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Further on the Professor Tim Pierce situation

Response from Jimbo

Note from Jimbo: Wow, this is just wildly inappropriate. I spoke to Mr. Pierce by telephone several days ago and the issue was completely resolved back then. I think Zoe's pursuit of this in this way is wildly inappropriate and should cease immediately, and that she should apologize to him for it. I very much do not approve of this kind of random hostility from Misplaced Pages editors.--Jimbo Wales 09:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. Jorcoga _{09:12, Saturday, January 27 2007}

For my part, I think this issue to have been entirely overblown, and I surely can't understand editors' being so irked by a relatively innocuous incitement to vandalism, but I don't think Jimbo's upbraiding of Zoe to be particularly constructive. Zoe appears to have made her role as a "private citizen" (as against an official representative of the Foundation) exceedingly clear in her correspondences (I may have misstated the case a bit; see Opabinia regalis infra), and there appears here to be no prospective disruption of the project (I suppose one might suggest that were Pierce, for instance, to be fired, bad press for the project might entail, but that's seems rather unlikely), such that, whilst off-Wiki actions that harm the project or imperil editing might be dealt with on-Wiki, there appears to be no need for on-Wiki action or comment here (the issue probably ought not to have been at AN/I at all). I may be altogether puzzled over this stir, and Jimbo might think Zoe's actions to be immoral (I personally have no moral objection), but it is not appropriate for one editor to evaluate the propriety or morality of another editor's actions, especially those that take place off-Wiki and only tangentially affect the project. Jimbo's comment comes very close to referencing an editor rather than her conduct and, even as I might agree with his description of this situation, I can't help but understand it has high-handed. Joe 20:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

"I spoke to Mr. Pierce by telephone several days ago and the issue was completely resolved back then." Well that's nice. He or Jimbo should have told Zoe that. It isn't like Mr. Pierce didn't know Zoe was writing to him. No offense, but that lack of communication here from the WMF end is a much bigger problem than Zoe's conduct. If she'd been informed, I doubt she would of continued to pursue this. Someone needs to apologize to her for not letting her know what was going on. Nor was the hostility "random" (AGF Jimbo?). Vandalism is not a "random" subject around here. pschemp | talk 20:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Aye, endorse a lot of that from Joe. Quite simply, do we have a guarantee that this will not happen again? If so, then this whole thing can be archived and forgotten. Moreschi 20:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Guarantee from whom? Mr Pierce or Zoe? (That's a rhetorical question). Carcharoth 23:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The voice of reason. This was massively, massively inappropriate. Hopefully all concerned are suitably chastened and that's the end of it. It seems like the University saw this complaint for the spurious nonsense that it was, but if not I hope Jimbo has attempted to use his influence to make right any damage done to Mr. Pierce's reputation. Badgerpatrol 16:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• With respect Jimbo, it is worth remembering that Zoe did what she did out of concern for the integrity of Misplaced Pages, and to protect the encyclopedia. Her actions, if over-zealous, were done in good faith and it would do well for us all to remember that we are all valued contributors until it is proven we are destructive influences. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 20:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If people had known the issue was completely resolved I'm sure this wouldn't have been all over the noticeboard for the subsequent several days. Jimbo's remarks to Zoe may be taken as more harsh than they are meant, and might have done less harm if sent by email. Tom Harrison 21:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone assumes bad faith here, but Zoe's emails were overly aggressive nonetheless. Things like "Please respond to me, or I may find it necessary to take this information to the press" are simply unacceptable, IMHO. We are supposed to be polite, nice and friendly. And those comments in this thread that compare vandalism on Misplaced Pages with vandalism in the real world (Y'know, that's where it takes a little bit more than one click to repair the damage that was done) are just mind-blowing. While Jimbo's words could've been a bit more diplomatic, I'm glad he did comment in this thread. --Conti|✉ 21:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Joe says above that Zoe made her role as a 'private citizen' clear in her messages; actually I think it was quite the opposite from her first letter. I would never think to sign a message "Misplaced Pages system administrator" (system administrator?) and, even if we in the Misplaced Pages world know that 'admin' doesn't imply action associated with the Foundation, there's no reason to suppose that Mr. Pierce would have known that. That said, pschemp is right that if the situation had already been resolved, a note to that effect in the original thread would likely have preempted all of this. Opabinia regalis 22:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I based that comment on a review of only some of the correspondence, and in my cursory review I somehow missed "Misplaced Pages system administrator". Though I don't know that one would have inferred from Zoe's note that she was writing in some official capacity, I readily concede that my initial characterization was not quite accurate. To the extent that Jimbo's comments were restricted to Zoe's ostensibly acting as a Foundation representative, they were probably, as Conti observes, not inappropriate (at least in substance if not in tone); I do continue to think, though, that his comments were unnecessarily broad in scope. Joe 23:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

what? someone unconnected with Misplaced Pages would not infer that an email coming off someone identifing themselves as a XXXXX,XXXXX Misplaced Pages Systems Administrator was not actually from Misplaced Pages (and no I don't expect anyone not connected to the project to any distinction between this site and the actual foundation) - pull the other one. --Fredrick day 00:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

While I'm glad that it's resolved and we can all move on, I think it's important to note that there can be no doubt at all that Zoe's intentions were to protect the integrity of the encyclopaedia, and that she would have dropped the matter immediately if either Jimbo had stated that the matter had been resolved or Mr Pierce had agreed not to do it again. I haven't involved myself with this topic so far, but I read various comments about trying to ruin a man and deprive him of his livelihood, etc., and it was obvious that Zoe was looking for a simple assurance that he didn't intend to give this assignment to any future students, and that he was refusing to give this assurance. Musical Linguist 22:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

She would have dropped it if Jimbo has stated it had been resolved? What about all the editors and admin who said "hold on a minute this is wrong" - right until the end, Zoe did not acknowledge any concern - she carried on in an entirely high-handed manner. She did not try to get any concensus about WHOM to e-mail or WHAT to email - she just want off as a loose cannon. ---- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fredrick day (talk • contribs) 00:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC).

Fred, you seem familiar somehow. Would we know you better under a different username? Regards, Ben Aveling 03:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I had a previous account - it was never blocked, warned or anything like that. I used my right to vanish and started again from scratch. All activity with the old account ceased before I started using this one, I have not edited any article that my old account did or anything of that natute to game the system. So the answer is "yes" and the answer to the second un-asked question is "no I'm not the sockpuppet of some banned user". --Fredrick day 10:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that if Jimbo had made it clear here that he'd taken care of it, Zoe (whose efforts in this matter I thoroughly applaud) wouldn't have felt compelled to pursue it. "Random hostility" isn't a good description of her actions at all. Her actions were neither random (Pierce fired the first salvo here) nor hostile (she made a good-faith effort to resolve it directly with Pierce in a way that protected Misplaced Pages from future attacks). Asking her to stop is completely within Jimbo's rights, but let's not pillory her for actions that a lot of experienced users and admins supported. | Mr. Darcy talk 00:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, that settles that, then. Go vandalize all you want, nobody at Misplaced Pages gives a flying fig. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the need to go OTT. We deal with vandalism all the time. It's not a big problem. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 00:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Folks, I think the main point here is that some things just do not rightly fall under the purvey of editors and admins. What should have happened once the Pierce incident was discovered was to report it to Brad and Jimbo. There is a time to "know your role" and not overreach it. There is a time to work through and under authority. This was one of them. No blame, just live and learn. CyberAnth 04:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Particularly the learning bit. Please let's not forget this incident when something similar happens again in the future. Let's hope that individual admins won't be so quick to take certain actions upon themselves, and let's hope that there is better communication and understanding all round between admins and the WMF staff. Carcharoth 23:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

For those of you not watching WP:JIMBO, here are the details of the resolution. —xyzzy_n 00:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

This Professor sounds real childish anyway - best not rise to his bait. LuciferMorgan 01:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

What an odd statement. We are talking about a guy who has been hounded for several days, has been accused- totally without any justification whatsoever- of committing a crime, and seems ultimately to have (bizarrely) been threatened with having the G-Men sicced on him! All this for setting a well-intentioned, albeit perhaps a little clumsy, class assignment with a very important and worthwhile aim (and, let us hope, effect). I am fed up with seeing this guy unfairly maligned when he has done absolutely nothing wrong. It strikes me that it is not he that has acted childishly in this scenario. Jimbo has handled the situation as it should have always been handled- sensibly, proportionately, and in an adult fashion. Let that be the end of it. Badgerpatrol 02:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It appears from her talkpage that Zoe has now left the building. --Fredrick day 17:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed it does. And that's a big loss. She was (is) one of the best we've got. | Mr. Darcy talk 17:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

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

Discussion

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)

D'oh, thanks. I did a ctrl-f for that but couldn't find it. Must have mistyped. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:56, 26 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)

Nice job on assuming good faith there, Probavouac. In order:

• I provided that info to Pierce, his dept chair and assistant chair and Prof Bryan when I contacted them.
• I made no assumption of the accuracy of the first report and asked them not to, either; I asked them to investigate and stated that I took the claimed incident as a serious abuse by someone. I was rather explicit in saying that I didn't know whether Pierce had done it and that they should not act until they were able to determine what happened. I also apologized in advance if turned out that this was a Joe job framing Pierce.

You're right, this is not a game. I don't take WP as a game, and the professors involved didn't take the incident as a game. I made a responsible and precise report of what was known (vandalism) and claimed without factual confirmation (Instructor Pierce behind it) and left it for them to determine the truth of the situation and handle it.

The email will be provided to anyone who wants to see a copy if there is any question as to its contents.

You owe me an apology. Georgewilliamherbert 22:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for having characterizing your actions as cowardly. However, they remain disgraceful.Proabivouac 00:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, Proabivouac, that sounds perilously close to a legal threat. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why, are you planning on banning him? It sounds nothing of the sort to me. If I were Zoe's professor, I think I might make this play required reading for her. Let's everybody calm down and grow up- this is way over the top.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Badgerpatrol (talk • contribs)

Of course it's not, Zoe. I'm not Mr. Pierce, and I have no idea what if any action could be taken. It's simply very unwise to give people cause to consider it. I consider that the virtual nature of this box, wherein you do good work, has led you to lose perspective. This noticeboard must never be allowed to become a platform for organizing real-world harassment, however justified you think it may be.Proabivouac 00:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yawn. This has gone beyond bizarre. There's no need to discuss there any further until there are more developments. User:Zoe|(talk) 20:54, 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)

He has resolved to repair the damage, but that's a resolution we're pretty sure he can't keep. What he's doing may not be ilegal, but it's immoral. Regards, Ben Aveling 23:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Another arbitrary break

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)

Whoa, how did we get here? This is a massive overreaction; please rethink. This guy evidently didn't know what he was doing and delved in without doing the proper research (he had people print old copies of the articles?) but that doesn't merit going after him with such vigor, which looks vindictive even if it isn't intended that way. As someone said above, we extend more courtesy and give more 'second chances' to the most inveterate of trolls. Opabinia regalis 15:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

We got here because he won't pledge not to do it again. Would you rather we blocked the entire university in perpetuity? User:Zoe|(talk) 16:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. That would the correct way of dealing with this matter, albeit an extreme solution. If someone infringes Misplaced Pages's rules, then the solution should be found on Misplaced Pages. You are talking about making someone accountable in real life for something that occurs on-Wiki. That is in my view only ever a last ditch solution when said person has broken the law, not a comparitively unimportant community-defined Misplaced Pages rule. As correctly stated elsewhere, pretty much anything that spills over into the real world should be left to a WP:OFFICE action, and is not the domain of individual editors. By the same token, I'm sure you thought you were doing the right thing, and I'm sure you acted in good faith, albeit precipitously. Badgerpatrol 16:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

So what's actually happening now? Above you mentioned an ultimate of friday (for a response) that you has made to the university? Are you still chasing them? Have you ceased activity because of community concern? --Fredrick day 19:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

In the first place, I don't think that "community concern" is opposed to my actions. In the second place, I am waiting for a response from the University's ethics office. User:Zoe|(talk) 20:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

WHAT! have you actually read all of the comments here? you don't see community concern there? I'm sorry but I find that an amazing statement to make. --Fredrick day 21:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Community concern is irrelevant. If Zoe or anyone else, acting as a private individual, wishes to contact the university about this matter it is none of our business. Seeing as admins, unlike Jimbo or those from WP:OFFICE, do not speak for the Wikimedia Foundation they would be acting as private individuals who have been affected by this outrageous misconduct. Moreschi 21:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

That is a complete cop-out, disgusting in fact. I am now going to act as a "private individual" and write to prof. Pierce (using my real name) and tell him that I think the conduct is an total disgrace. It's a complete cop-out because it is effectively a backdoor that allows people hiding under pseduonoms to email people's workplaces in regards to wikipedia and then say "hey but actually this is nothing to do with wikipedia - it's a private thing". I think this stinks - totally stinks. --Fredrick day 21:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You are completely free to do that: enjoy. This does not change the fact that when someone misuses their academic authority in this way to destroy knowledge, rather than build, we, acting as individual Wikipedians, should have the ability to complain about it. Vandalizing Misplaced Pages should not lead to workplaces being contacted - though we contact schools, do we not, to stop persistent vandalism by the kids - but misusing your academic authority in this manner by encouraging others to vandalize should certainly do so. Moreschi 21:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

And actually now I think about it, how did we get here? that implies that others were involved in deciding to send the email and that dicussion occured. Where did this discussion occur? Where was the concensus to send those emails? Who are the we you mention? --Fredrick day 19:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Just wow. What a stunning, draconian display of presumed power carried from cyberspace to the real world. There are people who have to work for a living to feed their families, pay their mortgages, go to the doctor or the dentist, and most of these people have to, in some way, interact with cyberspace at some point in time. Very few people in this world have the luxury of not working. As a student I learned something important from a professor's inapprorpriate attempt at a Misplaced Pages assignment, and so did the professor. We have just taught this instructor's students what kind of a community we are--I hope it's a pretty picture we painted, or even an accurate one.KP Botany 20:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, this academic's conduct sickens me. The wanton destruction of knowledge - free knowledge, yet - violates just about every single academic principle I can think of. If humanity has got to the stage where we will happily destroy knowledge in some petty game of "my source is better than yours", then it is time to start despairing. The Wikipedians who have to waste their volunteer time in reverts and blocks have every right to be cheesed off and to pursue the matter further. This...person...deserves at least rap over the knuckles, and some detailed lessons in clarity of thinking. Moreschi 20:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. Badgerpatrol 16:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Capricious section break

I split the section here because it seems to be on a slighty different tack, and used "capricious" in place of the overused "arbitrary" for the sake of variety. Picaroon 00:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Wow guys.... what are you all thinking? This is completely overblown here. Pierce might have been a bit out of line, but he was illustrating a valid point: we should not be used for academic papers. He showed that to his students. Doing is better then learning. Look at this like the reporters who snuck knives and such past TSA to show how poorly they perform,ed. It may have been somewhat out of line, but beutifully made the point to many people. Zoe, chill out a bit. You're normally on the ball, so I trust you. Breathe deep for a minute and you'll see. -M 21:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

