault 3.5 Series". All the reliable sources I have seen refer to Kubica winning the "World Series by Renault" for example the Formula 1 official webpage [91], the official Renault F1 webpage [92] and most others too: [93], [94], [95] etc. A couple of editors keeps reverting to "Formula Renault 3.5 Series" even if none of them presented a single source which would say that Kubica won the "Formula Renault 3.5 Series".  Dr. Loosmark  08:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

You might take a look at the dispute resolution page. That's the best place to take this. Thanks! JodyB _talk 13:41, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Possible use of userpage for some sort of attack in Serbian

User:Иван Богданов has just blanked User:Иван Богданов/Sandbox of information that he has had on it for around a month. I am extremely concerned about this blanked text. I did not want to alert the user of this and I did not know who to go to for a translation. Putting the text into google translate it looks like it may have been some sort of threatening attack page in Serbian, possibly even for use externally to wikipedia. I may be wrong but I think this needs attention. Polargeo (talk) 16:03, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I have notified the user since posting here of course [96]. Polargeo (talk) 16:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Some highlights are that it includes an address (which is not good), some information about sexuality and some nationalistic stuff including Nazism and Hitler. Polargeo (talk) 16:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

A machine translation suggests he is anti-Nazi ("This garbage is burnt along with Hitler and his whore Eva Braun") and that the address is his own; it also looks as though the address is his and either he is generally talking about gays or he is stating he is gay himself. I sure would love it checked out by a native speaker, though. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes anti nazi would fit in very well with a Serb nationalist editor attacking a Croat for example. Polargeo (talk) 16:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

See Ustaše and Ustaše#Modern usage of term "Ustaša" exactly the sort of anti-nazi stuff that is used to defame Croats and other opponents for that matter. Polargeo (talk) 16:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I wrote that text myself, in my own sandbox. I didn't send that text to anyone, nor I planned to use it in some "attacks". I wrote it just for fun; I had no other bussines at that time. Text contain my address, and some of my personal beliefs (I am firm anti-Nazi). I'm not gay, if you really must know that! I never expressed any form of hate aganist Croats or any other people. That text, wich I deleted today, was totally private toughts written in my sandbox. --Иван Богданов (talk) 18:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately your sandbox is not private and can be accessed internationally. I think this is still worth a better look by another native speaker to make sure it is not a threat and maybe it should be permanently deleted by Wikipedia:Oversight. Polargeo (talk) 17:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec)FYI, anything written on Wikipedia, including user space, is not private, whatever the writer's intentions. Mjroots (talk) 17:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Believe me, its not any kind of threat. I myself deleted that text from my sandbox. If anyone wants to delete it permanently by Wikipedia:Oversight, it's fine with me. --Иван Богданов (talk) 18:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Nationalistic beliefs are not banned here. I saw no obvious attacks in the page either. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

First paragraph (although one of the natives should provide a better translation): My address is [address deleted]. As you can see, I'm not afraid of you! If I was a faggot and I was scared, I would never give you my address. Obviously, this means that you're obligated to come and attack me, that is, that you try to. I can hardly wait! But you should know: my deceased uncle, who worked in the Army and was privately a hunter [note: potentially, sniper], left me a few little things which I'd readily like to "try out" on you when you come! But, I'm telling you this in vain: Faggots like you are only brave in words! You'll never have the guts to show up!!

As it was in the sandbox, I doubt it was aimed at anyone in particular. The choice of language is obviously troubling though. As is the denial above that "it's not a threat". It quite clearly is.--Thewanderer (talk) 18:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That is a better, cleaerer translation than the one I got. It is certainly more troubling. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a monologue that I wrote for no particular reason. As I already said, I had no other bussines at that time. Remember, I deleted that from my sandbox myself. As Thewanderer said, it wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. I understand that choice of language is troubling, so it's OK to be deleted permanently by Wikipedia:Oversight. --Иван Богданов (talk) 21:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we can probably close this. Иван Богданов, just to be clear, you understand now that the language wasn't appropriate and why even pages in your userspace can be a problem? If you realise where you went wrong, then we can forget it and move on. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"you know what you did was wrong"...? I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it incorporates probably the worst language available to mankind, sandwiched with open threats with actual firearms. imho its pretty damn naïve to assume the target of this "monologue" was nonexistent. Its likely that the unforntunate user involved in a content dispute with User:Иван Богданов got the message. Threats of sniper fire are not funny in the Balkans. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 11:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Full translation [97]:

My adress is [adress removed], as you can see I am not afraid of you, abomination! If I were a faggot and afriad I would not have given you my adress. Of course, this means you are now obliged to come over and fight me, that is, to try. I can't wait. Just so you know: my late uncle, who worked for in the military and hunted privately, left me a thing or two I'll be more than happy to try out on you when you show up! But I'm talking for nothing: faggots are only brave in their words, you won't have the guts to show up.

Of course, you were fucked by your faggot doctor of ONO, Šešelj, and don't you dare ever to set my king HRM Alexander II Karađorđević in your filthy mouth you radical piece of shit. [note: the Republic of Serbia has no monarchy]

COME ON DOWN I'll BE WAITING.

LONG LIVE THE KING, LONG LIVE THE FATHERLAND, LONG LIVE THE SERBIAN PEOPLE! DEATH TO THE REPUBLIC, DEATH TO ŠEŠELJ, DEATH TO THE RADICALS! [note: the user considers the person he is speaking to "a radical piece of shit"]

You piece of shit, you play the great Serb but you advocate national socialism!!! YOU SAY: NO I'M NOT A RADICAL, I'M A NAZI???!! If you had anything in your empty head you would know that Hitler draped our people in black! GO TO KRAGUJEVAC AND KRALJEVO WHERE HITLER'S MURDERERS KILLED 7,000 PEOPLE AND GO PRAISE NATIONAL SOCIALISM THERE! THE PEOPLE THERE WOULD SLAUGHTER YOU LIKE AN OX, YOU FILTHY WHORE! No, you degenerate, nazism is a thing of the past! That garbage burnt down with Hitler and Eva Braun in the ruins of their hole, Berlin, just as your Fuhrer Goran Davidović will burn. AS HE IS BEING BURNED, OUR KING HRM ALEXANDER KARAĐORĐEVIĆ SHALL SIT UPON HIS THRONE, WITH A CROWN ON HIS HEAD THAT SHALL BE PLACED BY OUR PATRIARCH IRINEJ!

LONG LIVE THE KING, LONG LIVE THE FATHERLAND, LONG LIVE THE SERBIAN PEOPLE! DEATH TO THE REPUBLIC, DEATH TO ŠEŠELJ, DEATH TO THE RADICALS!

P.S.

Rather, stop acting brave and come on down here to Zvezdara that I may "tell" you live and in person what I think of Hitler, Šešelj, and Davidović.

As you can see, half-breed, your blocks aren't helping. You have two choices in front of you: to let me voice my thoughts as I please, and to stop deleting my opinions, or to go on forever with the blocks. YOU WILL TIRE OF BLOCKING BUT I WILL NEVER TIRE OF BREAKING YOUR BLOCKS. The choice is yours, retard.

This is honestly, without competition, the single most repulsive post I've seen thus far on Wikipedia. Open threats of violence with firearms, the worst insults that could possibly be used, and a taunt to top it off.

(I've seen worse. But don't let me derail you.) DS (talk) 19:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It may also be useful to note that User:Иван Богданов responsible for this (rather cleverly hidden) display, is currently blocked for one week, having created a malicious sockpuppet User:DIREKTOR SPLIT (a mock-account apparently directed at me) [98], and has recently been revert-warring for days in blatant violation of policy (WP:MoS, WP:CFORK). [99] --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 09:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The translation shows that he is wishing death upon a specific (but off-wiki) named individual—namely Vojislav Šešelj—and is also making personal attacks against unnamed Wikipedia editors involved in blocks. It's hard to tell whether the attacks are against the administrator who blocked him (User:Rettetast) or against some other editor who was blocked and whose edits he doesn't like. Does wishing death upon someone count as a death threat? —Psychonaut (talk) 11:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It does when you taunt them to come to your house where they would only come if they were not a gay/faggot and you have "sniper" type tactics waiting for them. None of us know for sure who this is aimed at. Anyway, when it comes to this sort of stuff we have to realise that despite our usual wikipedia feelings this is beyond assume good faith. We cannot afford to assume good faith with such a serious situation and I am afraid that with threats like this bad faith has to be assumed unless conclusively proven otherwise. I assumed potential good faith and that I may have been wrong even when posting this ANI. Now I am convinced that it is more serious than I guessed. Polargeo (talk) 13:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Not that I'm particularly defending him, but I don't see any "unnamed Wikipedia editors involved in blocks" explicit or implied in that text. It's a youngster's rant against someone in particular, who is probably not an en-Wikipedia editor (maybe sr:?), and who is perceived to be a Neo-Nazi by Ivan. I think that last paragraph in Direktor's translation is not accurate: the original text reads As you can see, Krizan, which is more likely a person's surname or nickname (indicated by title case, probably Križan in Serbo-Croatian), and certainly not a "half-breed". In any case, it was an extremely stupid thing to keep here.
Ah, I see what blocks are you referring to: I don't think it's "blocks" in Wikipedia sense. Instead, the original "blokade" means "obstacles" or "blockages". No such user (talk) 12:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The real threats are in the first paragraph though and in a way interpretation of the last paragraph does not alter this. Polargeo (talk) 13:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. My point was just that they weren't directed to anyone on-wiki, if it makes a mitigating factor. Most likely, it was prepared for someone on another Internet forum who pissed him off. Keeping it in your own sandbox here deserves a Wikipedia equivalent of Darwin Award though. No such user (talk) 13:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I would have said that the last paragraph - including the epithet 'half-breed' is aimed specifically at User:Rettetast - and I do not understand why we are still talking about this, rather than blocking indefinitely until the threats of continued disruption and (it would appear) socking are withdrawn. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I have blocked indef, with rationale left at their talk page. As a summary, I do not feel that a user engaging in impersonation of other editors, attack pages such as those discussed above, and an edit warrior is here to help build an encyclopedia. Personally I don't think it really matters if that attack page was targetting an admin, a user, a person off-wiki, or a group in general. It is simply not tolerable by our policies. I have informed the user that they make an unblock request if there is truely a good explanation for this, or misunderstanding. --Taelus (talk) 14:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)No it is not, for Christ's sake. 1) As I said, the translation is inaccurate, and neither "half-breed" nor "block" exist in the original text 2) Even if it were accurate, the edit in question [100] is made on January 26 and Retteast's block was on 12 November; ranting in the sandbox 3 months after the fact does not make any sense at all. I don't necessarily oppose indef-blocking, but at least get your facts straight before doing it. No such user (talk) 14:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Just to note, when I was considering my block, I assumed that no specific user was being targetted. Either way it struck me as unacceptable, an attack is an attack whether it targets a Wikipedian, an off-wiki person, or even a generalised group. --Taelus (talk) 14:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• FWIW, this user has been repeatedly asked to post his comments in English, regardless of whom he is addressing, on this, the English Wikipedia (example request). He's never taken this to heart. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
• Good block. There's no room this project for people who post threats to use firearms. That overshadows the other points. Durova⁴¹² 16:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

