Misplaced Pages

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Professor allegedly telling students to vandalize wikipedia

Per this post a professor is allegedly telling students to vandalize wikipedia. They began with Northern Illinois University's article but according to the report they have expanded to other areas. Thanks for the semi-protection to that article and the other volunteers who reverted similar vandalism. I would suggest keeping the semi-protection a bit longer. --Dual Freq 03:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

We had this happen at Owens Community College a few months ago (see its talk page, and history) and probably other schools as well. Do we know the IP ranges of NIU? Antandrus (talk) 03:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

If it can be proven that the professor in question really did ask his students to vandalize Misplaced Pages, then I suggest that the evidence be posted here, along with contact address for the professor's faculty dean, the president of the university, and the university's office for handling academic misconduct. Concerned Wikipedians can then send an e-mail or letter to the authorities of their choice to complain about the conduct of the professor. As a (former) academic myself, I'm appalled that an educator would encourage or require his students to commit an antisocial and possibly illegal act as coursework, and I expect that this professor's colleagues and superiors would see it the same way. —Psychonaut 03:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, telling your students to go be annoying on the internet and report back on the results is probably not illegal. Inappropriate, yes. Opabinia regalis 06:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Second (as a current academic). See also similar case from Dec'05.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the assertion and acusation that the instructor (who is not a professor) was behind this are unproven... I'm not going to post the proper contact info here to avoid a flood of abusive complaints, but it's all out there on the web, and I have sent the chair and assistant chair of the department and coordinator for the class series that this instructor is teaching a report and complaint, asking that they investigate and figure out if the instructor really did do that. If he did, then hopefully they can be convinced to take appropriate action. But he should be treated as innocent until there's some credible evidence. For all we know right now, it's a Joe-job, trying to get an innocent uninvolved person in trouble. If you feel the need to add additional complaints, please do so keeping in mind that the evidence is pretty weak (a single pseudonymous acusation). Georgewilliamherbert 09:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Good point - it may as well be a student prank. We will see what the accused replies; According to posts below, he admitted to this. One way or another I'd expect that the involved teachers should stress to students that 'vandalising Misplaced Pages is as bad as breaking a window in your local shop' and such.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, right. Now Misplaced Pages has been proven to be a reliable source, let's also prove that Misplaced Pages is reliable at filing abuse reports. Yuser31415 05:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages has not been proven to be a reliable source because it is not a reliable source. Any student who relies entirely on a wikipedia article is a fool. Misplaced Pages is however a great starting place, and as our references continue to improve we will become greater and greater, but as we are a wiki we will never be, and never can be, a reliable source. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 09:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The IP range utilized by Northern Illinois University is 131.156.0.0/16, as seen by this representative IP, 131.156.81.115 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• There are also other IP ranges, such as the following:
  • 71.56.0.0 - 71.63.255.255
  • 67.160.0.0 - 67.191.255.255
• Both of which are utilized by the city of Dekalb, Illinois, home of NIU.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Cool--thanks. I think we should all examine any edits from these ranges in the next few days. This is where I wish we had a SQL facility, e.g. "select all recent changes from 'time period' where editor IP begins with 131.156"... Antandrus (talk) 06:06, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

We have one. He's called Brion Vibber. Titoxd 06:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

SQL access is not necessary. Checkuser can do it. Raul654 19:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I sent an email to the professor (it's spelled Pierce, by the way), who acknowledges that he did indeed make this assignment. I told him I would be forwarding the informaton to the president of the university. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify: he acknowledged this in an email reply to you? OOC, did he apologize or is he arguing he did the right thing? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

He acknowledged this and tried to justify his actions. User:Zoe|(talk) 20:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I have passed Professor's Pierce's reply on to the Northern Illinois University office of public relations, and have asked them to pass it on to the school's President. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's that uncommon task for university profs to set - I've seen it used a couple of times on courses (generally the prof will commit the vandalism and then revert). One use is to show why wikipedia should not be used as a source (Study skills context), the second is to show that wikipedia is to open to abuse (with an INFO-SEC context). --Fredrick day 19:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Fredrick, if one wants to prove the violatile nature of Wiki's, that's what sandbox and one's userspace is. I teach, I talk about Wikis, I do use my userpage to demonstrate those issues - but I'd never thought to vandalize a real article even for a few seconds to prove to my students what can be proven as well on my userpage (as messing up real article's history and allowing a reader to find vandalised info during the few seconds it takes one to revert a change is simply bad). That said, I encourage examples of 'good editing' - I prefer to show my studnets how easy it is to add interlinks or copyedit articles.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

That's great but you are coming from a perspective of domain expertise - many of the people doing this, don't understand wikipedia beyond a) "it's that free-speech website that anyone can edit and add anything about anyone" b) "this is the place that students cut and paste large sections of their assignments from". I'm not excusing anyone but that's just how it is. --Fredrick day 19:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed - so it is our job to educate them. A very good way to to it in the academia is to ask them to read this article from Journal of American History (I do suggest sending it to the professors involved in this incident).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I finished checking the NIU class B.

• Edits that concern me and should probably be verified:
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wheeling%2C_Illinois&diff=101685760&oldid=96451410
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=John_Wooden&diff=101268126&oldid=101232824
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Michigan_State_University_Residence_Halls_Association&curid=4575200&diff=102152804&oldid=92396515
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Huntley%2C_Illinois&curid=111373&diff=101151565&oldid=101050130

• Vandalism:
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Brookfield_Zoo&curid=1207234&diff=102039931&oldid=101862270 (Uncaught)
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Steroid&curid=141922&diff=102024168&oldid=101770838

The other ranges are too large and dense to check easily. Raul654 19:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I just plain undid the questionable edits that you listed (except for the Wheeling one, as you beat me to that). One was a fact changing thing, the MSU one could not be supported, and the Huntley one was not supported by the reference (there are five Pacific Islanders in all of Huntley, Illinois, which has a 0.00 percentage of the population, not 0.02).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 19:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

5/16,719 = 0.000299 or approximately 0.03%. That wasn't vandalism. Can an admin unrevert and de-warn the editor? Jd2718 03:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I gave all of the above {{Test4im}} warnings, and a {{SharedIPEDU}} with the link to Northwestern pointing to this discussion. I say we have an extremely short leash -- A minimum one month IP block (including user registration) on the next obvious case of vandalism. This cannot be allowed, IMO. -- Avi 20:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Professor Pierce's reply

This was Professor Pierce's email reply to me:

They needed to learn a lesson about how easy it is to find information and how open source information is not the best way to go. This was after I was getting a lot of Misplaced Pages cites last semester where students were citing really dubious information from there. One way for them to realize that using sources, such as Misplaced Pages, is to get them to see how simple it is to change the information that is there.

I then replied to him that I would be passing his response on to the University President, and he relied:

It's not that I'm advocating vandalism as I had them print the original page so that, even if it wasn't caught, I could go back and recreate the correct page. The bigger issue, though, is that anybody can do this and have information that is online on your servers until who knows when until the page is discovered and corrected.

User:Zoe|(talk) 20:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

What on Earth is he talking about? I tell my students not to trust Misplaced Pages, and that if they do, they're likely to get things wrong, and get worse results; that's what most of my colleagues do (though most sensible undergraduates don't need to be told). Why does he have to tell them to vandalise Misplaced Pages in order to get them to work sensibly? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I tell my students Wiki is a great place to start their research - but a very bad place to finish it. We are moving towards a level of quality with every fact properly referenced, but of course we are just an encyclopedia. Undergrads (and grads, and even professors) may find reading a Wiki article on unknown subject useful to get a general gist of relevant info, but then they should have enough knowledge to go to academic databases. Although I think increasingly we will have high quality articles on obscure subjects that may not even be covered well in English academic works (I challenge anyone to find a better English biography of this person then we have :) -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I usually tell them that it's pretty good in some areas — just not in philosophy, which is what I'm teaching them. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 00:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I did my undergraduate in history, and if I had ever used any tertiary source such as an encyclopedia, even Britannica, I would have been dragged through mud. Teke 21:40, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this is what I do too (good starting point). I also point them to the excellent resource here Misplaced Pages:Researching_with_Wikipedia. i can't imagine endorsing vandalism , they really need to actually do it to know it is possible? David D. (Talk) 20:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I smell WP:POINT violations. --physicq (c) 23:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I have a suggestion for Mr. Pierce. If you want your students to learn about the dangers of using wikipedia, have them search for five unreferenced figures in this encyclopedia. They can use the random article button on the left side of the screen. Have them verify those figures. Chances are that some of the figures will turn out to be wrong. You will get your message across to your students, they will hopefully learn from it and we will know which information is incorrect. Aecis 00:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I have another suggestion. He could get his students to improve an article on Misplaced Pages, and verify it.

As an aside, this professor has very little technical knowledge about Misplaced Pages, especially as we have the revert function and don't have to rely on printouts to restore the article to its previous state. Yuser31415 01:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Geez the same pointless experiment over and over. Don't these people realize they can just look into the history to see how we react to vandalism? HighInBC 01:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Very few people who are not editors realize what Misplaced Pages really is. I am not suprised at that, this is only to be expected. I would however expect an academic to read up on what other academics have done with Misplaced Pages: WP:SUP and WP:ACST are the two links that Professor Pierce should look through as soon as possible and Rosenzweig's article in JoAH should be obligatory reading for anybody thinking about 'teaching' and 'Misplaced Pages' in the same sentence.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Page break for readability

I have no qualms with a prof making a real-time point by inserting erroneous info into an article while the class watches on a screen, and then reverting it right then and there. But asking the whole class apart from oversight of the university's Institutional Review Board (IRB) needlessly takes the point too far.

Like it or not, it is an entirely legitimate research project to study vandalism and reverts on WP by engaging in them. Such a research project could certainly pass IRB approval for a class research project. This has to be admitted and, yes, possibly expected. That said, this does not appear to be the case here.

The response letter composed was probably hasty and not done in the most effective manner. All that needed doing was to remind the prof that, for class research projects, he must first get IRB approval - which he would certainly admit to - and if he does the project again, you would report it to the university's IRB. IRB approval of research projects is a time-consuming, tedious task. This would have probably been the end of the matter. If not, if it occurred again, then the letter should go to the IRB, indicating the prof's class is doing research not under their approval. That really would put a stop to it. CyberAnth 06:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, that would assume that the professor was doing it as a research project. Professors and students also have to abide to a code of ethics (I know I have to in my university), and violations usually are taken seriously. Titoxd 06:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Per the description, it certainly appears as though it were a research project - one NOT done under the IRB. The rest of what you said is exactly my point. If asked by several users, I would be happy to write a second letter to this prof along the lines of what I am speaking. CyberAnth 06:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want to prove to your students that glass shatters, you buy a sheet of glass and a hammer. You don't ask them to throw rocks at the windscreens in the parking lot. yandman 09:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

True, but that analogy is seriously not correlative. CyberAnth 10:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Why? Looks like a pretty good analogy to me.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I do have qualms with a professor illustrating a point by vandalising and immediately reverting an article. The same demonstration could easily be carried out by editing a sandbox or previewing the article without saving it. —David Levy 20:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Like it or not, it is an entirely legitimate research project to study vandalism and reverts on WP by engaging in them. Such a research project could certainly pass IRB approval for a class research project. Not only I don't like it, I am sure vandalism violates research ethics and no IRB would allow such a study. It's as likely as the request to study of gangs by creating a gang and engaging in various illegal activities that gangs do, or a study where the researcher becomes an offender himself (for example go spray's graffiti, breaks windows and then writes about 'my experiences as a city vandal'. Personally I find that such an experiment is much more controversial then such ideas like Stanford prison experiment or Milgram experiment - since Misplaced Pages users and editors have quite obviously not agreed to participate in this experiment.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I have had further discussion with Professor Pierce. I asked him if he felt that if a newspaper had false information, his students should steal all of the copies out of the vendor's box, and if he found something wrong in Encyclopaedia Brittanica, would he encourage them to rip the page out of the book, but he doesn't see the analogy. I also mentioned that we have seen an increase in vandalism from NIU IP addresses which, despite his claim, he had not reverted, and he apologized for the extra work entailed in fixing that. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Hm, isn't there an essay about this? Something like "Use Misplaced Pages as your first source, not your last source?" Because it does strike me as a very good topic for one, and something to hand to frustrated professors and the like while at the same time asking them not to vandalize to make a point. Heck, the suggestion of the alternative assignment of properly citing an uncited article and noting inaccuracies (instead of vandalizing) alone sounds like a very worthwhile thing to mention to people. Bitnine 20:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is legitimate research regardless of the approving body. Defacement of websites is illegal in the US, not that we ever take legal action, but that fact certainly invalidates the legitimacy of the experiment. HighInBC 20:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Defacement of websites related to hacking, yes, and that would apply to the WP main page which is closed to editing. A very public website that invites anyone to edit and that claims to be an encyclopedia and that has multiple published reports on its problem of vandalism is a very, very different matter. CyberAnth 09:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Academic use, WP:CW and Misplaced Pages:General disclaimer. Special:Cite actually links to the last one. —xyzzy_n 21:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why these "look how bad Misplaced Pages can be" things are necessary. Are people really stupid enough to not realize that you should not be citing a wiki for scholarly information? -Amark moo! 05:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, just Friday I was talking to a high school professor about Misplaced Pages, and I indicated to him that I would never cite it in my papers, and the only articles that I would even consider citing are those in which I had personally worked on and could vet on its content and accuracy. He wasn't surprised, even though I had told him that I was a Misplaced Pages administrator. Also, I told him how it is easy to permanently cite a revision using the "permanent link" link, so all amount of vandalism to "destroy" the information doesn't work, it just hides it and adds work to everyone involved. Titoxd 06:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

In the professor's defense (at least on this point), the metaphors you suggested to him (stealing newspapers, ripping encyclopedias) were not the best analogies. A better analogy would be a professor trying to teach students about negilgence towards graffiti by having them spraypaint graffiti on neighborhood shops, and then having them wait a few days to see if the shopowners would actually clean it up on their own.--Rsl12 22:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Amazing how low they apparently set the bar for hiring instructors at Northern Illinois University, that they would retain a man who incites a class to commit acts of intellectual vandalism. Edison 07:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Rumpelstiltskin223

User:Hkelkar was banned for one year by the ArbCom as part of the Hkelar ArbCom case. I believe that Hkelkar is evading his ban using the account User:Rumpelstiltskin223. As I was party to the case, I will not take unilateral action against the user. I would like other admins to look at the evidence I have collected.

• If you look at the user creation log, the account was created on 15 November, around the time when the case was going on. The user started to edit on the same day with the first edit being a revert with the edit summary "rv".
• After some edits here and there, Rumpelstiltskin223 became completely active from 10th December (the day Hkelkar got banned).
• Since then, Rumpelstiltskin223 has made close to 1400 edits in the mainspace. He has already shown the same pro-hindu and anti-muslim bias that hkelkar had and has already been blocked 4 times for edit-warring.
• Most of the articles edited by Rumpel were frequented by Hkelkar too.:
  1. 2002 Gujarat violence - This was Hkelkar's 2nd most edited article. Rumpel has 24 edits to it already.
  2. Dalit Buddhist movement - Another article frequented by Hkelkar, and now frequented by Rumpel.
  3. Dalit -
  4. Islam in India -
  5. Hindutva - (This one edited by Hkelkar in both his avatars - Shiva's trident and Hkelkar)
  6. Lashkar-e-Toiba -
• Though Rumpelstiltskin223 hasn't uploaded many images yet, he shows the same style there too by uploading images from websites having a cc-by-sa license. His last upload is from flickr, from which Hkelkar used to upload a lot of pics. See and
• Also see where it is said that Rumpelstiltskin223 is pursuing a PhD in physics. Hkelkar/Shiva's trident was also pursuing a PhD in physics.

Thus I feel that Rumpelstiltskin223 is no one but Hkelkar using a new name and probably editing from a different geographical location and I seek an indef-block on Rumpelstiltskin223 and a reset on Hkelkar's ban. - Aksi_great (talk) 12:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

What makes you think this user is necessarily editing from a new location? Would a checkuser help? Grandmasterka 12:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

We knew all the IPs that Hkelkar edited from and the college he went too. He is too clever to use an IP from the same town. I have a feeling that a checkuser on Rumpel will not prove (or disprove) anything. - Aksi_great (talk) 12:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

see Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Hkelkar. does that discount the use of proxies? ITAQALLAH 12:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The checkusers will note the use of proxies if they identify them as such at the time. Also, the checkuser was run over winter break, making it possible that Hkelkar was editing from another location but is now back at uni. Asking for a recheck couldn't hurt. Finally, checkuser can be defeated by a number of technical means both simple and complex, so sockpuppetry is always determined primarily by contributions and behavior. Thatcher131 15:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Quite unlikely. If the only source you have for "physics" is some hallucination DaGizza experienced then that's hardly proof. Hkelkar's blocks were mainly for incivility not WP:3RR. Since when does a user go from careful on wp:3RR to getting blocked for it frequently? The "facts" dont add up. If you didnt know aksi, there are way more users than rumpel that hold pro-Hindu biases (anti-Muslim is incorrect). Oh no a user of "rv", something every user uses as an edit summary, and anyone that has even viewed a page history on wiki has seen.Bakaman 21:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I have seen this accusation being bandied around on wikipedia before and sockpuppetry accusations abused and misused.I am not anybody's sockpuppet, and please feel free to do any checkuser that is needed. This accusation is largely based on the rants of an anonymous ip, who has been evading blocks using multiple ips from the same domain, making insults and slurs in my user page, and trying to recruit people against me. See Rumpelstiltskin223 23:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I have been accused of "anti-muslim" bias, an accusation I find highly offensive and insulting, particularly in the light of my edits ,. I am not against any religion. In addition, if you will notice the 6 articles itemized by aksi_great, you will see that my edits have primarily been of a technical nature and maintainance-type edits. I expanded the article on Dalit considerably with information that was lacking and I consider myself to have done the article a service. Rumpelstiltskin223 23:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

It is quite irrelevant if Rumpelstiltskin223 is or is not a sockpuppet. Also, I advice everybody to ignore his/her complaints about other editors. Fact is, this user is disruptive to Misplaced Pages and shows absolutely no desire to improve him/herself. When he/she was blocked and asked how to avoid such situations, I sympathized with him/her and took his/her question for real. I offered some advice, but he consistently refused to even look at it. Even his "thank you" was mostly a complaint about other users. When I finally announced that I was giving up AGF on him/her, he/she deleted our last conversation. It seems to me that this user is intent on having problems with other editors. Much as I believe in the good in people, I'm at the end of my wisdom with that user. I am really no fan of punitive measures, but I don't see any use for Misplaced Pages in further allowing this user to edit. — Sebastian 00:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, so he's here as well, protesting my protestations of an anonymous user calling me a "Madarchod" (that's Indian slang for "low-caste motherfucker") and declaring that I am "disruptive" and should have "punitive measures" imposed on me, for reverting vandalisms by anon ips to dozens of articles today itself,starting several articles on Hindi films,

and dispelling the ongoing wikipedia-myth that Indians constitute some sort of "race" (the ignorance here boggles my mind) Given your indefensible behaviour against the verifiable truth on Decline of Buddhism in India, your consistent support for a User:Iwazaki, who has said that he intends to undo the "rape of his country on wikipedia" together with increasing incivility and ethnic attacks on Tamil people from this guy with no protestations of neutrality and tendentiousness from you, and your sudden declaration of hostility against me, one wonders what your intentions here really are.Rumpelstiltskin223 00:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Who is this "sebastian" person? He seems like a sock/meat of someone. Also sebastian's treatment of RaveenS (talk · contribs) and Rajsingam (talk · contribs) leave me to wonder whether he is a sinhala nationalist.Bakaman 03:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It's unlikely that someone who has been around since January 2003 is someone's sock/meatpuppet. Grandmasterka 08:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Rumpey, the evidence that you are Hkelar is pretty strong. What do you have to say to all of Aksi's other points? Coincidence? Khoikhoi 07:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

What points? I edit whatever coincides with my interests. I am interested in Indian history, Indian politics, Religion and Politics in South Asia, Hindi Films and Star Trek. My edits show that I am neither pro-Hindu nor anti-Muslim, just interested in unbiased articles, many of which have biases against Hindus, others which have biases against Muslims and Christians that I am working on. If you see my edits to Christianity in India, I have edited a very neutral section depicting the Hindu-Christian conflict, and talked about syncretic Indianization of several Christians, like St. Thomas Christians and other sects who have blended Indian culture with Christian theology. I also plan to add that Christians in South India re-enact Biblical parables using Indian dances like Kathakali. Still, I was accused of being an "anti-Christian" by that Bdebbarma user because of my edits to Tripura Baptist Christian Union and their involvement in Christian extremist terrorism in Tripura. I do not take such accusations seriously as they seem to be the product of a narrow mind.

I am presently engaged in re-writing Mukti Bahini, a predominantly Muslim outfit. I am also getting material on historical attitudes on Islamophobia and anti-Arabism,articles to which I have already added information if you look at the history page. Where is this "pro-Hindu" and "anti-Muslim"/"anti-Christian" bias of which you people speak please answer me?

Whenever my edits seem to portray other religions in a negative light, well, it is not my fault that (according to Muslim editors) "partisan hacks" like Amnesty International and BBC showcase the Persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh at the hands of Islamic Fundamentalists. It is not my fault that scholars and academics have written lengthy articles and books criticizing the Fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami. If you don't like it then go contact the academics who wrote those articles. Attacking me on some cooked-up sockpuppetry charge will not be productive to wikipedia thaa.

I do not know how I can prove to you of my identity, since you do not know who I am and I am under no obligation to give you my personal information. I have edited many articles across many topics, and this aksi_great has conveniently cherry-picked a few that I have edited and then yell "Aha! Sockpuppet". I can do that to any two users. If you give me some time, I can manufacture such a case against other users too. If you want to do a checkuser to settle your doubts, please do so. However, do not keep bothering me with such spurious charges simply because you people want to keep your unacademic biased articles biased forever, since that will not happen, irrespective of what you do to me or anyone else. Rumpelstiltskin223 12:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

There are many more articles where there is similarity between their edits:

• Goa Inquisition was one of the last articles edited by Hkelkar . For example, Hkelkar made 10 consecutive edits to the article on 7th December. Rumpel's first block was on 16th December for edit-warring on Goa Inquisition.
• Rumpel's 2nd block was for edit-warring on History of India with User:Siddiqui. Hkelkar also had a history of editing that article, and reverting Siddiqui using popups. See , .
• Rumpel's 4th block was for edit-warring on Anti-Brahmanism. This article was also heavily edited by Hkelkar and Hkelkar's previous avatar - Shiva's Trident. Hkelkar had edit warred with other users like Ikonoblast on the article. Rumpel is currently on a reverting spree on the article.