In the case of wrecking the free-content work of others and then wasting the time of a large amount of people on a spectacular scale, no, doing is not better than learning. Petty intellectual games like this are revolting, not only in the time they waste but also in the small-minded willingness to destroy displayed. Moreschi 21:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Moreschi, we must remember that not everyone takes this encyclopedia as seriously as those of us who write and otherwise maintain it do. The general public doesn't give us the respect that our millions of hours deserve, and we shouldn't blame them; they know no better, and they won't until they come along and begin editing. There's even an essay sortof about this. Picaroon 23:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that essay, but unfortunately it is also one of the most stubby, incomplete essays I have ever seen. Carcharoth 01:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Mr. Pierce’s point was not a valid one. Here’s what you do, if you’re reading. Stand in front of the class. Speak clearly: “Any papers using Misplaced Pages as a primary source will be handed back to you unmarked. We do not use wikipedia as a primary source because it isn’t trust worthy at the level I want you writing. Anyone can put anything on there, regardless of whether it is true or not, so don’t use it.” You know, that will be enough. It is what I was told, and, surprise surprise, I didn’t use wikipedia as a primary source. Mr. Pierce, if I remember correctly, is teaching at a university. These people aren’t stupid. If you tell them not to do something, they won’t do it, and if they do, make them change it. Mr. Pierce could have stopped all this a long time ago, and the thing that I’m really worried about is the fact that because of one mans bad idea we may (though probably won’t) have to ban an entire university. Thε Halo 23:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Because what he's suggesting is the online equivalent of his asking his classmembers to pick a random store, throw a brick through the front window and see how long it takes the cops to arrive. HalfShadow 23:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You can't be serious. You don't have to pay for and replace a broken window when you vandalize Misplaced Pages. All you have to do is click once on the rollback button, and it's all good again. Some of the comments on this thread sound like vandalism on Misplaced Pages should be a punishable crime. That's just absurd. --Conti|✉ 23:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

HalfShadow: I refer you to my comment about the general public not taking Misplaced Pages seriously. Throwing bricks through windows is viewed as bad by the general public and the Misplaced Pages community. Vandalizing Misplaced Pages is viewed as bad by the Misplaced Pages community, but not the general public. Picaroon 23:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why shouldn't wikipedia vandalism be a crime? All that clicking takes a lot of people a lot of time. If we had just one button marked "roll back all vandalism" I might agree with you, but we don't and I don't. Cheers, Ben Aveling 23:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why isn't it a crime? Because we allow - no, encourage - people to edit. Think about it like this: markets encourage people to shop. Why isn't buying all the cereal in the aisle a crime, then? Why isn't taking all the free samples of brownies a crime, then? It might sound like a random comparison, but if you think, its quite similar. Picaroon 00:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thsi would be more like taking all the free samples, or throwing the brownies all over the store. Actually, it would be more like getting a hundred people to knock over everything in the shelves of the whole store for a couple weeks and maybe replace some foods with diarrhetics. Stores encourage people to come in and buy goods, or even to just look at them, but that does not mean that anyone is free to come in the store and do whatever they want. —Centrx→talk • 18:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Every second I have to waste cleaning after a 'comedic genius' is a second I could have spent accomplishing something. Regardless, effectively telling your class to 'bust up the joint' is hardly what I'd call proper behavior for a teacher.HalfShadow 23:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think we all agree that it isn't the best behaviour to tell your students to go and vandalize Misplaced Pages. But we voiced our opinion, and I think that's all that we should do. What stops you from just accomplishing something, anyways? No one ever forced you to revert vandalism, to the best of my knowledge.--Conti|✉ 00:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Halo: Hindsight is 20:20. Yours is a very good description of a better way to do have explained to the students what's wrong with using Misplaced Pages to write papers. Now, how do you suggest we get the message out? A disclaimed at the top of pages? An ad campaign? Those methods might or might not work. Preaching to the choir here about whats wrong with Tim's assignment will not work. Picaroon 23:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely understand your point Picaroon, but I wasn't trying to preach to the choir. I was trying to show AKMask that Mr. Peirces point wasn't as valid as he may first have thought it to be. Sorry if I got off the beaten track along the way there :P Thε Halo 00:08, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Perspective

One thing I don't understand. Mr Pierce's defenders seem to be saying "what he did was no big deal, therefore we shouldn't complain, because he will get sacked." If it's no big deal, he won't get sacked whatever we do. So why so worried? Personally, I'm not even after an apology, just a commitment that it won't happen again. Regards, Ben Aveling 23:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the idea is more that if you turn up here as a real person and annoy the wrong Misplaced Pages editors and don't agree with what they (correctly) say the site is about and how it works, and you disrupt the site in the process (by giving a public lecture, say - imagine Jimbo giving a lecture and telling people to try editing Misplaced Pages - "add anything you like - it doesn't matter, it will be reverted within seconds if it is wrong"), then some Misplaced Pages editors may aggressively engage you in discussion by sending you e-mails, and sending other people e-mails, until you back down and admit you were wrong and won't do it again. I'm concerned that this has been more about getting the instructor to admit that he was wrong, rather than helping him understand how Misplaced Pages works, and trying to convert him, rather than alienate him. Being diplomatic, in other words, rather than argumentative. Carcharoth 01:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Disrupting Misplaced Pages to prove a point is something which we do not allow. I do not see any reason for special consideration being given to this teacher or his students. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 04:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Informational Request

You know, I would really like to see what exactly is being sent out, if possible. Particularly if there is any potential interaction with the media (as well as educational institutions), it would be very good to see exactly what is being said and how or to whom it is being attributed. Bitnine 21:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I have put the texts of my correspondences at User:Zoe/Pierce. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you were a bit quick on the draw there, Zoe. You could have said, maybe, "please promise not to do it again; this is the wrong way of going about it"; I didn't detect much warning for "I'm going to the press". 146.186.44.199 22:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

My letter to the department administrators is at: User:Georgewilliamherbert/PierceLetter Georgewilliamherbert 22:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The ethics department has reponded, unfortunately, from my point of view, clearly wrongly. I have asked Brad Patrick for his input. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think most of what there is to be said has been said, on all sides of the matter. I would add, however, that I have grave reservations about the statement in one of Zoe's letters that "I don't think we need to discuss the illegalities of defacing a website. Such actions are a federal offense." We all dislike vandalism and those who encourage vandals, but that's a long way away from saying that vandals are criminals. Newyorkbrad 22:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I can only applaud the measured response of that ethics office in replying to Zoe, and am utterly amazed at the impropriety of the tone Zoe had used both to them and the teacher. I'd very much recommend to put this to rest now in order for us not to make ourselves look completely stupid. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Newyorkbrad & FutPerf. Mr Stephen 23:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Having read the mail pages, I disagree with some of the points Zoe made in the correspondence with NIU (and in Zoe’s place, I would have written rather differently). However, I still think it was right to complain. —xyzzy_n 22:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone directed Mr. Pierce and the NIU administrators to the relevant policy pages, e.g., WP:VAND? From the correspondence that was posted, it doesn't look like it. Thanks to Zoe and Georgewilliamherbert for posting these. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that the appropriate initial contact with Mr. Pierce would have pointed out these policies, described how we deal with vandalism in practice, and suggested an alternative means of making the same point (e.g., having the students edit a sandbox) without disrupting others' efforts. Taking the time to thoroughly explain to him why we have a problem with his assignment and ways he could work with us, would likely have produced much more satisfactory results; as it is, we got a bunch of needlessly bombastic emails to university officials and a needlessly long thread in which people compare scribbling on a website to breaking a store window. This could have been an opportunity to educate an obviously ill-informed academic about how Misplaced Pages works, and instead we probably just alienated him (and his colleagues) further. Opabinia regalis 01:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree absolutely with this analysis of the situation. Carcharoth 01:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Zoe and Georgewilliamherbert for posting the correspondence they sent and received. It is rather instructive to see the different approaches they took. Zoe engaged in aggressive questioning of the instructor in question, while George wrote calmly and at length to possibly the people responsible for the instructor's conduct, taking the time to explain himself. It was also interesting to note that Zoe signed as 'Misplaced Pages system administrator' (which could give the appearance of speaking for Misplaced Pages), while George (more correctly, in my opinion) said "I am not speaking for Misplaced Pages in any official capacity (I have no organizational official standing) other than as a user and editor."

I also thought Zoe's threat to go to the press (the university's ethics office was restrained enough to only call it a veiled threat) was intended by Zoe to provoke a response, and I find that very worrying. This could easily have escalated the situation when there was absolutely no need to adopt that attitude.

So, what can we learn from this? Would Zoe and George do things differently, or even do nothing, if this happened again? I'd really hope that some people would do things differently next time. This episode has not cast Misplaced Pages in a good light. Carcharoth 01:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Be brutually honest - from a purely internal perspective, the most concern aspect for me is that even after debate raged for almost 3 days, Zoe posts only a few hours ago In the first place, I don't think that "community concern" is opposed to my actions. - I find that an amazing statement to make considering some of the comments that have been made here.. I haven't interacted with Zoe before this wikidrama but it suggests that various people are invisible to her or... well I just don't know! --Fredrick day 01:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea for people to post suggestions (even subtle ones) in any part of Misplaced Pages that a named person has acted illegally or broken Federal law. I see the requests for information above - my comments are not an attack on anyone, they are simply meant as advice. Hobson 03:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Site block?

We have a site, with a set of known vandals, where the vandals have stated they may continue to vandalize, and the site's administration has indicated they will take no action.

This sounds like the definition of when and why we use a site-wide indef IP block.... Georgewilliamherbert 22:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

That does sound like the logical conclusion to the problem, yes.  :) Can't sleep, clown will eat me 22:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Because vandalism is still going on? Well is it (outside of normal patterns)? Where does he states that he plans to carry on? I don't see that? --Fredrick day 22:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Far, far too much potential for collateral damage by blocking an entire college. At most, I'd support a checkuser if the college's IP can be determined, to assess whether there is an ongoing vandalism problem that is materially higher than normal. Newyorkbrad 23:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser of whom? Of all of the students who have been assigned to vandalize? User:Zoe|(talk) 23:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Some colleges have a single IP for all the computers in their network. I know little about the technicalities of IP assignment, but that might (or might not) be true in this instance. Newyorkbrad 23:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, wow. NIU and Mr. Pierce were straight-forward, and Misplaced Pages accused them of a federal crime. I thought that someone had recently quoted that administrators aren't godheads or something, according to Jimbo Wales. Criminal accusation are usually handled through the DA's office, not by one individual throwing an accusation at another or at an institution. Crimes should be reported to the proper law enforcement officials, not used as threats against someone. And since when is this not an apology, "So, in the sense that I've caused a lot of work on people's part in what's going on, I'm sorry for that?" He apologized, admitted it was a poorly thought out exercise, after explaining that he had weighed potential consequences, that he had tried just instructing his students not to use Misplaced Pages, and he's being battered down with the threat of criminal actions. I've seen too much of Misplaced Pages administrators who can't simply back down from something. When someone is being reasonable, after doing something unreasonable, you latch onto their current sense of reason, you don't keep attacking them. KP Botany 04:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I endorse the above. I think this issue has gotten to the point where I have contacted Jimbo here to solicit his involvement. I strongly encourage others to do the same. CyberAnth 06:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

This should have been handled by Brad Patrick to begin with. Or at least from the point where the University's legal department got involved. This could have backfired horribly had the teacher been fired and then sued Misplaced Pages for defamation causing him to get fired. 1 million dollars from the last fundraiser may sound like a lot but when you get into things like this we could have gotten into serious economic/legal trouble here. A site/department block sounds like a good idea. That is perfectly within our discretion (no need for legal help to do that) and would solve the problem. MartinDK 09:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

(IANALBIPOOT) I cannot imagine any cause of action—certainly not defamation—that Pierce, were he to be fired over this, could essay against the Foundation generally or against any editor who contacted the university specifically (other causes of action, relative, for instance, to a characterization publicly of his conduct as somehow criminal, might be more tenable, but such causes would not be relative to his termination). I, to be sure, would not be inclined to contact the university about conduct to which I have no grave objection, but there is, IMHO, almost surely no legal liability for an individual who should undertake to make such contact; I have always understood, indeed, the practice of contacting an employer of someone with whom one has a quarrel to disseminate true information apropos of the former in order that he/she might be fired to be relatively common, but I gather from this discussion that there are those who think such practice to be immoral. Joe 20:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Joe, I posted that message minutes before Jimbo posted his message. I had no idea, as did no one else apparently, that the foundation had already been involved. had Zoe been told this by Jimbo I believe she would have let Jimbo take care of this. I don't doubt that she really wanted to do Misplaced Pages a big favor by going through all this trouble. I just happen to believe that such matters are better handled by the foundation. Jimbo should have posted here when he settled the matter. I think we should just move on and let Jimbo know that sometimes things happen on ANI that might make it beneficial for Misplaced Pages and the foundation in general to pay closer attention to this board and post here before so-called wildly inappropriate things take place. MartinDK 22:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

See Jimbo's edit at the top of this greater section. Case closed, everyone. Grandmasterka 09:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

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)

If, in fact, you do try to tone down the garbage on ED, any chance you can work with somebody to get that disgusting crap about Sceptre out of there? The kid is 15, for God's sake. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:39, 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)

Posting a welcome message to a vandal account is certainly not disruptive. I often see someone vandalize, and give them a welcome message as a sort of "Hey, we can see you! Why not edit constructively?" wake-up call. It's sometimes more effective than a {{test1}}. I've certainly welcomed people, only to have my welcome message replaced in a mintue with {{indefblockeduser}} or whatever it's called, when someone else pegged them as a sock of some banned user. -GTBacchus 21:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The complaint wasn't that a welcome message was posted. The complaint was this particular user, with this particular history and with a recent ArbCom decision decided to welcome a troll that was harassing MONGO. Coincidence? Maybe the first time. Maybe even the second. But this is about the twentieth "coincidence." It iwll be a nice reference for the next coincidence. --Tbeatty 06:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't appreciated the context of the situation when I made my above comment. I was reacting to the idea that welcoming a vandal is automatically disruptive, but now I see that there's more going on than that, and I agree that this particular welcome message was a bad idea. I hope that Miltopia finds a way to contribute here without aggravating any situation around MONGO, and I hope that if he does find that way, the community is able to believe it, and accept his presence here. I hope we all are able to edit in ways that de-escalate conflicts and reduce drama. -GTBacchus 02:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Desnm created that account to defend Miltopia, first edit, sure knows a lot about me! It's also possible that Miltiopia could be indefinitely blocked from this website and it would be of nothing but benefit to this website...I see zero constructive edits. Peter Dodge and Proto shouldn't be defending disruptive behavior here as this isn't a playground.--MONGO 16:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I would very much appreciate it if you would explain how this disrupts anything significant. It was a waste of space and of time, certainly, and not a serious or wise action, to be sure, but the only disruption that it appears to have caused for users other than Miltopia is this very acerbic section. Is there need for such hostility here? Calling for community banning of a user, discounting the entirety of the user's contributions to Misplaced Pages, making insinuations regarding sock puppet abuse, admonishing users for having an opinion that differs from your own - are such actions really necessary over such a minor issue? Think for a moment about the situation - is all of this hostility warranted for putting a welcome template put on a vandal's talk page? --Philosophus 16:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no hostility on my part. I have done nothing wrong except inform the community that Miltopia is still being disruptive. The vandal account he welcomed was created by Cplot, who has created the largest sock army I have ever seen on wikipedia, and who has been vandalizing numerous pages for months now. Desnm creates an account and his/her first edit is here to defend Miltopia and knows a lot about me and you tell me that isn't a sock account of someone? Simply put, we don't aide and abet vandals by welcoming them on their talkpages. It's not like this is the first time Miltopia has been supportive of disrution, or been so himself.--MONGO 16:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

But again, how is this disruptive? I don't see how it aides and abets vandals, besides the possibility that it could be seen as a symbolic gesture. It's not like the welcome is "Welcome to Misplaced Pages! Here is a guide to vandalism and here are some pages that could be vandalised". --Philosophus 20:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

MONGO, can you just drop it? No one has responded any of the times you or Hipocrite have tried to get me banned. I don't go around complaining about you, so why don't you just find something else to do? Milto LOL pia 20:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Can you please explain how posting {{welcome}} on a vandal account's page is disruptive? It's just a boilerplate welcome, not an endorsement of any particular misbehavior. —Dgies 07:17, 27 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)

• And that was smart in what way, exactly? Guy (Help!) 15:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The question is, who cares? And why? The answer is nobody except MONGO and... I don't know about the second one. Milto LOL pia 20:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• You seem to be under the mistaken impression that nobody but MONGO cares if you troll him and deliberately provoke drama. You may well be wrong in that. Guy (Help!) 23:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• MONGO is irritated by my mere presence; there's nothing I can do about that. I don't care about MONGO at all, so I ignore him whenever possible and don't give any thought to walking around eggshells for him. I can't and don't care to change the fact that MONGO doesn't like my presence; only he can do that. Milto LOL pia 00:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• I'm kind of wondering why Milto hasn't been 'sploded yet, but I'm far too apathetic to bother beyond that. HalfShadow 23:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Can we not go there? I'd be happier if this were just dropped. Milto LOL pia 20:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Now really, I'm sorry, are you guys going to blame MONGO for saying that an editor shouldn't welcome a vandal, let alone an editor who has a long-time dispute with MONGO, whom the troll just happened to speak to right before the welcome? It is disruptive, and smacks to me of WP:POINT. Worse, he's making rude comments like 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. I have no idea why you guys are sticking up for him - he even admitted he knew the guy was a troll. Having never seen this conflict before, the suspicion of WP:POINT only gets worse when I hear that he's an ED editor, who, from what I understand, has a history of being a pain in the rear end on Misplaced Pages. Milotopia, if you would just say, "sorry, I won't do it again", would it be that hard? If it was just a joke and not a big deal, then why the need to argue back and make a scene (PS sorry for editing anonymously, I'm trying to take some time off, and this is the closest I could get myself to do). 146.186.44.199 22:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• No really. The second step of Dispute Resolution is to disengage. Please try that now. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

First point is that Miltopia, on being unblocked, was given the condition that he was to stay as far away from MONGO as possible. (His early edits were trolling and wiki-stalking MONGO.)