In case any of you were wondering, his page translates as User:Ivan Bogdanov. RM (Be my friend)

Good block, notwithstanding my initial response to this. As all the details have come out, it became very apparant this user needed to go. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Conditions to unblock

(in considering the following, please note that I am no fan of the blocked editor in question, in fact quite the opposite) This editor has been blocked indefinitely. This editor has made substantial contributions, including the creation of 60 non-redirect articles (President of the Parliament of Montenegro, as an example). I do not condone his actions and attitudes with regards to other editors. That said, I don't condone a permanent ban on his editing activities here. Therefore, I'd like to know under what terms his block will be lifted. I for one would make it a requirement that any future contributions to this project by this editor to any page, or in any edit summary, be done in English. Other opinions? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• I've just declined his latest unblock request and pointed him to WP:OFFER. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Six months? Wow. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

This sort of threat should receive zero tolerance. With all of the support for this indef block it would be wrong for a single admin to make the decision on their own to give this user another chance. Good faith has to stop somewhere. There is always ARBCOM if the user wishes to make an appeal at some point. Polargeo (talk) 21:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:OFFER specifically excludes situations where law enforcement could become involved. This was a clear threat of physical violence. Polarego is right: this is over the line and deserves zero tolerance. Durova⁴¹² 07:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Noting Floquenbeam's approach to the repeated copypaste unblock templates [101]. Not how I would have done it, but it will be interesting to see if he does email in two weeks.Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:47, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• @Durova: I had that same thought, which is why I added that he needed to " clearly and unambiguously detail what it was that led to your block, and why you would not do it again." [102] Any request in which he does not acknowledge the threats of harm should of course be denied. My main goal was to get him to realize that he needed to leave for a while if he ever wanted to be let back in, but I see your point that it is not the typical standard offer case. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

West Side Story

I honestly haven't a clue where this request should go as I can't explain it well enough to sent it directly to WP:RM and no other noticeboard seems appropriate:

The redirects for three of the major articles surrounding West Side Story are a real mess. Which ever way you cut it, you always end up at Talk:West Side Story (disambiguation) from those three distinct article name spaces:

1. West Side Story, the discussion link takes us directly to Talk:West Side Story which then immeadiately redirects to Talk:West Side Story (disambiguation)
2. West Side Story (musical) redirects to West Side Story, so the above again applies (in a very weird sort of double redirect) and the result again is Talk:West Side Story (disambiguation)
3. West Side Story (disambiguation) correctly links to Talk:West Side Story (disambiguation)
4. All the other artcles listed in West Side Story (disambiguation) correctly link to their own talkpages

Not sure quite how to solve this, especially since there is the question of "which article should get which name?" anyway. I sent one of the articles to RM recently following a request on the talk page and possibly the admin forgot to resolve the talk page also. The move is, in fact, now disputed: see Talk:West_Side_Story_(musical)#Title... (if you can get there...) Any thoughts? Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 00:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the first issue. The second issue isn't much of a concern since the musical is the play. Everything else seems okay. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I merged Talk:West Side Story and Talk:West Side Story (musical). Talk:West Side Story (musical) now redirects to Talk:West Side Story. I think that's what you were looking for, no? caknuck _° needs to be running more often 03:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks both! Yes, that makes much more sense now and makes way for any proposed RM (perhaps not so necessary now, however). --Jubilee♫clipman 15:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

legal threat from user:Catfleming

user:Catfleming made legal threats at User_talk:Mootros#Talkback and User_talk:Rettetast#elizabeth_nickson_libelous_entry. I'm not involved with the dispute, but I thought I should post here.--Work permit (talk) 02:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Blocked indef per WP:NLT. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 03:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Such blocks are just stupid. This was a good faith neewbie that was upset that he was reverted without explanation. Sure the threat was a clear breech of policy but a warning was more than enough. Rettetast (talk) 08:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree. I left him a {{blocked subject}} note, but perhaps you would consider lifting the block? We don't have to enforce every policy violation if it is clear that they are made in good faith. NW (Talk) 14:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

My 2c is that I don't feel that it is that bad. Being blocked isn't permanent, all they have to do is acknowledge the policy and promise not to break it in an unblock request, and someone will unblock him quickly. In the meantime, it forces him to acknowledge the policy, rather than continuing to edit and later possibly claim that they did not know. (I'm not saying that they would have done that, but people have in the past.) Sodam Yat (talk) 16:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Rettetast this was perhaps to drastic to block the user. A strong warning might have been sufficient for this newbie who clearly didn't know what she was doing. Mootros (talk)

Misuse of Rollback

Resolved

 – user notes his errors and desire to improveJodyB _talk 14:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

PeeJay2K3 (talk · contribs) is repeatedly misusing his rollback privilege by reverting edits which do not constitute vandalism. Could an admin please take a look. --88.109.169.136 (talk) 13:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

User notified. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

That anonymous user has been making disruptive edits for no apparent reason other than to get my goat. I would call that vandalism. – PeeJay 13:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

You really should read the policy page on vandalism, disruptive editing isn't considered vandalism. --88.109.169.136 (talk) 14:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

So are you editing disruptively? NW (Talk) 14:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's a silly edit war over attendance at a football tournament, it is best resolved by citing sources but neither party seems willing to do that. Googling for the tournament and either number gives Wikipedia as top hit of very few. Maybe the best thing is simply to remove the figure altogether. Guy (Help!) 14:10, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

What good would that do? The sources used by both parties are provided in a discussion further up this page, so all we need to do is determine which sources take precedence. This particular discussion should now be closed and the remainder carried out above. – PeeJay 14:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually I think we need to know if you are using rollback improperly? JodyB _talk 14:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I have already apologised directly to User:thumperward for that. I've just gotten into a bad habit, and I'm going to be more careful about my usage of rollback in the future. – PeeJay 14:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Fresh sock name, old sock smell

Resolved

Not long after the protection was removed from my user page, User:Shapeshifter04, registered and vandalized my userpage. [103]. Same basic rant as the indef blocked User:MarineVet91, who is also User:JFredo and User:Ebyabe4. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Whacked. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 04:39, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Page for Immediate Deletion

Resolved

I nom'd this for deletion, but after further thought on it, I think it needs to go immediately. User:929TheBeat created WWBT-FM, a hoax radio station page about an hour ago. I can confirm it is a hoax as there is no WWBT-FM listed in the FCC database and the 92.9 frequency is not in use in Trenton, NJ (where this supposed radio station is to be located). Clear it is a hoax and further more, the username is a promotional account. So a double whammy. Could an admin delete the page and block the account? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 08:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

User has been blocked by someone else, and the page will rapidly snowball into delete. SGGH ^ping! 10:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Arrr, it's a pirate station, me bucko! Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

User:PoptropicaStars

Resolved

This looks to be a PR account. Do we have a process for these? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Block as a spam account and delete the template and user page. That's what I would do.--Atlan (talk) 14:13, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Strange

Resolved

I find it strange that new editor Disney Producer is already editing Disney pages like a pro. I suspect he could be a sock of a banned user. Maybe Bambifan101?? _{TCK| chat} 16:48, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Blocked just for the name and claims on the user page. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 18:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

New articles being made with no information added

Hi, a user named TheWiseAnimator (talk · contribs) created the articles Frostbite (Care Bears), Beastly (Care Bears), and Shreeky. There has been no amount of information added about the characters to the articles that were created, and, in the villains section of List of Care Bears, these characters are listed and have very little information about them in that article so I can't see how an entire article can be made about these characters, given these facts. I believe the Beastly article was made once before but was deleted because of the lack of information that was being put into the article. Please do something about this, I don't see how these articles on these characters can exist, seeing that there is very little information on these characters in the villains section of List of Care Bears. Thank you. Abby 94 (talk) 18:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Frostbite (Care Bears) and Shreeky have been deleted. Beastly (Care Bears) has been redirected. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 20:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

user:Richard Relucio probation violation

Originally blocked for repeatedly uploading non-free images, then later indef blocked for repeat sockpuppetry (even after being given several second chances). Via appeals to the Arbitration committee, his indef ban was lifted and he was given probationary terms. Looks like he's violated #3 of his ban suspension conditions, including uploading images that have already been deleted (presumably because of licensing issues) and one currently up for deletion because of copyvio problems (again). I'll leave it up to others to make a decision regarding how to proceed, as I was the one who blocked him the last time around (and he's tried to make it personal with me). OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked. If he isn't willing to follow the rules of his unban, then there is no reason to let him continue editing. NW (Talk) 21:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I just realized that it is February and not January. I assumed he uploaded his most recent image yesterday, not a month ago. I don't know if that changes anything though; he still violated the terms of his unban and showed no sign of trying to undoing his action after the fact. NW (Talk) 21:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think it changes anything either and I endorse this block. Thanks for looking after this. Technically, Richard Relucio can appeal to ArbCom though this was explicitly expressed as an absolute last chance.