I could go and investigate each article that Rumpel has edited. Almost every article that Rumpel has edited has been previously edited by Hkelkar/Shiva's trident. - Aksi_great (talk) 11:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

First of all, see above. Second of all. I hardly doubt that your statement above has any merit at all, given the articles that I have edited (and only I) and, so far nobody else has (almost). least of all this user of which you speak. I will compile a list for you in a few minutes below: Rumpelstiltskin223 12:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

These are the articles that I have edited that almost nobody else has:

• Mr. India 2 (2007 film)
• Rajneeti
• Banaras - A Mystic Love Story
• Anthony Kaun Hai
• Aparichit (2006 film)
• Chand Ke Paar Chalo
• Adharm (2006 film)
• Criticisms of Star Trek
• Chittisinghpura massacre
• Bogoliubov Prize for young scientists (I came across this article as I was searching the "New Pages" Special page and it was in baaad shape so I did a few google searches and improved upon it, more cases of this are noted below)
• I have done maintainance work on countless articles (tagging mew articles for categorization, categorizing them, Afd'ing bogus new articles). Example is Fareed Armaly .
• Another example is Template:Maurya Empire infobox which I created from scratch and added article according to my interests in ancient history of India.
• It is highly interesting that aksi_great accuses me of "Hindu bias" because User:Devanampriya accused me of the opposite. According to him I am a "Eurocentric anti-Hindu" for wanting to include Greek and Aramaic as some of the principal languages of the Mauryan Empire. Yes people, I am a some sort of soot-boot-pehena-sahib determined to defame Hindu culture apparently in direct opposition to aksi_great's accusation.
• Here is one article that I have created regarding Mauryans (who were BUDDHISTS, not HINDUS). Mantriparishad
• Deanna Troi .
• Tractors in India
• Mumbai Godfather article I created and wrote single-handedly
• Bangla science fiction
• Klingon language
• Klingon starships
• Akira class starship (Star Trek)
• Defiant class starship (Star Trek)]

and, finally,

• Human penis size, where Indians are being portrayed as some sort of "race"

Do you want more? How about all the articles that were being vandalized by anons that I sniffed out and fixed? Just look at my contributions page and see. Rumpelstiltskin223 12:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding History of India, aksi_great says that this other user hkelkar has "also revert-warred against User:Siddiqui on that article using popups". Here is the history page of that article . I see no such popups by this hkelkar so that statement is a falsehood

I am not on a "reverting spree" on Anti-Brahmanism. I have removed edits that carried racist propaganda, and ,in fact, haven't edited the articele in quite some time.Henceforth, kindly stop making up edits and conjuring up false scenarios, then relying on your colleagues to bolster your bogus arguments by saying "Oh, that is soo convincing".Right, that's subtle! Rumpelstiltskin223 12:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

When did I say that the articles that I have mentioned were the only articles you have edited? Hkelkar has been banned by the ArbCom, and it is my duty to not allow Hkelkar in any form to edit wikipedia for 1 year. I have tracked Hkelkar's edits for a very long time leading up to the ArbCom case. I feel that I have gathered enough proof that you are indeed Hkelkar. The similarities are too close to be co-incidences. If the administrators want I can produce more similarities. If they are not able to decide about ban-evasion, I am prepared to ask the ArbCom for intervention. - Aksi_great (talk) 14:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Then you are doing absolutely nothing. O and aksi just above " Almost every article that Rumpel has edited has been previously edited by Hkelkar/Shiva's trident". Your argument is flimsy and self contradictory. Do you not know that the BJP won a majority not too long ago in India? There are over 400 million people that subscribe to the brand of politics I assume rumpel belongs to.Bakaman 21:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

HKelkar's biggest defender ( and a part of the arbcom on Hkelkar) comes and defends this user ? All this just deepens the suspicion about Rumpelstiltskin223. Of those 400 million supporters only one has so far used 3 sockpuppets to edit only these articles, and has got into repeated civility and revert brawls and blocks. A point to remember is that Hkelkar/Shiva's Trident/Pusyamitra Sunga was known to use technology to dodge checkuser in the past. Being a University student doing a Physics doctorate should enable him to get the resources required to do so Haphar 08:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply - Still pissed Blnguyen (talk · contribs) got elected to arbcom despite megabytes of troll-speak on his candidacy talk page? Bakaman 21:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Baka Attempts at trolling would not add to Hkelkar's defence. By jumping in you have hurt his case enough, and such "civility" as expressed by you here is not adding to your cause either.Haphar 07:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, a lot of these so-called "incriminating edits" are routine vandalism patrols by me. I have been tracking anonymous edits for a while now, as they seem to be the most vandalistic statistically. It is not my fault that certain articles are troll-attractors and so will be edited contentiously by anons. Rumpelstiltskin223 02:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

These patrols started immediately after claiming that "How about all the articles that were being vandalized by anons that I sniffed out and fixed? Just look at my contributions page and see"and in an insensible way, and obviously removing other comments from his talk page —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mustafa Bhai (talk • contribs) 12:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

No. Vandalism reverts have been done by me for many weeks now. See these

made over the course of long time, just a small sample.

Here are some more "pro-Hindu anti-Muslim" edits of mine:

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

Darwaaza Bandh Rakho

Sto-Vo-Kor - very pro-Hindu anti-Muslim, if Muslims are Klingons, hee.

]

Want more?Rumpelstiltskin223 13:09, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

And yes, then it would be easier to claim that "I have edited non India, non Hindu-Muslim related articles as well " just by reverting some edits (apparently indiscriminately) assuming that anonymous authors don't have editing rights.Bakasuprman has mastered this art well by creating categories and assigning them to innumerable articles and swelling his edit count 87.74.3.128 07:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

"Mastered this art", I am hardly answerable to an IP troll going around with wild conspiracies. My edit couint is large mostly because of categories, but only a couple have been cfd'd like 2 out of 70 or so, proving that I create useful categorization on the pedia. What do you do 87.xx? You're obviously a sock of a blocked user coming on wiki to talk trash about Hindu users, do note Wiki is not a soapbox for fantasy.Bakaman 21:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Please note that accusations of your interlocutor do not serve as an answer; also, the imputation of motive above is a terrible violation of several different policies and guidelines, which you, I am sure, would hate to violate. Hornplease 09:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Trying to judge consensus

I have submitted my evidence and I conclude that Rumpel is indeed Hkelkar. I would like to know if there is consensus among admins of the same so that Rumpel can be blocked from wikipedia. Please review the evidence and put your support or oppose below. Please feel free to ask me any questions regarding the evidence that I have provided. - Aksi_great (talk) 12:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Seconded I would further like to add 1:His first 5 edits were reverts and out of his first 50 over 70% are reverts which which I find strange.I checked over 75 others over and none of them had reverts at the start .This shows that Rumpelstiltskin223 is experienced in using Misplaced Pages before he started using this user name.new users take time to learn even computer experts.

2:Being an Indian he choice the name Rumpelstiltskin223 as it would avoid suspician of him being Hkelkar.It is not usual nickname or chat name used anywhere in India or by Indians .First time seeing an Indian use since I started using the net over 10 years ago.If I had not seen his edits I would never guessed he was an Indian,it is totally alien to an Indian.Hence difficult to find he is Hkelkar

3:His comments are fantical and he cannot stand other views broke the 3RR rule 6 times and 5 times this month and was blocked 5 times and page protected in Vaikom Satyagraha.Look his fantical talk in various talk pages.While I respect his views.

4: Please check this another user Harper gives some evidence to be being being Hkelkar

Adyarboy 18:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - Lol the users that perpetuate this myths are generally those that hate Hindus in general. Adyarboy is involved in trying to suppress the racist aims of a fanatical anti-Hindu and has gone to mouthing off to get atttention.Haphar (talk · contribs) is well known as a Hindu hater as well. O and guess what? Bakaman is not an Indian name either. Am I an alien? How about Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington (talk · contribs), Nobleeagle (talk · contribs), Lostintherush (talk · contribs), etc. All of us are Indian (or of Indian dewcent) and none of us use Indian names.Bakaman 21:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply - Name calling is the first sign of someone losing an argument :-). Haphar 07:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Further evidence .The anti semitism claims, The smart aleck comments + The Protocol of Zion and Hindu conspiracy theory And user history all point to too much of similiarity. Haphar 12:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Why are you vandalizing my comments? Anti-Semitism, I believe you are referring to the Balaghat circular. Well its true that terrorists use lies to expound on other lies.Bakaman 21:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Your Comments ? LOL-The evidence is related to Rumpel not you. Your Khalistan|terrorists bit in the preceding comment is just more signs of losing one's argument as well as logic to resort to now religion based name calling. Just goes on to show who is actually anti a religion.Haphar 07:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I have an extensive knowledge of the editing pattern of Netaji, also known as Shiva's Trident, and what was later decided was his sockpuppet, HKelkar, as well as that of most prominent members of the posse that share his extremist religious ideology. When it was first claimed that Kelkar was Netaji, I disagreed; the fact that checkuser indicated I was wrong was indicative of this puppetmaster's ability to evade detection. While I disagree that the name or the choice of articles is in itself sufficiently indicative, I am drawn in particular to the accusations of anti-semitism that Haphar quotes above; that is something that was peculiar to this puppetmaster. In particular, the description of the Dalit Freedom Network as a hate site because of 'holocaust denial'., while possibly true, is surprising, as it is possibly the last thing that the average follower of Indian politics would check for, but the first thing that this particular wacko would. Hornplease 09:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I was talking about Dalit Voice, not Dalit Freedom Network. Please read the diff or do a better job of lying about it.Plus, I read that article first, then did some research on this "London Insitute of South Asia" place and their affiliation with anti-Jews before I replied to that anonymous Khali nutter (just read his posts, he kept yelling "Hindus Lie" and that Professor Mark Juergensmayer of UC Santa Barbara is a "Hindutva liar" for calling Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale a terrorist and "India will break up soon" and other such rot, is wikipedia supposed to be a place for such nonsense?). I have been following a very interesting set of edit-wars/discussions on Racism and Allegations of Israeli Apartheid where some guy was citing http://www.jewishtribalreview.org as a reference and was severely rebuked since that is a Jew-hating website and those have no credibility, together with organizations affiliated to them like Institute for Historical Review, as is the case with this "London Institute of South Asia" and their affiliation with Rajshekhar. This was the thought process that entered my mind. It was simply the quickest and most efficient way to get rid of him and other crazy people and I do not see how this has anything to do with allegations of socks or whatever. Rumpelstiltskin223 10:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Frank Lofaro Jr.

I have issued a test4 warning to Frank Lofaro Jr. (talk • contribs) for having created, just a few minutes apart, Talk Page censorship of Encyclopedia Dramatica is wrong and Misplaced Pages is so worried about spammers it will hurt Google and legitimate sites it links to by using nofollow to prevent sites from gaining Page Rank. A sudden burst of trolling from what appears to be a good user. User:Zoe|(talk)

User:Bosniak again?

I have recently blocked User:Legal Provider of Bosnian picture for having an inappropriate username. After checking the contribution history, I realise the views expressed are relatively similar to block User:Bosniak, who was blocked for reasons explained here. I would appreciate a second opinion on whether I should request a checkuser. I reckon User:Bosniak may have used sockpuppets in the past (i.e. User:Bosniakk, with two "k"), but editing while blocked may deemed reason enough to request a community ban as discussed before. Regards, Asterion 18:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I would say inconclusive, but very possible. The username and timing are interesting. This edit is in line with Bosniak's interests, and these confrontational edit summaries are in character. On the other hand, this edit seems somewhat more grammatical than Bosniak's typical contributions. On balance, I would think a checkuser is justified based on the evidence. -- Jim Douglas _(contribs) 19:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm skeptical. In my opinion, I don't think Bosniak would have been that subtle, and I think he would have headed straight for the Srebrenica article. There's just not enough evidence to make me suspect that it is Bosniak, just some circumstantial bits. -- Merope 19:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this one is borderline; there's some circumstantial evidence, but it's far from clear-cut. I went looking for a policy statement that draws a clear line between circumstantial evidence and outright fishing, but I couldn't find anything on WP:RFCU or m:CheckUser policy. -- Jim Douglas _(contribs) 20:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I noticed this account at its first contribution. I think it's unlikely that it's operated by the same person as User:Bosniak. In recent months we've had (and in some cases blocked) a large number of accounts belonging to (distinct) Bosniak nationalist POV-pushers. For some reason they seem to gravitate to Misplaced Pages. —Psychonaut 20:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am not completely convinced either. Nor I am very familiar with his edit style and patterns. In any case, I thought it was better to clear this matter. Hence I requested a checkuser: Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Bosniak. Feel free to add to the report. Asterion 23:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I was asked to comment. The edits of User:Legal Provider of Bosnian picture and User:Provider of Bosnian picture show familiarity with Misplaced Pages, so they're probably sockpuppets of somebody. The timing is coincidental: The latter account was created 13 hours after User:Bosniak was blocked. On the other hand, looking at the edits they don't strike me as very similar to those by User:Bosniak, so on balance I think it's probably somebody else. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate blocks

A checkuser on Bosniak has vindicated him. However, as a result, for some reason the following sockpuppets of an entirely different user (User:Bosna) were blocked:

• Bosniakk (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Provider of Bosnian pictures (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• BosnianPatriots (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

There was no reason to have blocked these accounts. WP:SOCK states that sockpuppets are permitted (albeit discouraged), provided they're not used to circumvent other policies. User:Bosna is not and has never been under a block or a ban, so he is perfectly entitled to create and use sockpuppets. —Psychonaut 06:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

 Clerk note: Sleeper accounts are often blocked as a preventative measure. If they are legitimate alternate accounts, the main account can request an unblock of any or all of them, but the onus is placed on the user by WP:BLOCK to provide that the accounts are used for legitimate purposes. On the behalf of Requests for CheckUser, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 06:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

If the community feels the blocks I set are inappropriate, I have no issue with lifting them (or allowing someone else to do the same), but I will point out that (a) all of those accounts are apparently the same person, and have edited heavily at Bosniaks, and (b) I didn't block the "main" account. Use of several accounts to edit the same article, especially in a content dispute, constitutes a WP:SOCK violation, in my view. Feel free to disagree. Luna Santin 06:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I think Psychonaut is misinterpreting what "unrelated" means. It does not mean that there is no sockpuppetry going on; it merely means that checkuser could not confirm that there is. For a hypothetical example, a puppetmaster might have his main account in Nevada, but run his sockpuppets through a friendly ISP in Bolivia. There'd be no way to detect that other than going by the contents of the edits, and that's not checkuser's job, of course. Also, I erred about Bosna, for whom we lack new enough information. --jpgordon 06:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It's been suggested that in the future I simply use "inconclusive" rather than "unrelated", since it's impossible to prove absence of sockpuppethood. I shall do so, I think. --jpgordon 07:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

In that instance, timing of the edits is key. You can't fly from Nevada to Colombia in two minutes, if the edits from those accounts are that close, can you? Grandmasterka 09:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You can fly as fast as you want with ssh and open proxies. —Psychonaut 09:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. I could be doing it right now, if I wanted to. And it doesn't even take an open proxy; just a friend with decent sized subnet. --jpgordon 23:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Please, please, please. WP:BEANS!!! --Asterion 23:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Maleabroad

User:Maleabroad has recently been pov-pushing at many Hindu related articles and has been reverted by several editors. Despite several warnings Maleabroad continues to revert to the information which he has added and is in danger of violating the 3RR rule (see the Hindu edit history). The edit summaries he leaves are breaching WP:CIVIL by accusing editors of reverting his edits as racists. His actions are somewhat of a concern at this point.¤~Persian Poet Gal 01:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Correction: According to this the user has violated the 3RR rule and is being reported at WP:AN/3RR.¤~Persian Poet Gal 01:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for one week, in light of 3RR violations across several pages, the rather harsh language being used, and the prior blocks for similar behavior this user seems to have accrued. Anticipating that we may need to deal with some IPs. Luna Santin 06:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Most of the IPs have been dealt with already, from the previous edit warring. A few were missed though, and occasionally he wins the DHCP lottery and gets to edit a page. I suspect that the previous blocks and the sprotect on Hindu were the reason for him using his account after several weeks of editing anonymously. Orpheus 07:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

which makes this effectively a vandal account, and we should consider an indefblock if we don't want to come back to blocking it every week. dab (𒁳) 12:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

back as 136.159.32.178 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). this guy is a riot, even the allcaps-shouted mantra in his edit-summaries is misspelled. dab (𒁳) 16:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This is exactly what I would have expected from Maleabroad, basing myself on my previous experience of him. I had noted that after having completed his block, he had restarted editing, this time anonymously. As his ways have in no way bettered, and refuses to be civil or abstain from editing till the week passes, I propose to follow dab and give him an indef. block. Also, I advise to keep an eye on his favourite articles, and be ready to semi-protect them if necessary. Personally, this is what I had to do to contain his flood of block evasions after my first 31h block.--Aldux 18:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

He's back again now as 136.159.32.203 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 136.159.32.177 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Imc 18:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I've semiprotected a few articles, to put an end to the continous reverts. The question now poses itself more strongly still: shall we ban Maleabroad? At the very least, we should lengthen his block for his block evasions.--Aldux 21:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that Maleabroad may now be using a sockpuppet account (Brownguy20 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). My reason for thinking this is his edit history, his account creation date (a few hours after Maleabroad's favourite articles were all sprotected) and, in particular, this edit: . Orpheus 22:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Dispute over List of anime conventions and Anime South with Animesouth

Animesouth (talk · contribs) has been engaged in a content dispute over List of anime conventions and Anime South for almost a month. He has been relentless in not acknowledging consensus nor is willing to properly communicating, citing that people should go to the convention's websites for more information. He recently submitted the list for an AfD to which it was kept. What I am asking is for some suggestions on what to do with this individual. I feel that there is a lack of good faith in this contributor and a possible WP:COI violation. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 19:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Add WP:3RR to the list of violations as well. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 19:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Animesouth has also been engaged in persistently libeling Muhammad Ali, and I suspect this user has using an IP address to do this as well. Stevie is the man! 19:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

On the Muhammad Ali page, user:Uucp has engaged in the same content additions as well. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The users user:Animesouth, user:Uucp and Special:Contributions/143.88.201.123 have all committed the same edits, violating WP:SOCK to evade the three-revert rule. The users have also violated biographies of living persons, introducing libel without citations or without verifiability. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

And now there is an edit pinwheel. The proposed changes need to be taken to discussion first, as stated on their respective talk pages, to prevent further messes. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Animesouth (talk · contribs) may have also contributed before as Marcyu (talk · contribs), who is the chairman of Anime South. --Farix (Talk) 22:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

And now he is back to contributing as 68.105.60.48 (talk · contribs). If he/she is the chairperson of Anime South, they're not doing their job. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 05:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Add User:Miss Away to the sock drawer, too: Seraphimblade 05:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, just because I have friends who agree with me, I'm automatically accused of using a sock puppet? Incredible..... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Animesouth (talk • contribs) 05:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Do not play us as stupid. I am filing a report on your user account as we speak. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 05:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Please file at WP:SSP. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 05:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks like he wants to file a 3RR report on me. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 06:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

He gave me a 3RR warning even though I last edited the list on the 20th. <rolls eyes> --Farix (Talk)

Suspected accounts of the user

The following are suspected sockpuppet/meatpuppet accounts:

• Animesouth (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Miss Away (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Marcyu (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• 68.105.60.48 (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

I am requesting an administrator reviews these accounts. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 06:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Filed at WP:SSP. See the case here. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 06:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

These sock puppetry accusations are absolutely untrue for this case and based on nothing but pure speculation. Just because you are unhappy that others agree with my line of reasoning does not condone accusations without solid evidence. - Animesouth 09:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Marc, I'm not buying this crap. You tried a similar tactic before with the list using anonymous accounts. That's why both the list and it's talk page had to be sprotected. You've don't nothing but complain because your convention doesn't meet the list's criteria and you couldn't convince any other editors to agree with you to change the criteria. Then when you couldn't get your way with the criteria or bypass it, you put it up for AfD. Now that you failed to delete the list through AfD, you are trying to change it by fiat using socks. This is discriminable behavior for any editor to engage in, and especially coming from the convention's chairman in question. --Farix (Talk) 12:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Marc, you admitted to me via Private Topic on the AnimeCons.com Forums that you were the user "Anime South". That account also had the exact same IP as some of the anonymous edits here at the time. This, to me, is evidence beyond any reasonable doubt. --PatrickD 15:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Zakusage

Despite wikipedia having policy to the contrary, ZakuSage seems to think he owns PSP-related articles.

He defaced my user page yesterday as well as removing someone else's comments regarding his behavior from the page Talk:PlayStation_Portable.

I think this is wrong behavior and am serving him formal warning to stop it. This note on the admin noticeboard is my following up to serve public notice as well. RunedChozo 20:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I also request deletion of my user page as well. I intended not to have one and I wish that to be respected.

I had a quick glance at User:ZakuSage's recent contributions but don't see any evidence of edit warring or other disruptive behaviour. Can you be more specific as to what you are complaining about, and provide diffs? —Psychonaut 21:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Psychonaut, I'll try. It appears worse than I thought, he has maliciously claimed that another user is me with no evidence and had them banned for no good reason.

The other use in question is User:NotAWeasel.

Diffs emblematic of his behavior: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=PlayStation_Portable&diff=102729058&oldid=102686610 http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=PlayStation_Portable&diff=101828003&oldid=101825050 http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=PlayStation_Portable&diff=101618470&oldid=101618369

He seems obsessed with removing any mention of the different Playstation Portable firmware editions from the page, as well as generally being disrespectful. He is also obsessed with misspelling the word "Color." RunedChozo 21:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I am updating, he has just vandalized my user page again. RunedChozo 21:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=PlayStation_Portable&diff=102987910&oldid=102981599 He has now after re-vandalizing my user page gone on to revert yet again to remove perfectly valid content as he is obsessed with doing. This is wrong behavior. RunedChozo 21:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The edits to PlayStation Portable seem fine to me; he seems to be calmly arguing that dwelling on firmware-related minutiae clutters the article. If this is "emblematic" of his behaviour, then he has probably done nothing wrong. With regards to "colour", it is the proper spelling of the word in British English; WP:MOS states that either British or American spelling is acceptable so long as it is applied consistently within an article.