Second point is that Miltopia was involved in the pages relating to MONGO's RfAr, so he most certainly knows that MONGO has been very badly stalked and harassed by Cplot, even if Miltopia doesn't think that's a problem. (LOL, Loldongs, LULZ, Duh, Whoopeedoo, etc. Hope I got all those words right.)

Thirdly, anyone who is even remotely familiar with this case recognizes Cplot from his edit summaries, and knows that this is a troll engaged in very persistent harassment of another user, and that he is to be reverted and blocked on sight.

I'm not sure what Wizardry Dragon means by reminding people to assume good faith. If he agreed that Miltopia was being provocative, but that we shouldn't take it too seriously, and should just move on, I could understand that, though there has to be a limit to how much harassment of Wikipedians good users should be prepared to condone, and whether good users should be content to see someone in dispute with a harassment victim treating it as a joke. But if that's what he means, I fail to see where AGF comes into it. AGF would apply if we were to think that Miltopia was just checking the new user log, and sending random messages to people without checking their contributions, and had NO idea that this was someone who was trolling MONGO. Miltopia has admitted that he saw OurAnthem's edit, and was going to revert it himself, but was beaten to it. (For the record, I don't have a problem believing that.) In that case, it was in very bad taste. To treat harassment of your opponent as a joke is quite simply inappropriate.

I'm also puzzled by GTBacchus's post about how he himself has welcomed vandals. GTBacchus, you know Miltopia and MONGO have an rather stormy history. You have read that Miltopia saw the edit (and presumably realized who it was, since he has been following the case), and that he welcomed him as a joke. What you say about your own use of the welcome template may be valid, but it's completely irelevant in this context. Miltopia didn't welcome him in the hope that he'd become a good contributor. He welcomed him in order to make a joke about someone harassing MONGO.

Those who defend Miltopia here seem to be unaware that an action or utterance can change its meaning according to context — just as "Good afternoon" can be a friendly greeting or a sarcastic rebuke to someone who is late. As Tbeatty says, there are just too many of these coincidences. And those who think it didn't do any harm — of course it did. It caused ill feeling. Miltopia, instead of saying how uninterested you are in MONGO, and how little you care for what he thinks, perhaps you could try (for your own sake, not for his) to care enough to stop making jokes that you may think are just below what's necessary to get you blocked. Musical Linguist 00:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

• Musical Linguist, you need to take a look at all these little situations and see what all this nonsense is originating from. These is like, the sixth time I've had to stop what I'm doing and troop off to ANI to dispel general mischaracterization and/or paranoia from other users. It's alarming that I managed to brush off MONGO for over a month and avoid him completely, save for these truly boring threads, and you still think I'm the one with the personal vendetta here. I don't see anyone else being followed to articles, WP:AIV, and several other pages. And you dragging up old junk already looked at by arbcom is only prolonging this. Are you interested in seeing this nonsense die out, or in re-debating every edit of mine, over and over, until you get the desired result? Milto LOL pia 05:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oi vey, can everyone just stop the drama already? Just get a clue. No one is out to get me, you, MONGO, Miltopia, or anyone else for tha matter. This whole issue is a massive failure to assume good faith, and I'd ask all involved to do so. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 05:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no loss of good faith here. The question remains as to if Miltopia is here for purely constructive purposes. When editors knowingly welcome those that vandalize, this is not constructive. The best thing to do with repeat vandalism is to block and ignore, not welcome them. That you would see it otherwise is surprising. Miltopia has had to stop his work to come here over the last week three times I see, not just this time and not just because of my report alone. IF Miltopia was doing nothing but constructive edits, then there wouldn't be any complaints to the contrary. That is not the case, however. Furthermore, not sure what has happened since, but anti-Semitic nonsense may be the norm on ED, however threads such as this are not welcome here. Misplaced Pages does not tolerate bigotry or find puns on people's religion or ethnicity acceptable. If Miltopia can make adjustments to his contributions then there won't be any reason for him to have to respond here.--MONGO 06:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

• I'm replying to Musical Linguist's paragraph directed to me. I don't know who "Cplot" is and have no knowledge of that user's harassment of MONGO. When I commented, I was simply replying to the idea that welcoming a vandalizing or trolling editor is automatically disruptive. I disagree with that principle, and I said so. You say I had read that he posted the welcome message "as a joke", but in fact I hadn't scrolled down that far when I made my comment. I reacted to what I had just read. I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I think "joke" welcome messages are a good idea. It's certainly not how I use the {{welcome}} template. If I knew that my comment was irrelevant, I wouldn't have made it, certainly.

  I would also reply to MONGO's comment above that Miltopia's noting of the {{Bruchim}} template is somehow antisemitic. Have you read the TfD? It's pretty clear to me that Miltopia saw the template, thought it was in absurdly bad taste, and showed it to his friend. The TfD agreed that it was absurd, and that's why it's deleted now. I'm not sure how you're seeing antisemitism there, but if you already think that someone is antisemitic, I guess you'll see what you look for. -GTBacchus 01:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

You're only reading the part of that thread that you want to read. Miltopia posted a WikiProject logo that he noticed that is used to welcome editors who may be interested in the Judaism WikiProject on User:K37 talkpage. K37 responded "The hell? LOOOOOOOOOOOOL" LOL is laughing out loud of course. Miltopia then suggests K37 should post it to talk pages on persons who may be Jewish "Start using it on Jewish n00bs plz". K37 responds as to how he is supposed to know who is Jewish on the internets...read the thread. I am well aware that ED enjoys and supports lampooning all religions and ethnicities and was merely pointing out that since this is Misplaced Pages and not ED, the same kind of behavior here is much less likely to be seen as a playful pun. In fact, this kind of behavior certainly appears ot be more akin to the disruption for which I myself and a number of editors associate Miltopia with. Thanks.--MONGO 04:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

.

Recurring Personal Attacks, Admin Attention Requested

About User:Wobble:

• 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

• "You are such a massive hypocrite. You really are unbelievable. You constantly "report" people because you can't take criticism (you act like you are in a school playground, please miss he disagrees with me), but you are one of the most offensive people I have ever met."

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. More such examples can be provided.

Now, some of these are recurring personal attacks and I think that requires admin attention, rather than RfC. He even admits that his behavior is wrong but blames all this on me by saying: "If you do not like people being nasty to you, then you could consider that they are only behaving towards you the same way you are behaving towards them." He was warned before about personal attacks (see the PAIN report link)

He also removed my option from RfC, so his behavior may be called harassment. Lukas19 00:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I think a block might be needed here, but I'm not sure how long, as the user was not given any warnings for personal attacks (though there does appear to be a fairly long history of edit warring over race-related articles). --Coredesat 00:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean a warn by an admin? If not, His warns:

I don't see any rationale for an immediate block; some of these diffs are more than a week old, and the recent contribs certainly don't suggest any kind of rampage of nastiness. If more than one user is actually concerned about this user's behaviour and hasn't been able to work it out, take it to RfC. Our criteria for blocking shouldn't be lower than that of having a formal discussion. Jkelly 00:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

3 days is recent, right?

"Oh and by the way Thukas, don't fucking call me a vandal. This is hypocrisy of the highest order given the amount of times you have tried to compromise Misplaced Pages by claiming a source supported your racist POV when it does no such thing. I am a very experienced editor and do not do vandalism. Your constsnt claims that other editors that do not agree with your lies and racism are either "vandals" or are "personally attacking" you are pathetic. I suggest you learn to edit in a more mature manner. Learn that you need to compromise, you need to know that Misplaced Pages does not exist to promote your personal racist/Nordicist oppinions. Alun 17:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)"

Again, about incorrect accusations, I didnt called him a vandal, I just said "reverting vandalism" to one of his edits, and I dont have a racist POV, etc...Lukas19 01:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I've warned both users to cool off and drop the argument, since their arguing is disrupting the community and it's clear that they can't seem to stop getting in each other's faces. However, Wobble seems to have left the project (at least temporarily), though he immediately blanked my warning. --Coredesat 06:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I think you'll find it was archived, not blanked. About as accurate and unbiased as all of your behaviour towards me. Alun 21:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Alun please calm down and try to follow wikipedia procedure. Itsokay

I've checked out Wobble's edit history and it's extremely counterproductive. All he seems to do is accuse other editors of racism and remove anything he disagrees with on the grounds that it's racist. Many articles have lost a lot of rich content because he wont allow view points he disagrees with to be included always using the excuse that something or other is racist. He contributes nothing to the encyclopedia. All he does is remove things so that only his view on things is seen Itsokay

Upon a second review of Lukas19's edit history, it seems he does have a history of persistent POV pushing on the White people article (as pointed out by various users on that article's talk page). This changes things. --Coredesat 04:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Left Lukas19 a final warning for POV pushing. --Coredesat 05:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You called me a POV pusher and gave this example . How come is this POV pushing? Also, note that, I copy & pasted this part from Genetic views on race so most of what was written in that edit WAS WRITTEN BY WOBBLE/ALUN. And the Race article already did have many counter arguments to my edition, including a whole section.

I also find it hugely unfair that you apologized from Wobble and gave me a "final warning" AFTER Wobble has called me "moron" , "pest, whiner, etc..." , "racist scum, etc..." . Even if you have felt sorry about him leaving, you shouldnt have encouraged his incivil behaviour/personal attacks, you should have encouraged him to stay AND be civil AND not make any personal attacks. But you have failed .

And why did you do this? Because of "...he does have a history of persistent POV pushing on the White people article (as pointed out by various users on that article's talk page)"? Which other users? LSLM? The one that was balocked three times because of things ranging from personal attacks to vandalism to violation or 3RR rule? Actually he was blocked once by you as well.

I also dont believe the claim that you went over my edit history twice because you said "...as detailed in your rejections of various compromises on the Mediation Cabal case..." because this never happened! Lukas19 20:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

So? Lukas19 04:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Seriously need a second opinion on this. I'm not entirely sure what to do here, and it's getting out of control. --Coredesat 23:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

User:JB196 socks

DragonKidfan432 (talk · contribs), Bigdaddydriver (talk · contribs), Hipchop (talk · contribs), Shopstermax (talk · contribs), Histogramunited (talk · contribs), Aqua Nation (talk · contribs) and DogJesterExtra (talk · contribs) appear to me to be more sockpuppets of JB196 following his MO of new accounts immediately appearing and nominating wrestling relating articles for deletion. Each of these users has also signed their AfD in the same way - no punctuation at the end of the line. Bigdaddydriver also has as one of his contributions the edit summary "(RV VANDALISM)" which, while the edit was reverting the removal of an afd template, follows JB's pattern of reverting any edit against him as RV VANDALISM. I discovered these accounts while looking at the contributions of User:DogJesterExtra who only appeared today and has been removing refs from articles and is the only person to have voted in every one of the AfD's of the sock accounts. The accounts only other edits, besides the AfD's, are to make their own userpage consisting of one line. Could an admin take a look and give their opinion? –– Lid 17:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that prior to creating the AfD Shopstermax (talk · contribs), the oldest account, also removed refs from wrestling articles. –– Lid 17:48, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Not really...If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Wrestling , http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:GhettoV1 , they're all listed there and there. DogJesterExtra 18:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The user talk is an automatic bot which links to all AfD's that it crawls for such as the AfD posted by ((User|Shopstermax}}, whose article Nadev Rozenfield is linked nowhere else but the bot post on that users page. –– Lid 18:32, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

More accounts - Several of these accounts first act after being created was to create another account greatly increasing the likelihood of sockpuppetry. These are:

• Hipchop (talk · contribs) created ZimZamZang (talk · contribs)
• Shopstermax (talk · contribs) created DarkUmp243 (talk · contribs)
• Aqua Nation (talk · contribs) created Blizzardofsnow (talk · contribs)
• DogJesterExtra (talk · contribs) created Emblemsocietyx (talk · contribs)

These accounts have also been used on wrestling related articles to remove sources as well as ZimZamZang focussing on the article Professional wrestling in Australia, which has been targetted by JB196 in the past. I may file a RFCU to see if any more of these exist. –– Lid 19:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yup, I'd go straight for RFCU (if the circumstantial evidence isn't enough to block already), Barber fought with before on the Professional wrestling in Australia article, so I have a strong suspicion this is JB trying again to disrupt WP. I will also tag the AfD's with the comment that if the various creators are WP:SOCK accounts, the AfD's will be db-banned as a speedy keep with no prejudice towards renomination SirFozzie 19:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Why are these afd's still open? Aren't we supposed to close any afd's that jb opens? 146.186.221.141 21:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

We haven't "Proven" That the accounts are WP:SOCK accounts (although there's a WP:RfCU open against all of them. Until it's proven (or an admin decides that there's enough circumstantial evidence that this is another set of JB socks), our hands are tied. It's one of those things where I'm sure it's him, but my opinion don't count for much, at least in this :) SirFozzie 05:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The RFCU has been deemed Unneccessary as it seems there is already enough evidence that these are all sockpuppets of JB196 so would an admin mind blocking them all? –– Lid 20:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Per that result, I'm going to close the afd's, even though I'm not an admin. That seems like an OK from jpgordan. Any admins, please block them now. Part Deux 21:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Update - many more socks - Many thanks to SirFozzie (talk · contribs) for bringing it up and admin Jpgordon (talk · contribs) for running the CU but a total of fifty socks have been uncovered by the checkuser, some known many unknown, that need blocking. The full list can be found here and require admin help blocking them all. –– Lid 07:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Blocked and tagged all socks listed at the RfCU case page. Phew. Luna Santin 07:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Holy crudstunk, I thought we might find a few more.. but sixty or so? (even if some of em were retreads?) That's ridiculous. Thanks Lid for updating the LTA page on JB. SirFozzie 16:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Multilingual Warnings?

Are there templates which can warn a user who doesn't speak English? I ran into this problem with this IP user. Can someone help? Thank You. Real96 21:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

no template I know of. But I have to ask, if they don't speak any English, why are they editing here? pschemp | talk 21:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Should I warn the user with this? I don't know why they are editing here. I tried to warn the user to edit on ITA WP on the talk page, but she still speaks Italian on the talk page.

I found the 1st level warning on ITA WP.