My apologies to Ohnoitsjamie, by the way. I completely missed his heads up about this on my talk page.  Roger Davies ^talk 21:16, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, my apologies for not paying closer attention to the dates. I'd assumed that the upload was recent because the warning was recent; actually, the photo was uploaded in January of 2009, before the probation condition were laid out, so he may not be in violation after all. That said, despite the negative CU evidence, I still believe he was operating the Nash17 (talk · contribs · count) account, and I see that he added a photo uploaded by Nash17 to a PLU article. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 21:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Ditto: These were Jan 2009 uploads, I see, so no breach of his probation. I'll unblock him and apologise.  Roger Davies ^talk 21:38, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

It's amazing that three people can look at a user's upload log and miss the obvious. My apologies, Richard. NW (Talk) 22:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Addendum; just noticed an obvious sock of Nash17 (talk · contribs · count), Nashalonto (talk · contribs · count) which was created immediately after Nash17 was blocked and resumed editing the same articles. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 21:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The CU evidence was that it is unlikely that Nash17 is Richard Relucio. It's not out of the question that a large university like PLU has more than one person interested in POV pushing.  Roger Davies ^talk 21:38, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Paranormal investigator user linking to his personal website and canvassing on Youtube

Truthseekers666 (talk · contribs) has been involved in an edit war over at RAF Rudloe Manor. He has began linking to his personal website[104] More importantly he has began canvassing on his youtube channel, naming users and literally describing how to edit the article to his favour.[105] Ryan4314 (talk) 19:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Just flagged that video as abusive on the grounds of "bullying". Not sure if that's the best way to describe "attempt to coordinate a denial of service attack", but it seemed reasonably close.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I also protected the article for two weeks at its current version, without looking to see what the current version actually was.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sarek, you should know by now, it is protected at the WP:WRONGVERSION. Mjroots (talk) 19:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Good. :-) I feel guilty when I try to protect the wrong version and get the right one. :-) If someone wants to put in an {{editprotected}} request, that should cover it... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

As an uninvolved admin with an interest in military and images and following comments at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests by Truthseekers666 I made comments at the Talk:RAF Rudloe Manor talk page and related unfree file discussion. User Truthseekers666 has questioned my motives and started personal attacks despite me giving him a warning on civility. Not sure why users ask for help and then dont accept it. The user has also started to make personal attacks against me and another user that disagree on the related talk pages and even questioned my unrelated image uploads. Evidently my warning about personal attacks was part of a consipiracy to ban him and his attack continued on the ground that I worked for MoD or was a Freemason or even had vested interests. Perhaps somebody else can look at the continual uncivil behaviour from this user. MilborneOne (talk) 20:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Heh. I am a Freemason, but I had no idea that could be an issue here. In any case, he has 24 hours to think about his editing patterns, thanks to a 3RR violation after warning. Maybe it will help. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh fantastic :( As a member of the global conspiracy to keep the truth about UFOs from the public, I'll mention this on the milhist coordinators' talk page so we can help to suppress any further inconvenient revelations. EyeSerene^talk 20:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Ooh am I mentioned? It's too dull to watch. Verbal chat 20:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

And he asked for an unblock on the grounds that he asked to be judged by non-Freemasons. Obviously declined. Canterbury Tail talk 20:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

But if you declined his unblock, you're clearly a part of the Freemason/UFO conspiracy, otherwise you wouldn't be trying to conceal The Truth. Mind you, he hasn't actually said this yet, but you watch... — Gavia immer (talk) 21:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Jacques de Molay, Thou art avenged! The Masonic Cabal is victorious once again! Beeblebrox (talk) 21:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Just for the record: I climbed over the crumbling wall of this near ruined site last year and had a good poke about (in the interests of architecture) and was not challenged nor did I see any evidence of guards, Freemasons, aliens or ghosts - in fact it's just rather a beautiful old derelict house dwarfed by derelict 1950s type buildings - I suspect the house will last longer than the buildings - all very sad, but deserted. I'm just delighted to see it here and at long last able to identify it. Sadly, I did not have my camera when I found it by chance - otherwise I would have written it up, and that would have kept the aliens and POV pushers off the page - wouldn't it?  Giano  21:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Probably just as well -- if you had been taking pictures, the Weeping Angels might have come after you. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

He says he's been previously "banned by IP" last year. If that is indeed the case, as opposed to merely blocked, then we can indef block him as a sock of a banned user. On the other hand, if he's simply trying to provide a link to a reliable source that the place in question had been investigated for UFOs by the British government (they've done sillier things than that, no doubt), then I don't see a problem with that. I'm still reading his comments. And for the love of God, will someone please tell him to take the lolly out of his mouth before he creates another video! Oh, and for the purposes of full disclosure (it's on my user page), I am a freemason. Rklawton (talk) 22:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't find his YouTube video objectionable other than the fact that he's sucking. The problem I see is a matter of WP:RS WP:OR - both of which trump "consensus" - a point he doesn't seem to realize, as well as WP:UNDO. So yeah, I support keeping cruft off the page until such time that we can find a reliable source that indicates that this was a notable activity. Something title "RAF Rudloe Manor's Role in UFO Investigates" by the BBC would do the trick. Otherwise, it looks like a office that pushed paperwork, some of which includes "UFO Reports". Big whup. Rklawton (talk) 22:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure that he's being honest when he says he was banned by IP, probably from Crop circle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I have some memory of this. Guy (Help!) 22:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Asking for meatpuppets to edit for him is objectionable, to me. Woogee (talk) 06:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to blacklist Truthseeker's personal website? I know we've a couple of bots that actively remove unacceptable external links, but my concern here is that most of what is there is fringe theory stuff on or relating to black projects, secret proegrams, and defense subjects in general. I am not going to stand for such poisonous material appearing in milhist articles, and my guess is that if truthseeker has done this before and gotten nailed as an isp editor he'll do it again when the block expires.

On a related note, truthseeker's username is the same as his website, and in a broad sense that could be grounds for a permanent username block on grounds that his name seems to be promoting something (his personal website in this case). Has anyone considered implementing a username block on such grounds, or are we of the mind that this specific case is not a violation of the username policy? TomStar81 (Talk) 06:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Of course it's possible to blacklist it, but we might just as well simply block him for ban evasion, disruption, tendentious editing, spamming and generally being a dick. Guy (Help!) 08:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'd say we're a day late and a dollar short on that, the username is about a year old now. It wouldn't be a bad idea to ask them to voluntarily change it, though. If they'd created that username a week ago and started spamming the web site I'd hardblock in a heartbeat. At this point, I'd say that if he keeps linking the site we should do it anyway, spam is spam. -- Atama頭 21:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• The user is now unblocked and I have now had more harrasment from him because I argued against retention of an image he uploaded related to the Rudloe Manor edits. Truthseeker is now questioning my image uploads and images I have on my user page. Refer Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2010 February 20 [106]. It feels like campaign of harrasment can somebody uninvolved have a look at this please. MilborneOne (talk) 18:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• And another example of harrasment at [107] where he is again questioning my images in user space and claiming they are for personal advertising or gratification although they have nothing to do with my comments on Rudle Manor and related images. MilborneOne (talk) 00:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Sherzo 27 February 2010

Resolved

User:Sherzo was blocked for reverting the article History of terrorism without discussion, after being warned repeatedly (see The talk page of the article and User talk:Sherzo) and after an ANI discussion not to do so. No sooner was the block over than User:Sherzo reverted the article again. User:Sherzo usually only logs on about once a month, so the question is not should we block the account but how long should be block be this time to encourage her/him to use the dispute resolution process?

I have not blocked the account yet for two reasons, I think it better if another administrator does it so that User:Sherzo understands that this is a behaviour issue and in no way a content dispute, and to allow User:Sherzo to comment here if (s)he wants to try to defend his/her reverts. -- PBS (talk) 23:13, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I have indef blocked their account. If they have a rationale that falls within policy, they can describe it within the unblock request - and of course they may admit to not following policy and pledge to do so in future as an alternative. If they wished to discuss their edit, they should have done so before reverting the article. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Repeat BLP vandal

Resolved

 – Blocked by Materialscientist. -- Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 00:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Would somebody please block KCLUnderside (talk · contribs)? Woogee (talk) 23:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done 23:34, 27 February 2010 Materialscientist (talk · contribs) blocked KCLUnderside (talk · contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite (Violations of the Biographies of living persons policy) —Soap— 23:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

WordBomb, Mantanmoreland apparently back

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_Weiss&action=history

Needs to be indefinitely semi-protected. Someone is using disposable dial-up. A Ad Dieted Fir Grimy On (talk) 06:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

bump —Preceding unsigned comment added by A Ad Dieted Fir Grimy On (talk • contribs) 06:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

...and since you started editing 5 minutes ago, who would you be to know that someone is "back"? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I am allowed to use a single use ID for my personal safety. —Preceding unsigned comment added by A Ad Dieted Fir Grimy On (talk • contribs) 07:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Editor just marked account as "retired"... hmmm... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:06, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

You will comment on the comment, not the editor. And now retired. Please clean up the Mantanmoreturds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by A Ad Dieted Fir Grimy On (talk • contribs) 07:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:RPP Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'll leave it to someone who is good at anagrams to work out who User:A Ad Dieted Fir Grimy On is, but needless to say it's a sock used outside the permissible bounds of what socks may do so should be banninated. And indeed this [108] is a likely WP:BLP violation and also an invalid category since the cat is supposed to be inherited from {{puffery}}, which is what the category description says. The sockpuppet definitely needs a Plaxico block here. The IP edits can be trivially fixed buy another period of semiprotection. We should, however, be on the alert since it seems the overstock/weiss war is being imported again, e.g. [109], [110], [111]; Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/WordBomb, Mantanmoreland filed. Guy (Help!) 13:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Hrm, "A Ad Dieted Fir Grimy On" --> "Daydreaming Editor" plus a stray "If". I don't think we're gonna be able to Scooby-Doo this one, though. Tarc (talk) 13:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Guy's right; it's outside the sock policy and should've been posted on a legit main account or emailed. A lot of people have a worry that MM's socking again, and would take action. So two suggestions for Grimy:

1. Trolls thrive in muddy waters. The reason MM lasted for years was because he's a master at distraction and muddying waters. So let's learn from that and walk the straight and narrow.
2. It's a lot work to deal with this. MM's a slippery sockpuppeteer. It's not that people don't care--but it's been an awful time sink.