The accusations of sockpuppetry are a different matter entirely. I agree that he should present his evidence that you also operate the User:NotAWeasel, or else withdraw the claim. However, perhaps he has already done so somewhere I haven't looked yet. —Psychonaut 21:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll create an evidence page in a moment. - ZakuSage 21:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. I have for a long period been working to keep the article PlayStation Portable not as my own personal plaything, but to the upmost quality of wikipedia standards. This user simply has a grudge against me for a past dispute. He's also been actively engaging the the act of sockpuppetry (currently with the recently blocked indefinitely User:NotAWeasel, created the day of one of RunedChozo's blockings) not only on the PSP article but also on his other grudge match the article for the Beit Hanoun November 2006 incident, as well as using his sockpuppet to vandalise my userpage. He has removed the template I placed on his user-page to let other users know of his activity as a sock-puppeteer. - ZakuSage 21:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

He has done nothing of the sort, and his "complaint" - that it makes the article harder to read - is groundless. He has even refused to allow descriptions of changes made to the firmware over time in the firmware SECTION. He is deliberately trying to make it a less informative article than it could be, for reasons unknown, except that he seems to feel some ownership of the article as it currently sits; he never makes improvements, just sits around reverting. His accusations that I used a sockpuppet are base lies and I demand an apology.RunedChozo 21:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Both of you need to stop making accusations/demands. Zaku, without Checkuser evidence of sockpuppetry, such insistent accusations can be considered personal attacks. Runed, stop accusing Zaku of attempting to damage the wiki and take this through the normal disupte resolution channels rather than continue to edit war. --InShaneee 21:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

A checkuser request has already been done a few months ago: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/RunedChozo - just to let you know. x42bn6 Talk 21:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Alright. Regardless, new requests need to be taken there, and you cannot take unilateral action based on your assumptions. --InShaneee 21:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I've made an evidence page in any case, as seen here

Yes, convenient that you deface space attached to my user page for your lies. RunedChozo 21:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sorry, but the issue of whether to include certain facts about the firmware is a content dispute and does not fall under the jurisdiction of the administrators. For this matter you should pursue dispute resolution such as mediation or RFC. With respect to the sockpuppet accusations, if it can be shown that User:ZakuSage has made them negligently or in bad faith, then this may be a violation of Misplaced Pages's policies on personal attacks or civility. (On the other hand, if he is correct and you have been using a sockpuppet to evade a block, to engage in edit warring, to attack a user, or to otherwise disrupt Misplaced Pages, then you will be blocked.) Let's wait for him to present his evidence so that it can be judged by a disinterested party. —Psychonaut 21:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Psychonaut, another user has already been blocked - indefinitely or so the page says - based on Zakusage's lies. And I have already been cleared in another bad-faith case when POV pushers were trying to accuse everyone and their brother who disagreed with them of being sockpuppets, and the claim that I was "Wheelygood" was meaningless, they were merely another person at my school.

Zakusage is using these accusations to harass me and nothing more. RunedChozo 21:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

User:NotAWeasel was blocked for abuse of edit privileges and being uncivil. - ZakuSage 21:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Zakusage has returned to vandalizing my user page. RunedChozo 21:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Adding a just sockpuppeteer notice is not vandalism. Blanking and removing it could be considered as such. - ZakuSage 21:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Stop harassing me. You are doing that just to harass and annoy me, administrators have removed your vandalism of my user page, STOP it.

I have filed RFC on the topic of PSP firmware on that page: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages%3ARequests_for_comment%2FMaths%2C_science%2C_and_technology&diff=102996533&oldid=102739299 RunedChozo 21:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not harassing you. Please stop this.

I'd also like to point out that after creating a sockpuppet evidence page, RunedChozo has blanked it. This is getting out of hand. - ZakuSage 21:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Both of you need to back off a little. Zaku, let him blank it for now if he wants -- it's in the page's history, so admins can see it, and you've raised the issue here. Continuing to edit-war to add it only reflects badly on you. Chozo, this isn't the place to handle a content dispute. Shimeru 21:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm going out for a bit. I'm tired of this users continued attacks against me. This isn't the first time he's tried to come after me. - ZakuSage 22:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, your lying campaign to harass me is very much out of hand, and I'm getting tired of it, because I'd rather make wikipedia a better encyclopedia, as opposed to you who just wants to keep a page static. RunedChozo 22:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I am against putting evidence in another user's userspace because it is fairly harassing - the best place (and should be filled in) is Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets. x42bn6 Talk 22:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if the placement of the evidence page is inappropriate, but I've never had to file a sockpuppet report before because no other user has acted in such an uncivil manner and dickish manner as this one has, including the use of his sockpuppet against me in some sort of grudge. - ZakuSage 22:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I have moved the page to NotAWeasel's talk space. Hopefully this will be a better place for it, even rather than moving it to the already over-crowded Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets. It can now be found here: User talk:NotAWeasel/Sockpuppets. The old one will redirect to this. - ZakuSage 22:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

You were specifically instructed where to put it, and yet you insist on using it to harass another user instead. You're a problem user. RunedChozo 23:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not being productive and bordering on uncivil. ZakuSage, if you feel that there's a sock here, file a RFCU - throwing around unsupported sock acusations like this is hostile and uncalled for. RunedChozo, please back off; we're aware that there's a problem, nobody else will act against you based just on what he says. Both of you should probably take a break for a day and calm down. Georgewilliamherbert 02:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I already made an evidence page, but I have now filed a formal notice on Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets. - ZakuSage 19:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you keep sticking harassing "evidence pages" in other users' name spaces. What a riot you are. Stop with the harassment. RunedChozo 20:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC) ZakuSage has now started an organized campaign to keep sticking his harassment pages back into my user space over and over again. This is beyond ridiculous. RunedChozo 20:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The sockpuppet report is in the proper place, and is nowhere near your userspace. Please stop vandalising the sockpuppet report. Your actions are highly childish. - ZakuSage 20:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I've not TOUCHED the sockpuppet report beyond leaving a reply, you filthy liar. It's your constant insertions of harassment pages into my user space that I have a problem with, and I'm tired of you pulling this over and over again. RunedChozo 20:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Your actions are CLEARLY visable in the history (although because of an accident while moving the page, most of it is now here) of the sockpuppet report. Your actions are pure vandalism, and I'm getting tired of your antics. - ZakuSage 20:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed my own mistake and I'm tired of your lies, dick. Get over yourself and stop harassing me. I'm here to try to make wikipedia better and you're obviously not.RunedChozo 20:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Could somebody please help me deal with this users consistent lieing and vandalism? I'm at wits end here! - ZakuSage 20:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If you'd stop lying about me, stop harassing me, stop calling me a dick, stop thinking you own the page, and stop opposing making the page better, then you wouldn't have to spend so much time lying, now would you? I invited you to make HELPFUL suggestions on a project page I made to work on so that I wouldn't touch your precious article till I had everything banged out and looking right, and what did you do? You just left harassing messages on the talk page. You've proven you're not here to do any good for wikipedia. RunedChozo 20:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You're the one who's been vandalizing the sockpuppet report I made, and are now furthering your web of lies. Somebody, anybody reading this, please, PLEASE help me deal with this abusive user. - ZakuSage 21:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Dealt with. The next time either of these users goes near the other, they're getting blocked. This has gone WAY too far. --InShaneee 21:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I have responded to a note at WP:AIV regarding one of these two users (i.e. RunedChozo). For lack of civility and disruption, I have blocked the account for 1 week. Given the long list of blocks, I am not sure if I have been too lenient and should not be asking for a community ban instead. Asterion 21:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Upgraded to two weeks after personal attack to unblock reviewer. Asterion 22:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Please reconsider the extended block. Extending blocks based on people venting on their talk pages after a block is a pernicious form of admin abuse - yes, they're being uncivil, but it's their talk page, they've just been blocked, and expecting them not to vent some is unreasonable. Unless it crosses the line from mild personal attack into serious attack or personal threats of some sort, giving people a little slack calms the situation in the long term. The basic block was appropriate, though.

I believe that ZakuSage clearly went over the line into stalking here, though they didn't do so in a manner which is insta-blockable. I'm going to say something on his/her talk page. Georgewilliamherbert 23:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I cannot comment on the other user's behaviour as I just came across RunedChozo throrugh WP:AIV. I considered his attack on the unblock reviewer particularly nasty and completely unwarranted. If the community think it is indeed excesive, I have no problem reinstating the original length. Regards, Asterion 23:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

In the spirit of blocks not being punitive, I have restarted the original 1 week suspension of edit rights. I hope this editor cools down during the time off. Asterion 23:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)r

So do I. There's currently a lively discussion on the wikien-l mailing list. Hopefully a little venting and then calming down will resolve this. Georgewilliamherbert 00:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

No, ZakuSage won't care. He got off scot-free after wikistalking, while RunedChozo got the nuke dropped on him for being the victim of wikistalking. But that's how wikipedia is, admins don't care about doing what's right, just flexing their muscles and beating someone down. Asterion asking for a "community ban" is just icing on the cake, he just wanted to beat someone up and couldn't care less about the facts of the case.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.178.235.28 (talk • contribs) 01:00, January 26, 2007 (UTC)

CheckUser request and follow up on this

72.178.235.28 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has left some comments on my talk page and here just above this subsection. I have gone through extensively the contribution history and there are several coincidences of style and edit patters with those of blocked User:RunedChozo (), including personal attacks (compare RunedChozo's with the IP's ). A CheckUser may be inconclusive indeed but I think this needs a follow up indeed. Asterion 03:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yawn, and the bully keeps going...— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.178.235.28 (talk • contribs)

I have filed a new CheckUser request as explained. Asterion 03:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Better reference: Paranoid Delusional

Halo 2 and Giano

Heavy vandalism here: I've reverted 8 times in the last hour, but I'm packing it in for now, someone with rollback and block tools might like to keep an eye on this and maybe semi-protect. This has nothing to do with Giano, IRC or related wikidramas whatsoever, I just put that in to get everyone's attention. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone stopped running around like headless chickens at AN and started writing articles or clearing the backlogs...ah well. Cheers, Moreschi 22:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Um... Okay. That's probably good advice. It certainly got my attention. Grandmasterka 23:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Woo-hoo! Semiprotected. It was unprotected for - what, a day? - and most of that time was spent in revert wars with anon vandals. 72 hours semiprotection, but that will probably not be enough. Should I block Giano on principle? Guy (Help!) 23:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
• LOL. Giano will love this. Milto LOL pia 01:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't be so sure! Giano 13:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be helpful to extend the "don't talk about Giano" rule to Wikpedia: space too. It's been months since I've seen a productive thing said regarding the subject. --Interiot 15:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Only meant to be a joke. My own opinion was to nuke most of our IRC channels, but nobody listened. Moreschi 13:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I've never visited IRC, and I'm not sure I ever want to, more than once perhaps. Maybe this isn't the forum for this, but what specific constructive uses does it have? It seems to promote vitriol and cabalistic discussions at least as much as it might promote "community" or a faster response to problems. Grandmasterka 13:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

God, that almost gave me a heart attack. Mackensen (talk) 13:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Please just don't go there! More importantly can some one spring the unfortunate McGinnly from prison as he is stll blocked inspite of being unblocked ages ago Giano 13:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I have cleared the autoblock. Kusma (討論) 13:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Marvelous - thank you. --Mcginnly | Natter 13:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

25% of the admins, devs, toolserver folks, etc wouldn't hang out there if it wasn't useful. You just won't see the pro-IRC folks repeatedly posting hyperbole on WP:AN about how good it is... --Interiot 15:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Nateland

The user Nateland (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been making disruptive edits, acting aggressively, and generally being very disruptive. He has been provided with absolutely more than a fair number of warnings (and deleted some of them) based on various violations of copyright and civility policy, as well as participation in an edit/revert war. I have attempted to work with Nateland in the presumption that he has been attempting to do things on good faith, to no avail.

Here is a list of diffs; there are surely more that can probably be reviewed from the past week:

Selected diffs from User talk:Fd0man

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AFd0man&diff=102989395&oldid=102983188 (disruptive)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Fd0man&diff=102983188&oldid=102914269 (cut & paste from another user’s talk page)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Fd0man&diff=102171804&oldid=102171462 (mass cut & paste from own talk page, I would consider this vandalization)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Fd0man&diff=101968168&oldid=101967971 (disputing copyright)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Fd0man&diff=102165756&oldid=102162085 (more disruptiveness)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Fd0man&diff=102074915&oldid=102072346 (… even more)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Fd0man&diff=101966686&oldid=101959257 (beginning of mess on my user talk page)

Selected diffs from User talk:Nateland

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Nateland&diff=102988019&oldid=102983360 (Warning which was removed)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Nateland&diff=102117121&oldid=102116119 (Another)

Selected diffs from Adolescent sexuality

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Adolescent_sexuality&diff=101965628&oldid=101651899 (copyright violation)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Adolescent_sexuality&action=history (History, page 1)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Adolescent_sexuality&offset=20070120103333&action=history (History, page 2)

Selected diffs from User talk:Illuminato

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Illuminato&diff=102989416&oldid=102977860 (mistreatment of user)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Illuminato&diff=98494844&oldid=98366415 (more mistreatment; User:Nateland claims he must be reported to re: article changes
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Illuminato&diff=101260195&oldid=100719193 (libelous statements re: Illuminato from User:Nateland)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Illuminato&diff=102249714&oldid=102170582
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Illuminato&diff=102766392&oldid=102748522 (more mistreatment; name calling, etc)

Other relevant information

• The entire discussion page for Adolescent sexuality.
• User talk:66.91.115.201, where User:Nateland was quite rude to a probable WP newcomer

My apologies for the length of this post; it is just some of the more blatant mistreatment and evidence. All of it would take far too much space here. Mike Trausch (fd0man, Talk Page) 23:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Read over the situation briefly. Nothing more than an edit dispute where the editors don't know how to communicate without threatening each other. Anyway, the problem, Fd0man, is twofold here: first, it's a really bad idea to template people you're in a dispute with. It just makes them madder. Second, you and Illuminato did all the stuff you accused him of doing: being curt, deleting warnings, templating each other, etc. But finally, you were correct; this thread was too long, and unfortunately, it was passed over by mos admins. If you have a specific complaint about a copyright, you will need to specifically show it here; otherwise, mediation is the only way to go here. Patstuart 12:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at those pages before and I'll say that Nateland isn't the best editor out there. However, while he was a bit stubborn at the beginning, he has tried to discuss problems on the article talk pages, even when no one else seems to be interested in discussions. He also has had to put up with splitting articles where it's inappropriate (Adolescent sexuality in Britain, in India, and whatnot, each with its own three-paragraph articles). Some users have also used WP:AGF when I wonder if WP:DUCK should be said instead. So everyone should just calm down here, and maybe walk away from the article for a few weeks. Xiner (talk, email) 00:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet block of Mcginnly

User:Mcginnly has been playing silly buggers with socks - at least Joopercoopers and Antischmitz spotted so far. The edits were way too similar, the checkuser was the confirming bit of evidence and the silly games with manufacturing content disputes are really not suitable conduct. I've blocked the socks indefinitely and Mcginnly 31 hours to get out of whatever mood made him (an otherwise very active contributor) think this was a good idea - David Gerard 00:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, David Gerard. Note that Mcginnly was using Joopercoopers for content disputes on Taj Mahal, which is currently at WP:RFC. Nishkid64 00:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• Unblocked. There was no evidence presented anywhere that the Jooperscoopers was used for "content disputes." All the edits were simple maintenance. Additionally, while Mcginnly decided to use that account for that article, of course, on the day of the decision, there will be edits from two accounts near each other in time. That's not a violation by itself. Thirdly, since this is a very hot topic, where, had David Gerrard investigated he would have seen, there is the ugly and unextinguishable flames of nationalism and religious intolerance at stake, any complaint deserves at least as much investigation as anyone complained about. However, none of that was the reason for the unblock.
• The reason for the unblock is simply that David Gerrard was faced with a long time and trusted community member with a clean record and unquestioned contributions and never spoke to him. I.e. he didn't investigate. He used bot-like analysis and did the block instead of using the human intelligence that we need to talk to and listen to the contributor. This is the same bad approach that generated the last "Giano affair." Blocking is a serious matter: we owe it to the people who give us their time and expertise to listen to them and consider matters. Geogre 11:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Sockpuppetry is also a serious matter. I'm conducting my own investigation and I'll keep an open mind but I can't fathom why anyone would think this is a good idea. There are several parts of WP:SOCK that may have been violated. I welcome an explanation from Mcginnly--and David. Mackensen (talk) 14:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Having reviewed the evidence, I doubt that I would have blocked under the circumstances. At the same time, I would have sent a sharp note to Mcginnly asking him what he was up to, and suggesting that he pick one account for Taj Mahal and stick with it. Users are allowed to have multiple accounts, but such practice is discouraged, and the cardinal rule is never to "cross the streams." How strictly this gets interpreted varies from checkuser to checkuser. I don't like what I see, but I wouldn't have blocked right away. Mackensen (talk) 14:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• That's great news Mackensen - seriously - but the problem is that now McGinnly a long time serving editor of very high standard articles now for eternity is branded by David Gerard on his block log with " abusive sockpuppetry". I see nothing abusive in these edits , , , can someone explain to be where is the "abuse". It is quite apparent that McGinnly was editing as a sock for what he felt were the right reason. There was obviously no malice or evil intent. He is a highly respected editor of architectural pages, that he should edit, and help protect Taj mahal fom vandals etc is exactly what I would expect him to be doing. So what exactly was the problem, and why did it have to result in a 30 hour block with no warning. I don't raise this point only because McGinnly is one of my close wiki-friends but because I think admins should thing about the stigma their hasty actions may cause when they blot some-one's hitherto immaculately clean log. I don't want to become in another major row, and McGinnly is big enough and ugly enough to defend himself, but as people (somwhere above) now use my name (even when I'm not connected) as crowd puller I might as well pitch in and use my (albeit temporary) celebrity status to give, what I see as a serious problem, some publicity! How about David Gerard admiting that was not abusive and having McGinnly's log wiped clean? Giano 16:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

This call for wiping of block logs is a slippery slope. I realise it eventually happened to Giano's first account's block log, but I would much prefer that notes be added retrospectively to clarify possibly inaccurate block logs. Wiping them is confusing and can obscure what has happened. At the moment, the workaround is a 1-second block to add an explanatory note to the block log. On a more general note, can we please ask for block logs (indeed any logs) to be written in calm, neutral, language. Just make it vague and link to where the discussion took place. If no discussion (eg. IRC or action taken unilaterally without consultation), then say this as well. This careful writing of a block log, and careful discussion, is paramount for established users. Otherwise the whole merry-go-round of hurt feelings and wild accusations can start up again. Carcharoth 16:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I don't want to start another great interminable debate over my block log. Can someone then just put an explanation on McGinnly's block log saying he was not abusive. Giano 16:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection in principle, although it would be better if another checkuser, or David himself, was willing to do so. I'd like to hear from David before moving forward. I see no reason for undue haste; let's not add anything more to the log until we're sure. Mackensen (talk) 16:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I may agree w/ David's indef block of Joopercoopers but i don't see any reason why Antischmitz's account should be blocked especially that it is set for maintenence tasks. -- Szvest - 16:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The principle here is that administrators should interact with good-faith users, where they believe the user has violated policy, before instinctively reaching for the block button. In this instance, a talkpage inquiry or e-mail would have elicited an explanation for Mcginnly's activities and, if the explanation were not acceptable, a request could have been made that Mcginnly handle things differently. There was no reason to believe that this user would not have responded in good faith to such an inquiry and either justified or discontinued the allegedly problematic activity. It was not a situation where blocking was needed either to prevent imminent danger to the project or to gain the editor's attention.