Grazie per aver fatto un test con Misplaced Pages. La modifica che hai effettuato ci è sembrata essere un test; la tua prova è stata quindi rimossa e la pagina ripristinata. Per favore, per ulteriori prove, utilizza la pagina delle prove, dal momento che le voci vengono ripristinate rapidamente. Puoi dare un'occhiata alla guida introduttiva per imparare a contribuire sulle pagine del nostro progetto. Grazie. Real96 21:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Commons also has some at Commons:Message templates, although most are not what you need, a few might be helpful. Click on the language you want to get the text you need. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 00:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

We need a Rosetta Stone type template saying that if you cannot speak English, then you cannot contribute here. Then have links to the other language's Misplaced Pages. HighInBC 04:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. Have the four major Anglo-languages (French, Spanish, Italian, German) as well as the Asian languages (Japanese, Chinese, Korean et. al). I am sure that there are a category of users who are bi/multi-lingual and they can help with the messages (from test-1 to test-5). I would enjoy working with you with that project, if one ever exists. Real96 07:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you mean Western languages aside English not Anglo-languages?!? --Asterion 09:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Exactly. Western languages versus non. Real96 03:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I think a Rosetta Stone template is a great idea. Perhaps the kind folk at commons would help us create it? I'll try to go ask for help if someone else hasn't started this. What would the exact wording need to be? Needs to be encouraging and useful. ++Lar: t/c 14:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

We need a Rosetta Stone type template saying that if you cannot speak English, then you cannot contribute here. Wow, that would be very helpful, but wouldn't it be hard to enforce? Some editors claim a basic proficiency in English, which they don't evidence - I've edited many articles where most of my time was spent cleaning up English grammar and punctuation to a rudimentary level. Also, how do we feel about talk pages almost exclusively in other languages? I've encountered personal attacks oon talk pages in other languages, and had to go hunting for an admin who spoke the language and could deal with it, and I've had to go to other wikis to find basic policies to quote for non-English speakers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean hard to enforce, since we already require English as the language of contributions. For those who speak only some English, or speak it poorly, they can still benefit the project. HighInBC 15:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Right - so I'm still not following the original comment about not contributing here if you cannot speak English? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Also certain obvious errors and interwiki's require almost no english to correct. If people's contributions are a problem they should probably be pointe to a wikipedia in a language they are fluent in, but I don't think that setting any kind of enforceable standard is a good idea. Eluchil404 16:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. However, a template that helps the user find the right place, and gives a little guidance to them, in the user's native language, might be a friendly thing to do. ++Lar: t/c 22:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, for example if Spanish text is inserted into a page, the user can be warned with:

Bienevidos a Misplaced Pages de Ingles. Este enciclopedia es totalmente en Ingles. Por favor, va al para contribuya en espanol. Gracias!

(note: my spanish is a little weak.) Real96 02:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

A good start would be here. Lectonar 16:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Confirmed sockpuppets of User:BryanFromPalatine via checkuser.

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/BryanFromPalatine Not sure how it ought to be dealt with, I will leave that up to admins. I will say that I am mighty suspicious of this pattern of behaviour and the ever-changing story that has been presented to explain and justify it. Is the current story the truth? It *might* be, but I am full of sincere doubts about this. I'd rather that people not evade blocks (in this case a PERMANENT block) by using sock accounts, and there is NO doubt that at least some of this activity was exactly that, and has been admitted to. Are the present ones socks? I will leave that up to y'all to decide. --BenBurch 22:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Before anyone goes off half-cocked, examine BenBurch's block log. He's just returned from a 24-hour block for incivility and "misrepresentation." Dino 23:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Which I apologized for. There is NO Stare Decisis on Misplaced Pages, my friend. And this is new data as requested for re-opening this matter. So please stop attacking me and explain these sock puppets one of which you just ADMITTED to below. --BenBurch 23:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Next, let's examine this. I will cut and paste the relevant sections for your review below.

This account was initially blocked for being a BryanFromPalistine sockpuppet. After investigations and substantial and very civil discussion with this user on unblock-en-l, our opinion is that this person is Bryan's brother and not actually a sockpuppet. Furthermore, although the edits looked like meatpuppetry, they were actually legitimate and good faith attempts to remove libel from Misplaced Pages articles. To avoid even the appearance of meatpuppetry, this user has agreed not to edit the article, Free Republic, directly but may still participate in that article's talk page and is specifically encouraged to report libel on that page at Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard (assuming that is the right forum for the libel). Once again, this person showed nothing but civility during the investigation on unblock-en-l despite the time it took. He has our apologies for the block. Dean, please feel free to leave a brief note on the talk page for Free Republic referencing this message if you feel it appropriate. --Yamla 18:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Yamla's analysis. Dean: If posts to the Free Republic talk page aren't getting corrections done fast enough, please let me know, and I'll try to help transcribe stuff if there is clear consensus for it. Long term I'd like to see this self imposed restriction become liftable as long as we don't have any issues around the editing and content... ++Lar: t/c 18:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Lar and Yamla are two of the most senior administrators at Misplaced Pages. They were joined in this unanimous Unblock-en-l decision, after an extensive, exhaustive and time-consuming review of the overwhelming evidence in my favor, by Luna Santin, another senior administrator.

In addition to the public evidence presented at Unblock-en-l, I also presented abundant evidence privately via e-mail to these administrators. Please consider the fact that they reached the decision to unblock me unanimously, less than 48 hours ago; and that I have carefully adhered to the very letter of the self-imposed restriction on my posting privileges, in order to avoid even the appearance of meatpuppetry.

The Friendly Ghost was created by another family member -- neither Bryan nor I -- to remove a violation of Misplaced Pages's privacy policy. The violation had been created using an open proxy, and was being used to harass my brother's family. After that, the account was used to "Wikify" an article and then nominate it for the "Did you know" feature on the Main Page. No disruptions, nothing abusive, purely defensive and then constructive. Any objections?

H4672600 was created to combat the rampant "mischaracterizations" of BenBurch. BenBurch actually engaged in edit wars to protect those "mischaracterizations."

Fensteren has been cleared. Dino 23:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so you're Bryan's brother. Can you call him and ask him to stop creating sockpuppets? Picaroon 23:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If checkuser is confirming that they have used the same IP, then they must live together or interact daily in some way. Note that Bryan was not unreasonable either, except for the puppets. Therefore, I suspect that all the accounts were created by the same person. But of course I do, I made the original block, with Mackensen's agreement (before the CheckUser). Prodego 23:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Dino - so H4672600 is your account too? Your admission of family members editing on your behalf is an admission of meatpuppetry, EXACTLY what the Admins on unblock L warned you about. Those emails are public, by the way. Any Wikipedian with a valid account can sign up to that list and read the archives, as I did, where I read the specfic, direct warning and instruction for you to NOT engage in meatpuppetry. Should I post it, or do you admit that they warned you about meatpuppetry? - Fairness & Accuracy For All 23:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I can make those into a web page and link that here if you like. I won't censor anything at all, leaving ALL of the content intact just in case somebody wants to accuse me of misrepresentation... --BenBurch 15:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

And this is new data as requested for re-opening this matter.

It is a rewind and replay of the original data that led to Prodego's premature block on my account. No inquiries, no investigation, no Check User. Just lock up Dino and throw away the key. Exactly the same IP address data, plus a wealth of additional data that I provided, led to my unblocking at Unblock-en-l less than 48 hours ago. Family members can innocently share IP addresses without being sockpuppets or meatpuppets, can't they?

... explain these sock puppets one of which you just ADMITTED to below.

This is another misrepresentation, identical to one of the misrepresentations that produced his just-concluded 24-hour block. Would anyone care to give BenBurch another 24-hour block for this misrepresentation? Dino 00:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

"H4672600 was created to combat the rampant "mischaracterizations" of BenBurch. BenBurch actually engaged in edit wars to protect those "mischaracterizations." is what you said. This is an admission of an account found to be a sock puppet. It is not an attempt at mischaracterization! It is your own words, just typed here mere hours ago. Now, please stop with the un-civil attacks on my person and deal with how you have so many "family members" that you can have an unlimited supply of editors willing to make the same edits to the same article using the same terms and the same sources. I'm sorry, but this isn't right at all. Nothing about what I have seen here since User:BryanFromPalatine checked in is right, and that includes the notice on your user page that I cannot read as anything at all except a legal threat against Misplaced Pages. So, I am asking you; 1. How many family members are you going to trot out as editors here? Is there a limit? And how is that different from the Misplaced Pages term-of-art "meatpuppet"? 2. How is what is on your user page not a legal threat? How is it different from when some guy comes into your business and says; "Nice soda shop you have here... It would be a SHAME if something HAPPENED to it!" ??? Now, you can probably get somebody to block me for writing this. Maybe permanently. If you can, have at it. I won't sock puppet my way around it like I honestly believe you have, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna shut up when I see this sort of thing happening here. --BenBurch 05:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Lar, Yamla and Luna Santin have reviewed far more evidence than any Check User could ever provide. They unanimously agreed that I'm not a sock puppet, and that I could avoid even the appearance of meatpuppetry by refraining from making any edits to the Free Republic article. This I've done. No one denies it. Accept their honest review and their final judgment in this matter. Dino 00:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Your edits were identical to a user known to be using sockpuppets, and those were your only edits. I am sorry if I incorrectly blocked you, but there was sufficient evidence for me to feel comfortable doing so at the time. When you asked for an unblock, I directed you to unblock-en-l, because I was not willing to unblock. I am glad they could help you. Also, as you can tell, blocks are not permanent, so I hardly "threw away the key" ;-). Prodego 00:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello Prodego, I accept your apology. Let's not allow any misunderstandings to get in the way of creating an NPOV article. What is your response to BenBurch's mischaracterization above? It is virtually identical to a previous mischaracterization that resulted in a 24-hour block. That 24-hour block expired just a couple of hours ago. Apparently he's learned nothing. Are you at all inclined to do anything about it? Dino 00:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this an admission of a sock account? "H4672600 was created to combat the rampant "mischaracterizations" of BenBurch. BenBurch actually engaged in edit wars to protect those "mischaracterizations." Fairness & Accuracy For All

Note : Dino wrote in unblock L : "Any skeptics among you can feel free to monitor my account after it is unblocked, and block me again at the slightest hint of abusive or disruptive behavior." On the FR talk page he writes, while 'claiming' BLP, even though he admits BLP might not apply: "Tbeatty, I encourage you to remove it aggressively per instructions by Jimbo Wales. As you can see from the boldfaced portions above, no need to worry about the 3RR rule." link - Fairness & Accuracy For All 00:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Admin Jossi, the article mediator, said that BLP doesn't apply

That's another misrepresentation. Jossi didn't say that BLP doesn't apply. He asked, "Why is it WP:BLP mentioned?" How can anyone get anything constructive done around here with all of these misrepresentations? Dino 00:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You've GOT to be kidding me. I suggest you read the Wiki article Rhetorical question - Fairness & Accuracy For All

Isn't this an admission of a sock account? "H4672600 was created to combat the rampant "mischaracterizations" of BenBurch. BenBurch actually engaged in edit wars to protect those "mischaracterizations." Fairness & Accuracy For All

You've GOT to be kidding me.

Did he, or did he not say "that BLP doesn't apply"?

Isn't this an admission of a sock account?

It isn't. I said that it was created. I did not say that I created it. I didn't identify the creator of that account at all, but I will spell it out for you in no uncertain terms right now, so that there are no misunderstandings: I did not create the H4672600 account, nor have I ever used it. I have never created or used any account except this one. Stop posting these misrepresentations. BenBurch was blocked for it, and may be blocked again just a couple of hours after the previous block expired. It is in the nature of presenting false testimony. Sanctions for such misconduct are appropriate. Dino 00:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Note: Dino claimed above: "Lar and Yamla are two of the most senior administrators at Misplaced Pages." Lar was adminned on May 08, 2006. That's not very 'senior'. Why would Dino make up a totally bogus false claim like this? Please see the claims here where Dino says that he spoke to noted author TJ Walker who he says denied writing one of his own articles BLP Noticeboard - and then the story changed - entirely. Meaning no disrespect, but IMHO from my close observations of this persons claims and actions, he will say and write anything. - Fairness & Accuracy For All 01:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

There really isn't any seniority as far as being an admin goes. Prodego 01:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Please see the claims here where Dino says that he spoke to noted author TJ Walker who he says denied writing one of his own articles BLP Noticeboard - and then the story changed - entirely.

The fun just never stops. This is yet another misrepresentation. The story never changed. First I called TJ Walker's office, then I called Carolyn Doran's office. Evidently Carolyn then spoke with TJ Walker's office. That story has never changed, because it's the truth. When is an administrator going to do something about all of these misrepresentations on an evidence page? Dino 01:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Now, just a moment here - Are you claiming that Author TJ Walker claimed never to have written the article that archive.org puts on his web site in 1999, which at least one other site used here as an RS republished, that is still in the index of all of his articles on his web site, and which you are seemingly threatening suit over? Is that what you are claiming? And you are claiming it on the basis of an unverifiable telephone call? I think the fact that archive.org has the complete text of that article online and linked to its historical place on TJ Walker's web site is absolute proof that he did write it, did publish it, and that it did exist. The fact that it is not currently online anywhere does not mean that it is not a valid cite for any article here on Misplaced Pages. We can prove its content. We can prove it was published. archive.org does not make stuff up. We can also prove that the quotes used in that article absolutely were on Free Republic. I am going to stick my neck way out here and say that I very much doubt that you ever called author TJ Walker. And also say that if somebody claiming to be TJ Walker called Carolyn at Wikimedia Foundation, that was not likely to have really been TJ Walker. I see no proof of the truth of either event being proffered here. --BenBurch 05:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

YES - he did : Dino claimed on Jan. 15, 2007, that he PERSONALLY contacted noted author TJ Walker CBS News and that Walker PERSONALLY told him that he never wrote the particular article in question "I contacted TJ Walker and asked him whether he authored the article. He said, "Of course not." He contacted AmericanPolitics.com and asked them to remove the article from their website. They complied immediately" here

Note : That Dino is also editing as a numeric IP 209.221.240.193 (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) the same corporate IP that Bryan (alleged to be his brother) and 5 (6? 7? - I've lost count!) confirmed sock puppets have edited from. My advice would be the block this whole IP netrange. Dino can edit from home if his editing privledges aren't revoked, but for him to be editing on the same IP as multiple banned sock puppet accounts just isn't right. Fairness & Accuracy For All

the same corporate IP that Bryan (alleged to be his brother) and 5 (6? 7? - I've lost count!) confirmed sock puppets have edited from.