So please raise concerns in ways that assist a clear and swift and clean resolution. Durova⁴¹² 19:45, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

He's not allowed to edit Gary Weiss with that account anyway. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland#Editors instructed. I blocked the account. Ironically, this very same remedy suggests that semi-protecting the page is a good idea; will prevent current and former users from editing logged out. Cool Hand Luke 06:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty confident that the reporting account and the anonymous editors are both tied to sitebanned users. Please sprotect Gary Weiss (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Smear campaign (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Guy (Help!) 09:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Insults in subject line

Resolved

 – WP:FORUMSHOP, trout applied. Guy (Help!) 09:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm being oversensitive here, but I find the subject line highly offensive: [112].

For starters he reverted me out of hand, this is never good; but not in any way illegal.

But when he refers to me as a POV Warrior I rather take exception. A POV warrior is somebody who deliberately or otherwise slants the content of an article to basically make it violate WP:NPOV. I don't consider my edit to do this in any way in this case, the article is exactly as accurate before as afterwards; and in my opinion at least my edit simply seem to make the article more encyclopedic.

And I'm certainly not running any 'crusade' across numerous areas of the project, popular or otherwise. He's just being obnoxious and histrionic.

Please could someone with admin bits remove this subject line? Many thanks.- Wolfkeeper 05:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

1. When you start an ANI thread that involves another user, you should inform them.
2. Administrators cannot remove edit summaries; only oversighters can do that. But they generally do not concern themselves with minor issues like these, so I doubt you will be able to get one to do it. (So if your only reason for posted here is to get that summary oversighted, I don't see any need for more discussion.)
3. As for the article in particular, content issues can be discussed at the article page. ANI is not a place to argue over content issues.
4. Numerous editors at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#WP:DICTIONARY needs tweaking? have already alluded to your crusade across articles and policy pages related to dicdefs; one even called you a single-purpose account. So I was not out of line to mention a "crusade" in my edit summary.

   rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but I am not a single purpose account in any way, and your edit was highly insulting, and the edit followed the policy practically word for word. I do not have to ask you for permission to make any edits; I am under no restrictions, and especially not because people are pretty much libelling me.- Wolfkeeper 05:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

And I didn't have to ask for permission to revert you; see WP:BRD.

Once again, if you're here to continue a content dispute, ANI is not the place to do it. You can come to my talk page, the article talk page, or wherever you want. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Rjanag, the insult wasn't needed along with the revert. Focus on the content, no the contributor, and disputes like this tend to be a lot simpler. Jclemens (talk) 06:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't notice that I already retracted it, and left an apology at the VP, long before this message of yours. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

You're right, I didn't see the VP discussion. Good of you to have done so. Jclemens (talk) 07:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

User:LirazSiri

LirazSiri (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been on a vandalism rampage and could do with some time out as they don't see fault in their ways, rather consider my cleanup efforts an attack:

• User created TurnKey_Linux_Virtual_Appliance_Library under obvious WP:COI (as owner/founder) with multiple issues - WP:V, WP:N, WP:NPOV, WP:ADVERT
• Article is CSD A7'd but somehow survives deletion review and is restored (but has not yet been subjected to AfD)
• Issues came to my attention when it was repeatedly added to Template:Cloud computing (which wouldn't be so bad except that they added an entire layer to the cloud stack and a few competitors in order to spam it!).
• Attempts to revert vandalism by myself & other editors are reverted by the user or anon IPs (WP:SOCK?)
• Images of TurnKey grafted to various registered trademarks started popping up in tens of non-image categories (e.g. File:Mysql_0.png & 8 others)
• Spammed categories are promptly and repeatedly replaced after removal (e.g. Category:Free software, Category:Linux software)
• Serious copyright violations (uploading registered trademarks under CC-BY-SA & claiming as own work) are remediated by me only to be reverted
• Fair use rationale templates ({{nrd}}) are removed en masse (use of non-free images is anyway unjustified/unnecessary)
• Deletion templates ({{ffd}}) are removed en masse
• Deletion debates are spammed and compliance with trademarks (for release under CC-BY-SA!?!?) is again claimed
• A frivolous 3RR complaint is filed against me and then defended even when shown to be baseless
• I'm abused off-wiki here and here ("Why do intelligent people create unnecessary drama online? It is boredom? Hopelessly misplaced ape-like aggression? Here, have a banana")

This has to stop, but so long as they go on believing they're in the right and I'm just attacking them for no reason it won't. -- samj _in^out 02:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I was just about to bring this issue here, but I was putting the kids to bed. SamJohnston seems to think he owns the project, and that his decisions are controlling and reversing them is vandalism, and has been on a revert warring rampage, accompanied by gratuitous incivility, turning possibly legitimate content controversy into personal flames. LirazSiri is COI with respect to the open-source TurnKey Linux, he is a major contributor to that project. LS has openly acknowledged all this and uses his real name. With incivility and highly exaggerated charges, SamJohnston provoked LS into reverting him and responding in kind. I was watching TurnKey Linux, because I assisted in its restoration after deletion, and LS was generally behaving properly. I warned both of them; LirazSiri responded positively, SamJohnston did not. Because I reverted some edits of his (once) he claimed harassment (and reverted back without discussion). Meanwhile, someone should advise him to calm down, he's not going to hear it from me. There is no emergency. Other editors are becoming involved who are capable of discussing the issues civilly. I'll come back and document the history with diffs. --Abd (talk) 03:41, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

No comment on the article, but I think he's right w/ regards to the files, and if he's right, you cannot call it edit-warring. He's simply keeping illegal stuff of wiki. Removing a deletion discussion-template is unacceptable. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 03:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll be back with specific evidence. The revert warring is not only about "keeping illegal stuff off-wiki." It's about other issues. And there is routine process for dealing with the allegedly "illegal stuff." Very few of SamJohnston's reverts could be considered repeated removal of illegal stuff, i.e., justified as an exception to 3RR or revert warring pguidelines. Categories may be inappropriate, but aren't illegal! This conflation of content dispute with illegality is exactly what SamJohnston has been doing.

I said: "No comment on the article." Was that clear enough or not? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure. However, I did respond on the point you made. SamJohnston has not removed illegal stuff. Where did he do that? He removed categories from the images and revert warred with LirazSiri over that. They went back and forth a bit, but when I reverted him -- once -- he then tagged the images for deletion. I'll add some evidence about that to the collapse box below. He has threatened to do the same with the article: his reason for deletion? That his decisions about categories were being opposed and that "they had the gall to take it to WP:ANI when I tried to fix it."[113]. It's clear from the record, if you look at the timing. (LirazSiri did file a WP:3RR report, simply his naivete. Last I looked, it consisted of LirazS and SamJ raking each other over the coals. SamJ was revert warring, a little more than LirazS, but both could have been blocked.)

I'm not asking for any content decision here, I'm asking for neutral admins to warn editors. I've warned LirazSiri, and, though he's being a bit slow about it, I think he's been responding. SamJohnston was the opposite of responsive, I cover his claim of harassment in the evidence box below.

LirazSiri is typical of many experts who can be extraordinarily useful to the project, if they are guided to respect COI rules. I'm sure that can be done with him; the problem before with him was the same, and he was getting hot then too, he was being called a spammer. But, in fact, he was simply writing about his favorite topic, about which he's the world's foremost expert. We need more like him, at the same time as we need to be firm against COI editors making contentious edits. It's not hard, if we are nice to them. Help them. His article needed better sources to be acceptable. They were found. I've done this many times, rescue an article to my user space for work, even when I couldn't do the work myself. Sometimes it can come back, sometimes not. I have no CRYSTALBALL, either. --Abd (talk) 06:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually passing off someone else's registered trademark as your own work and offering it under a liberal license is illegal in pretty much every country in the world. I remediated it and you reverted it. -- samj _in^out 14:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes. However, it was not illegal for Wikipedia to host that claim. I reverted, once, providing an argument, which was or was not correct; however, my motive was to require discussion, and this will require consideration of what permissions LirazSiri enjoys. (The image is a derivative work, LirazSiri was attempting to license his contribution to it.) SamJ immediately escalated to requesting deletion, besides reverting. The license was for the uploader to choose, and it may well be that he made an incorrect claim, tough it's more complicated than I'd claim to understand. But there were other cooperative avenues of approach. SamJ, it is now completely clear, had a motive to harass, and so proceeded in a way calculated to cause maximum disruption. Instead of a single IfD, he filed one for each image, effectively trolling for LirazS to respond to each, and combining this with the category removals trolled LirazS to revert both, thus allowing SamJ to claim everywhere imaginable that LirazS was removing IfD templates, which was, of course, quite improper. And he's still making as much fuss as possible, instead of letting normal cooperative process work this out. See AIV report crying "vandalism", filed this morning. This isn't enough? --Abd (talk) 16:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, yes it is "illegal for Wikipedia to host that claim", which is why it's so problematic and why we take IP violations very seriously. The images are inappropriate and unnecessary (as confirmed by other editors in the IfD discussions) and will be deleted in due course. -- samj _in^out 17:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Evidence regarding SamJohnston, User:LirazSiri, and TurnKey Linux --Abd (talk) 06:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)]]