Having myself been equipped with a block button for all of four days now, and having recently had to make the decision about whether to press it for the first time for something other than obvious repeated vandalism, reinforces to me that while it is easy to second-guess any administrative decision, at the same time we need to bear in mind how serious a thing it is to block an established contributor. Misplaced Pages is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. A block means that we are saying to an editor "this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit today—except you." It really sought to be a last resort. Newyorkbrad 16:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It's really not a problem - We've exchanged emails and kissed and made up - DG's was a genuine mistake, mine was not informing anyone of my socks. I'd really rather the matter was dropped, not least because the whole purpose of the sock was to cushion myself against the potential problems over at the taj mahal talk page and P.N. Oak, I believe the socks will be unblocked and I can get back to work. Naturally if the POV shitstorm does hit the mcginnly account I hope I can rely on admin backup? I don't ever envision runnning for president so the block logs is neither here nor there. regards. --Mcginnly | Natter 16:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

This is why I unblocked, though. I had been asked to contribute help with the Taj article, when the time came to improve it, so I knew the background. Anyone could have by simply communicating with the user. I don't mean to jump on David Gerrard's head too much here, but it's very, very, very important with established users to ask them. Honestly, if it takes too much time to converse with people, then you probably don't have time to be a blocking administrator. With hit and run IP's, it's one thing, but with long timers, with fellow admins, it's simply nuts. Blocking without warning is absolutely in violation of blocking policy. Blocking based on complaint not recorded on Misplaced Pages, running check users without written requests, these are also not kosher. We shouldn't have situations like this in the name of vandal hunting. Geogre 19:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't bust up David Gerard for this. I asked for CheckUser, and he performed it. I told him what he had been using the accounts for, quoting another administrator involved in the dispute. I was contacted soon after by Mcginnly and I told him about the multiple violations of WP:SOCK. Although he disagreed with most of them, I showed that he did indeed violate WP:SOCK. But alas, as you're saying, it's subject to interpretation. Meh, I'll drop the issue now, but I don't appreciate how my input was not even asked for in this issue. Nishkid64 21:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Importantly, did you submit a WP:RFCU, or did you do it more "verbally?" What I was saying has been a hot topic lately: we need to leave tracks with all our actions, and so we have to be careful that all check user activities are highly accountable. That's what I was saying. Geogre 11:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages and PakHub

There is a slightly complicated issue regarding Nadirali, Unre4L, Szhaider (who seems to be a subject for discussion) and perhaps some other Misplaced Pages editors (ostensibly of Pakistani descent). These editors have been discussing their activities on Misplaced Pages, with derogatory and insulting remarks about Indian editors/admins and yours truly at PakHub - a discussion forum on Pakistani history, that is committed to "reclaiming Pakistan's history." These editors have expressed the notion that "corrupt administrators" Indian editors are "banning" Pakistani users and dominate content on Pakistan-topics. While all matters outside Misplaced Pages are beyond our purview, there is a possibility of this behavior represents some a cabalist-style desire to "infiltrate" Misplaced Pages (especially in order to propagate their point of view) and potentially to stalk and harass users. With no desire to be alarmist, I'm posting the relevant links here and requesting the advice of all - as I seem to be involved in this, I could consider desisting from acting myself. Rama's arrow (3:16) 00:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Relevant links to PakHub discussion on Misplaced Pages

, , ,

It would be helpful to know the (explicit) Misplaced Pages rules are these editors violating as a result of their posts on PakHub. The comments of Nadirali and Unre4L on the website don't sound like they intend to stalk and harass. (I didn't see Szhaider there, BTW.) Unre4L and Nadirali were arguing with other members, who seemed more extreme. Here are a few quotes from the discussion:

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

My point of concern is why are they discussing Misplaced Pages affairs, individual and groups of editors and administrators and insulting me and some others there. I don't care about that website and what they do there, but only what they're doing in pertinence to Misplaced Pages and Misplaced Pages editors. Rama's arrow (3:16) 01:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The point still stands that its a meatpuppetry cabal.Bakaman 01:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I looked at some of this and at some of the links they used. Nasty stuff, but I think we need, in this case, to focus on Misplaced Pages behavior. This is not active wrecking, but expression of feelings that they can't get their story told. Fred Bauder 02:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you remember Hkelkar (talk · contribs) was stalked by BhaiSaab (talk · contribs)? He was looked up on facebook and called. You know BhaiSaab was Pakistani? I am not assuming good faith on a site where I am probably named "Dushman-y-Jumhuriya" or something. I dont want Islamofascists calling my phone either. Some editors on PakHub look downright creepy.Bakaman 02:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I fear that the collective beliefs of these members of PakHub is entirely shaping the work of those who are editing Misplaced Pages - by which I mean the various edit wars, disruption and insulting commentaries that have resulted in Nadirali, Unre4L, Szhaider and Siddiqui being blocked from editing. I'm specifically concerned with Nadirali's comments, insults and insinuations. I'll be happy to take your advice (Fred) - I just wanted to make sure through this report that the activities of these guys are known to admins and other users as well as kept a close eye on. I was a little alarmed about the fact that these guys are so intensely discussing Misplaced Pages business there, insulting me and others and importing the agenda of PakHub into Misplaced Pages. Rama's arrow (3:16) 02:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Fred that they are expressing frustration. There was no mention in their posts of plotting anything, no mention of intentions to tag-team or edit war anywhere on Misplaced Pages. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see how the "shaping" takes form - how many people are posting there? 12. It appears that maybe 5 or 6 people are active and at least 2 of those seem quite reasonable So you've got maybe 3 editors who could be a problem. - big wow. A storm in a teacup when you consider how gaming sites and the like have mobilised in the past to promote their games or point of view. --Fredrick day 11:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, for the record I'd like to leave a few quotes about what exactly concerns me:

There is a fellow calling himself "Nishan-e-Haider" who ostensibly has a dormant account here.

Rama's arrow (3:16) 15:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't care what their views are or what they use PakHub for. My point is, these comments are not acceptable especially as this hitherto-unknown "Nishan-e-Haider" promises to make trouble while Nadirali and Unre4L go about making accusations against me and others as being corrupt, extremists, etc. They may obviously discuss anything they like, including Misplaced Pages as an encyclopedia but it is clear to me that these users are committed to "reclaiming Pakistani history" on Misplaced Pages and making insulting accusations against me and other users. Rama's arrow (3:16) 15:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm hoping that other Wikipedians (whom they may respect, despite their impression of "neutral" admins being "cowards") may send a strong message about this kind of thing to them when they return from their respective blocks. Rama's arrow (3:16) 15:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, there are ostensibly Indian editors too at the Indian Defense Forum Website, who actually are trying to recruit people to edit-war against Unre4L and Nadirali on Misplaced Pages. Here is a memorable quote from one of the (likely) Indian editors:

What do we propose to do about them? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I suppose they are just "expressing frustration," aren't they? Same treatment for all. Rama's arrow (3:16) 00:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

:) Well, I agree with you (at least about "same treatment"), and that is my point. For example, even though the following post from the same Indian website is an example of active recruiting:

I think it is still best to focus on actual Misplaced Pages edits and behavior. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know Fowler & Fowler, but they should get talked to for abusing CQUOTE that much. Gah, I need bandages for my eyes, they're still bleeding. (But really, that kind of use of a template is really unwarranted and unneeded.) ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 01:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Btw, I am not a member of any forum, in case this "Hindu fascist" is accused of being a member of right wing neocon forums. Btw, whoever the indian editor is, they are anonymous while we have hard proof that nadirali, unre4L, etc are on wiki. My bet is that the indian is a banned user along the lines of User:Himalayanashoka (though himalaya didnt seem too bright). Also unre4L recruited for pakhub on wiki, while the unknown indian recruited off wiki. remember pakhub was created after unre4L came to wikipedia, the Indian forum is way older and seems to consist of a bunch of armchair generals playing red alert and fantasizing about missiles.Bakaman 03:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't give a hoot about who is doing what - these gentlemen can play the fool all they want on web forums across the world. My concern is solely limited to how these happenings off-Wiki are creating problems for the stable growth of Misplaced Pages and its reputation. I don't personally care for them "expressing frustration" anywhere but here, using off-Wiki opportunities to attack Wikipedians like me. If they want to criticize Misplaced Pages, there are far more respectable ways to do so. I don't like these forum debates by people who seem to represent all that is opposite of an ideal Wikipedian. I'm sorry, I won't defend anybody who tries to do this, but Baka is right to the extent that we don't know who many of these guys are, except for Nadirali and Unre4L. I'm very concerned about the latter two and at the uncertain prospect of sleeper accounts. All this is a bloody waste of time and energy (I wonder how much Britannica has to worry about these blogs and forums) but we have to do something about it. Its foolish for these gentlemen to think that Wikipedians will sit on their hands about this. Rama's arrow (3:16) 03:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I recommend everyone re-reads the statements of principle in the RfArb on MONGO that just finished; I think it is indicative that "Participation in a website which spoofs or criticizes Misplaced Pages is not an actionable offense in itself." Note that we are encourage to keep a close eye on these individials:"Users, especially administrators, who are associated, or suspected of association, with sites which are hypercritical of Misplaced Pages can expect their Misplaced Pages activities as well as their activities on the hypercritical website, to be closely monitored." (Though I am not sure that the things I have seen qualify as 'hypercritical'.)

Note that this Pakistani site is not an attack site as defined at the RfArb as it does not discuss off-wiki 'real world' identifiers. Hornplease 09:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Second that (i.e. Hornplease). Also, many apologies to Peter Dodge and any other editors whose eyes were seared by my boldface quotes. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that specific quote of the ArbCom ruling does not settle the case. As I've repeatedly said above, the problem is not their criticism of Misplaced Pages at another, unconnected site, but the nature of their personal attacks against Misplaced Pages users (by way of 1 specific ref, racial/religious slurs, defamation of Misplaced Pages users and administrators and the importing of PakHub objectives into their editing on WP. Rama's arrow (3:16) 15:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Siddiqui

User:Siddiqui has been repeatedly blocked for edit-warring, 3RR violations, disruptive editing, meatpuppetry and sockpuppetry through multiple accounts and IPs - this pattern of behavior and misconduct has continued for over a year, mainly on articles related to Pakistan. Please see Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Siddiqui, Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Siddiqui (the latter details both his disruptive editing and sockpuppetry) I request permission for a permanent ban on Siddiqui for having exhausted the patience of the community. Rama's arrow (3:16) 01:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I endorse the ban per Rama. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 02:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it would be more constructive to give him a absolutely last warning no sockpuppetry/3RR/POV-pushing. I'd hate to see him banned. But, then again, I never knew his history that well. Patstuart 02:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

He's currently blocked for a month. Now that he knows checkuser can catch his sockpuppets, and that he won't be able to get away with edit warring anymore (because of the scrutiny this banning proposal will bring), I endorse Patstuart's last warning suggestion, and oppose a ban. He has made productive contributions, so lets hope that when he returns, he'll make them again and put this behind him. Picaroon 02:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Well the reason I asked for a ban is because this type of behavior has continued for over a year, with numerous blocks, an RfC and the nabbing of his socks. I have also personally interacted with this guy and I've seen the pleas, warnings and requests for improvement of others and mine own fall on deaf ears repeatedly. About yet another warning, yet another good-faith opportunity - yeah sure, we can try. I was grossly disappointed in this fellow when I learnt of his sockpuppetry, as I had thought he had improved a bit. My thinking is that this fellow has exhausted the patience of his peers, failed Misplaced Pages's standards and refused to edit by its policies, for over a year. I hope that I never give away to vindictive instincts, but its clear that we are not an agency to change hearts and minds, and we really don't have any obligation to this guy left anymore - especially not after one year of trying. Rama's arrow (3:16) 15:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

He is blocked for a month anyway. Let's wait until he comes back ob Feb. 11th and see. -- Szvest - 15:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Endorse - per Rama's arrow.Bakaman 21:08, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I can always respect the one-more-chance approach (I've benefited myself from the kindness of others), but simple logic tells me that this approach has been tried several times already in this user's history of trouble. Many people have given him "last chances" - so many good people (including The Great One) have tried for long to bring him to better ways, but to no avail. I don't see any "valuable" contributions that are worth a repetition of sockpuppetry and disruptive editing 1-2 weeks/months from now. Rama's arrow (3:16) 03:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

My user page history

Hi. May I ask to have my user page history deleted? Frankly I'd welcome the side effect of my edit count dropping, and I'm sure I don't need anything from the past. It also has nothing to do with disputes, etc., as you can check the history. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 04:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I tried ... for some reason it doesn't work. I checked only the most recent version and it restored everything. I have no idea why. --BigDT 04:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It works to me. --physicq (c) 04:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I just realized that ... it worked the very first time ... there's just a lag on page history updating ... or my browser cache needs to be cleared. --BigDT 04:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you y'all -- I think my edit count just went down by over 100. Woohoo! Xiner (talk, email) 15:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Alright, it could go down by another 100 if the history for User:Xiner/sandbox is chopped, too. Can someone please do the honor? Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 19:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Holocaust-related trolling

159.105.80.219 (talk · contribs): this IP seems to be used almost entirely for Holocaust-related trolling on talk pages, some of it uncivil, occasionally to the point of personal attacks. Someone may want to look closely at this user's edits (but there are no edits at all in the last two weeks, so maybe it's not worth it). Anyway, might be worth keeping an eye on. - Jmabel | Talk 04:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe s/he is back as 159.105.80.63 (talk · contribs) -- Avi 05:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Both IP's are registered to the VT Dept. of Libraries. They have the entire range: 159.105.0.0 - 159.105.255.255 The .83 has been tagged as a shared IP. -- Avi 05:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense - I've noticed 159.105.80.92 (talk · contribs) around as well, a Vermont IP with a similar preoccupation with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Holocaust denialism, etc. Likely the same user - would it be worth tagging the other two IP's as shared as well? MastCell 20:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

User:CyberAnth using WP:BLP to impose POV blanking of Jimmy Swaggart

User:CyberAnth is invoking WP:BLP as a rational for blanking large sections of Jimmy Swaggart (see Talk), including commonly known and easily verifiable facts about Jimmy Swaggart's history. WP:BLP is pretty strict, but this seems to be taking it way too far and I beleive that it's being misused in an attempt at censorship. Artw 06:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I endorse CyberAnth's actions. The only thing ey did wrong was to comment out the offending material. Our biographies too often slide into long unsourced slagfests. Here's what I suggest: write an article that both Swaggart himself and his direst enemy would agree was fair. Tough to do but that should be the aim. Grace Note 06:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The blanking seems to be appropriate. Allegations such as the ones levelled in the article CANNOT be left with a {{fact}} tag, as they are potentially libelous. Unless someone can introduce some citations or provide any other reasoning otherwise, than I endorse. Canadian-Bacon 06:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, and I loathe Swaggart. But you have to source these things BEFORE you put them in the article. --BenBurch 06:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed. if they're so easily verifiable, then verify them before putting potentially libellous material in. - Mgm| 09:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

excellent call by User:CyberAnth - unsourced material needs to be wiped from any BLP article. --Fredrick day 12:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Taking the need for citations as read, that's not actually the reason he gave for the blanking- what he's arguing is that no more than a certain portion of the article should be devote to the controversies surrounding Swaggart, and if it is exceeded it should be blanked. We havesome cited material up there now, I will be watching to see if he blanks it again. Artw 21:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Lame edit war on Khoikhoi's talk page

See . People seem to be edit warring on Khoikhoi's talk page, with about 11RR each. Anybody know what the heck is going on? Patstuart 08:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe protect it until he gets back online, leaving a little message telling him not to forget to unprotect it? yandman 08:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I did that. These people have alternated edits (they're not all straight reverts) at least 25 times each. I have no idea what this is all about. Grandmasterka 08:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

This involves block evasion by Ararat arev at Military history of Armenia. NoSeptember 08:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Narek was reverting Ararat arev's IP per this. Khoikhoi 00:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Zoe - Complaint over administrators recent actions

Firstly, perhaps this may be useful.

I just wanted to say that becoming a sysop is *not a big deal*.

I think perhaps I'll go through semi-willy-nilly and make a bunch of people who have been around for awhile sysops. I want to dispel the aura of "authority" around the position. It's merely a technical matter that the powers given to sysops are not given out to everyone.

I don't like that there's the apparent feeling here that being granted sysop status is a really special thing.

— Jimbo Wales, wikimedia.org archive entry, gmane archive entry

I first ran in to User:Zoe over a discussion regarding a delete (that we both favoured). Her curt reply of no personal attacks (when there had been no attack, or at the very best the attack was aimed at me anyway) led to the comment "I have been here a lot longer than you". See here. Hardly following don't bite the newcomer.. She then cropped up in this war, where she actually removed user page content without discussing with the user. In addition very recent apologies due to her mistakes include this and this. These were as a result of her hasty actions. Further examples of her uncivility include this and also this.

I do not want a war, and have done my best to open a debate with Zoe, but to no avail. Her last comment to me was the curt "This conversation is at an end". She has not bothered to reply to my subsequent messages.

In short I feel this administrator is overstepping from being bold to a state of agression. She never seems to assume good faith but will revert first and then baack track later. These actions make her a poor administrator in my opinion. I do not expect her to have her admin "status" revoked, but would ask she calms down and takes a more relaxed attitude. Her brutal reverts and comments that come very close to personal attacks can only damage this project, by putting off potential editors. I would invite a discussion on how others feel about her actions, or indeed wether I am just being over touchy about her actions. Pedro1999a |  Talk  09:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks like she tried to communicate with you but you decided to not listen. You then decided to simply cross out her comments to you. My guess is that she said she had been around a lot longer than you as a manner in which to demonstrate that maybe she knows what she is talking about. I don't see any personal attacks.--MONGO 10:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply - please see the edit history. I struck her comments out long after the conversation. I assume that as I have only been editing for 8 months you feel I don't know what I'm talking about. Thank you for your comments.Pedro1999a |  Talk  10:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, I think she explained herself and tried to end the conversaation since there was nothing more to discuss on the matter. When you start out a thread as here with quotes that indicate a possible objective you may be leaning towards, this looks more like a witch hunt than anything else. I have no doubt your contributions are generally all excellent, so I encourage you to resume those efforts.--MONGO 10:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind comments. I do not feel she explained herself. Her first post directed me to WP:NPA and her second was the "I've been here a lot longer than you". Her third, after I had stated I agreed with her was the curt "This conversation is at an end". There is no witch hunt, but I re-iterate that these actions are blunt and will deter editors. Pedro1999a |  Talk  10:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Zoe is very strong-willed, but she's also a very good admin. Always has been. Before jumping to ANI, try to work with users you disagree with. This page is not designed to be a first resort. --Woohookitty 10:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply - please see her user page and the three attempts I have made to open a dialogue that have been ignored. This is not a first resort. Thank you for your comments Pedro1999a |  Talk  10:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh WOWOW! Zoe is a she? I, obviously didn't know that, or I would have tried to be polite with her XD. In any case, this is not Misplaced Pages's complaint department. You might want to use dispute resolution as a means. Cheers! — Nearly Headless Nick 10:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, that was an assumption of gender. I don't need dispute resolution as I have no dispute regarding edits. I am not a major contributor, prefering to vandal fight instead. I just feel that this particular admin oversteps the mark and can make newbies feel uncomfortable. As I said initially maybe I am being too touchy. Nevertheless I do feel I have tried to open a dialogue to no avail and that other members of the community have the righ to discuss, civiliy, this admins edits and more importantly others perception of the actions taken. thank you for your comments. Pedro1999a |  Talk  10:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

As per below and your comment "this is not the complaint department" can someone (not me!) remove the "If you want to make an open informal complaint over the behaviour of an admin, you can do so here." at the top of the page then. Ta!Pedro1999a |  Talk  11:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• I see from her userpage that you did try to contact her multiple times, and she did not reply to your messages. You even told her yesterday that you would take it here if she did not reply. So I do think you tried to discuss, per Misplaced Pages policy, before coming here.Jeffpw 10:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply - Thank you Jeffpw. For transparancy other community members may note that myself and this user have discussed this post on my user page prior to me bringing it here.Pedro1999a |  Talk  10:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I am still trying unsuccessfully to work out what the serious business is. This is over, right? Sorry, but we really don't need a report on the end of every single minor spat that takes place around here: ANI is clogged up enough as it is. While it would seem to me that Zoe has not been wilfully offensive, the complaining user is being wilfully offended, which is probably worse. But what incident are we meant to be discussing? There doesn't seem to be one. If you really think Zoe is an outstanding danger to Misplaced Pages then WP:RFC is just down the hall, second to the left. But why is this on ANI? Moreschi 10:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Because everything ends up on ANI. Offended? Run to teacher. Cheers, Ben Aveling 10:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Right at the top of this page it says "If you want to make an open informal complaint over the behaviour of an admin, you can do so here." There is no specific incident, but this page states that I can make my informal complaint here. If I am just being too touchy please feel free to archive this away. I personally would like Zoe to review this however, and consider some restraint in the future. Pedro1999a |  Talk  10:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll have a look, see what I can see. Don't get your hopes up. Regards, Ben Aveling 10:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

No complaints about Zoe's behaviour. However, I did notice this. Opinions may differ, but in my book, that's a PA on your part. Sorry. Ben Aveling 11:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that was unacceptable by me and done in the heat of the moment, hence it's subsequent removal. My apologies to the community on that. Pedro1999a |  Talk  11:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

In fact, various people seem to have approached this with a staggering lack of tact. Suggesting that someone either take a prolonged wikibreak or give up their bit is always going to escalate the situation and is never going to help, no matter how right you are, which you aren't. Quotes like "the lunatic who runs the asylum" are not really going to help either, for obvious reasons. Moreover, continuing posts on talk page when it would seem to me like the matter is dead and buried smells to me like harassment in minor form. Moreschi 10:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. You will note from the edit history I did not post the "Lunatic who runs the assylum" header, and would respectfully sugest you check this fact. I did however make the other comments. As I am trying to point out, although I am offended I feel the more important issue is the offence taken by oher editors who may well contribute more usefully than me. I did not realise that my continuing posts in reponse was Harrasment. I thought it was civility.Pedro1999a |  Talk  10:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

(Argh, Pedro... If you're going to go to the trouble of bolding and colouring "to touchy" each time can you maybe also go to the trouble of spelling it right? Ta/wangi 10:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC))

Guess that's why I vandal fight and don't write articles !! Thanks !!Pedro1999a |  Talk  10:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• Okay, looks like consensus is too touchy. (extra o!). As this is the opinion of those interested enough to discuss my post then I will have to be happy with it. I'll just toddle back to Recent Changes and wish everyone happy editing. But as per above lets remove the "If you want to make an open informal complaint over the behaviour of an admin, you can do so here." line at the top, as most contributors here felt this was the wrong place to bring up just that. Happy editing to all. Pedro1999a |  Talk  11:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence that Zoe did something wrong here. That's why people are directing you elsewhere - the idea of making an "open informal complaint" about an admin implies that the admin in question did something worthy attention on this board. Being curt doesn't cut it, at least not to me. | Mr. Darcy talk 14:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. The thrust of my argument was with regards to the initial snub at being a newbie (despite 800+ edits) and the action Zoe was involved in with regard to removing content from another users page without asking (where in the debate she was generally condemed - a debate I was not inolved in initially). After that further investigation highlighted a higher than one would expect proportion of instances were her reversions have caused deep upset, and were subsequently often undone. Althought I agree that "Being curt doesn't cut it" at all times, and that admins are busy people often with little time to supply fuller posts, my thrust here has been some remarkably fast deletions / removals that Zoe has then climed down on. A measured approach with more checking before arbitry deletion / removal saves everyone time in the end and makes Misplaced Pages a better place for people to work. Over excessive use of admin powers will make new, potentially excellent, editors either give up or go down the Cabal thought process.Pedro1999a |  Talk  15:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

NB - As per my comments above, I have no issue that the community has discussed this post and found it wanting. Whilst I do not withdraw any of my comments, they have been judged as in the wrong, and I am happy to accede to the consensus of those that have placed their views.Pedro1999a |  Talk  15:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to those who supported me. I would like to point out that it has been pointed out to me that the deletions that I made of the photographs mentioned in the complaint above appear to have been valid all along. I am still pursuing this problem. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It appears that one of the unpleasant sides of being an admin is having to defend yourself sometimes for the actions that you take. I, for one, appreciate the good work that you do. Cla68 23:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not the Misplaced Pages complaints department. That says it all. Really, really. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 01:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

For the record, whilst I note with respect that it says up top this is not the complaints department, right next to this the page has a line saying you can open an informal complaint about an admin here. Please do not blame me for a badly worded page that led me to believe this was the correct place to bring my informal complaint. I have maintained from day one here that I did not want a war but wanted to highlight some actions by someone who it would appear is otherwise held in the highest regard (and rightly so). If anyone would care to look at this then I think my informal complaint was fully justified. Selective comments (none from user Jeffpw for balance) include (with no wiki markup):

Did you ask Jeffpw to remove it before removing it yourself? Syrthiss

Well, no I didn't, and that was a failing on my part. Zoe

No violation of WP:USER is obvious here. In any event by convention editor's userpages should not be edited unilaterally and the correct thing for Zoe to do was surely to raise her concerns on Jeffpw's talkpage. To do otherwise is extremely heavy handed and disrespectful to an established contributor. WJBscribe

I think Zoe behaved incredibly badly in not simply explaining her concern first and asking Jeff to modify it (not to mention using administrative rollback on non-vandalism and all that jazz). To my knowledge, Jeff is a solid editor and that courtesy should have been given (as outlined in WP:USER). —bbatsell

OK, you're correct. She shouldn't have done that.Patstuart

We've already agreed the removal was done badly.Patstuart

I have tried not to edit these out of context. There was consensus agreement that she made an error of judgment, in particular with regard to WP:CIVIL. This was coupled with my discussions with her previously. This is why I came here, just to say that I felt there was over zealous use of powers which may deter users.