Yet another mischaracterization. Bryan has been proven to be my brother. Apparently only one sockpuppet (ClemsonTiger) has been "proven" to have edited from the IP address 209.221.240.193, and Bryan disputed that finding. I have also edited from IP address 209.221.240.193 and it has been proven that I am NOT a sockpuppet. Dino 01:41, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

May I casually ask why, DeanHinnen, is there a seemingly legal notice on your userpage? --physicq (c) 01:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

After reading all of this, do you really have to ask? Dino 02:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, because the notice on your userpage can be construed as a violation of WP:NLT, subtle though it may be. --physicq (c) 02:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean "misconstrued," don't you? May I cordially direct your attention to the big, bold, green lettering across the top of that page? Dino 02:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

And indeed I have read the big, bold, green lettering across the top of that page, and I thank your courtesy. I have also read in between the lines, and find that my use of "construed" is correct, as though the message is not worded as such, it can be considered, in my opinion, as a subtle violation of WP:NLT, semantics notwithstanding. --physicq (c) 05:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• I can address that, Physicq --- "Dean" here is a member of the legal team of Free Republic. He therefore represents Jim Robinson, the owner. On the talk page for Free Republic, "Dean" says, (prarphrasing here) 'I am just trying to keep Misplaced Pages from being sued as Jim Robinson is litigious.' - Well, as Jim Robinson is his client, this is just a lawyer saying Do as I say or my client will sue you. isn't it? It is absolutely a legal threat from a lawyer who WORKS FOR FREE REPUBLIC. And he works for them whether he has ever taken a dime from them or not as he has represented them and written briefs on their behalf, and bragged about it in the Free Republic talk page. Now I haven't gone over there and looked up exact quotes, but I am not attempting to "misrepresent" anything here, or being "uncivil" here. I am giving you my understanding of the actions of this person as expressed by what he has said in the past and applying logic to see what deductions arise. And my deduction is that he has directly threatened wikipedia with suit if material not to his liking is incorporated in the Free Republic article. If there is some other way to read this, I don't see it. Again, if you want to say I am misrepresenting anything, and block me forever, go right ahead, I am doing what I think is right in making this observation here. I also am going to make the observation that I do not believe for even one moment that these many usernames are not a single person trying as hard as he can to game the system here, but I will leave the determination on what to do that up to admins here and abide by whatever is decided. --BenBurch 03:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

BUT....WAIT ! It's 'Bryan' who claims he's a member of the FR Legal Eagles who flew out to L.A. to advise them on the L.A. Times v FR lawsuit 'in the summer of 2001" (when FR filed their final appeal April 2001) (my side aches) Bryan What's this claim about JimRob being 'litigious'. I can only find one lawsuit. (not counting LA T V FR that he LOST) Fred Phelps is litigious. JimRob? Yet another of Dino's unsubstantiated 'claims' Ouch. My side. - Fairness & Accuracy For All 04:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

NOTE : Subject: TJ Walker's 07/06/99 article :

Dino claimed on Jan. 15, 2007, that he contacted noted author TJ Walker CBS News personally and that Walker told him that he never wrote the particular article in question "I contacted TJ Walker and asked him whether he authored the article. He said, "Of course not." He contacted AmericanPolitics.com and asked them to remove the article from their website. They complied immediately" here

Dino claimed today on the BLP board "The purported "TJ Walker article"... Abruptly, and without explanation, American Politics.com pulled the article and blanked the page a few weeks ago. They did this because it was libelous, and they didn't want to get sued like the City of Fresno got sued." - Fairness & Accuracy For All 01:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

And this is significant because ... ????? Dino 02:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It shows a pattern, Dino. Just like you misrepresenting that Lar, who was made an Admin on May 06, is one of the 'most senior administrators on Wiki'. These things can be checked Dino, just as your claims can be checked - and your words can be checked, and are forever archived, even if you change them, in the edit histories. Like I'm fond of saying : "We didn't all just fall off the back of the turnip truck here on Misplaced Pages!" (especially not the Admins!) - Fairness & Accuracy For All 02:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Check all you like. But as Brenneman said, a few phone calls can't satisfy WP:V so neither can a few e-mails. If TJ Walker posts a notice on his website (or some other website that can relied upon to accurately represent him) by Tuesday, stating that he still stands behind the claims made in his July 1999 article, then you will satisfy your self-imposed deadline. If he doesn't, then I expect you to accept the constraints of the official WP:BLP policy, and remove the disputed material from the article. Thank you. Dino 02:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

BLP? LOL! BLP doesn't apply. Read what Jossi said one more time. Even if the article was retracted for being libelous, it can be cited as it's verifiable. Didn't you read WP:V like I suggested? Verifiability not truth - Fairness & Accuracy For All

• Okay, Dean, you say "I did not create the H4672600 account, nor have I ever used it. I have never created or used any account except this one. " - So, if you did not create it and all, how the heck do you know how and why exactly it was created? If I misread your statement as an admission, my apologies, but I could and can read it no other way. I see you admitting to this, and then denying it when called on it and then trying to get me blocked for reading your words at face value. Well, if you can get me blocked, do so. I read what I read. And I know the checkuser team is very careful when they say that users are socks of other users. And I wonder just how many family members you have editing this encyclopedia anyway? --BenBurch 05:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

NOTE : I would like to thank and compliment Dino for one thing. His unabating use of colored text is so inventive, light-hearted and cheery that I've adopted it! It really brightens things up! I think I'll start adding it to articles ! ;-) I'm dissapointed that I couldn't add blinking text through, I tried and Wiki doesn't allow it. <BLINK>Damn you Misplaced Pages !</BLINK> ;-) LOL! Fairness & Accuracy For All

The threat just posted to my talk page

You made the same accusation against me before, and an exhaustive investigation by Unblock-en-l proved that it was a false accusation. You made the same accusation against Fensteren, and a Check User proved that it was also a false accusation. Running around to every dispute resolution venue at Misplaced Pages and repeating these false accusations is only going to get you blocked again for misrepresentation. Please stop immediately. Dino 16:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Request to close and user-talk-page-ify

This discussion is not productive and not necessary to conduct on AN/I. It should be closed and archived and continue on people's talk pages, if at all.

All participants should take a day off and then re-read WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA and WP:AGF prior to interacting with each other again. Georgewilliamherbert 20:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd second that request. As I have counseled in various places already, work on the articles, not on trying to prove things about each other or on trying to get other users blocked. I've half a mind to block the whole lot of this bunch, guilty, innocent, all together, en masse, for a day to make Georgewilliamherbert's advice stick. Not this time, I guess, but don't tempt me, and please don't make me regret saying that I thought that this situation could be resolved amicably with good faith editing on everyone's part if Dino were given another chance. There isn't much that gets up my nose worse than being played (are you listening Courtney???) so please don't. ++Lar: t/c 04:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Third(ing) for all involved getting a 24 hour cool off, and then come back as positively-oriented editors. ThuranX 04:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I think GWH was suggesting an informal cooloff, not an actual block, and (except for perhaps inappropriate remarks lined out) so was I. For now anyway but if things don't improve, blocking may be required in my view. ++Lar: t/c 15:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

David R. Usher

Threatening comments

Sorry to bother you, I would like to report a User (davidrusher) making threats against me on the Men's rights talk page: since it is obvious that we have at least one feminist (Cailil) who is misusing Wiki standards to force a feminist world perspective on the MRM, and where he is attempting to prevent a real definition of the movement on Wiki by attempting to "single me out" and somehow being unqualified to present a credible overview of the movement, I will do an article about this over the weekend, and publish it on at least a dozen major websites. and Apparently at least one of the folks editing this section need an education from MRM's. This is our section, and no feminists will be allowed to mess it up. I request that Cailil's editing privileges be revoked. He has proven himself to be a feminist censor, not a balanced editor.. I'm really not sure what to do. I apologise if this is the wrong to place to post this. The full diff is here--Cailil 00:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

If not threatening, it certainly smacks of a article ownership attitude.

As we've seen with other groups such as the Scientologists, some folks seem to think that they "own" articles that are about them or their political or other group ... and that they should get to control what is included in them. This is against Misplaced Pages rules, and other editors should make a point of stepping in to resist article ownership.

In this case, it would be useful if Wikipedians who do not think of themselves as either "feminists" or "men's rights advocates" would step in and take a look. --FOo 01:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

John Broughton has attempted to engage in discourse with the editor in question on his talk page to apparently no response or avail. I'll second his comments in a few minutes; hopefully this user can still be reached. —bbatsell ¿? 01:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Meatpuppetry

Cailil has brought my attention to this post that is a pretty clear violation of policy, calling for those with a particular viewpoint to edit Misplaced Pages. I'm completely uninformed with regard to the topic, so I'm not sure exactly how much help I can personally be, but the following articles are going to need some extra pairs of eyes over the next few weeks:

• Men's rights (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Fathers' rights (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Thanks, —bbatsell ¿? 00:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I've asked Rusher to call off the dogs, and if he doesn't, I think a block - probably an indef one - is in order. Also, the first (probable) meatpuppet, Afp2258 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), just showed up on Men's rights. | Mr. Darcy talk 01:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

A commenter on that article that Rusher wrote is now recommending attacks on the following articles:

• Divorce
• Allegations_of_domestic_violence
• Domestic_Violence
• Marriage_strike
• Child_support
• Misandry
• Bachelor
• Family_law

I'm asking other admins to help by watchlisting these pages for meatpuppetry - there's no way I can keep tabs on all of them. | Mr. Darcy talk 03:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

User deleting massive amounts of information from multiple articles

User:CyberAnth (contributions) has been deleting massive amounts of text from multiple articles on the basis that ANY uncited text in a Biography article must be removed or else it violates WP:BLP. I engaged him on his talk page and pointed out that WP:BLP requires the removal of controversial uncited items from a biography, but his reply was that since we have no way of knowing what items may be controversial to the subject, everything uncited must be removed. This deletion in particular is a good example. . The Frank Abegnale article (the guy portrayed in the movie Catch me if you can. He removed MOST of the stuff that the subject is known for. None of what he removed had {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) tags on it. He just deleted it all. Other articles he is simply stubbing, like this diff . This seems more like an example of WP:POINT than trying to improve the articles. Am I off base on this??? WP:BLP does not require that every statement of fact be cited. I really don't see how this is constructive and resisting the urge to start reverting as vandalism I wanted to get a second opinion. Can anyone advise me on this? Caper13 02:40, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I strongly support the first diff (Frank Abagnale). That is precisely what admins and other experienced users should be doing, aggressively, and blocking people who refuse to write appropriately. (Not blocking people just for doing it once or twice, mind you, we do still practice WikiLove, but people who refuse have to be blocked.). As for the 2nd diff, it seems a bit aggressive, but the article was pretty awful, so I see no major problem. Routine editing. :-) --Jimbo Wales 00:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The diff that you strongly support has been reverted by an administrator. The same administrator who blocked CyberAnth. Frise 01:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, WP:BLP says potentially controversial (and if it doesn't, it should). We shouldn't have things without a source, anyway, so the best way to solve this is just to find sources. It does not hurt Misplaced Pages to remove statements which may be untrue. -Amark moo! 02:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at his contribution list though. Rather than placing citation tags on items to encourage others to cite, he is just stubbing entire articles and deleting pretty benign information. This is an example of text deleted "- In the California State Senate, Dr. Aanestad's top priorities are preserving rural health care, protecting North State water, and serving the needs of the citizens of the 4th Senate District, which includes Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Nevada, Placer, Shasta, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity and Yuba counties." Caper13 02:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

...uncited, unreferenced claims, that could be pure bogus and therefore very controversial to someone, including the subject. CyberAnth 03:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Tags are cool. But for BLPs, no. CyberAnth 02:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

What was controversial about the passage above about the California State Senate that caused you to delete it? Caper13 02:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean about the living person said to be in the CA state senate. Said with uncited, unreferenced claims. For all I know the info was made up in school one day. It could therefore be controversial to someone somewhere, and libelous. CyberAnth 03:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The edit to the Frank Abagnale article you link to above was a good edit, and is mandated by WP:BLP. CyberAnth should be encouraged in removing any more entirely unsourced accusations of crime from biographies of living persons, even in the case of someone whose notability rests on criminal behaviour. Jkelly 02:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I get the criminal behavior thing on Abegnale. I still a better approach would be to put citation tags in rather than deleting in this case, but I cana see the point. I am not trying to be troublesome because I am still learning some of the rules, but in this latest edit He deleted all information about an Italian Conductor other than the fact that he is an italian conductor. This doesn't make sense to me. Caper13 02:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

For all I know, the stuff other than that he was an Italian conductor was made up in school one day. This is a living person we are speaking of, and none of the info beyond what I left was verifiable. The info does not stand WP:BLP. CyberAnth 03:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You left his birthday and his occupation. How do you know either of those were true. Neither were cited. and they are about as controversial as the information you did remove. You gutted an entire article which no one had previously questioned. Doesnt that seem a little extreme? Caper13 03:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I should not have left the B-Day info. CyberAnth 03:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I see you've removed it. WP:POINT. The fact that he is a conductor is uncited as well. Why don't you delete that. Then the entire article can consist of his name and no identification of who he is.

In the current drive to improve the site by fixing its highly unreferenced state I would agree with CyberAnth's removal of unsourced info. Any unsourced info on a BLP article is potentially controversial so it shouldn't be there. (Which, I suppose is counter to my original arguments about the same actions on the Ron Jeremy article, but we live and learn)-Localzuk 03:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Ron Jeremy - that is a very well referenced article. :-) CyberAnth 03:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It is since it was blanked and dozens of editors stormed over there to fix it up :) It was a bit 'shock and awe' to blank it but it did the job well.-Localzuk 03:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It may just be me, but I completely fail to see how removing unsourced info is bad. I view WP:BLP as "in these cases, nobody may revert removals", not "this is the only reason to remove unsourced info". -Amark moo! 03:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

From WP:BLP (emphasis in original): "Editors must take particular care when writing biographies of living persons and/or including any material related to living persons. These require a degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to our content policies:

• Verifiability
• Neutral point of view (NPOV)
• No original research"

CyberAnth 03:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

No doubt CyberAnth is acting in good faith here but this seems to me very close to breach of WP:POINT. Many of the articles stubbed contained no material that could conceivably be seen as controversial. WP:BLP does not require such extreme action for uncontraversial material. Articles can be tagged as unreferenced without danger. Better still, if CyberAnth has reason to doubt the truth of some of the information, contrary sources or discussion on talkpages might be appropriate. But blanket stubbings without controversy is unnecessarily disruptive. WJBscribe 04:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

For WP:POINT to apply, it must be deliberately disruptive, which you admit it is not, and it must prove a point, which it does not do. And while it is true that BLP does not require such action, that does not mean that unsourced material can't be deleted, only that it is not always mandated. -Amark moo! 04:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The intention may not be disruption but disruption is the result. It is incredibly disrespectful to other users' contributions. There are other ways to go about this without going on a wikilawyering crusade to have every article meet the strict letter of WP:BLP in one night. By all means delete contraversial material, but simple career information without comment is harmless. It can be tagged, or queries raised on talkpages. But blanket deletions of this nature are not helpful. WJBscribe 04:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, people who write BLPs without strictly citing their sources show a serious lack of respect for the subject, their readers, and other Wikipedians. The Burden of evidence is not on me to find sources for every article on Misplaced Pages. "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article" (WP:V#Burden_of_evidence). This is especially so with BLPs. If something is potentially controversial to someone somewhere it is therefore controversial. For all I know, or someone else not knowledgable about the subject, the "basic career information" could have been made up in school one day. Cite the material per WP:CITE and you will have nothing to worry about. When editors get away with this sort of stuff it may seem disruptive, but it is for the better of the article, the subject, and this Project. CyberAnth 05:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This edit on Cyberanth's talk page suggests suggests that the disruption is intentional, and designed to provoke a response. that Hank Aaron was elected to the hall of fame" - I do not know hardly a thing about Aaron, so that can absolutely be a controversial statement, given that it is not verifiable. Cite it. That shows you care. CyberAnth 03:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC). Yes, Hank Aaron being elected to the hall of fame is SO controversial. Obviously, it is easily cited, but his actions here are disrespectful to the work of editors. The stubbing of this article removed completely neutral information from an article that only gets a couple of edits a month and probably doesnt have people watching it, so what is he expecting to accomplish here other than to destroy months of work by editors who had no other intention than to contribute to wikipedia. The information removed is not controversial in the least. Additionally when I pointed out that in his initial stubbing, he left nothing but the date of birth, he went back and deleted that as well WP:POINTCaper13 05:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You can try to divine my motives all you want. The content policies is what I am following. Of course, the solution to the birthdate issue is to cite it. For all I know, it is false and could be considered offensive by the subject if not true. CyberAnth 05:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

That is patently ridiculous. You are trying to impose a new interpretation of BLP which says that EVERY statement should be deleted if it is not sourced. BLP has never been interpreted that strictly. Current BLP policy requires the citing of potentially controversial statements, but you are redefining EVERY statement as potentially controversial to force citing of every statement. It is a good goal to have well cited articles, but forcing this change overnight especially to little trafficked articles is WP:POINT Caper13 05:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

User:CyberAnth engaging in vandalism through misapplication of policy

I have just noticed that the above user has made a series of edits to over two dozen articles removing material he claims violates WP:BLP. I have not looked at every one of these edits, and some of them may well be valid, but to use just two examples he has removed from the Hank Aaron article the fact that Aaron was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame and removed from the article on golfer Tommy Aaron every bit of information in the article save for his name and profession, including his finishing places in various golf tournaments. WP:BLP exists to make sure that libel is not placed in wikipedia and specifically mandates that only controversial information should be deleted. None of the information presented above, and presumably most of the rest of the material removed, has been challenged by anyone or could fit into a rational definition of controversial. Furthermore, the user did not attempt to resolve what problems he claimed existed through dialogue on the talk page of the article or through use of tags. I posted about the issue on his talk page, and he was unapologetic. I reverted some of the changes and he immediately reverted me. Administrator action would appear to be required to end this user's disruption of wikipedia. Indrian 03:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

There is already a thread here started on this issue at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User_deleting_massive_amounts_of_information_from_multiple_articles

What would you like to do, dialog about allowing BLPs that do not adhere to WP policies?