SamJohnston (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) TurnKey Linux was originally written in September 2008 by User:LirazSiri, (real name Liraz Siri), a developer of the open source (free) software project, mentioned in sources as such. LS continued to work on the article, which survived an early speedy deletion attempt. 29 January 2009, 87.196.76.86 (contribs) tagged the article for speedy. From other contributions, this IP had an axe to grind. 29 January 2009, the deletion saga began. Speedied under G11 by User:Efe. apparently recreated by LirazSiri, the article was then deleted by User:JzG, and again after LS apparently again created it. There were two deletion reviews, the first one withdrawn, the second one confirmed the deletion. I arranged for the article to be moved to my user space so that it could be cleaned up and proper sources found, if they existed. A number of editors worked on the article in my user space. 29 March, 2009, LS then requested Deletion review again, and this time it was considered that sourcing was adequate to show notability, and the article was moved back into mainspace, 4 April, 2009. LS continued to edit the article, apparently without incident. And then, SamJohnston showed up with some edits to TurnKey Linux Virtual Appliance Library: 01:37 - 01:40, 24 February, User:SamJohnston removed seven categories from the article, then replaced two, using HOTCAT. Most of the categories were in the version as accepted at DRV. That's nine edits. net removal of five categories. 17:09, 24 February 2010, LirazS [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TurnKey_Linux_Virtual_Appliance_Library&diff=346118381&oldid=346004542 reverts, summary (reverted all of Sam's changes with HotCat) 20:33, 24 February 2010, SamJ removed two of the categories with HOTCAT. 20:34, 24 February 2010, SamJ tags the article (COI giving rise to N, V, NPOV issues) 21:35, 24 February 2010, SamJ tags it (+notability) 21:36, 24 February 2010, SamJ tags it (+verifiability) Bilby made a few edits to the article. 00:04, 25 February 2010, LirazS reverted. (removed wikilawyering that serves no purpose other than retaliation. Sam: Wikipedia isn't about winning.) That was an unfortunate comment, but from other evidence, it seems to be true. 01:13, 25 February 2010, SamJ reverted (Undid revision 346193133 by LirazSiri (talk) don't remove templates without discussion) 02:10, 25 February 2010, Abd [ (Undid revision 346205086 by SamJohnston (talk)Remove tags placed without discussion of alleged defects in Talk.) None of SamJ's reverts or tagging were accompanied with discussion in Talk. Definitely there were some issues to be addressed, but drive-by tagging is, in fact, a ready form of harassment. User:Verbal did replace the tags and began discussion, properly. What was going on in Talk: Edit to Talk:TurnKey Linux Virtual Appliance Library [1:41, 24 February 2010, SamJ [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ATurnKey_Linux_Virtual_Appliance_Library&action=historysubmit&diff=346004732&oldid=328187214 (Deletion review: image/category spam.) This is a response to the notice that the article was restored by "unanimous decision on deletion review," and SamJ wrote: "Pity. I've just spent 1/2 hr cleaning up image/category spam. This edit was made just after removing the categories above. Calling the work of an editor "spam," when it is arguably useful, is a very common cause of angry response. There is more. Much more. LirazSiri has been naive about how a COI editor should behave, but he has been responsive to supportive warnings. Reviewing the evidence here is made cumbersome by SamJ's habit of rarely making a single edit when a dozen will do. SamJ was rarely editing until February 22 01:25, 24 February 2010, with [114] SamJ began removing categories from logos LirazS had uploaded. These are still under discussion; but SamJ and LirazSiri revert warred over the removal of these categories, and, as it seemed to me that the categories were legitimate and were being removed without discussion, I reverted SamJ once (across the set of Files. (see my contributions beginning at 04:32, 25 February.) SamJ then tagged the image files for deletion. Then reverted me, LiraSiri then reverted, with (reverted vindictive edits by SamJohnston), SamJ then reverted, again using HOTCAT, and, of course, restored the IfD tag. I have no strong opinion about the image files. LirazSiri claims that the part of the logos that is derivative is being used with permission. This can all be sorted out civilly, with decisions being made by neutral editors and administrators. The main revert warrior here has definitely been SamJ, and it's not just with LirazSiri, it was also with me. Various discussions on Talk:TurnKey Linux Virtual Appliance Library were not relevant to improving the article, so I collapsed them. SamJ reverted.[115] What SamJohnston did was to troll LirazSiri into responding in ways that could easily get him blocked. LirazSiri would naturally think that the successful DRV would mean that the article would be safe from deletion. He would think that a vindictive IfD would of course be invalid. And it does seem to be vindictive. The original issue was alleged "category spam," and was only when SamJ was reverted that he applied deletion tags. I haven't covered how he threatened LirazSiri on his Talk page. Yet when I simply reverted him as described above (and with one other tag placement, same issue: tags describing a problem without any clear assertion of what the problem was), he complained on my Talk that I was harassing him. It was quite similar to the complaints on AN/I here: drastically exaggerated. To undo my edits, if that was appropriate, would take less than a minute. Yet his piles of HOTCAT removals are a little more cumbersome to remove -- and that's probably what caught LirazSiri in removing an IfD tag. He simply reverted back to the previous version, not realizing the import. --Abd (talk) 06:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I got it. Looks like a fair assessment. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually User_talk:JzG's assessment below is more like it: "It's not clear this even would be a dispute without Abd's involvement. We have one WP:SPA making blatantly promotional COI edits, and one user making comments about it." -- samj _in^out 14:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

SamJohnston threatened to harass LirazSiri off-wiki, then carried out the plan

Take a look at the Tweet that SamJohnston referenced.[116]. Then look at what it was a response to.[117]. Oh and when I say @turnkeylinux I'm looking straight at you @lirazsiri. Chill out or it's AfD time. Again. /cc @alonswartz 6:05 PM Feb 23rd via Tweetie samj Sam Johnston. Above, in his filing here, he acknowledges that this was him, he complains about the responses. Notice the date. This is before the removal of categories began.

However, this is likely a reference to dispute at Template:Cloud computing. LirazSiri did not edit there until the 24th, but there was an IP edit 08:28, 23 February 2010, reverted by SamJohnston 01:54, 24 February 2010, as "vandalism." It seems that SamJohnston believed that the IP was LirazSiri, and contacted him with Twitter to threaten him. (The IP may be LirazS, or it may be someone else connected with TurnKey Linux in Israel.) The edit was definitely not vandalism.