I now accept this is the opinion of few (very few!), not many, and therefore consider this debate to be at an end.

As I have stated above I respect the collective decision of the community on this, and thank all editors for their time, however please do not criticise me for bringing an informal complaint to a page that says I can do just that. I have started a debate on the talk page as to whether this should be re-worded.

Best Regards to all, and happy editing. Pedro1999a |  Talk  08:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Slow-pace edit-war at Giulio Clovio

The article Giulio Clovio (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is experiencing a slow-pace edit-war (since last year :-), with GiorgioOrsini (talk · contribs) constantly reverting against consensus to push his strong POV. - Regards, Evv 12:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I've seen the same type of thing regarding the Andrea Meldolla article. I talked to him , and received a pretty curt response. . Seraphimblade 12:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I brought this to GiorgioOrsini's attention only to receive an unapologetic reply saying that I would be abusing my admin powers were I to block him for disruption. The fact is that my only contact with the article was to vote for a name change proposal nominated by this user. I would appreciate if some other admin have the will to add these articles to their watchlist. Thanks, Asterion 22:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Firdaus 76 edits to Kosovo-related articles

Firdaus 76 (talk · contribs) has spent the last days editing Kosovo-related articles from a strong Albanian POV, removing mentions of Serbia and translating all place-name into Albanian.
I already warned him in his talk page, and made him aware that all Kosovo-related articles are currently under article probation (as a result of the Kosovo arbitration case), but he persists... - Best regards, Evv 12:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Today, Firdaus 76 continued removing "Yugoslavia" from Kosovo-related articles, and translating place-names into Albanian. I again left him a message in his talk page. – Please note in his edit history that this kind of edits are almost all he does, toghether with changes in ethnic statistics (see his talk page), with only some few exceptions. So far, he has never used a talk page or an edit summary. - Regards, Evv 11:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Password requests for User:Mattisse

Mattisse (talk · contribs) has emailed me to say that she is getting a lot of emails with requests for changes in email address and password. Can anything be done to stop this. --Salix alba (talk) 13:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Please leave the IP address that requests password changes here. — Nearly Headless Nick 13:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't remember if they put in a spam flood blocker. If it helps, you can tell the user that as annoying as the emails are they don't do anything to your password unless you go log in with the new temporary password. I've typically reported the ip address requesting the changes to the abuse listing given on their whois, which is what I think Nick is going for above here. Syrthiss 14:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Also (IIRC), if we block an IP, it cannot send password requests at all, so the problem would be solved here, farily easily. Martinp23 22:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, thats new-ish. Syrthiss 22:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

An anon's death threat on Misplaced Pages talk:Vandalism

by 201.80.28.121 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 'Nuff Said. --Samuel Curtis-- _{TALK·CONTRIBS} 15:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Another vandalism act by 129.194.8.73

This user has vandalized the page entitled Sitrida Geagea. I checked his talk page and I found that he has already received a final warning. Please note that this IP address is the property of the University of Geneva. Fadib83 15:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Another vandalism act by 200.207.49.196

This user has vandalized the page entitled Sitrida Geagea. I left him a warning on his talk page. Fadib83 15:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppets of Woomoobs57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Three pretty obvious socks of this indefblocked user.Last two are vandalism-only accounts and Yaymoobs57 is an impersonater (usermane).

• Yaymoobs57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Moneal04 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Chris57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Please review history of vandalism (contributions) by these accounts and block. TheQuandry 15:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Malicious editing of Neil Clark's biography

http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Neil_Clark_%28journalist%29

The above entry has been vandalised and maliciously edited on several occasions by 'philip cross' and 'elena zamm'. Neil Clark had an acrimonious dispute with the writer Oliver Kamm after Clark published a critical review of a book by Kamm in the Daily Telegraph. Both 'Philip Cross' and 'elena zamm' have also edited, but this time favourably, the pages of Oliver Kamm and Kamm's mother, Anthea Bell. There is very strong circumstantial evidence that Cross and Zamm are Oliver Kamm. Libels have been posted on Clark's page, including that he 'defends mass murderers'. The account of Clark's legal dispute with Kamm has only sought to put Kamm's side of things. Both 'philip cross' and 'elena zamm' should be barred from editing Clark's page as they are not interested in a factual biography, but only in repeating libels and editing maliciously. citylightsgirlCitylightsgirl

Please refer to Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard for better and prompt actions. -- Szvest - 16:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Human League and related articles

Editor using several accounts to edit The Human League, Philip Oakey, Susanne Sulley and Joanne Catherall. Edits (and there are many) are filled with excessive fancruft and POV and many, many grammatical, formatting, wikilink and punctuation mistakes. In addition, user has uploaded many images with no source or questionable source. Some User Talk Pages have unsourced image warnings, and some of these warnings have been blanked by the user. Attempts to clean up some of these articles prompts the user to log in with a different account and revert to his/her preferred version. Attempts to communicate seem to be ignored. Not sure where else to report this, its obvious to me that all of these accounts are the same person but realize this needs to be checked out by an admin. Accounts listed below, don't know if there are more. Thanks! - eo 17:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• Almaris (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Andi064 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Valgabr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 82.10.33.203 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.140.238.45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.140.238.46 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.132.47.144 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

I've left a message on your talkpage... this looks like a case for Checkuser.--Isotope23 17:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much, I'll copy this info over there. - eo 18:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

And all I did over there was glance at the contribs and say "duck test". There may be one, there may be two different humans here; it doesn't really matter whether they're the same person, they're both being annoying so we really don't need to poke any deeper. Checkuser is for when there's ambiguity, not for the obvious. --jpgordon 18:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Isotope/Jpgordon. I appreciate someone looking into it. - eo 18:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Indef block of IP 151.100.107.63

I've blocked IP 151.100.107.63 indefinitely because it appear that the majority of edits coming from this IP are vandalism and it is listed as a "Likely Trojaned Machine, host running trojan" when I ran an IP check for an open proxy. There did appear to be 1 or 2 actual good faith edits though so if someone disagrees with my indef feel free to argue against it.--Isotope23 17:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• It's a Tor open proxy. These are sometimes way easy to find: google for the IP and "Tor". --jpgordon 18:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

TOR... that was the other one. Thanks. I ran it through some other checkers though I didn't know if I should be posting them up here (WP:BEANS).--Isotope23 18:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I've just made a list of all tor open proxies at User:Thatcher131/Torlist. If you want to knock off a few, go ahead. Just remove them from the list after you've blocked them. Thatcher131 18:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Note: WP:TOR suggests doing anon-only blocks on Tor machines, so as to leave the majority of PRC wikipedians unaffected. Most wikipedians from PRC use Tor to get around the Great Firewall. ~Crazytales (IP locations!) 03:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, except that doing so allows anyone with a registered name to be an untraceable vandal, like HalfofElement29 (see Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/GoodCop). I believe JP was applying full blocks. Since the checkusers have to deal with this sort of crap the most, I'd like their opinions. Thatcher131 05:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Massive Former Featured Article Discussion Deletion

User:Edition4 (talk, contribs) has, for some odd reason, been going around to former featured articles, mostly really old ones, and removing the {{formerFA}} template (random diff for an example). He then goes to the Featured article candidates subpage associated with the article and blanks it (another random diff as an example). He also removes the discussion from the log (yep, example diff here). User:Dial991 (talk, contribs) then nominates them for deletion with {{db|nonsense???}} here's another diff. Several of these have been deleted , , , . Shouldn't these be restored to their un-blank states? I've reverted everything I can and asked one of the deleting admins about it, but I thought it should be brought to the attention of the community at large, especially the admin section of the community. ~ ONUnicornproblem solving 18:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

What an odd pasttime. I noticed they have not responded to your question "why?" yet. I think if they do it again without a response it might be a good idea to block the user temporarily while this is sorted out.--Isotope23 18:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I've restored all of those deleted pages back to their pre-blanked statuses. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Zoe. ~ ONUnicornproblem solving 20:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Odd activity for a new user. Mackensen (talk) 18:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• As far as I'm concerned that blockable disruption. It wouldn't surprise me if they're one and the same user... - Mgm| 18:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Nor should it (cough). How does Endgame1 (talk) grab people as sockmaster? Mackensen (talk) 18:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Blocked and tagged. Thatcher131 19:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you as well. ~ ONUnicornproblem solving 20:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

3RR when it comes to sock puppets

Last night, I received a three-hour block due to a dispute over List of anime conventions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) with someone who was manipulating the page using sock puppets to force his edits over the page and claim that I am violating WP:3RR. The user, Animesouth (talk · contribs) had reported me for a 3RR violation while a sock puppet report was being filed. All of this relates to this other dispute.

Now, this is not a questioning over the administrator's actions, as he was just following the policy, but the policy makes clear that vandalism edits are legitimate in reverting against 3RR. If there is consensus from other edits that his edits have been disruptive (as indicated in the talk page and the ANI page), would then his edits count as vandalism and 3RR become a moot point except for the offending party?

My edits have been largely benign for the almost past year that I have been editing, and I have tackled on a lot of vandalism and have improved a decent amount of articles. However, I cannot help but feel sore that I was subjected to being blocked and considered disruptive, something that I have fought against in many, many other articles.

What I'd like is to just see what others contributors think about all of this, and whether or not that maybe WP:3RR needs to be revisited in the case of potential sock puppets. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 18:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, you can always revert the page back, once the sock-check has been done, I guess. Though it is somewhat frustrating to watch the three revert rule being gamed, I agree. Some of the younger admins enforcing 3rr think that it is an absolute rule, and apply it mechanically. Note that we DO have an ignore all rules policy for situations like this, and all admin actions should be taken with your brain turned on.

If your version of the story is correct, then the blocking admin was not applying the guidelines to improve wikipedia. OMG! IARvio! My proposed punishment for IARvios is to beat the person in question with a cluebat until they agree to apply their cerebral cortex on wikipedia at all times.

Of course, all the above only holds if what you say is exactly right. We haven't heard from the blocking admin yet. Perhaps we could take it to their talk page and see what they have to say? --Kim Bruning 19:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I am he. Am I young? I suppose I can hope so. CK got 3h; the sock (presumed; not proved) got 48h (in fact I reported that above (Animesouth) : I'd be grateful if someone could check it, since the sock evidence was by no means conclusive and may have been meat anyway...) but is CK grateful... for course not. CK asks the policy makes clear that vandalism edits are legitimate in reverting against 3RR. If there is consensus from other edits that his edits have been disruptive (as indicated in the talk page and the ANI page), would then his edits count as vandalism to which I would answer *no*: the 3RR exception is for blatant vandalism, allowing that to extend to "edits which other editors dislike" then thats a very slippery slope William M. Connolley 19:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

In this particular case, I would argue that the edits were disruptive. The user failed to participate in discussion, and in retaliation had used suspected socks to be further disruptive. The reverts I made were in accordance to other editors who commonly edit the page, so if anything, the Animesouth and either his socks or cabal would be the ones at fault, not I. I have a huge problem with his because the 3RR was filed in such horrible faith. I am not targeting you personally, but I do feel that something is broken in this particular case. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 20:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

(If this is going to be 3RR policy, it might be better over there). There is no 3RR exception for "reverting disruptive behaviour" because its far too hard to draw a line. The vandalism exception is blatant vandalism, and I doubt many would support anything wider. If your reverts were in line with what other editors wanted, you could and should have left it to them. This is explicitly addressed on the WP:3RR policy page William M. Connolley 20:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

 Clerk note: As I understand the blocking policy, and the policy on sockpuppets, a user is only actionable for violating the 3RR using socks if the socks are clearly obvious, or if the socks have been established using CheckUser, a tool for identifying users using sockpuppets. On the behalf of RFCU, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 19:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• I'm confused; since when does the Request for Checkuser have someone speak on its behalf? I'd suggest that Peter may want to review Daniel Bryant's Checkuser Clerk Guide -- which notes, "It is imperative that... clerks be recognized as neutral, unbiased parties who are assisting with maintenance work, not deciding the merits of requests"; and specifies, "...not commenting on the merits of any check, whether the discussion occurs on an RFCU case page, a user talk page, or any administrator noticeboard etc." Further so far as I know, being an RFCU clerk does not extend to the Administrator's noticeboard, so placing a "clerk's notice" here is bit inappropriate.--Leflyman 20:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I see nothing wrong with Peter's interpretation. Mackensen (talk) 20:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• That he has a personal interpretation is absolutely fine; but it should not be presented as a clerk of the RFCU (and certainly not "on behalf of RFCU"). It's clearly contrary for clerks to issue any sort of opinion in their capacity as clerks, and is stated thus multiple times in the guide.--Leflyman 21:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• • I was not commenting on the merits of a check, and that should be obvious. I was commenting in my role as a RFCU clerk as to the status of sock block policy at this time. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 20:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• You were commenting on your "understanding" of policy, as though being a volunteer clerk gave it additional weight. Your role as an RFCU clerk is "maintenance work" not policy. Clearly, it was inappropriate. To avoid the appearance of partiality, you should refrain from making policy comments "as a clerk"; or perhaps resign your clerk title, and feel free to offer any opinion you wish.--Leflyman 21:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with Peter M Dodge's interpretation of the policy, and concur that he is well within his rights to share his opinions on policy issues like this one. Nevertheless, I too hope that in the future that he'll remember that he shouldn't wear his 'clerk hat' when offering such interpretations. As noted, CheckUser clerks have no special power or authority to modify, interpret, or enact any part of the blocking policy. Individual clerks also have no authority to speak on behalf of the CheckUsers in this way, and especially not off the RFCU board. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Ayyavazhi

Ayyavazhi is an autonomous religion in India. Though it was not officially recognised, it's factual existence (as a seperate religion) as well as the presence of thousands of (8000) worship centers across India is cited seperately from different university papers. Please see here where a seperate discussion is opened for Ayyavazhi discussions. See there all the different questions were answered by me, placing appropriate citations. Mind that the citations are from the University papers, which are the least affected agents get affected to POVs. Apart from all these, the LMS reports, the first and the largest protestant missionary also witness the factual existence of the independent nature of Ayyavazhi. These too is cited.

After all thease citations, people there in India article are removing Ayyavazhi merely because of the reason that Ayyavazhi is not officially recognised. I told them several times that, "If something is not officially recognised, then it couldn't be aurged that that thing does not exists factually." Also on the other hand I give a series of proofs from Indian Universities (different) for the presence of Ayyavazhi people accross the nation and the proof for the presence of thousands of Ayyavazhi worship centers in India. Also, three districts are declared as a holiday for an Ayyavazhi festival. Even 20% of the collective population of these areas covers over a million population. Still they don't understand. Even in my discussion I've said several times the main reasons for the lack of official recognition of Ayyavazhi in India.

Also see also the discussion here here here here here about the same issue. See how many times I repeat almost the same thing. Also many discussions on the talk page of several users.

Also for the same reason, Iwas also blocked two times for violating 3RR. I discuss for all edits and I ask other users to discuss befor reverting. They revert without discussing. If two people decided they can force me to revert more than 3 times, since they two peopl ecollectively have 6 reverting chances. Finally I may be complained for violating 3rr. See here I once complained this. They are indirectly telling that even citations from University papers, which are the least affected agents to POVs, are not valid in Misplaced Pages.

Now they are planning to block me. For all these reasons, Please help - _Д|Ж|_Д 19:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

At a cursory read, it appears that there is strong consensus that your sources are not reliable, and that including the religion on those articles is not appropriate. There's no admin action required here, though. I should add that if you violate 3RR, you will be blocked. The exceptions to that policy are quite slim. | Mr. Darcy talk 19:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Sir, Pls read the discussions carefully. There are definilely a large numberof Ayyavazhi's than jews and Zoroastrians in India. And hence Ayyavazhi is notable there. Also the sources used are not evn histirian views but university papers, one from University of Madras, one of the (one among the three oldest universities) most credible universities in India. Another from Madurai Kamaraj University a leading university in Tamil Nadu. Aren't they valid? If so, what is the value of third party citations in wikipedia? - _Д|Ж|_Д 20:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: I've blocked Paul Raj 24 hours for his long-term edit-warring, as well as for his four reverts of India in a 24-hour-and-11-minute period (he has two prior blocks for 3RR vios). The edit-warring has to stop. | Mr. Darcy talk 22:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

BenBurch and FAAFA

A consensus has been reached in a meatpuppet investigation here. The consensus is that the two users in question have formed a meatpuppet relationship that is abusive to other Misplaced Pages editors. It was successfully used to bait another Misplaced Pages editor into violating policy to the extent that he was permablocked; and they are still tormenting him on his Talk page while he appeals the block. They should receive the same punishment: permablocks.

In the alternative, in his previous "NBGPWS" incarnation, FAAFA received a one-month block; this block should be longer. BenBurch's previous block was one day; this block should be longer. And they should be permanently blocked from editing the Free Republic article due to their ongoing violations of WP:COI, WP:RS, WP:LIBEL, WP:NPOV (particularly WP:NPOV#Undue_weight), WP:CIV and WP:NPA.

Thank you for your kind cooperation in this matter. In response to anyone who has even the slightest suspicion that I might be a sockpuppet, I will cordially direct your attention to this notice. Dino 20:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Hasn't there been an ARBCOM about some of these editors? I don't fully know the background here, but alot of these names are becoming familiar to me and that isn't necessarily a good thing.--Isotope23 20:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/BenBurch may be interesting reading. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 21:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• You edited in your own conclusion, since moved into the RIGHT spot in the complaint, and then came here to represent that a legal conclusion had ben reached. Bryan, and you ARE Bryan, you continue to violate our rules here at Misplaced Pages and are attempting to game the system here. DISGUSTING. --BenBurch 23:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• NOTE - User:DeanHinnen just admitted to being a sock puppet of permanently blocked User:BryanFromPalatine in a thread further down on this page. --BenBurch 06:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Admin Attention PLEASE

I'm really sick of this. Please someone read this and tell me if behaviour of User:Wobble is acceptable or not:

• Reported to PAIN before for things like calling me racialist and then saying "The sort of out of date racialist thinking that normal people (that's 99% of us) think only nutters believe any more." or calling me racist and then saying "There was a cite to "racial reality", a racist nazi site as far as I can see, with the reliability and accuracy one would expect from a bunch of neonazi thickos (who ever met an intelligent racist? Not me).", etc...

• Calling me racist again

• "Your POV pushing and total lack of any understanding of science is getting boring."

• Calling me pathetic along with other accusations:

• "I think this has got nothing to do with using swear words and everything to do with you and Lukas's attempts to undermine the integrity of Misplaced Pages by introducing your nasty racist POV."

• He seems to call anything that he disagrees with, racist

Talking about accusations, 99% of what he says is INCORRECT. For ex, he accused me (as usual) of distorting biomedical research and I asked him to provide examples and he provided me with a link of an edit that WAS NOT mine. Or like how he accuses me of "total lack of any understanding of science" considering I just explained and proved to him that technically white isnt a color (in physics) a couple minutes before his edit in question. Or his another accusation of me committing plagarism when I clearly attributed the work to the scientist by saying "A. W. F. Edwards claimed in 2003..." but forgot to put quotes. So, most of the time, he is not calling a spade a spade.