That Hank Aaron is in the Hall of Fame may seem incontrovertible fact to you. But many people, like me, know hardly a thing about Aaron, so that can absolutely be a controversial statement, given that it is not verifiable. Cite it. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence.

CyberAnth 04:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

There's a difference between "not verifiable" and "not verified". There's your verification. You may have a point with many of your edits. There is far too much unverified information on Misplaced Pages, but I'd still say you're mostly making a point this evening. --Onorem 04:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

So, is the Burden of evidence now on the reader? Per WP:V#Burden of evidence, "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article." The solution is cite it. CyberAnth 04:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You'll have a hard time convincing me that you actually believe that calling someone a Senator or stating that a baseball player is in the Hall of Fame would be considered libelous. These are statements that should have, at most, been moved to the talk page. --Onorem 04:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You must be referring to the litany of claims about a Senator...unsourced, uncited, unverifiable claims. The cite for the HoF is just above. Feel free to add it. CyberAnth 04:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

If your intention was anything other than to prove a point, you could have added it yourself rather than deleting the work of others. Caper13 05:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The burden of evidence for every page on Misplaced Pages is not mine. Per WP:V#Burden of evidence, "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article." The solution is cite it. CyberAnth 05:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

If it's a good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, it is not vandalism. If it is an edit based on a misunderstanding of policy, it is not vandalism. In fact, I think CyberAnth understands BLP policy and is applying it mostly correctly. Tags are fine for Civil War generals, but potentially controversial material about living people has to be sourced when added. The burden of proof is on whoever wants to add the material. The solution is to cite it and add it, not to revert to the uncited version, with or without a tag. Tom Harrison 05:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You gotta be kidding me. CyberAnth, who has been here before about POINT violations, is REMOVING facts like "Hank Aaron is in the Baseball Hall of Fame" and whether so and so is a SENATOR... and that's a GOOD THING? If we required cites for every sentence, then the whole article would be unreadable. I strongly disagree. SirFozzie 05:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It may seem common knowledge to you that Aaron is in the HoF. For all many know, it could be false. Cite it. Pick any dozen of baseball figures. By golly, if an editor makes such an exceptional claim that they are in the HoF, it better be cited in a BLP. As for the Senator, you must be referring to the litany of claims about a Senator I removed...unsourced, uncited, unverifiable claims. CyberAnth 05:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

CyberAnth is continuing his process despite the fact that there is active conversation and discussion of his edits here at AN/I. Would it be worth it to request a temporary stop while the extent of WP:BOF and what is, is not, or might possibly be controversial is worked out? ThuranX 05:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The material being removed ranges from statements with legitimate potential for being defamatory, to easily-sourced, common knowledge, positive statements about the subject. The fact that CyberAnth doesn't appear to be able to tell the difference indicates that he doesn't understand the policy, and rather is going about removing uncited material from bios at random. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Suppose of every four edits CyberAnth removes three uncontroversial and sourcable but currently-unsourced statments and one instance of potentially libelous misinformation?

Jimbo Wales as quoted in WP:BLP, "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."

Once again, life isn't a game (and I note CyberAnth's involvement in both threads.) Misplaced Pages must not do capricious harm to real-world individuals, however valid our inside-the-box concerns may be. Talk of wiki consensus and congenial editting is valid in itself, but in such situations is beside the point.

I'd be curious to learn what blocks, if any, have been imposed against editors who've added potentially libelous unsourced material to biographies of living persons.Proabivouac 11:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Alkivar's block of CyberAnth

User:Alkivar has blocked CyberAnth for one week. I have asked for a reconsideration of this block. Jkelly 06:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Some discussion of this block has happened at User talk:Alkivar, but I'd like to invite more admins to weigh in. Jkelly 06:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Reading the above discussion I'm fully in line with the block. CyberAnth is antagonistic to the point of POINT. Removing uncited, common knowledge and *refusing* to do any trivial research, or work *with* other editors is highly detrimental to our aims. Wjhonson 07:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say a block was necessary, but a one-week block probably too long. – Chacor 07:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this is more of a case of WP:SPIDER than WP:POINT. CyberAnth is mixing in good removals of uncited material that violate BLP, but the removal of some thing such as that Hank Aaron is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame because there wasn't a cite next to the "claim" is not appropriate behavior, namely (edited) blanking sections. More diffs are readily availible in the contribution history. There are much better ways to conform biographies, and disruption is not a way. Preventative block. Teke 07:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree with the block. As someone who was once blocked for WP:POINT - I know it when I see it, and boy did I see it in CyberAnths actions ! Thank you Alkivar - well done. - Fairness & Accuracy For All 08:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You are aware that User:Sandstein unblocked him about two hours ago, right? User:Zoe|(talk) 08:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

That's... unfortunate. SirFozzie 08:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Was it done with reference to the blocking admin? That is a courtesy at least in a situation like this... Viridae 08:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you just look on Alkivar's talk page and see? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 09:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah prob should have, I didnt see anything on sandsteins talk page so I didnt look any further. Viridae 10:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I am interested that the block was given as edit warring, while the unblock was "no evidence of 3rr" - they are different issues, edit warring is disruption (broad) whereas 3rr is violation of a specific policy. Viridae 11:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I'm getting deja-vu over this. There was a similar problem, as I mentioned above, with the Ron Jeremy article where the entire thing was blanked under WP:BLP as unsourced. The outcome of that was that the blanking was the right thing to do. I think this block is out of line and the editor is doing a good job in removing some of the large amount of unsourced information from the site.

Every article on this site has at least one editor who has worked on it. If another editor comes along and deletes info as unsourced and doesn't actively try and source it himself, instead of revert warring over it or violating WP:V by re-inserting it without a source, why don't we leave the community to re-add it with the citations? We have policies, why are we telling off and blocking an editor who is editing in good faith to enforce them? It just doesn't make any sense. If we do that then we are just going to drive editors who do controversial but good things away.

As CyberAnth states, the burden of evidence is on the editor who adds or restores the info and re-adding it without a source is against policy.-Localzuk 12:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Only properly sourced information should be added to an article, especially where living people are concerned. CyberAnth is correct in removing and challenging information that was added without a source. Frise 14:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Are we really changing the policy to one of 100% Citation at all times? That is patently Absurd. If that's done, it would kill the project, because it disregards WP:AGF and WP:CS entirely. to go back to the Hank Aaron example above, we should erase such things as Aaron being a baseball player, male, black, living(or dead), american, and so on. Looking at a number of the articles Cyberanth has blanked or reduced, they now are completely non-notable people, given the lack of WP:V information there. I think CyberAnth's next step it to recover his ground and nominate all such articles for deletion on teh grounds of unsubstantiated notability. I have always been under the impression that Verifiable and Controversial were two entirely different priniciples here. Instead, CyberAnth has taken the interpretation that anything NOT citation verified is by its very nature a Controversial statement. I think this is a bad direction for Misplaced Pages to go in, but I look forward to watching CyberAnth's behaviors spread. When Thousands of editors are marginalized by having any and all work they've done deleted, and quit, I think we'll see the folly of assuming that 'Hank Aaron was a baseball player.' is a good way to be.ThuranX 15:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I've bashed heads with Cyberanth numerous times. I think he is often a very good editor. Cyberanth is sometimes a big problem though. The problem is not in erverting or removing a small bit of text in one article though. All editors do that from time to time. The problem is that he gets in a mode of deleting large chunks of material, in a a great many articles to the point of disrupting editing by other editors on those articles, and Misplaced Pages wide when we get into these long discussions. It is a variation of the same old deletionist argument, applied to the specific case. Cyberanth is a deletionist, for good or for bad, and spends mos of his time deleting other peoples work. In some cases, the work deleted is garbage and opinion that is not, or can not be sourced. In some cases, it is perfectly good material that has not yet been sourced, but would be, given time. If Cyberanth's method of operation was one based on consensus, discussing the faults of a given article in detail in cooperation with other working on the article, and eventually removing material that no one could, or was willing to source, then we would not be discussing his actions over and over and over. His method of operation is to blindside editors who have worked together for weeks or months on an article by swooping into an article and removing the bulk of an article, making it a stub. The editors of that article become angry that their efforts are swept aside by someone who has not bothered to even explain to them on the discussion page what the problems are. At best the edit summary gives a vague reference to Misplaced Pages policy on providing sources, often not even that. If Cyberanth removed material from articles where no one was contributing or editing, or after a discussion with editors, no one would be complaining.

To reiterate, the problem is not whether or not it is okay to remove unsourced material. The problem is the method of operation. Cyberanth is not interested in communication, negotiation, or working towards consensus with others. Cyberanth is entitled to work on Misplaced Pages however he pleases. But, when that method becomes dysfunctional, and creates more negatives than positives wikipedia wide, then it is necessary to take action, such as this block. The block is appropriate and necessary. Cyberanth may be insulted, but that is needed to get his attention. Eventually he will get that disrupting other editors on wikipedia is not acceptable, and that editing wikipedia cooperatively with others is necessary. Atom 15:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

While it might be argued that Cyberanth was a bit over the top here, I don't think too far so. I've really never understood the constant objection to sourcing "obvious" information. If it's so obvious, it's trivial to find sources! I've found tons with just a cursory Google search, and probably any given one could source 95%, if not 100%, of that disputed "obvious" information all on its own. If information really is obvious and widely known, then it's widely stated and widely sourced! If not, maybe it's not really so "obvious". Seraphimblade 15:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that is what the problem is. Cyberanth could have gone to baseballhalloffame.com and cited the claim in under 30 seconds. The user didn't do this, because they are being disruptive to make a point and if it hadn't been that particular "fact" in question, the user would have just choosen another article to go after. And that is where to no-no is. Teke 16:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The person who added the information in the first place should have taken the thirty seconds to properly source their addition. Frise 17:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, that editor inserting has the burden of proof. We are discussing CyberAnth's actions and whether they were appropriate, disruptive, or both. It in my opinion that CyberAnth did not remove the unsourced material because it failed BLP; it was disruption to illustrate a point and had nothing to do with the original author's lapse in citing that Hank Aaron's a retired professional baseball player in the hall of fame. For crying out loud, the encyclopedia Britannica is not aswath with this footnotes and citations. Tertiary sources are not written in the same manner that academic research and Misplaced Pages should not adopt the standards of academia. The sort of research and reference found in journals and trade publications that cite every single statement is because it is technically original research]] and we don't allow that no matter how many citations we use. I agree with the statement below that the application of BLP is getting out of hand. What's next, I cite a source and then have to source to source to prove it exists? This is policy wonking to the extreme and is in no way productive. In fact, it is destructive. Teke 17:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Teke. Further, Frise, pleaes remember that many editors, especially newer ones, operate without the serious investment in time that learning the nuances of every wikipolicy takes. There are still dozens of policies and groups here at WP that I don't know, and I'm coming up on my first year anniversary(of membership), such as the OTRS remarked upon below. It is incumbent upon established editors and admins to HELP newer editors who edit in good faith whereever possible. Without going being WP:Just plain obtuse, no one could argue that an editor who adds Hank Aaron's Hall of Fame status isn't acting in Good Faith. Such an edit should be supported by other editors, who can, as demonstrated, fix this in 2 minutes or less. If CyberAnth had gone through all those articles, tagging them wih the top of page uncited template and then hitting the talk page with a simple 'Hey, Let's work this weekend to fix this article's citation needed tag', he'd probably be collecting barnstars, not criticisms this weekend. Instead, he's deliberately AVOIDED explanations on some of the pages he's edited. CyberAnth has demonstrated that he can understand Wikipolicy when he wants to, but chose to disregard the spirit of WP:BITE and WP:AGF here in a big way, in favor of WP:BLP. That picking and choosing bothers me greatly. I didn't see any controversies being debated at Hank Aaron, so the slower, measured style could've worked well there. Further, CyberAnth could've just picked an article and fixed it, then moved onto the next. Why didn't he do that? Finally, As I've mentioned before, CyberAnth has juxtaposed "Controversial" and "Uncited". There is NO controversy about the fact that Hank Aaron is a member of the HoF. The fact is, however, an uncited inclusion in the article. Not every uncited claim is by its nature controversial. Hank Aaron is male. That shouldn't need citation. Hank Aaron is alive. That shouldn't need citation. (and good luck getting a continuously current citation on that one.) There's WP:COMMON to consider here. Certain facts shouldn't be removed because they are uncited. At best, they need a cite tag, and others are just going to have to remain uncited.(standard disclaimer - I am not an admin, if this is inappropriately posted here, please delete.) ThuranX 17:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

BLP should not have been expanded

When the BLP policy was introduced it was originally for 'negative comments' and worked fine except for occasional disagreements about what was 'negative'. Then people suggested (correctly) that allowing unsourced 'positive comments' to remain could result in equally biased articles... just in the other direction. That was true, but IMO missing the point... nobody is going to sue Misplaced Pages for having unsourced positive comments about them. The BLP policy was changed so that any 'controversial comments' could be removed. Various people predicted that this would result in endless conflicts as there is always someone who will label any detail 'controversial' and then insist that they are allowed to edit war over it (free from 3RR violation no less). Sometimes the people restoring the comments are blocked, sometimes the people removing them are blocked, sometimes it turns into a massive mess like the above... but it is always disruptive and pointless. The BLP policy was enacted to protect Wikimedia from legal jeopardy. It allowed draconian reversion free from 3RR to achieve that aim. It should not have been expanded to cover things which do not place Wikimedia in legal jeopardy. We have long-standing procedures at the verifiability policy for handling unsourced claims in general... the special strictures of BLP should be restricted to claims which may be legally actionable. Not every fact someone decides to object to. Otherwise we will continue to have nonsense like the above over and over and over again. --CBD 15:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is denying that CyberAnth's edits should be subject to 3RR, except maybe herself (himself?). I know that I am not. That does not mean that the removal is bad, just that it isn't protected by BLP. -Amark moo! 16:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Hear hear, CBD. Teke 16:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

nobody is going to sue Misplaced Pages for having unsourced positive comments about them - that is a bit presumptuous of you. What if the comment was a claim that a person had won a nobel prize. OK, the person in question wouldn't be doing any suing but the Nobel Foundation may... Many things that are seemingly innocuous can actually be a problem to people other than the person in question if it is belittling to their own achievements. Anyway, what I'm saying is that anything that is unsourced could be actionable on a BLP by that person or someone related to that fact... The idea of removing unsourced information is not new - it is one of the aspects of WP:V and the problem is the re-adding of info and anyone who is engaging in revert warring over re-adding such info should be blocked and not someone removing it. I think that those who are saying that CyberAnth's actions were wrong are incorrect, his actions are zealous but not wrong. (and to amark, I would say that his actions are covered by BLP.)-Localzuk 17:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with a lot of the spirit of CBD's comments, but at the same time, positive vs. negative is not always so clearcut. Saying that a person is gay would be viewed as negative by someone who believes homosexuality is wrong, but wouldn't be viewed as negative by many other people. | Mr. Darcy talk 17:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