I have rarely called for an editor to be blocked. I am now. SamJohnston deliberately inflamed this dispute, carrying out a vendetta against LirazSiri and TurnKey Linux, having threatened to do so. It's possible he originally speedy tagged TurnKey Linux (see the evidence above), since he mentions "again." (That IP geolocated to Spain, as I recall, but SamJ claims to move around a lot.) He should be explaining himself, if at all, to an unblock template. This is beyond the pale. Until I saw that, just now, I thought this was just an editor who was a bit obsessive and touchy, needed some helpful warning, and maybe he was right about the categories or images, after all. It's much worse than that. --Abd (talk) 07:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Saying that you will AfD an article is now a threat? And they threw mud at each other off-wiki? Who cares. The removal of categories and GFDL tags were correct, and the article tags turned out to be justified. Please someone close this and tell everyone to chill out and stop reverting. This is just escalating and drama. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• LirazSiri was quite open about the WP:COI, and has nonetheless continued to make promotional edits in favour of TurnKey Linux, which article they created and which has been their primary focus from the outset. This is unacceptable. Given that LirazSiri is connected with the product, their edit-warring over this [118] is simply not on. On a more personal note, I am professionally involved with cloud, my company had an early to market cloud offering, we are one of only a few companies offering a high SLA cloud platform, I'm on the EMC customer council and know the UCS guys, I also attend cloud events. TurnKey is simply not a significant player in this space. The edit is about market-building, not about reflecting genuine significance. That's been the aim all along, of course, and LirazSiri has made that quite obvious. This looks like another of Abd's crusades on behalf of people "oppressed" for abusing Wikipedia for their own ends. Guy (Help!) 09:13, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Abd's editing restriction as of January 10, 2010: "3.3) Abd is indefinitely prohibited from discussing any dispute in which he is not an originating party. This includes, but is not limited to, article talk and user talk pages, the administrator noticeboards, and any formal or informal dispute resolution pages. He may, however, vote or comment at polls." No comment. Mathsci (talk) 11:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• Hmmm. It's not clear this even would be a dispute without Abd's involvement. We have one WP:SPA making blatantly promotional COI edits, and one user making comments about it. We have a way of handling that... Guy (Help!) 13:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• That about covers it. Off to file an arbitration enforcement request but in the mean time can we please stop being distracted by User:Abd and deal with "one WP:SPA making blatantly promotional COI edits". -- samj _in^out 14:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• If LirazSiri (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) continues to edit articles where his COI is relevant, he should be promptly blocked. Not only has he been warned by others, I warned him days ago, and have repeated the warnings, on his Talk page and by email.
• JzG is indeed professionally involved with the topic, and quite likely was back when he originally deleted TurnKey Linux. The issue is not whether or not LirazS has been "promoting" his product. He has, though it also seems he believed that what he was doing was proper. This is why we restrict COI editors. But JzG and SamJ may also be COI on this topic, and certainly they have strong personal opinions. The content issues can be worked out if the behavioral issues don't get in the way.
• Enric Naval has been helpful in this affair; however, yes, the tweet was a threat to AfD an article if LirazSiri didn't "chill." Which probably means stop opposing SamJ's position on-wiki. That's extortion. The immediate dispute was over Template:Cloud computing. The issue was notability of TurnKey Linux with respect to that topic. What would there be to AfD? SamJohnston later made it clear. Images and the article. And since he wrote "again," there must be a prior incident. All I can find, so far, is the original deletion tagging of TurnKey Linux, by 87.196.76.86. I did not bring the off-wiki incident here, SamJ did, but evidence of on-wiki harassment can be based on prior off-wiki conflict.
• JzG is arguing as he argued before, ending up at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG, where he was admonished. Mathsci and Enric Naval were both highly involved with Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley. Only one clearly neutral editor has commented here, supporting my report. The attention of other neutral editors and administrators is requested.
• I considered requesting special permission from ArbComm to intervene, but decided that the welfare of the project required immediate action, and my restriction allowed me to file as an "originating party." But then I saw that SamJ had already come here, with a highly biased and even more inflammatory report. Given the prior threat to harass, this was an escalation, requiring immediate and strong response. I will, myself, request clarification from ArbComm if it is not done by someone else first, I have to snow-blow a driveway.
• SamJ has now also filed a request at AIV over this same affair. Whatever this is from LirazSiri, it is not vandalism. SamJ is forum-shopping, which also is characteristic of harassment. He hasn't stopped, in spite of obvious warnings, so he should be stopped. --Abd (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Abd has inflamed this situation and made it worse. Sam has not engaged in any WP:TE or WP:BAITING, and has acted properly. The frustration is unfortunate, but seems to be a constant when certain editors are involved. As Sam and I were discussing taking this to ANI, and as Abd is not an originating party in this dispute, he seems to be breaking the terms of his editing restrictions. As Abd is claiming harassment or some such behaviour between two other editors, it should be up to one of them to bring a complaint - especially in light of his restriction. This should be closed and a new thread opened by an involved party if they feel it is a reasonable step in WP:DR. Verbal chat 16:13, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• I have filed an arbitation enforcement request and note that Abd was admonished at the same time for "engaging in personal attacks" and "failing even to attempt to substantiate allegations of misconduct levelled at other editors" (see "revert warring rampage", "gratuitous incivility", "motive to harass", "calculated to cause maximum disruption", "trolled", "quite improper", "vindictive", "drastically exaggerated", "deliberately inflamed", "vendetta", "obsessive and touchy", "much worse than that", "COI", "strong personal opinions", "behavioural issues", "extortion", "harassment", "[not] clearly neutral", "highly biased", "even more inflammatory", "characteristic of harassment", etc. above). Abd: per User:Verbal above, you are not an originating party and as such are warned not to contribute any further to this incident. To do so would be in blatant and willful contravention of your editing restriction. -- samj _in^out 17:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• I hope it is accepted, I can't really gather any enthusiasm for another round of wall-of-text and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I really can't believe that Abd is genuinely trying to assert some sort of COI because I am a virtualisation specialist with a professional interest in cloud computing (and I suppose green computing, if it's relevant here, I am my company's Green Grid rep in EMEA). I am proud to say I was there when Joe Baguley coined the phrase "BaaS" or "Bullshit as a Service" for the hype around cloud :-) But it's ludicrous to suggest I have "strong personal feelings" about a product I have only ever encountered here. I have never come across it professionally at all. Nobody has ever mentioned it at any of the conferences, user groups or meetings I've attended. Guy (Help!) 17:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll be brief! My point is that JzG is involved with the topic, and may have based his prior action on personal involvement and knowledge, rather than a truly neutral assessment based on review of sources, etc. No complaint is made or being contemplated about that behavior, but JzG's comments here should be understood within that context. The above is a variety of "It's not notable -- and is therefore spam -- because I'm knowledgeable about the topic and I didn't hear about it off-wiki." Maybe. Maybe even probably. But not a valid argument at AfD, for example. Nor for an admin to speedy delete. But so what? JzG was confirmed, as to the article at the time. Then he was reversed, but after the article had been better sourced. And as to Template:Cloud computing, again, LirazS filed a naive 3RR report, but the result was quite proper: the template was protected, without prejudice to any editor[119] Again, no harm, that can and will eventually be either sustained or fixed.) --Abd (talk) 19:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll be even briefer: nonsense. It's spam because Liraz Siri is the co-founder of TurnKey Linux and is engaging in blatant promotion of his own commercial interests. It really does not get a lot more obvious than this. Guy (Help!) 23:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• I have posted an initial assessment of the enforcement request at WP:AE#Result concerning Abd, but would welcome the opinions of other admins before acting on it.  Sandstein  18:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Sandstein. I have responded there and have a note on my Talk page. I don't agree with Sandstein's assessment, obviously (or I wouldn't have responded here), but he is apparently not an "involved" admin and is welcome to issue an injunction, so to speak, that clarifies the sanction, pending review by ArbComm, as to the meaning of "originating party" where I am very involved in the dispute before a filing, would file a report on my own -- thus being clearly an originating party -- but another party files a report that only refers to me indirectly. Are my responsibilities prejudiced by the action of the other party? Or should I have filed an independent report so as not to "violate the sanction"? --Abd (talk) 19:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

As noted on my talk page, I await input by other admins at AE before deciding how to proceed. If I determine that a request for clarification is required, I will make it. In the interim, please do not continue the current dispute in any venue before the request for arbitration enforcement is resolved.  Sandstein  20:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

How is it even possible that Abd continues to edit this incident when they have been [explicitly warned] against doing so? Can we not get back to the initial complaint and ignore all the rubbish Abd has injected in the middle? This editor needs to know what they were doing was wrong. A 24 hour block would do exactly that and in the worst case they wouldn't return (which, from what I've seen thus far, would actually be a good thing for Wikipedia) -- samj _in^out 04:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It's what Abd does and there is no known way of preventing it, the best course is to step back and let uninvolved qadmins sort out the mess. I've requested an editing restriction on LirazSiri at WP:AN, I suspect that will find consensus under the circumstances. Guy (Help!) 13:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Anupam - violations of WP:CANVASS, WP:WL

WP:TLDR applies, but see note below. Guy (Help!) 12:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