Anyway, besides those, there are also lots of other stuff that makes you roll your eyes, like calling me "Thukie Lulie" (one of above diffs) and "Thukas" (thickos?) , or "No, no shit. Shit is brown, though I'm sure you can concoct some cock and bull about how it smells of roses if it comes from Nordic people." , I think these are all incivil behaviour, for ex, I asked him to stop calling me Lukie, Thulie, etc. I also think I can find more examples of his too frequent unjustified accusations or incivil remarks or personal attacks but I'll stop here, this is already too long...Lukas19 20:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Gerard Montgomery

I nominated this article for deletion yesterday for being non-notable- the article only consisted of repeating a claim by the Daily Mail that he was in the IRA and had allegedly murdered someone. Vintagekits opposed the deletion and has expanded the article by adding that Gerard Montgomery has murdered other individuals, and given references which do not back up these claims. I am concerned that this article now is now libelous. I would remove this myself, but the said user has acted with hostility to other edits I have made on other IRA terrorist articles, and I would appreciate an admin having a look. Astrotrain 20:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

What you need is a friend who has already acquainted himself with WP:LIBEL and the related law, due another dispute that has just been resolved. Hello, I'm you're new friend. I'll be right there. Dino 20:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The Daily Mail article quoted him as being involved in the shooting and this is also repeated in many other articles before I ever arrived on the scene--Vintagekits 21:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

His name isn't mentioned in any of the references you provided. Misplaced Pages is not the place to make allegations of terrorist activity. Astrotrain 21:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It is the Daily Mail article--Vintagekits 21:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Without reliable sources to back the allegations, they violate our policy at WP:BLP, and if the editor restores them, he will be blocked for policy violations. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

DOnt you think the Daily Mail is a reliable source? --Vintagekits 21:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any sources which name Montgomery by name. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no link to the Daily Mail- the only link with his name is a forum, not considered reliable. Astrotrain 21:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. The only reliable sources, the BBC and the Guardian, and yahoo.com, do not mention any names. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest speedy delete- as all the things mentioned in the article are libelous claims, and no links to reputable sources are provided. Astrotrain 21:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It is not libelous if it is references to an article in the Daily Mail. No action of any sort was brought against the Daily Mail with regard the article and it has not been refuted in anyway either, so where is the issue?--Vintagekits 21:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You have not even proven that there was any such article in the Daily Mail. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The same article is refered to on other pages (no problems there, why not? because Astrotrain is a wikistalker!!) and I have now also put a reference on the article and there are additional references in the article. This is obvious whitewashing which Astrotrain has been doing for days now - see his edit history!--Vintagekits 21:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

No, sorry, that doesn't wash. Give us a direct link to the article. And Please see Misplaced Pages's no personal attacks policy. Comment on content, not on contributors; personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that continued personal attacks may lead to blocks for disruption. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Gerard Montgomery, who has been an armed bodyguard to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in recent years, was also identified as allegedly being involved in the beating of Mr McCartney, before leaving the scene with two videos of CCTV footage. "The Three Linked to McCartney Murder". The Daily Mail. March 9. pp. p. 8. {{cite news}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)

—eric 21:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you!!!--Vintagekits 21:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Where's the link to the article? That doesn't trump WP:BLP, and not a single one of the references which does use his name is a reliable source. Anybody can create a forum or a blog entry which says Joe Smith committed murder, then come here and try to create an article using that post as evidence. They are not acceptable references, because they are not peer-reviewed. And a hand waving reference to a newspaper article doesn't work. Does the Daily Mail not have online archives? User:Zoe|(talk) 21:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I have blanked the page until a reliable source is found. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

And now Vintagekits has thrown a {{blatantvandal}} tag at me. How quaint. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The Daily Mail does indeed have an online archive - look, no hits for Gerard Montgomery. Every single online hit for "Gerard Montgomery" "Daily Mail" is Misplaced Pages or a Misplaced Pages mirror. Given WP:BLP, blanking the page is absolutely the correct thing to do. Proto::► 21:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Since Vintagekits saw fit to revert my blanking of the page, I have reblanked and protected until verifiable proofs are forthcoming. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The reason I reverted it is because you didnt even discuss it anywhere just jumped in. Also it is up for AfD and now how are people supposed to vote on it/add to it if is there nothing there and it is locked!--Vintagekits 21:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I discussed it at the AfD page and here. People kept asking you for references, you kept claiming you had provided them, but you had provided nothing which meets our reliable sources guideline. And as I said at AfD, people can read the history of the article to see its content. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, doing a search through the Daily Mail archives for March 9, 2005 for "Gerard Montgomery" brings up two articles about the murder, but strangely, Montgomery's name is not mentioned in the articles. I have to wonder how the Daily Mail does their search criteria. User:Zoe|(talk)

Are you going to blank the other pages where this article is referenced?--Vintagekits 21:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes- it needs to be removed from the other articles too. We don't want Misplaced Pages exposed to legal claims for libel. Astrotrain 21:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, every reference should be removed unless verified. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted Jim McCormack and Gerard Davison, as they didn't even have a single reference, let alone non-reliable ones, and yet the articles claimed that these people were murderers. Don't recreate until you provide reliable references. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC) I cant believe you deleted these page - these two are even more notable than Montgomery! Have you gone mad, do you know anything about these issues? If you had of prompted the pages I could have put loads of references on them.--Vintagekits 22:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Eric R's version is available here. No success in finding it on the Mail site, which is odd when there are several other articles on the topic for that day. Note the wording: "also identified as allegedly being involved". These are carefully chosen weasel words, bearing no resemblance to the pre-blanking version. Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I have three Daily Mail articles which name Davison, McCormak, and Montgomery. I don't know if it's enough for articles on these persons, and we may be running into an issue where the names were removed from the papers online version for some reason. I'll add the quotes to Talk:Gerard Montgomery and we can go from there.—eric 22:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Can I ask where you got the articles, Eric? I mean, do you have physical newspapers at hand? User:Zoe|(talk) 22:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The articles appear on LexisNexis, and articles asserting more or less the same facts (i.e. naming the men as allegedly connected with the murder) appeared in two other newspapers as well at the same time. So I tend not to doubt the existence of the article. It is possible it was retracted, but it is also possible that the DM archive is simply incomplete for some other reason. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

LexisNexis is a pay for use service, so if an article is only available through that medium, how do we verify what it says? Especially if it's information that could be considered as libel, such as accusing someone of murder. Perhaps Misplaced Pages should consider purchasing an enterprise license for LexisNexus that all registered editors could use. Cla68 23:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

These are news articles so they would be found on the LexisNexis academic search that many public libraries make available for free to their members. You could also head to a research library and look at the hard copies or microfiche. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice of you to delete articles that are well referenced! Nothing to stop you reading the hardcopy of the Daily Mail!--Vintagekits 23:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Well referenced according to you, not referenced at all according to everyone else here. ZOMG wikifascism! JuJube 00:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalized Entry

There has been very obvious vandalism of the entry for "mafia"

The vandalism has been reverted. Thanks for telling us! Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 21:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Personal Attack

Elsanaturk has continuously made personal attacks against me. Elsanaturk recently made an attack here (diff): Frankly, I'm sick of it and I would appreciate it if the admins did something about this. I have done nothing but bring up reliable sources continuously and just because he doesnt like it he results to personal attacks. He has even gone as far as claiming that the Mammed Amin Rasulzade article is his and that I have no right to edit it (diff's, these are only some of his comments, he has claimed that the article is "his" many many times before): , (notice the title my article that Azerbaijani spoiled) , and (notice the false accusations against me, much of the current article is made up of Elsanaturk's contributions) His blatant and unfounded accusations that I have ruined that article are outrageous! Look at the edit summaries and look at my edits, I did nothing that constitutes vandalism, infact, I kept adding sourced information to the article. I should not have to take such abuse, and if you look at this users contributions, they have been nothing but un-constructive edits and comments. Also, notice how he was blocked for a 3rr violation yet came back under an IP to evade the block and continued edit warring: (read Khoikhoi's edit summary) Please do something about this, Thanks.Azerbaijani 21:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I asked him to stop. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 22:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

User Dino's troubling past actions

User Dino was just unblocked. This user claimed on Jan. 15, 2007, that he contacted the author of a particularly contentious article (used to support claims regarding 'death threats' in the Wiki Free Republic article) and that this author said that he never wrote the article in question. "I contacted TJ Walker and asked him whether he authored the article. He said, "Of course not." here (when TJ Walker certainly did write the article - and it's even archived from his website on the www! here) Based on these false claims, a Wiki Foundation employee (who is not an active editor) User:Carolyn-WMF edited this contested article and removed critical material here - based on these bogus claims (and possibly even impersonation) by Dino. proof here. I look forward to a complete investigation of this matter, and find the utter unresponsiveness of this WMF employee and another Foundation member, Danny Wool, when questioned about this matter by two Admins and two editors more than a little troubling. Are they too embarrassed and chagrined to admit that they got 'snookered'? (If that is the case, and meaning no disrespect) - Fairness & Accuracy For All 22:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It was correctly removed as those personal websites and personal communications are not reliable sources and anecdotal evidence has no place here. User:DeanHinnen has done nothing wrong and his molestation should stop. He has also agreed (above and beyond what should be required) not to edit the article FAAFA is complaining about. See this and this for the fuller story. HE should be allowed to continue to edit unharrassed and unmolested. --Tbeatty 22:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You're wong. TJ Walker is a published notable author and RS whose work has recently appeared on CBS and National Review. Here is a list of the dozens of articles, including the one in question titled '7-6-99 Is the FreeRepublic.Com Really DeathThreat.Com?', which appeared on what you call a 'personal website' TJ Walker - All Columns 1999-2000 during the time-frame in question. What he wrote is citable, but even if it wasn't - for Dino to claim that he contacted TJ 'who denied writing the article' and then using these false claims to coerce a Wiki Foundation employee into editing on his behalf merits nothing less than a full investigation. - Fairness & Accuracy For All 22:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Note that I recently unblocked DeanHinnen/Dino based on a consensus reached at unblock-en-l. This had nothing to do with the issues above, however. He was accused of being a sockpuppet or meatpuppet of BryanFromPalistine (sp?). This is the extent of my involvement in the matter. --Yamla 22:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe you were taken in. I can find no record of Bryan having a brother at all, and no Dean Hinnen born after 1949 shows up when I search. As we know Bryan to be much younger than that, this person is not likely to be his Brother. And in any case there does appear to be a meatpuppet relationship if this is a separate person as he has begun right were Bryan left off using the same words, phrases, and modes of attack. --BenBurch 01:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe Bryan's real name might be Dean. I signed up to to the unblock list and read the discussion, and Dino's requests to be unblocked, and Dean is a very real name working where he claimed he worked. They might also be brothers, like what is claimed by Dean. Dean also insinuated that he was editing to protect Wiki from possible libel suits from FR, (I took it as a vieled threat) where he claims to act as a mod. - Fairness & Accuracy For All 02:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, we do know he did a lot of his "editing" from his employer's network. Must be a very liberal employer, because when I have worked for manufacturing companies in the past they were most clear that using company assets for such things was strictly verboten. Also I find it troubling that he, as an employee of that company was editing its entry here on Misplaced Pages, a clear WP:COI --BenBurch 03:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It was not a veiled threat. In fact, at no point did I suggest litigation; at several points, I explicitly stated that I was not threatening litigation and was seeking to protect Misplaced Pages from litigation (a fact supported by the Unblock-en-l ruling here after abundant evidence was presented, and abundant patience displayed); and at no point did I "claim to act as a mod" (moderator) at Free Republic. Let's get the facts straight, in spite of the present efforts to distort and misrepresent the facts. Above, on this page, I've asked admins to block BenBurch and FAAFA. A link to the evidence against them here Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/BenBurch has been helpfully provided by Peter M Dodge. Thanks for your continued patience. Dino 03:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You represented that you were a member of the Free Republic "Legal Team", or are you denying that now, Bryan? --BenBurch 03:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The legal team does not have moderating privileges at Free Republic. These two functions are separate and performed by different groups of people. Dino 03:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I was a small part of the investigation into this matter due to the discussion on the list and I support the consensus to unblock DeanHinnen/Dino and see how things go. His manner on that list and his apparent sincerity and flexibility impressed me, and I felt that an unblock was the right thing to do. Certainly I could be proven wrong, but I hope not. I am not sure that having several major participants in this matter calling for blocks is likely to be helpful at this time so I'd suggest letting go for now, and going back to substantively editing to improve our content. If there are incidents in future, please present the incident particulars in a factual neutral way and leave the advocacy out if at all possible. ++Lar: t/c 13:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

(UI) Dino wrote in unblock-en-l "Like Misplaced Pages, Free Republic is run principally by volunteers, but does have a very small paid staff. I'm one of the volunteers. We are concerned about the Misplaced Pages article about Free Republic, which contains material I believe to be libelous." and "I would like to work constructively... to protect Misplaced Pages from civil liability for libel. That's what Carolyn Doran and I were trying to do..." Excuse me from interpeting your claim of being a volunteer on FR as 'being a mod', and your words as being a 'vieled threat' - my mistake. - Fairness & Accuracy For All

Dino has agreed not to edit the FreeRepublic article. Why is this still an issue? --Tbeatty 03:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why would you defend someone who claimed they contacted an author and said that the author denied writing an article when we all know now that he DID write the article in question? Still lionizing dishonesty and the 'culture of corruption' Beatty? Think repeated and rampant dishonesty is 'smart' and 'clever' do you? - Fairness & Accuracy For All

T.Beatty wouldn't do that, now that he is aware of the facts. I know him to be a fair man even if I disagree with him about most things. --BenBurch 05:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Because, my friend, he just admitted to being Bryan. And therefore a sock. And therefore a liar. And therefore he lied his way out of his block. See above where I call him out on having claimed to be part of the FR legal team? He admitted to it. BUT, it was not DEAN who made that claim. It was Bryan. So by admitting to this he has admitted to being Bryan. I have no quarrel with him editing anything! I never did as long as he was not removing sourced information or inserting NNPOV, what I object to, and will continue to object to is him using sock puppets to evade a block, which he is DOING RIGHT NOW. I have welcomed Bryan back from blocks several times, and should he, under his main account, get himself unblocked, I will welcome him back again and work WITH him. But what he has done here is inexcusable. Not only is he evading his block, but he actually called WikiMedia Foundation on the phone and harassed poor Carolyn. And lied to the unblocking people. DISGUSTING. --BenBurch 04:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

True - 'Bryan' previously claimed to be part of the FR 'legal team' who 'flew out to L.A. to advise FR's attorney on the L.A. Times vs. Free Republic lawsuit' ("A life and death struggle against the socialist propaganda machine"! LOL !) - Fairness & Accuracy For All

Dino wrote in unblock-en-l "Like Misplaced Pages, Free Republic is run by volunteers. I am one of those volunteers; I'm part of the Free Republic legal team. I mentioned the TJ Walker article, however I most certainly did not impersonate him. I can only conclude that after I spoke with Carolyn the first time, she called TJWalker herself and made a determination as to its authenticity and accuracy. Carolyn encouraged me to just open a Misplaced Pages account and remove the libelous material myself... As I've done with other websites in similar circumstances, rather than edit the material myself (and be called a vandal), I encouraged Carolyn to enforce her own policies on her own website. She did so....Her edit was reverted. Then I opened an account, tried to courteously educate all involved about what was going on, and restored Carolyn's edit. For this, I was permablocked and the edit was again reverted." - Fairness & Accuracy For All

Further on the Professor Tim Pierce situation

I sent an email to the Northern Illinois University Public Affairs people concerning Professor Tim Pierce's assigning Misplaced Pages vandalism to his students, and did not receive a response to that one, nor to the subsequent one. When I sent a third, indicating that I would be contacting the press if they did not get back to me by the end of day Friday, Melanie Magara, Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs, finally contacted me, and indicated that I should contact the Ethics people in their legal department. That is my next move. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how I missed this one. Link(s) to some history would be appreciated, mostly for curiosity's sake. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

As of now, it’s right at the top of this page, but here is a permanent link, anyway. —xyzzy_n 22:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

wow - what are we trying to do here? get a guy sacked? Flogged in the streets? he's stopped already hasn't he? we don't hound other vandals do we? This is a man's life you are trying to fuck up here, over a few poxy edits? This is way out of line. --Fredrick day 23:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If he refuses to respond to emails. This is a bit harsh, but ignoring Zoe's emails is no good either. 128.118.60.168 23:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

He didn't refuse to respond to my emails, in fact he has responded to every one I sent. It was the PR department who wouldn't respond. But he has never said that he wont' do it again. In addition, destruction of a privately-owned website is a federal offense. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

if you read it - he did (and I bet at this point, he wish he'd never bothered - by the way did anyone inform him that his answers and I guess what he assumed to private emails would be posted all over wikipedia?), his university did not. --Fredrick day 23:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what the big deal is here. Seems to me like a fairly useful and sensible exercise, providing- as he states in the quote above- he undertook to revert all the instances of vandalism himself if it wasn't otherwise done. I also have seen plenty of instances where Misplaced Pages is used as a citation in student work, or where Misplaced Pages-derived information is included uncited. It's completely unacceptable, as I think everyone here realises. There are other ways to make this point, but this is a reasonable one in my view (provided no lasting damage is done). Contacting university authorities (who presumably will take no action anyway- what exactly is he supposed to have done wrong, or even contrary to academic regulations?) or the press (who surely are also unlikely to be interested in this non-story) is way, way over the top. Let's keep a sense of perspective. Badgerpatrol 23:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd personally support taking this to the press, mainly because I don't feel any real action is going to be taken otherwise. Don't vandalize unless you're happy to appear in the news next day. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 23:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Per the first section on this matter, the prof had not reverted all the vandalism. Anyway, the issue for us should be that of all the things that can be done on Misplaced Pages, the students were effectively encouraged to stay away from it except for vandalism. Personally, I think that’s a bad perspective and it is good to protest against it being taught. —xyzzy_n 23:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow - this is getting totally out of line - so blocks are preventive not punitive but hey by the way, we reserve the right to fuck you over in real life (punitive). He did wrong, he said he was sorry, I would guess he's told the students to stop doing this. Don't you think he gets it? that it was wrong. Isn't that where the community normally stops? the user admits he did wrong and stops his actions (in this case encouraging others to do such edits to wikipedia). At that point, we normally allow registered users to carry on their business - but since we have his name and address, we are going to drive the point home? Have a little power trip? --Fredrick day 23:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Zoe can probably clarify this, but my impression was he only apologised for the vandalism that he hadn’t reverted himself and that he did not think he did anything wrong in general. (Corollary: he’s going to do the same thing next year.) —xyzzy_n 23:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think that getting him into trouble punatively is really an answer, but that he and/or his university to make a statement that it's not cool to vandalize Misplaced Pages as a class assignment (and they won't do it again) might be a more worthwhile and positive focus. Bitnine 23:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

That is completely fine with me. I just want a promise not to do it again, and an understanding as to why it was wrong. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Off him? So if you are in conversation with him, why did you feel the need to bring in the wider university? Why take that step when there is still conversation going on. --Fredrick day 00:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "off him". I took it further because he refused to concede that he might be wrong, and also refused to concede that he would not do it again. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I've read this entire thread and the earlier one and nowhere do I see that this professor has apologized. From Zoe's description, his response to feedback was to defend the vandalism. I'm not sure how many e-mails Zoe has traded (three tries seems like an appropriate number), but if he proves to be that resistant to input I see nothing wrong with contacting the university's student newspaper. It seems the instructor's aim was to raise awareness about Misplaced Pages's level of reliability. A good investigative article could do that on a university-wide level as well as explore some relevant questions about academic ethics. Despite what some respondants have posted, this would be preventative rather than punitive: unless some meaningful consequence arises he may repeat the assignment next semester or recommend it to his colleagues. If an individual vandalizes Misplaced Pages privately then of course we handle it privately, yet he has made an academic assignment of vandalizing Misplaced Pages - and from the threads I read he did not even undo all the damage that assignment had caused. That teaches his students to violate site policies. Some student journalists could impart a better corrective lesson. Durova 00:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

the "story" here is the one all the sites that watch wikipedia will pick up on - "Misplaced Pages tries to run man's career off the road". --Fredrick day 00:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Hardly. It will be that a professor, a public employee, advocates vandalism. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

After this display, I'll be advocating to students and staff at my place not to come near this place with a ten-foot pole. --Fredrick day 00:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Frederick, I cannot tell if you are the same person as the professor, but if you are, if you would come clean at this point and say, "sorry, I won't do it again", it looks to me like Zoe, et al. would be backing off quite quickly. That's all they're asking for. No need to eat crow and play mr. penitent: just say, "I won't do it again". That will suffice. 128.118.106.28 00:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Since I live in the UK, I'd ask you keep your half-ass sherlock holmes act to yourself. --Fredrick day 06:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

And if you aren't the professor: I must say, I would be appalled if a professor at my university gave me the assignment to vandalize out of some vindictive annoyance at Misplaced Pages (and, such professors do exist: they hate seeing it cited in papers, and hate it being plagiarized in papers even more). And, upon being contacted, if he refused to stop, I see no problem whatsoever with contacting the school paper. In other words, if you don't think what you did was wrong, then it won't be a problem if everyone knows about it, right? 128.118.106.28 00:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

He did not encourage vandalism out of vindictive annoyance. He did it to demonstrate to his students how unreliable Misplaced Pages is as a source. If a student found a piece of paper in the street with "the Moon is made of cheese" written on it, surely you would accept that it is not wise to cite that as a source in their next planetary science essay. Misplaced Pages is a cut above that, but the same principle applies. No student should ever cite Misplaced Pages in any of their work nor rely upon it any way, unless the topic at hand is Misplaced Pages itself or something closely related. Teachers who hate seeing it cited in papers and hate seeing it plagiarised are simply doing their job effectively. Badgerpatrol 12:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

While I agree the professor in question should make clear he won't do this again, I don't think having Misplaced Pages editors aggressively demanding a grovelling apology is the right way to go. Any demands should come from our version of 'official'. ie. the WMF office. I personally would be offended if one of the millions of Misplaced Pages editors took it on themselves to write to me in a situation like this. Apologies if Zoe was acting in some official capacity, but I haven't seen any indication of this so far. Carcharoth 00:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, no need for a grovelling apology: just, "I won't do it again, I didn't realize it would be that big a deal; I'm a good guy deep down, and I really have everyone's best intention in mind". That's all. Perhaps, Zoe could send another email to him before going to the newspaper, though, relating this. 128.118.106.28 00:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Tim Pierce is *not* a professor!

Some quick googling reveals that Tim Pierce holds the rank of instructor, and his highest degree is an M.A. This guy isn't a professor, he's a graduate student, with probably less than two years of teaching experience. I think siccing the press on him is a bit heavy-handed, and very likely could have negative effects on his career. He doesn't have the protection of tenure, or even of being a hired employee--he's still a student. Even if Zoe's intent isn't punitive, this situation may very easily result in a punitive effect upon Mr. Pierce.