There is another problem here. And that is with the fact that the authors of articles often object to 'non negative assertions'. And OTRS often has to pick this up. E.g a bio of Jean Smith says "she was once a director of firm xyz'. If Jean Smith contacts OTRS and says 'no I wasn't - and I object to being associated with them', The OTRS operative will remove the claim unless it is verified to the point that the complainant is obviously lying. In these cases putting on it will not do. If the subject, or anyone claiming to be the subject, e-mails OTRS, or even edits the article themselves, then the default position should be that any unverified information can be removed and should not be replaced without solid verification. This isn't just about who can sue us, this is also about real people who have a right not to have us hosting potentially misleading unverified information about them. I will remove any unverified information from a biography in response to any OTRS request, and I expect it to stay removed unless verified.--Doc 17:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's break it down then. There are some comments that almost everyone agrees are potentially negative/controversial/legally actionable (e.g. 'this person enjoys sacrificing puppies to Beelzebub', 'this person's parents hate them', 'this person has sex with <whoever/whatever>')... such comments should be covered by BLP. Then there are comments which seem innocuous to some and potentially controversial to others (e.g. 'this person is ## years old'). If we are contacted through OTRS or some other means and told that the person does object to some such statement then it falls under BLP and must be sourced for inclusion... any uncertainty has been removed by the person themself. However, extending BLP to cover seemingly innocuous statements that anyone objects to leads inevitably to continuous disputes like the above. We have a verifiability policy for that stuff. It still requires sources... it just doesn't give people a license to edit war over anything and everything. --CBD 18:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

So you are saying that we should allow unsourced information, that might mean people complain to Misplaced Pages, to be left in articles? Surely that is completely backwards. We should be striving to only include well sourced or blatantly obvious information (ie. water is wet) and anyone who tries to re-add unsourced information to an article is violating WP:V and in this case WP:BLP as it could be seen as controversial (an example of something innocent - Jimbo recently posted regarding the date of birth on his article here saying that it was wrong and unsourced. Should we just slap an unsourced tag on it? No. We should remove it and only re-add it if it has a source).-Localzuk 18:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You say that 'water is wet' is uncontroversial... I say that 'Hank Aaron is in the baseball hall of fame' is uncontroversial... but we see above how that worked out. Yes, "we should be striving to only include well sourced or blatantly obvious information"... which is what WP:V is for. We should absolutely follow that policy. When Jimbo says, 'hey my birth date is wrong' we should absolutely put that under WP:BLP. However, putting everything under BLP... even things that the person has not objected to and which there is no significant reason to think they would object to is a great way to cause massive pointless disruption... and not much else. It effectively means that all un-sourced statements in biographies of living people, sentences which mention living people, and/or sentences which mention groups that livng people belong to can be removed at will without restriction by 3RR. Note, we aren't saying that all these things must be removed... presumably because if we did the database size would be cut in half, but we are giving anyone who wants it free license to edit war over any and all pages they like. WP:V is a perfectly sound and reasonable policy which has been used to deal with unsourced statements for years. It can continue doing so just fine. There is no reason to extend BLP to cover objections to claims that 'water is wet'. If someone needs a citation for that they can go through WP:V procedures to get it... rather than using BLP as an excuse to edit war about it. --CBD 21:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there is a big difference between that situation and this one. If someone tells you that a piece of information in their article is false, then you have good reason to distrust the claim. If any editor actually distrusts a claim in an article, and the claim is uncited, he should remove it. This doesn't characterize CyberAnth's actions, however, because he was removing (among his numerous edits) facts that no reasonable person would distrust. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Re-insertion of unsourced material using rollback

I see admin Jaranda has restored 20+ articles containing unsourced information in a little over one minute using the rollback tool. Frise 23:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This is out of line. It is a blatant violation of WP:V and should be undone as far as I'm concerned.-Localzuk 00:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not going to be undone, I saw blanking vandalism, many of the articles was created by trusted admins like User:Rebecca, not line of everything needs a citation, only conterversal stuff etc, if that ever happens, most users including me will quit Jaranda 03:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Again? Frise 03:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Applicable comment from Jimbo

From Talk:Ron_Jeremy#WP:BLP

I think that Frise has done the right thing here. Yes, it is entirely possible that he could have done more... by going through this thoroughly horrible article and trying to extract the tiny handful of facts which are properly sourced. I hope that he, or someone, will take the time to do so... fact-by-fact, very carefully.

But simply restoring the unsourced junk in this article and adding fact tags to it is not really enough. We must take quality very seriously, and this is precisely the intent of our ongoing efforts to raise quality standards.

The version I just blanked contained such gems as an unsourced claim that Mr. Jeremy is known as a "The Hedgehog", that he was but is no longer capable of autofellatio, that he was arrested on two occassions, that he has had unprotected sex with thousands of people, that he claims to have had sex with 5000 women, etc.

Are those claims true? Well, in the case of Mr. Jeremey who has admittedly led a colorful life, it seems likely that they are. But "it seems like something that could be true" must not be sufficient cause to re-introduce questionable material into Misplaced Pages, and if all that someone has time to do is nuke a bad article, the right response to those who want to restore it, is to restore it fact by fact, piece by piece, making absolutely certain that the quality is right.-- User:Jimbo Wales 07:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is the edit Jimbo made.

CyberAnth 00:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

This seems to me quite compelling. He concedes that the information is "likely" to be true, yet still blanks it. By the standards put forth here, Jimbo should be blocked. What does Jimbo (like CyberAnth) understand that a substantial element of the community here doesn't?Proabivouac 00:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Please see Jimbo's further comment at the top of this main section, second from the top. CyberAnth 01:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Jimbo, CyberAnth, CBD, Doc, and just about everyone else here as valid points have been raised from all sides about referencial information in BLPs. What I disagree with is the blanket application and methodology of the actions taken. I'd consider Ron Jeremy's nickname and other such "fact" to be trivial and unencyclopedic, even if it were sourced. Especially since it wasn't, kill it. But there is a huge, huge difference in some of the blankings. I would agree with 80% of them, but the ones that I do not I have a huge disagreement with, as in the much referenced Hank Aaron case.

As an example, last March there was a big hubub over at Talk:Neil Patrick Harris over whether or not the actor's speculated homosexuality warranted inclusion. I argued against inclusion, as there were no reliable sources or verification possible. If/when Harris "came out of the closet", it might merit inclusion then. The content was agreed to be removed, and when Harris declared his homosexuality publicly a month or so ago the information was reinserted, as now it met with BLP and WP:V. No one ever blanked the fact that he is an actor, as that is not what BLP is for. It simply is not. Removal of unreferenced, trivial, obscene, positive/negative, ORTS requests, etc is fine. Removal of the obvious to prove a point with a unilateral response of "It's policy that's what Jimbo says" is not working with the community and is not helping to resolve the issue at all. Jimbo is not our God, and policy is not law- certainly not strict interpretation. A unilateral approach that does not involve the OFFICE strangulates the goal of a shared effort. Teke 02:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to join me in going through . If one views the meta-information in the page here, one can see the category exists "per Jimbo Wales". Its purpose is "to help Misplaced Pages editors improve the quality of biographies of living persons by ensuring that the articles maintain a neutral point of view, maintain factual accuracy, and are properly sourced." If anyone wishes to team together in systematically going through each-an-every biography of a living person on WP, kindly leave a note on my talk page. That way, through non-duplication and coordination of efforts, we can make the effort more effective. CyberAnth 07:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Some of CyberAnth's edits that I'll be repeating

Lest CyberAnth's good work be overlooked in allegations of POINT, I thought I'd pick out a few edits that I'll be repeating (since they all seem to have been reverted).

This edit to Yakub Abahanov (an article about a Guantanamo detainee) is completely appropriate. The bulk of the article is not sourced, most astonishingly a list of allegations against Abahanov which are, in the language used, presented as fact. Moreover, at least one of the citations dsiguises original research (the paragraph about the FOI request). It's shocking that all of this material was restored. I've made more comments on the talk page.

This edit to Jarle Aase removes unsourced statements about Aase's sexual orientation and criminal record. I would have thought this would be a fairly obvious edit to make, but it was inexplicably rolled back by Jaranda.

This edit to 50 Cent removes much information which may well be true but was nevertheless uncited, and in that state cannot be distinguished from apocrypha. The material removed includes the statement that Fiddy's mother was "a bisexual crack dealer", that he had "a lengthy rap sheet", and so forth. To take an example from the article, 50 Cent's disputes with various other rappers are well known, but without sources then the statements about the exact cause and nature of the disputes can't be trusted. Details need sources, even if the broad outline is widely known enough to be common knowledge.

See also this edit to Jimmy Swaggart, not a case of removing unsourced information but of stubbing an article which consisted entirely of negative information about Swaggart, after a paltry attempt in the lead to provide some biographical information. See discussions on the talk page and here on ANI. Also, take a look at the history of Christian evangelist scandals.

Providing sources and maintaining neutrality in biographies of living persons is hard work, but it is necessary work. Anyone who has volunteered for OTRS can tell you that what Misplaced Pages has to say about living people can affect them, and does so on a regular basis. It is especially important not to be lax and let material that is 'good enough' or 'sounds true' to remain in articles. After all, it is the falsehoods that appear plausible to the uninformed eye that are the most dangerous of all.

We must get the article right, and if the price is having to work a little harder to find sources, or accidentally removing too much material once in a while, then that's a price I'm more than willing to pay. --bainer (talk) 02:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That is well said. Teke 04:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why we are still talking about it. It has been said over and over that the issue is in taking a legitimate policy, and pressing it to obscene ends to make a point, disrupting Misplaced Pages in the process. All of those changes could have been made in a graceful, cooperative, collaborative manner effectively, without upsetting anyone. That would have required more time, more patience, and more adept listening skills, but it would have been done according to the way we have all agreed to deal with each. How many more times will Cyberanth disrupt Misplaced Pages, step on a dozen or more editors toes, and get away with it while well meaning wikipedia look aside quoting wikipedia policy. Many of you keep turning your attention away from the poor communication, poor cooperation and disruption to explain how some small part of that process of disruption was beneficial. It doesn't matter whether 1% or 99% of the edits were legitimate, the intentional act of disrupting is the topic, not the method used to disrupt and insult other editors. Cyberanth should have been blocked two weeks ago when he disrupted wikipedia, and he should have been blocked again this time — not blocked for four hours, and then unblocked by another admin who disagreed with the previous admin. Atom 04:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I admit to having an uninformed eye about Hank Aaron. CyberAnth 04:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There's a start, CyberAnth, if not a bit seemingly tongue-in-cheek. The objections that Atom, others and I have both been making is that there is being bold, which is good, and making a point, which is bad. Mixing up the two, which happened here, causes conflict and controversy and devolves the discussion into vague arguments where we're all trying to win. Thebainer pointed out good diffs, as most of them were (I have no comment on the rollbacks used). But there are instances in removing content where you know from experience that an edit summary, vague or explicit, will not suffice. Drop a note on the talk page before/after you do something like the Hank Aaron situation to get opinions. Without communication, both process and policy fail. It is a social interaction that builds the encyclopedia. I supported the block as preventative, at this point I support the unblock so that you may reply here. Either way, I think that the situation is done and there really is nothing more to say. Any other <reporter>alleged</reporter> abuse of admin tools does not relate to this thread directly. The storm has passed, happy editing to all. Teke 05:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The reason people read encyclopedias is because they have an uninformed eye. The reason we have WP:V is because of this. And please, please, please everyone stop trying to divine my motives with this inane "POINT" insinuation. You wanna know my motive? Here it is: WP:BLP CyberAnth 06:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Look, I'm not trying to be unfriendly, really. You aren't getting it still. No one is trying to divine your motivations, we are describing the results of your actions. The results of your actions (very strict interpretation/application of policy) was disruption (stepping on editors toes, breakdown in communication). Because this is the second time it has happened, and caused great disruption, and your continued argument is based on application of policy, it may give the appearance that you are trying to make a POINT. Regardless of whether that is true, and regardless of whether your intent is pure, or not, the result is the same. If you could please consider listening to a wide variety of people who offered advice here this time, here during the last brouhaha, and on your user page – to communicate with the editors on the talk page, and give them time to respond before applying policy in the manner you choose. This effort to work with others will take you more time, and slow the process, but the result will be the desired result (improvement of the article through additional citations, and removal of OR material) while at the same time using the consensus based approach that is the foundation of Misplaced Pages. I believe that most Misplaced Pages editors would say that an environment with more consensus and communication, at the cost of taking more time resolve loose ends in articles is preferred. Most of us vary somewhat from the median within a few standard deviations in how we communicate in working through issues. My opinion is that the result of your actions gives the appearance that you deviate substantially further than that. Enough so to outrage, upset and disrupt large numbers of otherwise reasonable and easy-going editors on multiple occasions. Moving from the bulldozer in the china shop to the bull in the china shop would be an improvement. As always, I wish you well. Atom 18:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Administrator's code of conduct?

I am the person who reverted CyberAnth's original edit to the Guantanamo captive. I disagree with User:bainer on the appropriateness of the original bold excision, and his or her repeat of that bold excision. I replied to his or her warning on the talk page. I tried my best to be civil in that reply. And I tried my best to be civil in a note I left on his or her talk page.

I found the tone of the warning bainer left on the talk page inflammatory. It puzzled me, because I don't believe we have ever encountered one another before. And when I looked into bainer's contribution history, I was alarmed. The use of scornful language, the warnings in bold —— was I at risk of a sudden sanction?

I don't know if you administrators have a code of conduct you all agree to.

• If you don't have one, I urge you to develop one.
• If you do have one, I urge you to make it more prominently known.

1. After some experience with grumpy or high-handed administrators I would urge you all to agree not to exercise your administrator privileges if you don't have the patience to attempt to make a civil answer to a civil question. If you don't have the time or energy to be patient to those who pose civil questions about your exercise of authority, then you don't have the time or energy to exercise your authority, and you should leave whatever raised your concern to other administrators who do have the time and energy to be civil.
2. Remember, if you leave scornful warnings the ordinary users to whom you addressed them have no way of knowing whether you might make a sudden rogue exercise of authority.
   1. It would probably be best if you refrained from making any warnings whatsoever, unless you really were considering using your administrator's authority.
   2. In that case you need to agree on the way in which you will inform the correspondent you are warning that you have administrator authority, and are considering using it..
   3. If you have already participated in a thread, particularly if you had made even a small lapse from civility, you should consider taking off your administrator hat, recusing yourself, and asking another administrator to take a look and see if they share your concern.

I spent some time, a day or two ago, looking at this particular thread, because material I had added was in one of the articles under discussion. I saw that this discussion grew heated. Now that I have returned to it, I have a theory as to why bainer used such inflammatory language while addressing me. My theory now is that bainer got heated after reading the heated exchange here, and unloaded some of that heat on in their warning to me.