During the last few years, most of User:Anupam's edits have been adding Urdu scripts to Bollywood-related film articles while the language of the films is commonly and officially Hindi. There was never a clear consensus on adding the scripts but he was still adding Urdu scripts to articles about Hindi films without any basis. Since a new discussion started, he has cited some old 2006 discussion claiming there was a consensus on this one while there clearly was not. He has only cited the same discussions and used the fact that a beaurocrat, Taxman, supported his view. When Taxman said that there was a consensus I cited a link which clearly proved that consensus never existed. But Taxman left and since then Anupam has used his words and said I'm violating WP:Bureaucrat and that I was warned by Taxman while nothing of this sort happened. Yesterday, I, for once, clearly proved why there was no consensus previously. I will post this here. He always cites four old links from discussions, and I'm completely sure he will do that when he comes here - and here they are: The so-called poll: First of all, there were only 7 editors participating in the poll, and editors who opposed to having these scripts did not even take part in it. The entire discussion remained without sources and without focus. And it actually dealt with scripts for actors' articles, not films!! Users including Plumcouch, Elyaqim and Nichalp opposed to having Urdu. There was no consensus on this discussion at all. Discussion 1: Now I don't know why Anupam cites this, please tell me what "discussion" you are seeing here. A user just posted a comment about the general addition of scripts in film articles, Zora replied and he replied back. Discussion 2 and discussion 3 are actually one discussion with two sections (User:Zora has a habit of starting new messages in new sections like she did here; expectedly, Anupam used it to add two links to his list). There is absolutely no consensus here. On the contrary, it's one big mess. No sources were cited by anyone. The same intense arguments. Nobleeagle, Bharatveer, Dbachchman against Zora, Ragib and Anupam. A user named Bakaman put it all very well in the bottom line: "There is no consensus reached on this page. All I see is large assumptions of bad faith and OR" The most important link which Anupam keeps ignoring is the one in in the fourth archive in which Zora declares that the old discussion and the so-called poll are dead. Yes, they died a premature death. This is the most important link which clearly proves that there wasn't any consensus. This clearly shows how Anupam mispresents the entire issue and that Taxman just misinterpreted it (though he clearly is not the one who takes decisions here as Anupam pretends). This analysis of mine was evaded and has not been replied to by Anupam. He still keeps citing these discussions ignoring this. As for the discussion itself, most of my lengthy posts were ignored and remained unanswered. He has ignored all my quatations and explanations (e.g This one, this one). He has ignored the existence of Encyclopedia Britannica, Google statistics of both "Google Scholar" and "Google Book", reputable sources, official film certificates, IMDb and other editors' views. He is basically contradicting a common and official fact. Bollywood is Hindi cinema, not Urdu and not Hindustani. He has ignored a book written by the most reputable people in India and thousand of other sources. I several times challenged him to make a simple Google check but he ignored that as well. During the discussion time, I happened to delete two messages by two users, one of whom violated WP:NPA, calling us "willful, ignorant mobs", and the other one left an incoherent message in the middle of my post (I later moved his message). Anupam used this again and left warnings on the Bollywood talk page in a derogatory fashion, trying to show me in a negative light. The worst thing happened when we found out that Anupam had cavassed several editors to participate in the discussion. I suspected this because several editors who had been absent from Wikipedia instantly came to the discussion. This was verified when I found out this message on Anupam's talk page. This clearly shows the state of this discussion. Ironically, he, in turn accused me of violationg WP:CANVASS, citing my message to a user in which I only notified him about an e-mail I sent him. Anupam in turn accused me of violating WP:BUREAUCRAT, while it does not say a beaurocrat determines the bottom line of a discussion. And it is not even a policy. He also accused me of violating WP:EDSUM. Another act of WikiLawyering. First, it is just an information page. Secondly, all my edits in which I recently justifiably removed Urdu scripts were done with proper edit summaries, with the exception of two instances when I wrote "cleanup" as I also did other edits which Anupam conveniently chose to mention. Seeing the state of the discussion after Anupam's canvassing and based on films' official certificates and their IMDb pages which identify their language as Hindi, I removed Urdu scripts from a few Hindi film articles. Anupam instantly reverted me. Despite warnings, he kept edit warring on the Dil To Pagal Hai page and on other pages. I took one step back. I warned him and stepped out but in return I received an insulting vandalism warning. Just today Anupam violated WP:3RR on Dillagi, Kal Ho Naa Ho and Awaara. Now I'm looking forward to your input on the issue, both on Anupam's violations of WP:CANVASS and WP:WL, the state of the discussion, and your opinion about adding Urdu scripts to Hindi film articles. These scripts clearly should not have been added in the first place. Best regards, Shahid • Talk2me 10:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC) Dear administrators, allow me to kindly expand on this situation. Previous consensuses (poll, discussion 1, discussion 2, and discussion 3), affirmed that two scripts (Devanagari & Nastaliq/Perso-Arabic) used to transcribe Hindi-Urdu (Hindustani) were appropriate for Bollywood related film articles. The validity of these consensuses was, in fact, very recently confirmed by Wikipedia Bureaucrat User:Taxman twice: here and here. User:Taxman, in his latter comment warned User:Shshshsh (Shahid) about how he misrepresents facts and is uncivil in his behavior, as demonstrated by his false warnings on my talk page and in the Bollywood talk page. I had kindly ask him to stop removing Urdu scripts from Bollywood related film articles until a new consensuses was enacted in the current discussion involving the inclusion of both Hindi & Urdu (Hindustani) scripts in Bollywood related film articles (by the way, in the current discussion, there is still an overwhelming consensus against the removal of Nastaliq (Urdu) scripts from Bollywood related film articles). I too, told User:Shshshsh (Shahid), that I would kindly not add Hindustani scripts to Bollywood related film articles until the current discussion was resolved (click here). Despite these kind pleas, from both Wikipedia Bureacrat User:Taxman and I, User:Shshshsh (Shahid) took matters into his own hands and recently started removing Nasta'liq (Urdu) scripts from Bollywood related film articles, sometimes with fake edit summaries, such as "Cleanup", thus violating WP:EDSUM. Moreover, Shahid deleted requests to kindly stop starting edit wars from his talk page, violating Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, which discourages the deletion of comments from talk pages. The only reason I even reverted User:Shshshsh (Shahid) on Dil To Pagal Hai is because there was an understanding that neither of us would take any action until a new consensus at the current discussion supported or refuted the previous valid consensuses. Since User:Shshshsh (Shahid) initially started removing Nastaliq (Urdu/Hindustani) scripts from Bollywood related film articles, he is the one that started edit warring, additionally violating the principal of Wikipedia:Consensus, which he was reminded of in the start of the discussion by Wikipedia Bureacrat, User:Taxman. By the way, User:Taxman stated in disagreement with User:Shshshsh (Shahid's) position that his argument "doesn't hold water. And Bollywood being "formally referred to as Hindi cinema", even if there were such a thing that could formally make that designation, doesn't change the fact that Bollywood films are produced in a register of the Hindi/Urdu language continuum that is far from the shudda Hindi side of the spectrum." User:Shshshsh (Shahid) accuses me of canvassing when I have openly posted the fact that all users should participate in the current discussion in two major places, the Noticeboard for India-related topics and the Notice board for Pakistan-related topics. Moreover, it was evident that some users I requested to participate in the discussion are actively involved in the production and maintenance of Bollywood related articles or were experts in linguistics, both parties who specialize in the topic in question in the current discussion. It is interesting that User:Shshshsh (Shahid) accuses me of canvassing, when he, himself, violates the main principle of canvassing by spamming non-neutral messages on talk pages regarding the current discussion. My requests were sent to editors whom I had never contacted and were neutral in nature. Please see an example on my talk page here. Moreover, User:Shshshsh (Shahid) accuses me of not replying to his messages in the current discussion (even though I have addressed his points throughout the discussion), yet, he leaves sarcastic responses to concerned editors participating in the current discussion and even deletes the comments of those who disagree with him in order to make it appear that his position is the most supported one. One example is this difference. In this difference, User:Shshshsh (Shahid) even uses a sneaky edit summary to hide his action! An example of another difference is this one. In this difference, Shahid has been accused by another editor for excising a quote in order to support his position, even though it supported that of the previous consensuses. From this post, it is clear that User:Shshshsh (Shahid) has overstepped Wikipedia policy and has acted out of boundaries, even though he has been warned by the Wikipedia administration repeatedly. Despite the fact that a current discussion is going on, he states that he proves his point and therefore takes action. Once again, the only reason I reverted him was because he is violating consensuses and ignoring the wishes of the Wikipedia community. In fact, I have email evidence from two Wikipedia administrators who encouraged me to revert User:Shshshsh (Shahid) and if he does not comply, to file a "RfC on user behavior" on User:Shshshsh (Shahid). If needed, I can forward these emails to the administrator handling this situation. In the mean time, I would like to encourage the Wikipedia administrator handling this situation to remind User:Shshshsh (Shahid) that he should respect Wikipedia:Consensus as decided by the Wikipedia community and not to remove Hindustani scripts from Bollywood related film articles until a new consensus at the current discussion determines that it is acceptable/unacceptable. Moreover, he should be reminded that the previous consensuses (poll, discussion 1, discussion 2, and discussion 3) hold ground until a new one is established. Once again, User:Shshshsh (Shahid) was first told this by Wikipedia Bureaucrat User:Taxman here. Thanks for your time and understanding in this matter. With warm regards, AnupamTalk 08:59, 28 February 2010 (UTC) From Bollywood Talk Page: This discussion has been going on for quite some time now and many editors have offered valuable positions. In his previous post, User:Shshshsh (Shahid) offered a summary of his arguments. I will proceed to do the same. In the past, the same topic of discussion was held in a poll, discussion 1, discussion 2, and discussion 3. These consensus established a policy to permit the use of both Hindi (Devanagari) and Urdu (Perso-Arabic/Nasta'liq) scripts on Bollywood-related film articles: "It appears that there's a pretty good consensus to leave Urdu script in the opening here" (User:Grenavitar at discussion 3). Moreover, a respected Wikipedia Bureaucrat, User:Taxman, attested to the veracity of this previous consensus in this discussion: "Additionally there was indeed in the past a consensus for including both scripts in the conversations that have been linked. Longstanding Wikipedia tradition is that consensus stands until a different one is clearly established, time doesn't invalidate a past consensus it just means it has stood the test of time longer. Since a consensus to change the practice hasn't been established yet, removing the scripts is not proper until such consensus has been established." The arguments delineated below will support the previous consensuses which established that both Devanagari and Perso-Arabic scripts would be allowed in Bollywood-related film articles. On reason to continue to retain Urdu (Perso-Arabic/Nasta'liq) scripts in Bollywood articles is because many Bollywood movies, both new and old, display both Hindi (Devanagari) and Urdu (Perso-Arabic) scripts in the introduction to the movies. I will provide two examples of some of 2008 films, which were mentioned previously by User:Basawala: Welcome to Sajjanpur (Devanagari: वेलकम सज्जनपुर, Perso-Arabic: ویلکم ٹو سجن پور) click here Ghajini (Devanagari: गजनी, Perso-Arabic: گجینی) click here Another reason to continue to retain Urdu scripts in Bollywood-related film articles is because many scholarly sources refer to Bollywood as the Hindi-Urdu film industry: "At the level of the colloquial language that is spoken spontaneously or is heard in Bollywood movies, Hindi and Urdu are virtually identical languages" (South Asian Language Review). "filmakers finally settled on one type of Hindi known as Hindustani - a mixture of Hindi and Urdu - a language associated with bazaars and trading that served as lingua franca across northern and central India" (Université de Montréal). "Most of the cinema produced in Bombay was made in Hindi-Urdu, but the regional studios either made films in their local languages (such as Bengali, Marathi or Punjabi) or they made two versions of their films simultaneously, one in their local language and one in Hindi-Urdu" (Cinema India). Moreover, most scholarly sources maintain that the central concepts in Bollywood films are from "Urdu's Persian and Arabic derived vocabulary" ("Bollywood" Routledge, p. 23). Sources that discuss the ubiquitous use of Urdu in Bollywood films are listed below. Note, this list was kindly developed by