Furthermore, this seems like a disproportionate response to someone's first offense. I don't think it's normal to contact people's real-life employers for on-wiki offenses; it certainly doesn't seem to me like it should be done unless there's an ongoing pattern of abuse. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that latter part is so cut and dry in this case. Not only are we talking about an employer, but also a body whose members were instructed and proceeded to perform vandalism. If it were just Mr. Pierce himself performing vandalism, I would be in complete agreement. That being said, I think that quickly seeking a promise that he's not going to do this again is probably the best solution to sate all parties involved. Bitnine 00:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Lets just range-block the school for a week if it happens again and for each further offence escalate the block. If the school is unwilling to deal with this internally then any activity from the school is a liability. Trying to send the media after him... is...well... Overzealous. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

An "instructor" is often a non-tenure track teaching position existing at many colleges where the number of classes being taught is larger than can be reasonable covered by a department's normal faculty. He is not listed as graduate student, and most likely this is his full-time career. 128.32.95.83 00:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

That's possible, but "instructor" is also a title given to graduate students who have received an MA and are working on their PhD. Pierce got his MA from NIU, so I think it's quite possible he's a PhD student. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Google suggests he's been an instructor for at least 8 years. (bottom of page) 128.32.95.83 01:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right, I need to work on my google-fu. NIU doesn't even grant a PhD in communications. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

That's Henningsen's page, not Pierce's page. Peirce has his name on the bottom, as 'web dude'. Let's be real careful here. Regards, Ben Aveling 03:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Whether Pierce is a prof or a grad student isn't really that relevant. The relevant issue is whether Misplaced Pages benefits by responding in this fashion. I'm not sure if it does. If we were dealing with large scale or organized vandalism it might make sense. The only argument that might support continued pursuit is that we have had so many of these sorts of instances that it might make sense to make an example of one to deter future problems. However, given that all of these idiots seem to be unaware of almost any previous attempts to do what they've done (and some seem to think of themselves as frightfully clever) I doubt any teacher or prof will be aware of this event occuring even if we get this guy humiliated/sacked/disciplined/reprimanded/whatevered. All of that said, a promise that he isn't going to do this again is highly reasonable to work for, and going to the student paper if necessary to get that sort of statement out of him strikes me as fine. JoshuaZ 01:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I do think it's somewhat important to note that Pierce isn't a professor, simply because the employment status of adjunct faculty is often tenuous--their contracts are often year to year, or even semester to semester. Adjuncts who find their way into the news--even the campus paper--for anything "controversial" often find that their contracts aren't renewed. It's more difficult for professors to lose their jobs. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The situation is not that this person vandalized Misplaced Pages, it is that he made a classroom assignment in a mandatory course that the students in the class also vandalize Misplaced Pages. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone attempted to contact Henningsen? Seems Henningsen's in a supervisory position, relative to Pierce. I'd suggest that you escalte SLOWLY and judiciously, hitting each step. Direct supervisor, department, dean, and so on. The more steps you take, the better the odds you'll find a sympathetic ear, or hit the 'bull**** ceiling', that is, the point where someone's got too much to do to put up with too much hassle, and calls Pierce on the carpet. As other editors have said, 'Misplaced Pages ruins Journalism Professor's Career' is how this will play out in the media. 'Internet Nerds versus Student Nerds'. That's the angle that will be portrayed, if anyone in the media bothers to care at all on the slowest news day around. If a button click can undo it, no one will see it a horrible vandalism. I suggest bringing this to Henningsen. He was an attorney, per that page. I suspect he understands that incitement and conspiracy to vandalize are more serious than the idle hands of teens at home. That this was done under the auspices of NIU, and more specifically, where he should've caught the problem, are far more important. Try him before running to the biggest names at NIU. Just one editor's view. (Disclaimer - I am not an Admin. I am familiar with academia.) ThuranX 04:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you're concluding that Henningsen is in a supervisory role because of his webpage, but that page hasn't been updated since 1999. A look at NIU's course schedule shows that Pierce is teaching some sections of COMS 100, an intro-level course that has tons of sections; this is the course where students got the vandalism assignment, per this post. The director of the COMS 100 course is Ferald Bryan. It might be productive to contact Prof. Bryan, I'd certainly prefer that step to contacting the media.

(If this post is giving out too much personal info, please remove it.) --Akhilleus (talk) 04:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I do worry that we might be relying too much on one post. I understand other people have more information, having been in direct contact with NIU. Just be careful everyone, that's all. Regards, Ben Aveling 10:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Right after this started (Jan 20), I contacted the department chair and assistant chair and Prof Bryan and asked them to investigate. They responded. They're aware. Georgewilliamherbert 04:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Georgewilliamherbert, might you be so kind as to provide your real world identity and location so that Mr. Pierce can further pursue this matter with you? Likewise for Zoe and anyone else involved in this cowardly and disgraceful series of actions. Life isn't a game, folks. Hiding behind our pseuds, we're going to take this guy down? One of the very academics upon whom we rely for our best material? Were I Mr. Pierce, and I lost my job due to this, I would strongly consider further action. Wouldn't you? It's an unforgivable lapse of judgement to consider the vandalism of a few articles - an everyday occurance - to merit this kind of action. Simply unforgivable. Decisive action is in order.Proabivouac 11:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Tim Pierce: Over the top

Is this a joke? I have seen people hand out revolting death threats on this encyclopaedia (including to me in the past) and escape with a slapped wrist. This guy sets a class assignment which may or may not have been misjudged (I personally still think it wasn't an unreasonable idea), with a good-faith intent (to demonstrate to his students the perfectly reasonable point that Misplaced Pages is not a reliable source for their assignments) and with, as it seems to me, zero lasting damage- and some people here appear keen to get him the sack! WTF?!!?? I'd like someone to point out to me exactly what academic regulations, or US laws, this chap has broken. If - as I strongly suspect- he hasn't broken or infringed any, what is the purpose of continuing this harassment? Badgerpatrol 09:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Academic regulations vary from institution to institution, though having worked in several myself, I do feel confident in saying that someone in a position of authority over students would never be permitted to encourage or require them to commit vandalism or other socially disruptive behaviour as part of a research experiment or a course assignment. Such a violation would be all the more severe if it weren't a single student who was incited to vandalize but rather an entire class—and keep in mind that first-year undegraduate classes, as the one in question presumably is, can have hundreds of students. (This is also the reason that many people here see this incident as worse than isolated legal or death threats from individuals. We are talking about an authority who has allegedly ordered a large number of people—possibly hundreds—to disrupt Misplaced Pages in contravention of its stated purpose and usage policies. I doubt that even the infamous GNAA vandal group had such human resources to draw upon, and it certainly didn't have the coercive authority to get them to do its bidding.)

With respect to your assertion that we are "harassing" the instructor, I don't see that anyone has. Certain editors have contacted those responsible for ensuring the instructor's compliance to academic codes, asking them to investigate the matter. That is, to find out if the version of events we have been presented with is accurate, and if so, to determine whether they constitute a violation of their academic code. —Psychonaut 10:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I have also worked in numerous academic institutions. This isn't academic misconduct by any measure that I have ever come across. As I note below, there is no comparison between actual, real-world vandalism and this kind of incident. Disrupting Misplaced Pages is not a crime, and I would not personally characterise it as necessarily socially disruptive, especially in this case where the intent was obviously good-faith. Unless he has a personal account, in which case he should probably receive an appropriate ban, this chap is not subject to Misplaced Pages's usage policies. With the best will in the world, anybody that sees this incident as worse than a death threat (= a highly illegal act, at least in the jurisdiction where I live, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years' in gaol) is an idiot. There is a real need to place this incident into perspective, I think. Your language- " coercive authority" " do its bidding" is faintly ridiculous. We are talking about a class assignment (I can't see how it could possibly have been an assessed class assignment either, so I presume it was basically presented to the students as a more-or-less optional exemplar exercise). One can only hope that his department will pretty much laugh off such a spurious complaint after a cursory examination. I might personally suggest alternative means to make his substantive point, but I would also pat him on the back for making it. If those students have come away from this with the lesson ingrained in them that Wiki is not a reliable source, and hopefully more generally an idea of the kinds of sources that they can or can't rely upon when forming opinions, then they will have learned pretty much the most important lesson that organised education can provide. If you are a decent tutor, then I suggest you ought to think the same thing. Badgerpatrol 11:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Having chased someone for academic misconduct before, I suspect that he's unlikely to be sacked for this, unless he's already on the nose anyway.

But imagine if a visual arts lecturer had forced his kids to spray paint railway trains, then what would your reaction be? If the claims made are true, then this isn't a person I'd want teaching any child of mine. If he accepts that he made a mistake and agrees not to do it again, then I'd be happy to see things left where they are. But if he plans to do it again, well, what would you recommend? Regards, Ben Aveling 10:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The difference between "vandalising" Misplaced Pages (can we even say it's vandlaism when the intent is good faith?) and spray painting a train is two-fold: 1) One cannot erase any damage made to a train by the simple expedient of pressing a couple of buttons; 2) Vandalising a train is emphatically against the law. Any academic who encouraged his students to break a just law would no-doubt be fired PDQ. There is absolutely no comparison between your analogies whatsoever. Once again, I'd like to hear someone explicitly state what academic regulations he's broken, and therefore exactly how this is "academic misconduct". Whether he is likely to get the bullet or not, it is completely unreasonable to harass this guy in this way. Badgerpatrol 10:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that all the damage has been undone? Even if every edit has been undone, which I think is unlikely, what if some of the students decided that they enjoyed vandalising? Not all damage that happens here can be undone by pushing buttons on a computer. And I'm still waiting to hear if he's going to do it again.

Here's a different metaphor for you. What if he told his students to go into the university library and replace some of the books there with fakes that look real but aren't. Some of them are complete nonsense. Some of them are believable, but still wrong. And no-one has any way of knowing if all of these fake books have been detected and removed. And he intends to do it again. What then? If you don't like the idea of reporting him to his boss, what do you suggest instead? Ignoring him and letting him do it twice a year for as long as he's teaching? You don't like our proposal, but do you have a better one? Regards, Ben Aveling 11:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that all the damage has been undone, but I am sure that all the damage can easily be undone and more importantly, if you look above you will see that Pierce himself undertook to undo any vandalism himself before he set the exercise. If some of the students decide that they want to vandalise Misplaced Pages for the sake of wanton destruction then they are exercising their own free will- he has not encouraged them to wantonly vandalise for amusement, but rather to reinforce a key educational principle. Some editors note above that they have in the past made "vandal" edits to Misplaced Pages in order to demonstrate the limitations of the medium, and then reverted themselves. This is the same, except on a larger scale. As for your other metaphor- that is a far more sensible one, but again you miss the key point which is that Pierce has kept track of all his students' edits and has undertaken to revert them himself if they or another party do not do so. If the library exercise you mention was a temporary one, with careful track kept of where the fake material was placed, to be collected later, then I wouldn't have any problem with it whatsoever. To be quite honest, my action in this case would be to email Pierce, set out your case, and suggest an alternative, less controversial means to make the same point (i.e. limited, supervised reverts). If he doesn't accept your case and wants to do it his way, then so be it, it's not for us to interfere with how he teaches his students. If the Wikipdia community decides it doesn't want him to do it, then that's fine too- block the relevent IPs. He is not burning down the Library of Alexandria- he is making a very valid point, namely that Misplaced Pages is not to be trusted. That's just good teaching. Badgerpatrol 11:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I find this completely outrageous, not on Mr. Pierce's part, but on ours. Get a grip, Zoe. I agree with 99% of what you do, but this is simply wrong. We are volunteers here, and we're threatening Mr. Pierce's career. As several people have observed, we show infinitely more kindness to outright trolls and serial vandals. All we've proven is that it's a fool who involves themselves in Misplaced Pages in any way using their real world identity. Most of the time, it's untracable, so our frustration builds. Now we have a target, so we fire away? Identifying himself was his real mistake, wasn't it? The correct solution is to identify the problem, rv the vandalism and walk away. Going after real world individuals is sometimes justifiable if they're similarly harassing other editors, but articles we can and should fix. The lack of empathy here I'd find morally disgusting if I didn't chalk it up clueless immaturity. We're going to have some fellow cursing Misplaced Pages for his lack of a job and a future while we're wanking over edit counts and AfD's. Who knows what will come of that? If we continue to give people very good reasons to hate Misplaced Pages, it will sooner or later come back to us one way or another. I think losing one's job qualifies as a very good reason.

I motion to 1) end this discussion forthwith, and to cease attacking and remove mention of Mr. Pierce from this site 2) temporarily block (preventatively, not punatively) any editors, admins or others, involved in harassing him 3) leave any further decisions to the office or to Mr. Wales.Proabivouac 11:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I second Proabivouac's and others' concerns here. Leave the guy alone, please. We normally treat "legal threats" and threats of real-world contacting of employers and the like as bannable offenses, no matter how valid a complaint the person who does the threatening thinks they have. We shouldn't be indulging in such behaviour ourselves now. Contacting the school to get the person damaged in his professional life and career is an absolute no-no. This has already gone way too far. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe this has gone too far (though maybe it wouldn't have if Mr. Pierce had simply apologised, and agreed not to use such a stupid method again), but I don't think that advocating a block to all those who are trying to protect wikipedia from mass vandalism is the best idea. Thε Halo 12:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Just as what is off-wiki should stay off-wiki, I'm a rather firm beleiver that except in clearcut cases of long term abuse, what happens on-wiki stays on wiki. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 12:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, "the Halo," neither you nor anyone else has the moral right to attack real people (excepting tyrants and the like) from behind your pseud: it's an abuse of the anonymity we're graciously allowed on this forum. A block is well warranted not just on moral but on practical grounds: by negatively intervening in someone's career, we leave the foundation open to further action. If God forbid we actually succeed, we have one very angry individual on our hands whom we can't simply wish away on this virtual noticeboard. It's vital that this kind of thing be run by the office. We can't have smart but clueless kids playing games with people's lives. Someone not being able to edit Misplaced Pages for awhile is trivial in the scheme of things.Proabivouac 12:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect to you too, I seriously doubt that the objective of getting in touch with the university that Mr. Pierce works for was to get him fired. It was to stop a tutor and all his students from vandalising with out having to block the entire university. It is important to assume good faith on the part of the editors who contacted the university, who I think believed they were acting for the good of the encyclopedia. Thε Halo 12:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. He is surely not going to get fired, and one may hope that that was not the intent of anyone contacting the university.... But clearly, contacting the university President (I'm not sure who that is, but I imagine it's something akin to a chancellor, vice chancellor, provost etc) to officially complain about one of their lecturer's actions could obviously potentially harm Pierce's career and get him into trouble. As stated ad nauseum, far, far, far worse offences (sometimes actual criminal acts) on Misplaced Pages are brushed aside with comparitively little action. I agree- with few exceptions, what's on wiki should stay on-wiki, and to harass someone in their real life because of (good faith!!) actions taken on here is absolutely bang out of order. I do hope as an aside that someone has pointed the university authorities to this noticeboard so that they can see for themselves the diversity of opinion to be found here and the context of the complaint. Let this be a sobering lesson to everyone- never, EVER use your real name or allow your personal details to be seen here on Misplaced Pages. Badgerpatrol 13:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

:: It is important to assume good faith on the part of the editors who contacted the university, who I think believed they were acting for the good of the encyclopedia. - I am assuming good faith of the editors but the sheer lack of consideration of the possible impact demonstrates that a) all and any such actions should be discussed very very deeply before implementation of said actions, that b) (and don't take this as a knock, it's not intended to) many of our editors and administrators while excellent here are quite young and without being rude, quite naive about the real-world ramifications (because of a lack of practical experience) of contacting a real world organisation in such a manner. It's fine saying "hey he's not going to be sacked!" and more than likely he's not - BUT we exist in a world where mis-use of email is used as a rod to beat staff with. While HE might not get sacked, that's not to say someone else would not be in a similar situation. I agree with others, it's one thing to contact an individual but contacting someone's employers (let alone multiple departments in the same organisation!) should be a WP:OFFICE action. --Fredrick day 14:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

User:IMTHEWORLDSGREATEST‎ blocked without final warning

Reposted here from Misplaced Pages talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents ···日本穣 00:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It seams the above user has been blocked without a final warning on his userpage. I gave him a no personal attacks warning and I've just checked through his talk history and there are no final warnings given. Surely a final warning should be given(as stated on AIV) before a block? RyanPostlethwaite 00:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

He posted this after multiple vandalism warnings. The block seems appropriate to me. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If a final warning had been posted previously I would hae agreed, but surely as he hadn't received one it not fair RyanPostlethwaite 00:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

C'mon. He was adding take it up the ass and loves anal sex vandalism. He would never have been a good contributor. The guys can come back tomorrow and register another username when he cools down. 128.118.106.28 00:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It makes no sense to be lawlerly and argue that "Oh, he wasn't given a final warning". His account was vandalism-only and he has an unacceptable account name. C'mon, this is obvious stuff. The anon has it right. --Cyde Weys 00:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Ryan, we don't follow procedures just for the sake of following procedures. See WP:IAR and WP:BOLD. When it's clear that a user is here to -harm- the project then it's time he got blocked. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah fair enough he doesn't seam like a very good editor, however, we should give everyone a chance. I just don't agree that someone should be blocked without been told they are about to be if they continue to vandalise RyanPostlethwaite 00:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I endorse this block of a vandalism-only account with no useful contributions and no prospect of any. Newyorkbrad 00:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not? Why does someone really need a warning that it is unacceptable to to replace valid encyclopedic content with take it up the ass and loves anal sex? Anyone stupid enough to not realize that that is vandalism and is unwelcome here shouldn't be editing anyway. --Cyde Weys 00:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The user has just left a statement on his talk page, might be good to look at it as to whether its believed or not. I agree with the policies WP:IAR and WP:BOLD and I'm not trying to change guildlines on blocking, I just think that its worth a look RyanPostlethwaite 00:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Support block. Obviously not here to do good, let's stop wasting time on such users and get back to the project, shall we? – Chacor 00:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Unblock and sysop. No, seriously, who cares. Keep him blocked. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 00:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, I agree we shouldn't waste time, and if the consensus is to keep blocked, lets keep blocked RyanPostlethwaite 00:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Just an observation, in passing...this was a brand new account (i.e. no history of good edits) and the vandalism edits started 11 minutes after the account was created. Clearly the creator of the account was the vandal, and he wasn't here to contribute productively to the project. -- Jim Douglas _(contribs) 04:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. How could the account be hacked if it was just created?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

There was definately some misleading information coming from somewhere, at first he said it was his mates that did it, then he soon brought up the hack allegation. After rereading this and his talk page it seams like I must have inadvertably had my 'help a vandal' hat on last night RyanPostlethwaite 08:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Zs9000 and WP:POINT

I have blocked Zs9000 (talk · contribs) for 48 hours for violating WP:POINT. After his article Muvy had been deleted per A7 and G11 four times, the user started nominating normal articles for speedy deletion ( ). The user apparently sees some kind of right-wing neo-imperialist capitalist neo-con pro-Israeli conspiracy in Misplaced Pages, judging from his edit summary "Reposted material that is not in violation to Wiki policies but which competes with Wiki admins' personal financial interests" and his repeatedly linking to in unrelated articles. I wouldn't be surprised if the reposting, the nominating for speedy deletion etc. continued despite the block. I would advise other admins to be careful when clearing out Category:Spam pages for speedy deletion. Aecis 00:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Kevin Pereira

Kevin Pereiras article is on air right now being vandalized mocking wikipedia. Someone please!!!!!!!! fix this!!!!!!!! Andman8 00:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing to our attention. In the future, you can report incidents like this to WP:AIV, you likely get a faster response there. Thanks, ~Crazytales (IP locations!) 03:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Removal of comments on talk pages

I would like input on whether this edit is justified. Irpen of course is a friend of Giano.

If consensus is that Irpen is within his rights to do this, I will drop the matter. Otherwise, I would appreciate someone asking Irpen to desist. --Ideogram 00:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Though not an admin, I think I can answer this one. The comment could be construed as a personal attack. It doesn't read like a reasoned argument. My advice is try to keep things civil, you're more likely to be listened to. Don't give in if you think someone is behaving unreasonably, just make sure you don't charge at the red rag! Mallanox 00:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If you believe the comment qualified as a personal attack and should have been removed on those grounds I will not disagree. --Ideogram 01:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Mallanox, he's actually asking about the removal of the comment, not the actual comment. He should not have removed the content since it was at WP:AN/I, not his user page (where he would have been able to freely remove material). Nishkid64 01:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something here, absolutely unjustified. It is attack-ish, but even then, the proper procedure is to remove or strike with replacement text to show that something was removed, not to simply act like it was never there. —bbatsell ¿? 03:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Someone made a personal attack, and another person removed it without regards to policy. Xiner (talk, email) 04:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Emergency protection requested

Kevin Pereira is being vandalized by multiple DDOS, high edit rate, please protect the page and inspect the history. Thanks. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 00:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Protected by Delirium 00:32, 26 January 2007 ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• I also protected Attack of the Show! and Olivia Munn as part of the same nonsense. I tried semiprotection but there were still sleeper accounts vandalizing at a pretty high rate. --Delirium 00:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Someone just hit my talk page. Too much more of this and we'll have to request DB lockdown. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 00:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

To everyone who doesn't realize it: Yuser was kidding. --Cyde Weys 00:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Are these icons necessary? --Cyde Weys 00:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Absolutly not. Any other questions? :) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. I have removed them. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 00:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Highest edit rate of vandalism I've seen on my experience on Misplaced Pages Template:Emot. I'll let you know if I find any more ... Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 00:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

For those keeping score at home, Kristin Holt, Layla Kayleigh , and Adam Sessler also are getting intermittently vandalized, although at nowhere near the same rate. --Delirium 01:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting; looks like a vandalbot. How about protecting all articles in ] and ]? (Just an observation that they are the articles getting vandalized.) Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 01:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

From what people are saying, it sounds like the show mentioned Misplaced Pages, driving a bunch of viewers to the site. Looks like it's dying down, probably due to the show ending. --Delirium 01:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. I'll keep my eye out for more vandalism of the same type. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 01:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

There were some limited vandalism on of the show's "contributors" articles, too. Hopefully it's settled down. -- Gogo Dodo 01:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't shake the fact that it must have been a vandalbot from the edit rate, but I believe it has calm down. Odd. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 01:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't. The edits were too different from each other. If it was a vandalbot, the edits would have been the same. The vandalism was all over the place and inserted into specific spots that a vandalbot would have difficulty in finding. Just a group of show viewers being opportunistic. See the Colbert incident on how easily it can escalate. -- Gogo Dodo 07:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Continued non-productive edits

Hi, I refer back to previous problems as reported here: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive181#Persistent_trolling_by_User:193.219.28.146_on_Talk:Ass_to_mouth_-_3RR_violation.3F . The anon user has just added the same comment he has numerous times. He was asked not to do it and a special template was made in an attempt to appease. It clearly hasn't worked. Please can this talk page be semi-protected? Mallanox 01:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

i need help

other users are using my IP address and now mine is blocked for no reason towards myself. I don't know how to fix it and i'd like to be unblocked. Kait101 01:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If you're posting here, you're not blocked from editing. Jkelly 02:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you're able to post here, you're not blocked. You probably ran into an autoblock that expired after a short period of time. Just make further edits under your username and you shouldn't encounter any more. --Coredesat 02:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Youthful user divulging info

I blanked User:Titan012, since he divulged his age and email address (and also his self-awarded barnstar). Does anything else need to be done? --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 02:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You need to explain why dislosing name, age, and email address is such a terrible thing that you should have blanked the page without consulting him. -Amark moo! 03:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I saw that and kinda disagree. There was no info that would let someone contact him "off-wiki", and he essentially admitted up-front that the barnstar was not fairly earned. —Dgies 03:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

He's not that young. I'm younger (14) and I even have my mobile phone number on my user page, should anyone want to leave a voicemail. ~Crazytales (IP locations!) 03:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't call the information a good idea, but it doesn't violate WP:CHILD, if you are implying it does. Never mind. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 03:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

"...personal information may be removed and the user counseled." I'm more worried about people posing as someone else they know and disclosing that person's info. Xiner (talk, email) 04:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

CRWXT

This user added original research (could possibly be vandalism) after being warned three times on his/her talk page. See this, this, this, and this. The user also vandalised a few pages such as SpongeBob SquarePants and has been warned about Carnage (Spider-Man: The Animated Series), Mind Games, Part Two, Mind Games (Spider-man) and Spider-Man: The New Animated Series as well. Squirepants101 03:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

May be a MascotGuy sock. Leave a message at user talk:Tregoweth, since that user is experienced in handling MascotGuy vandalism. ~Crazytales (IP locations!) 03:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Vexperiential 3RR violator

User:Vexperiential is engaged in a >3RR edit war in Black billionaires. He has been warned. He is reverting several other editors who are explaining their reasons and attempting to compromise. He just reverts every time. Jerry lavoie 03:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Please file a report at WP:AN3. Thank you, Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 03:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Personal attacks by FRM_SYD

The user User:FRM_SYD is engaged in personal attacks against me. . (MichaelJLowe 03:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC))

I gave User:FRM SYD a final {{npa4}} warning. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 03:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. (MichaelJLowe 04:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC))

Possible Illegal Role Account

I noticed the account Mediapr claims to be run by multiple people. According to WP:SOCK the only officially sanctioned role account Schwartz PR, so this would appear to be a violation. Am I mistaken? Wildnox04:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is certainly a violation. I'll notify them, which is probably preferrable to an instant block. -Amark moo! 04:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks like they've been creating vanity articles for themselves, well-referenced, but written like resumes and without evidence of notability. I just tagged Jerry Calliste Jr. for speedy deletion (definitely would like to have another admin check it, rather than deleting it myself, in case I missed notability). | Mr. Darcy talk 04:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the tag. Notability was asserted, and speedy tagging something that passed an AfD is not a good idea anyway. -Amark moo! 04:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Where is the assertion of notability? ("Notability was asserted" doesn't clear it up for me.) He didn't chart as Hashim, and I don't see any articles in that bloated refs section that would qualify him under WP:MUSIC. | Mr. Darcy talk 14:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Personal Attack by User:Fairness And Accuracy For All/User:NBGPWS

He accuses another editor (User:DeanHinnen) of lying. I've asked him to refactor this personal attack but he chose to delete my request rather than refactor. Jimbo is clear on this. User:Fairness And Accuracy For All and formerly User:NBGPWS has a long history of being blocked for personal attacks and other incivility and it is surprising that with his history he would take this so lightly.. Please have him refactor his comments and warn him that this type of incivility is not necessary to complete the encyclopedia. --Tbeatty 05:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but we conslusively know, as it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dino is lying, and my documentation of his lying is part of administrative proceedings - not in article mainspace, as Jimbo's comments are in reference to. Dino wrote that he contacted noted author and pundit TJ Walker (regarding an article used to support claims of 'death threats' in the Free Republic article) and that this author said that he never wrote the article in question. "I contacted TJ Walker and asked him whether he authored the article. He said, "Of course not." here (when it's been proven that TJ Walker undoubtedly did write the article - and it's even archived from his website on the www! here). Here is a list of the dozens of articles, including the one in question titled '7-6-99 Is the FreeRepublic.Com Really DeathThreat.Com?' , which Dino claims Walker told him he 'didn't write'. TJ Walker - All Columns 1999-2000 That my friend, was a bald-faced lie, and how you could defend such actions is beyond me. -Fairness & Accuracy For All

Um... you took Jimbo's quote out of context. In that case, there was simply no evidence of lying. Here there is. -Amark moo! 05:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

No, it wasn't out of context. There are plenty of explanations that don't include lying including different recollections as well as multiple people name TJ Walker. You have no idea whether he talked to TJ Walker or not (or which TJ walker, texas ranger). This is the whole point of AGF. Dino was blocked for sockpuppetry and that block was overturned despite all BryanFromPalatine socks and edits and is no longer an issue. The relevant facts for this were that the source for the claim at the FR article pulled the article. Regardless of who may have prompted them to do so, the source is the ones that did it. This user has agreed not to edit the article. Please stop molesting him and allow him to edit Misplaced Pages just like the rest of us. Tbeatty 11:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah - Dino called TJ Walker the baseball player, questioned him about the article he may have written documenting Free Republic's death threats, and then satisified that this was the correct TJ Walker who was purported to have written the article in question, reported these denials on Wiki and to the Wiki Media Foundation employee who he coerced into editing for him. Riiight! LOL! We didn't all just fall off the turnip truck! - Fairness & Accuracy For All

FYI, Possible sock? User:The Dino just created.--MONGO 05:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

That would fit the pattern, Mongo. User:BryanFromPalatine (the original puppetmaster in this sordid affair) uses a LOT of different socks. --BenBurch 06:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Mongo. - Fairness & Accuracy For All 06:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

And now legal threats

Here. Presume for a moment that FAAFA/NBGPWS might be wrong (i.e. AGF). This is simply not appropriate. --Tbeatty 12:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

That's no threat. Dino made libelous claims about author TJ Walker, saying he didn't write one of his articles, and that TJ Walker had even admitted this to Dino. Now TJ is suspected of plagarism or worse because of what Dino 'claims' and what he wrote in several different places on Wiki. If Dino doesn't substantiate or withdraw these claims, I will, as a fan of TJ Walker's work, be forced to notify him of the public, libelous smears against his character by Dino. I strongly suggest you unhitch your caboose from this train wreck, Beatty. - Fairness & Accuracy For All

A) that is not libelous and B) claiming that his edits might be a crime and claiming he is misusing his employers property/time sounds pretty threatening to me. It is certainly against policy. We are not here to intimidate other users. Please stop doing it. --Tbeatty 14:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there an Admin in the house?

Someone who will respect the recent ruling of Unblock-en-l after they invested more than a week of exhaustive and patient review of the evidence, and made the right call? Someone who will ensure that others respect that ruling as well? Is any admin on this website going to step up and do the right thing?

It was decided here that I am not a sockpuppet, and that I am making a good faith effort to remove libelous statements from a Misplaced Pages article and protect Misplaced Pages from litigation. May I continue to make those good faith efforts? Are my good faith efforts going to be matched by the good faith efforts of others in this community?

These libelous statements are being defended with a fanaticism that reminds me of Iwo Jima. Would someone do something about this, please? Dino 13:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

They already told me that they didn't consider anything other than sockpuppet charges. The very troubling charges regarding your claims of talking to author TJ Walker, and him 'admitting' that he didn't write an article attributed to him (I'm not sure if you're alleging plagarism or ghost writing, or that aliens from planet Xenu wrote the article) and your posting of these smears against TJ's charcter and professional carreer, and you coercing a Wiki employee to edit the Free Republic article based on these claims of yours will be investigated Dean. If I am wrong, and what you claim is the complete truth, I will voluntarily withdraw from editing the Free Republic article forever. Fairness & Accuracy For All

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

Miltopia has decided it is in Misplaced Pages's best interests to welcome those who are here for disruption. Cplot harassment account OurAnthem (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) made four edits, the last being a test3 vandalism warning to my talk page, and at the same time, Miltopia decided to welcome him . I'd appreciate a neutral third party remind Miltopia that welcoming those who are here for disruption is disruptive.--MONGO 06:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

My experience with Miltopia on Encyclopedia Dramatica has been that he generally tries to tone down anti-Misplaced Pages activity. I have personally tried to create attack pages on ED and have been reverted by him. Look at this: <www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:Miltopia>. He's actually getting on some of their nerves because of this. He also mediates disputes between users. I know that you don't like ED, MONGO, but Miltopia really isn't the person to go after here.--Desnm 06:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

None of what you posted has anything to do with the fact that he decided to welcome an obvious vandal after that vandal left a ridiculous warning on my talkpage. Please use your real account next time you post here if you want any credibility.--MONGO 07:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no other account I can use.--Desnm 07:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

So warned. Based on the times of the edits, I think it's unlikely that he posted the welcome at 03:22 after seeing the troll edit to your talk page, also at 03:22, but I'll bet he saw the earlier edits. Thatcher131 07:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, the vandal account made an edit at 22:22, Miltopia welcomed him at 22:22 and a User:PullToOpen tagged the account with a sock tag at 22:22. Miltopia simply has my talkpage watchlisted and decided to welcome the vandal soon as he saw the vandalism to my talkpage. The times are all in the same minute, but Mitopia was on line and had just made an edit a few minutes before.(22:22 CTZ in U.S., sorry about that)--MONGO 07:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly possible. Thatcher131 07:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It's also possible that I was watching WP:AN, having edited there recently and saw his comment, tried and failed to revert it (got beat to the punch, see below) and figured he was about to get banned anyway. Furthermore, it's also possible that I care so little for MONGO that he could go on a 3 month wikibreak and the only hint I would have of his departure is the lack of pointless threads on ANI about me. Milto LOL pia 10:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I may get lynched for saying it, but in the interests of Misplaced Pages, someone has to - whatever happened to assuming good faith? Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 07:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

So, welcoming an vandal account is not disruptive?--MONGO 08:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not. He was banned. The welcome had zero effect whatsoever. Milto LOL pia 10:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

As much as I never thought I would ever say this, I'm with Miltopia on this one. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 10:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Whilst welcoming a blatant vandal isn't the most productive use of time, it will do no harm; it's certainly not disruptive, and this seems like a complaint with no grounds. Proto::► 12:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

WHOOPDEDOO

I had just tried to revert him on WP:AN and had been beaten to the punch by someone with rollback. I welcomed him as a joke, knowing he would be banned. Not particularly constructive, but nor was it destructive. It has nothing to do with MONGO. Everything Desnm said is true. Stop making a federal case out of nothing. Milto LOL pia 10:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Admin exiting the building?

Someone may want to look over the contribs and actions of administrator User:Lucky 6.9, who appears to be leaving the site after an RFC filing that seems to have come from some earlier bad blood. He's blocked himself, from the looks of things, as his last act, but it seems it might be worth an admin looking things over. Tony Fox (arf!) 06:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but my gut feeling is that he will probably return eventually - he previously declared (twice) that he would leave for good, but came back both times. I think he was probably just upset, and if he calms down, or gets bored after a while, who knows what he might do... Scobell302 06:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

There has been a request for arbitration filed regarding Lucky 6.9. Daniel.Bryant 11:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Those requests appear frivolous. He protected his talk page when he needed to cool down which in my opinion is a good thing. At least one of the RFC links is totally dead. If that page needs to be unprotected, another admin can do that. As far as I can determine, his talk page material is properly archived. There's no need for an arbitration case. - Mgm| 12:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I encourage you to give any opinion you have at the arbitration page, as it is unlikely they will read it here. I didn't submit the RfAr, nor do I agree with it, but nevertheless felt it would benefit any discussion that takes place here. Daniel.Bryant 12:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Guess what I've done. - Mgm| 13:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

NLP article - COI - aiding scrutiny long term - and more positive points

Hi all. The notifications here seem to be helping the NLP article move along. I am adding more information here to help long term scrutiny and to help you with your assessments of the ongoing status compared to the past. I am also presenting this in order for other editors on the NLP article to have their say.

Investigating the archives has shown some more evidence of meatpuppetry and involved editors with possible COIs - who may still be editing on the article.

The anonymous editor (58.178.141.147 - also using various other numbers) seems to me to have been the most argumentative in editing and uncivil in editsummaries – calling for blocks on the article and in edit summaries – and restoring argumentative phrasing and debate into the article. There seems to be 2 possibilities. It could be that 58.178.141.147 is the previous NLP editor User FT2 . The approach is the same according to a brief search: . The user is editing by presenting lists of non-conclusive articles, obscuring science views, and adding or restoring very argumentative phrasing into the article. It seems certain to me that the editor 58.178.141.147 is as non-neutral as FT2 in relation to the NLP article. ...remove (false) personal attack... The information I posted previously on ANI shows they are registered in the same town and are part of the same NLP provider registry. I'll inform you of any other possible past-present editors who seem to have COI or ongoing meatpuppetry issues.

Considering the nature of NLP it would seem to be fairly impossible to stop all meatpuppetry from NLP licensed providers. Instead it would seem to me to be more constructive to provide a situation where editors of all views can simply get along constructively and to verbally discourage meatpuppetry/sockpuppetry and COI problems. Mediation using a neutral mediator would also be an option that I am very much open to. I may suggest this to the other editors soon.

There is some evidence of agreement on the talkpage and userpages - that there is an ongoing determination to get the article into a balanced NPOV shape and deal with problems long term eg . Again - if I am doing anything that is not constructive I would be happy if an admin could point it out here or on my talkpage. AlanBarnet 06:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The editors of the NLP article all agree that AlanBarnet is a sockpuppet of banned editor (HeadleyDown). We are still waiting for a block. --Comaze 13:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

User:The Weekly Musician built a homepage to advertise commercial website

User:The Weekly Musician has no edits other than to create an elaborate user page describing his website "The Weekly Musician" and another edit to a city article inserting a spam link to his website. Thought it should be deleted under the Misplaced Pages is not a web hosting service guideline. For future reference, is this the place to report something like this, or is somewhere else more appropriate. Caper13 08:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• It's usually handled on WP:MFD or speedy deletion. - Mgm| 12:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

From AIV

User:Stevenstone93's user page. Is it vandalism? Not necessarily. But somebody needs to take a look at it to decide just what level of intolerant opinions are allowed on user pages. Thanks, --Tractorkingsfan 11:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I transferred this here because it doesn't really fit AIV but I think it's something that can use some input. --Woohookitty 11:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the contents of the page since he had added a copyright notice to it that clearly was incompatible with the GFDL. I wil leave a note about this on his talk page. Gwernol 11:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The copyright notice he added was not incompatible with the GFDL. The copyright notice said only "Copyright ©, Steven Suttles Stone Corporation LTD. Trademark". As a matter of law, we all retain the copyright to the original material we publish on Misplaced Pages. Mr. Stone is perfectly at liberty to add a copyright notice to his user page, as long as he understands that he has licensed said copyright under the terms of the GFDL. Perhaps you were confused by the "vandalism prohibited" notice, which is not presented as a licence term, and in any event is merely a concise reiteration of Misplaced Pages's own vandalism policy. —Psychonaut 11:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

OK. But let's not get away from what I think Tractorkingsfan and my point is. I'm not sure that it's ok for someone to spend all of their time here (or almost all of it) editing their own user page and nothing else. Seems close to a violation of Misplaced Pages is not a web space provider to me. --Woohookitty 11:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I see your point. Although this user did make some mainspace edits (sometime like a month ago), all of which got reverted right away due to a number of reasons. And recently he's been editing only his user page. Some people around us just act weirdly, but I'm not sure if we can take any action against the types of users like him because they simply don't vandalise pages– PeaceNT 12:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Pursuant to WP:NPA, I've removed the section of hate speech entitled 'An Introduction To My Personality And My Opinions', which included such charming quotes as " stupid Negro degenerates", "low-class Negro dogs", "stupid uneducated immoral animals", and "These degenerates should KEEP THEMSELVES IN THE CLOSET". I've also warned the user about such content. Proto::► 11:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Request input

Badlydrawnjeff has decided that, since he likes instruction creep and he alleges that many of our processes contain instruction creep , therefore WP:CREEP is no longer a guideline . I would appreciate some feedback on this matter. >Radiant< 13:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it was never a "long-standing guideline." It was tagged as nothing, then as an essay until Radiant decided that it was a guideline. When that was noticed by a couple editors and brought up at the talk page, User:jossi marked it down to {{proposed}} per the discussion. Since that time, no effort has been made to build consensus for it, and there's plenty of examples of the point that the essay doesn't reflect current practice. . --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Radiant, I don't understand how this is an incident requiring administrator attention ... if you're looking for feedback on your proposed guideline, it would be better placed at Misplaced Pages:Village pump. If it's about Jeff's response, what do you expect to happen? Proto::► 13:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• It's not my proposed guideline. I seek feedback on Jeff's unilateral declaration that it isn't a guideline. Last time this came up (where he points to) it was discussed on its talk page, the village pump as well as the admin noticeboard (so his allegation that it wasn't discussed is false) and it was pointed out that most people agree that we should avoid instruction creep. Hence it is a guideline. >Radiant< 13:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict x 2) To me, the way that guidelines are created is that enough people generally agree that they're a guideline that nobody objects when a {{guideline}} tag is placed on the page (much the same way edits are made to articles). Whether I agree with that project page or not, I don't think that there's consensus to mark it as a guideline; even if a page has been around for a long time, that doesn't necessarily mean that it fits guideline potential (would you place {{guideline}} on WP:BJAODN?). I'm not going to change the tag back to {{proposed}}, though. (By the way, I think Radiant!s already reverted this page 3 times in 24 hours; while this falls short of WP:3RR, I would advise everyone involved to sort out a dispute by discussion before the edit war rather than after it.) --ais523 13:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no knowledge of this particular dispute. But it is my exprience that Radiant has a sometimes overly aggreesive and dogmatic attitude when attempting to force through his desired changes and when dealing with criticism that is not always conducive to consensus building, in my view. If Jeff's done this without first canvassing opinions on the relevent talk page, then that is a bit naughty however. Badgerpatrol 13:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but I'm not forcing through changes here. I'm endorsing the status quo. Jeff is forcing through a change that I disagree with, and indeed he has done this without first canvassing opinions on the relevent talk page. >Radiant< 13:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

This is false. The status quo was that this was not a guideline, until you and tagged it with no discussion. The only people attempting to start a dialogue are the ones who oppose it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• It gets problematic when people start talking about "marking it as a guideline". What matters is whether it is a guideline. It's about the content, not the tag. In other words, do most people agree that instruction creep is a bad thing? Do overly complex policy proposals get struck down under WP:CREEP? Do people link to it a lot? >Radiant< 13:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• And are you and Jeff headed for meltdown? Fundamentally, I agree that WP:CREEP is a fair statement of the consensus on excess process. Tactically, I don't think it merits yet another edit war. There being no deadline, a bit of discussion would not hurt. Guy (Help!) 13:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• To answer your first question, the answer would be yes if I was more than simply annoyed, but I'm not. I have no intention on spending much more, if any, time on the subject here. .--badlydrawnjeff talk 14:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, this should be talken to the village pump. As far as I can tell from the history, this seems to be a debate about whether CREEP's long-standing history on meta means that it is a guideline on en.wikipedia or whether it needs independent consensus. BDJ isn't the only person on his side of the debate, and I haven't seen any evidence that he wouldn't be amenable to dispute resolution. Without touching the irony of the position that (1) the automatic acceptance of guidelines from meta (2) means we automatically get a guideline saying don't make too many guidelines, the issue seems perfect for the village pump. TheronJ 15:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Incivility and personal attack by User:Johnpedia

I had hoped that it would not come to this. I chastised User:Johnpedia, here, for inappropriate personal attacks (calling another editor a "wikinazi", etc. in this post). Johnpedia came back at me with a personal attack starting here. I let it go because I had been a bit harsh but warned him/her to stop. After repeated confrontation responses from Johnpedia and further warnings from me I thought Johnpedia had finally taken my advice to just not "talk" to me if he could not control himself. Apparently that is not the case as he just posted again on my talk page. I was prepared to let that go too and just let it end there until I saw User:Johnpedia and this diff where he posts a very obvious reference that I am "having mental health problems". Can an admin please help Johnpedia "get it" that this behavior is inappropriate and it is not just my "having mental health problems" (laff). Other users have also warned him about this behavior but it doesn't seem to be working. Thanks --Justanother 13:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I hate to say it, but I think this should be let go pending the user performing further egregious personal attacks. One of the tough things about being a responsible user on Misplaced Pages is accepting that people won't always react well to warnings; rather than insisting that people aknowledge that their behavior was in error and improve 100% immediately, it's sometimes better to let petulant responses go. (That is to say, it's not important if his behavior improves in response to your warning, only that it improves.) If he had responded to your warnings by swearing and insulting you directly, I'd block him for sure, but as it is I think it's better to let him alone and see if he repeats the personal attacks in other contexts. I don't see another really egregious personal attack since your last warning; if I missed it, then of course disregard my comments. I also won't object if another admin handles this differently. -- SCZenz 14:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I was of the same mind but I think that this diff constitutes the sufficiently "egregious personal attack since last warning". --Justanother 14:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Blocked 24 hours. I'm with Justanother - that comment on his userpage was way out of line, and shows a fundamental lack of respect for other editors. | Mr. Darcy talk 14:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh! I'm sorry, I missed entirely that "just another user" was a reference to User:Justanother. Of course you're right to block. Sorry for the mistake, Justanother—I've adjusted my speech above appropriately. -- SCZenz 15:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Proxy spamming

There is some kind of spamming by proxy currently in progress. See *.supermortgagerate.info and *.besttradelink.info. ✤ JonHarder 14:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

They're all reverted, at least at the moment. | Mr. Darcy talk 14:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I take it back, the spam continues... | Mr. Darcy talk 14:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Continuing non-stop. This is revealing hundreds of proxy addresses. Is there a way to go back and identify and block them, since several editors are pitching in with the removal and its hard to keep track of the IPs? ✤ JonHarder 14:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Blacklist? yandman 14:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

These links need to go on the spam blacklist. I have requested it and an admin on meta needs to add them. - m:Talk:Spam_blacklist --Aude (talk) 14:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on blocking the IP's right now.--Isotope23 14:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Severe vandalism of article Opus Dei

I propose a half-protection of article Opus Dei due to aggravated vandalism by IP 58.160.187.3, who not only inserted deliberate factual errors but also replaced the original image of Escrivá in the article into a forged and intentionally insulting image. An identical attack was made 12 days ago by User:Pere-la-chase.--Túrelio 15:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

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