User:Abecedare above: Desai, Jigna, Dudrah, Rajinder, Rai, Amit, Bollywood Audiences Editorial, South Asian Popular Culture; Oct2005, Vol. 3 Issue 2, p79-82, ("Bollywood is (commonly and more importantly) inaccurately referred to simply as ‘Hindi’ cinema despite the ubiquitous presence of Urdu. One could argue that Urdu is the meta-language of romantic love in film culture. However, English has begun to challenge the ideological work done by Urdu.") Ganti, Tejaswani, Bollywood: a guidebook to popular Hindi cinema, Routledge, 2004 Warsi, M.J, Heritage Language Teaching: Issues Regarding Hindi-Urdu in the United States, South-Asian Language Review, Vol. 8, January-June, 2003 Rachel Dwyer, Divia Patel , Cinema India: the visual culture of Hindi film, Rutgers University Press, 2002 ("Bombay became the centre of Hindi-Urdu film after the coming of sound after 1931. ... However, once Hindi was promoted as the national language of India and the Bombay film industry came to be seen as the national film industry, the language of its cinema came to be somewhat inaccurately called Hindi") Kesavan, Mukul, Awadh and the Tawaif, the Islamicate Roots of Hindi Cinema, in Forging Identities: Gender, Communities, and the State , Zoya Hasan (ed), Westview Press, 1994. Mishra, Vijay, Bollywood cinema: temples of desire, Routledge, 2002 Virdi, Jyotika, The cinematic imagiNation (sic): Indian popular films as social history, Rutgers University Press, 2003. Mehta, Rini Bhattacharya, Pandharipande, Rajeshwari, Bollywood and Globalization: Indian Popular Cinema, Nation, and Diaspora, Anthem Press, 2010 Prasad, Madhava, This thing called Bollywood, Unsettling cinema: a symposium on the place of cinema in India, May 2003 Alter, Stephen, Fantasies of a Bollywood love thief: inside the world of Indian moviemaking, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007 ("Though Bollywood movies are known as Hindi films, the root language is actually Hindustani, a dialect that has gone out of favour because of Sanskritisation.") Prasad, Madhava, Ideology of the Hindi film: a historical construction, Oxford University Press, 1998 Anandam P. Kavoori, Aswin Punathambekar, Global Hollywood, NYU Press, 2008 Philip Lutgendorf, Is There an Indian Way of Filmmaking? International Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Dec., 2006), pp. 227-256 ("With the coming of sound, Persianized Hindi/Urdu with its strong literary and romantic associations became the dominant language of Bombay cinema") In addition, reputable newspapers such as the The Times of India refer to the language used in Bollywood flims as Hindi-Urdu (source). Moreover, many of the Bollywood films, in their official poster titles, display both Hindi (Devanagari) & Urdu (Nastaliq) scripts. For some examples, please look at the posters of the following Bollywood movies; Image:Awaaraposter.jpg, Image:Waqt 1965 film poster.JPG, Image:Sholayposter2.jpg, Image:Padosan film poster.jpg, etc. In his above argument, User:Shshshsh (Shahid), states that both Urdu and Hindi scripts should not be included in Bollywood related film articles because Bollywood is sometimes referred to as Hindi Cinema. However, as noted by User:Abecedare, Shahid excised a portion of his quote which stated that "Bollywood is (commonly and more importantly) inaccurately referred to simply as ‘Hindi’ cinema despite the ubiquitous presence of Urdu." In other words, the term Hindi Cinema is a misnomer because, as mentioned above, the language Bollywood filmakers decided to use in their movies is "Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) - a mixture of Hindi and Urdu - a language associated with bazaars and trading that served as lingua franca across northern and central India" (Université de Montréal). In most of the northern India, where Bollywood movies are aimed at, the official language of these north Indian states is both Hindi and Urdu, which are in the Devanagari and Perso-Arabic/Nastaliq scripts respectively. For example, Urdu is an official language in Uttar Pradesh (source), Bihar (source), Jammu and Kashmir (source) and even the national capital, Delhi (source). Nevertheless, even though both Hindi and Urdu diverge on the literary level, they are the same language on the colloquial level (source [North Carolina State University]). For this reason, Hindi and Urdu are linguistically a diasystem, and are often grouped together as one language, Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu. Encyclopædia Britannica states that "Hindustani is widely recognized as India’s most common lingua franca" and for this reason, it was chosen for the northern Indian film industry (source). A dictionary definition of Urdu for example will state: "An Indic language that is the official literary language of Pakistan, essentially identical to Hindi in its spoken form but in its literary form heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and written in an Arabic alphabet" (The American Heritage Dictionary). For these reaons the language used in Bollywood films could be called Hindi or Urdu: "At the level of the colloquial language that is spoken spontaneously or is heard in Bollywood movies, Hindi and Urdu are virtually identical languages" (South Asian Language Review). As a result of this fact, Hindi and Urdu are often studied as one subject in universities as Hindi/Urdu (source a, source b). One of User:Classicfilms's references from Arizona State University discussed how watching Bollywood films was an integral part of the course syllabus for learning Urdu. Another reason to keep both Urdu and Hindi scripts in Bollywood related film articles is that by simply doing a search in Google or any other search engine for a Bollywood film title in Devanagari or Nastaliq, one will yield a plethora of results. For example, try searching for Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (Hindi: कभी ख़ुशी कभी ग़म, Urdu: : کبھی خوشی کبھی غم). Major news sources such as BBC Hindi and BBC Urdu have their own sections dedicated to Bollywood films. Finally, another reason to retain both scripts in Bollywood related film articles is that many of the Bollywood films listed in the Internet Movie Database display the language of Bollywood films as both Hindi & Urdu. For example, glance at the Dil Chahta Hai's (2001) IMDb page here. It gives the language as both Hindi and Urdu. Another example is Khakee (2004) which is available at the IMDb page here. Even though IMDb is not an authoritative source, there are many more examples on IMDb which list Bollywood films as both Hindi and Urdu. Famous poets of the Indian subcontinent such as Muhammad Iqbal have referred to Urdu and Hindi interchangeably (source). In light of all these facts, I feel that it is evident that both Hindi (Devanagari) and Urdu (Perso-Arabic) scripts should continue to remain in Bollywood related film articles. Thanks, AnupamTalk 11:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC) This is not true. There is no consensus. At least three people, myself included see little point in adding Urdu script to every article abouta Hindi film. I feel your time would be better spent with something which will actually help english readers. Adding Urdu to every Hindi film article unless it is of MAJOR importance to the film is just spamming. This is ENGLISH wikipedia. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 11:19, 28 February 2010 (UTC) [[:Image:Awaaraposter.jpg|thumb|240px|left|A typical Bollywood film poster from Awaara showing Hindustani: Hindi (left), Roman (centre) and Urdu (right) scripts]] You're right, right now, there is no consensus albeit there is a current discussion going on where more evidence has supported the inclusion of both Hindi & Urdu scripts as demonstrated by Wikipedia Bureaucrat User:Taxman's quote: “ Now to the more general point, I would like to give an overview of my observations of the situation as it stands. One is that somewhat more and better sources have been given to support the inclusion of Urdu scripts. -Wikipedia Bureaucrat User:Taxman ” . However, in the past, there was a consensus as evidenced by the fact that Wikipedia Bureaucrat User:Taxman stated that removal of the scripts was a violation of consensus here: “ Additionally there was indeed in the past a consensus for including both scripts in the conversations that have been linked. Longstanding Wikipedia tradition is that consensus stands until a different one is clearly established, time doesn't invalidate a past consensus it just means it has stood the test of time longer. Since a consensus to change the practice hasn't been established yet, removing the scripts is not proper until such consensus has been established. --Wikipedia Bureaucrat User:Taxman ” . Previous consensuses established this precedent and now User:Shshshsh (Shahid) is violating this consensus and starting edit wars by removing Urdu scripts from Bollywood related film articles. Once again, I was encouraged by administrators to revert his edits. Thanks for your understanding, AnupamTalk 11:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC) Where the official film poster actually displays Urdu then it maybe be vaguely relevant to add Urdu script. However to my knowledge you have added Urdu script to film articles where the poster does not actually display it. Also why do you keep quoting Taxman? You know there isn't really a true consensus, otherwise you would not have been wasting the last few months arguing... For instance see Zinda (film). We now have pointless Urdu script in an article about a Hindi language film. Now look at imdb. Does anybody here see any evidence of Urdu in the languages section? I see Hindi, English even Thai but ahem no Urdu... I wonder if anybody here would approve of say somebody like ANupam gogin through every article on a British village and adding the Dutch name even though it is irrelvant to ENGLISH wikipedia. I think he spamming by adding Urdu script to articles unless there is clear EVIDENCE that the film has been officially released in Urdu and not some shoddy bootleg dubbed copy. Googling Zinda I do not see any film official poster which has Urdu script on it. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 11:19, 28 February 2010 (UTC) Many official Bollywood film posters display both Hindi and Urdu scripts such as the one shown above. Moreover, many official Bollywood movies give both the Hindi and Urdu script in the beginning of the actual movies themselves. Please see the links in the transcribed post above. Also, thanks for your open mindedness as new information is presented. In response to your most recent post regarding Zinda, please notice that the poster does not contain the Devanagari script as well. It only contains the Roman script. The transcribed post above gives good reasons for Hindi (Devanagari) and Urdu (Nastaliq/Perso-Arabic) scripts in Bollywood related film articles. Thanks for listening. Best wishes, AnupamTalk 11:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC) Here are some more official posters that follow the trend of displaying Hindi-Urdu scripts: Image:Awaaraposter.jpg, Image:Waqt 1965 film poster.JPG, Image:Sholayposter2.jpg, Image:Padosan film poster.jpg, among many others. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 11:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC) I'm honestly more neutral on this than you might think. If there is widespread evidence that the film has officially been released in Urdu or Urdu extracts or themes are important in the film then I do not object to you adding them. I actually don't think it is particularly important to the article but I know if wherever you look it says Hindi and the article is the only place it says Urdu then it appears odd. What I recommend is that if you can find a reliable source to support that Urdu is of relevance to the film you add a citation, this way I personally would not object providing you can verify it and show some proof that it isn't your POV and is fact. That is the major concern above all in this, I believe Shahid is concerned you are POV pushing and trying to diminish the significance of the Hindi... ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 12:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC) Dear Himalayan Explorer, once again, thank you for reading this discussion with an open mind and considering this topic once again. The thing that makes this discussion complex is that Hindi-Urdu is a diasystem. In other words, چلو آج رات کھانا کھانے چلیں (Urdu) and चलो आज रात खाना खाने चलें (Hindi) read the same thing: chalo aaj rāt khānā khané chalein. (translation: "let us go eat food tonight"). Even though the scripts are different, what one says is the same. These two articles may be helpful: one and two. Also, I would never try to diminish the significance of Hindi. I myself have added most of the Hindi scripts on Bollywood related film articles and always place them first in sequence :) I hope this helps. Take care! With regards, AnupamTalk 12:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC) I have actually long wondered why there are no Hindi scripts in the articles. It means nothing to me but given that most of them are in Hindi and have official Hindi titles then I think it is relevant and your Hindi titles are welcome. As for Urdu, I do not see much evidence to indicate what you say is true. The Encyclopedia of Hindi cinema by Britannica is one of the best works on Bollywood I've ever seen and does not mention Urdu. I would like to see a citation to support the Urdu text at least. The main concerning is that it often contradicts what is said in other places about the language solely being Hindi. I think you should treat each film differently and only add Urdu script where is appropriate. Reliable sources such as Christopher King, One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India. Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1994. at least explain it a little. But to my knowledge Bollywood is widely publicized as Hindi cinema and Hind language film rather than Hindustani... ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 12:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

This is an incident noticeboard, a very busy venue not well suited to complex or lengthy expositions of problems. This looks very much like the sort of problem that we recommend is handled through a request for comment, per dispute resolution processes. 3RR violations can of course be handled separately at WP:AN3, but a persistent pattern of 3RR violation should be documented through user RfC, something alluded to in the discussion. Guy (Help!) 12:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)