Well, please don't do that gang. — Geo Swan 23:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Be Excellent to Each Other. Teke 02:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

An appeal for help

I've put an appeal for help fixing some of the artivles more seriously affected by Cyberanths actions here. I don;t really know where else to put it, but I feel that whether or notCyberAnths actions and motiations are good it seems reasonable this kind of thing should be flagged so that there's a chace for the articles to be improved rather than just truncated. Artw 18:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Hildanknight and User:Dev920

I don't know the history between these two, but the history of Dev920's talk page shows some major incivility going on. Looks like a concerted effort by Hildanknight to go on a personal crusade against Dev920 (see also Dev's recent RFA), and he's been warned. Admins should probably watch the situation and block if necessary. – Chacor 02:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Final warning left. --Coredesat 02:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, I just went to Hildanknight's userpage, and see that it has a semi-protected tag on it. I checked at WP:RFP and WP:PP, and did not see his

He blanked his talk page and said on his userpage that he lost all hope on Misplaced Pages. Terence Ong 09:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

If he has lost faith in Misplaced Pages because he was warned for violating WP:CIV, WP:NPA and for removing an administrator's comments from somebody's talk page, then I would suggest he doesn't really understand policy and procedures here. Jeffpw 09:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, so be it. Its his decision to just throw in the towel. Terence Ong 09:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

To be honest with you, I had no idea of the history between me and Hildanknight, but I've done some digging and it seems he was a fervent Esperanzan who I've had some interaction with here - I said that the idea of a wikiorganisation's members giving up their right to determine consensus among themselves to an elected seven member council was "a fucking stupid idea" in response to something Ed said (who I am on good terms with). Hildanknight seems to have taken it as a personal attack on all Experanzans everywhere, and pursued me ever since wherever he finds me, saying that I value truth above civility, that I'm the most incivil person ever to have walked the wiki, and that I'm anti-Muslim, none of which are true. I didn't really think much of it until he started leaving mean comments on my talkpage, taunting me because my RfA failed. Which is outright nasty, as I'm sure you will agree. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 12:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Dev920, my use of the phrase "anti-Muslim comments" was commenting on the content, not the contributor. I did not say that you were anti-Muslim, and I certainly never said that you were "the most incivil person ever to have walked the wiki". I did make a comment that "Dev920 stated that civility is less important than truth" (I recall you saying something to that effect, but if I'm mistaken, I'll apologise). I did not "pursue ever since wherever " - I regularly lurk on RFA, but only vote if I know the candidate. I opposed because of your incivility (both the "f***ing stupid idea" comment and other examples others pointed out) and willingness to engage in people politics (nominating Esperanza for deletion and setting up the Conservatives project).

The "Whew! The Internet still doesn't suck." part of my comment on User talk:Dev920 was borderline incivil, but wasn't a personal attack. Hence, I don't think Dev920 should have removed the comments with an edit summary accusing me of "spewing bile", which Crazytales agreed was incivil, and I don't think Coredesat's "final warning" for personal attacks was warranted.

I've lost all hope in Misplaced Pages, not for the reasons Jeffpw provided, but because the community has become more hostile since Esperanza's deletion, and because my strongest pursuit - writing articles - is hindered by strict verifiability requirements (finding references on Singaporean topics is very difficult, due to systemic bias). --J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The fact that you continue to defend unacceptable behaviour from you (or anyone!) says a lot. – Chacor 15:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that saying "Whew! The Internet still doesn't suck." after someone just had the disapointment of a unsuccesful RfA is more than "borderline incivil"; it is very uncivil, it is also exceedingly mean-spirited. "I've lost all hope in Misplaced Pages, not for the reasons Jeffpw provided, but because the community has become more hostile since Esperanza's deletion"...yes, Misplaced Pages has become more hostile. Your comments to Dev show that. Thε Halo 15:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Your comments to Dev said it all. Your unacceptable behaviour cannot be denied. Since when the community has become more hostile since ESP's deletion? Rubbing salt into the wound and making uncivil comments and personal attacks is not a good thing to do and its uncivil. Terence Ong 10:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Self promotion

A user DavidShankBone appears to be a fashion photographer. Recently he had uploaded numerous photos he attributes to himself, and offers under creative commons licensing. I removed some self-promotional wording from his user page. He appears to have replaced valid photographs in numerous articles with his own photographs. My personal judgement (just my opinion) is that in most cases he added his own lower quality, less precise image to replace a better image. I see this as an extension of his self-promotion attempt.

I expect that he will be upset at having some of those images reverted. First, I want to be sure that my opinion that self-promotion on your own user page (offering free use of your images) is really not appropriate, and that others agree that large scale replacement of other images with his own images is not appropriate.

I'm only asking for other editors opinions here, not trying to demonize anyone. Of course he has made other valuable contributions, but I am only asking about borderline self-promotion! Atom 16:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

He does seem to have added some images of buildings where there were no images before. But his habit of removing someone elses image, or moving the lede image down into the article and placing his image in lede seems self-promotional. This is reinforced (for me) in that the previous image seems of better quality(IMO).

• Self promotional user page (now edited)
• Replaced photos in articles
• Low quality additions to articles.
• Moved lede image sown, and replaced with his own image.
• Added a good photo where none existed before:
• Adds a poor quality image to an article that already has four better quality images. The name of the image has his name imbedded to self-promote.

Atom 14:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm unsure what this editor's issue is, but I suspect that she just does not like the Imitation of Christ photograph from Tara Subkoff's show. I make no habit of replacing people's photographs, and I've added HUNDREDS of high-quality photographs where non previously existed. If the article is small and I have a better one, then I replace it; however, my habit is to move the existing one to a less prominent spot, such as on the Rockefeller Center page. But this editor has followed NO guidelines in reverting my edits nor in listing my images for deletion. My images give quite a bit of value to the pages. I've added hundreds of photographs to the site without self-promotion. First, I'm a law student, not a fashion photographer, or any sort of photographer. Second, I don't self-promote, since I earn no money from photography nor do I put my User name anywhere on the page. Third, moving a lead photograph when it is of poor-quality, or when there is a better photograph available, is not against any policy on this site - where are you coming from on this? I will address each of the issues below:

• Self promotional user page (now edited)

This is my User page and the editor removed a line where I invite people to use my photographs, which has been done by blogs, magazines, etc. I am highlighting that my images are open use, and this editor thinks that is self-promotion?--DavidShankBone 14:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Replaced photos in articles

The Vogue article had two different magazine covers on its pages and I replaced one magazine cover with a photograph of two of Anna Wintour, its editor-in-chief, and Andre Leon Talley, its editor-at-large. This was inappropriate? --DavidShankBone 14:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Low quality additions to articles.
• Moved lede image down, and replaced with his own image.

I shuffled the photographs on the page to replace low-quality image of the Prometheus statue (which I placed toward the bottom) with a photograph showing the whole of Rockefeller Plaza taken from an office building (a shot that is difficult to get unless you have access - I had access, it was at law office).--DavidShankBone 14:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Added a good photo where none existed before:
• Adds a poor quality image to an article that already has four better quality images. The name of the image has his name imbedded to self-promote.

I don't know what the User means by "embedded" by name - it's in the title of the photograph, but that's not self-promotion. Self-promotion deals with putting your own name in the article. Google doesn't even pick them up.

One of my hobbies is going around taking photographs of famous buildings, people and places around New York City. I do a lot of interesting stuff. This editor's actions above has a dampening affect on contributions. Much of what he has reverted or flagged for deletion has no business having done so. A perfectly great example of sequins I put on the Sequin page has been flagged for deletion? I replaced a 96KB photograph of a sequined ass with a full-sequined dress at 863KB - is this really a proper use of this editor's time? At one moment the editor complains I'm putting up too-poor-of-quality photographs; then the editor complains when I put better quality photographs up. Compare the former photograph with the one I put up.

My apologies. Obviously we have different opinions which I am sure we can work out on the talk page of a given article. In this case another opinion might be that a very good closeup of sequins on the sequin article was removed and replaced with a very large image that showed less detail of sequins, and more detail of unrelated things. The database now has an 863KB image instead of one one-tenth that size that illustrated the topic of the article better.

Regarding self promotion, that can be done in a variety of ways. You deserve attribution for the image, and that should be part of the image attributes in the database. Attaching your name to the name of the image is not how we normally do that. By itself it is minor, with the other aspects I complained about, it seems like self-promotion to me. Atom 16:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm totally perplexed by this. I also don't appreciate that this editor is making edits to my User page, highlighting a benefit of our open-use images, and only as an after-thought checks it out. Is this really how we want to operate? --DavidShankBone 14:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I also note this editor has followed no guidelines with this entry. The editor has reverted the images and pages, has flagged them for delete without creating discussion pages for the same (even the Sequin photograph]], has made no attempt to contact me or raised the issues on the Talk pages. --DavidShankBone 14:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, actually I did. I just had not finished that process before you reverted my valid ifd. But, that is besides the point. Do you have a problem with people discussing the value of that particular image? My objection was that at least one of the models seems underaged, but there is no indication that you have the models consent for the photograph, or their ages. It's insertion into the breast article without discussing with other editors (when image content is an open and active discussion on the article) is what brought my attention to the self promotion. Atom 16:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is the right place for this discussion, but I've looked at the evidence, and User:Atomaton seems at best to be making a mountain out of a molehill. I can't see thatDavidShankBone has done anything wrong, and has improved a great many articles. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. I was asking for an opinion on whether the manner on which this photographer was approaching self promotion was appropriate, not trying to villify the editor, or suggest that other aspects of his participation had any problem. Did you see where I said "First, I want to be sure that my opinion that self-promotion on your own user page (offering free use of your images) is really not appropriate"? Atom 16:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Is he replacing fair use by copyleft, by any chance? --Kim Bruning 15:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

No - every one of my photographs (see my talk page for an exhaustive listing) is licensed under Creative Commons 2.5 attribution, unless it is of a painting (Roy Lichtenstein, Rube Goldberg, and then I put it under Copyright, but fair use (per policy for photographs of art).--DavidShankBone 15:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Aannd, yes he is, indeed, in at least one case. Sooo, if that's the pattern, we might want to give DavidShankBone a barnstar for his good work so far. I hope someone has time to track that down.

Thank you! I replaced a copyrighted photograph on Terry McAuliffe with an open-use. The whole idea behind my hobby here is to put up photographs others can use freely. --DavidShankBone 15:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Though the magazine covers are much prettier, they're not copyleft. We at least have a free image now, and we can always get better ones later. We can also orphan and delete the magazine covers perhaps? :-) --Kim Bruning 15:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not suggesting that there is something terribly wrong with this editor. I have suggested that the high quality images of buildings he has provided is excellent, and appreciated. What I was asking is if the self-promotion, and apparent replacement of good quality images with his own (without discussion) was appropriate. It may be your, or others opinion that removing a fair-use high quality image with a low-quality poor image is okay. That is a matter of opinion.

A consistent pattern of replacing a lede image with ones own image (whether is happens to be fair use or not) without discussion, and titling the image itself with the photographers name as part of the image, and putting on the top of ones user page "SPRUCE UP YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE/ZINE, POWERPOINT, BLOG, ADVERTISING OR COMPANY NEWSLETTER WITH MY IMAGES, FREE FOR ALL!" seems to me like self promotion to me. The fact that it is not yet profitable does not make it less self-promotion. I merely asked if this type of borderline, subtle, entrenchment strategy marketing (giving free images in order to get noticed and build a market) was appropriate, or at least what others opinions about this was. The fact that this editor has offered other contributions (of value) is a completely unrelated topic. Atom

Atom, David: Neither one of you has ever posted on the other’s talk page. Try talking about your issues there. As for David’s user page, I’d advise trimming it down to the stuff actually relevant to the project plus a link to a homepage elsewhere with the other stuff. —xyzzy_n 15:40, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no trouble trimming my User page down, but what this editor took out doesn't merit editing. I could take out all the "About me" stuff - no problem. I also noted that this editor made no attempt to contact me and went about deleting images from pages with no discussion, and attempted to have the images deleted without following any of the guielines. --DavidShankBone 15:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to discuss things further on his talk page. Personally, it seems like we have many things in common. The last thing I want to do is alienate someone who has so much to offer to Misplaced Pages. My personal opinion is that the photographs of buildings that he has done are superb. Unfortunately my opinion is that the photogrpahs of people does not meet that standard. Regardless of my singular opinion of the artwork, the addition of images where none existed before is very valuable. The replacement of other peoples images with ones own image, or the movement of an outstanding lede image out of lede, and insertion of ones own image is not appropriate. This should both should always be avoided because of the appearance of vanity, self promotion and conflict of interest. Also, attaching his name to the title of the image seems self-promotional as well. Attribution is important, but that is not our established method for doing that.

Having looked a bit further, there's not really that much happening here. Also concur with xyzzy_n. Would it be ok to close this discussion now? --Kim Bruning 15:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I confess to having no problems with the user page myself, but that's just an opinion. Kim Bruning's suggestion was a good one, though, and I've taken the liberty of awarding DavidShankBone a barnstar for all the work that he's done. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

We allow attribution on images, the images are topical, and in the examples given seem better than others. I would like to thank David for releasing these images into a compatible license. If consensus wants a different image then fine, but unless he is fighting consensus it looks productive. HighInBC 15:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

As I said, of course attribution is important. It goes on the attributes of the image, not as part of the file name, or watermarked into the image. The issue I asked for opinions about was the larger picture of self-promotion as a series of small things. That one thing is, of course relatively unimportant.Atom 17:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The last thing that I would suggest is that this editor is only doing negative contributions. Many of them are quite obviously positive. My objection (and I've tried to state it politely -- to not offend, if that has not come across) is to the self-promotion. I hope that he will continue to provide free use images of buildings and architecture (obviously his area of talent and expertise) all he wants. I brought the discussion here primarily because I did want clarification regarding borderline self-promotion, not to argue, deconstruct his work or offend. Atom 15:51, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I am grateful to anybody who adds free images to Misplaced Pages, no matter what the quality. Some articles are desperate for images, but have none because of WP:FU considerations. David, can I send you a wish list??? :-) Jeffpw 15:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Jeff - this is exactly why I do what I do. I have a personal beef with Getty Images, but if you have photographs you want, I'm more than happy to try and obtain them. But I also noticed the dearth of images on here. It's a really fun hobby. I had kind of hoped that people in their own locations (LA, San Fran, Miami, etc.) would do the same, and get photos on the pages. That's why I'll spend hours just doing photographs of subway stations - so that those pages have images. Not because I'm a subway enthusiast. My intentions are purely good. I really don't understand the bee in the bonnet of this editor. --DavidShankBone 16:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it is not as though he is resisting the consensus for which image to use on an article, unless I am missing something. We now have these images in an irrevocably compatible license forever, for any purpose. This is a good thing. HighInBC 15:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Atom, the way you went about this is offensive because you replaced a high-quality image I put up on the Sequin page with a very low quality image of an ass. I replaced a grainey, poorly lit photograph of the Prometheus statue on the lead of the Rockefeller Center page with one that is of the entire Rockefeller Center plaza (very high quality pixels). What seems to have happened here is you saw the Tara Subkoff Imitation of Christ models bare-chested and that got your ire--why? YOu removed this photograph from sexual objectification (which the show was clearly playing with) and from every other page, and then use the reason that it's not included in any articles as a reason to delete it. THis isn't the way to productively edit, and you can really dampen people's enhusiasm for contributing. And I've contributed a lot. And if you need clarification, this is not the forum to do it. You should contact the editor first and let them explain themselves; then you should research Misplaced Pages policy for yourself, or consul with other editors. You went way over the line here. --DavidShankBone 15:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I have said before several places. The replacement of the detailed (but small file size)image of sequin with a huge image that showed less detail about sequins, and more unrelated detail is what seemed innapropriate to me. No discussion on the talk page, just an assumption that your image was better. When you replaced the good image, that's where it should have been discussed. My return to the previous image was fixing the problem. Atom 16:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

And, my editing is not the topic here, your self promotion is the topic. This is precisely the forum for asking questions about what others perceive as self-promotion, or not. I appreciate that you feel attacked here, but I am not attacking, only asking a simply question of other editors. Trying to attack back does not address the self-promotion issue at all. Atom 19:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It is a good point that David was not contacted on his talk page before this posting here. HighInBC 16:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I do hope that image of Imitation of Christ was restored. It was a great image, and added to the article. Jeffpw 16:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Atom, you don't need to copy edit other's comments, or delete other's comments from this discussion. I have reverted to restore the discussion to how it was before you changed it. Jeffpw 16:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

(Jeffpw) Look it doesn't help things when you revert my edits before I even have a chance to fix it. Edit conflicts on this page are frequent. I got an edit conflict, inserted my comments, realized the problem, and then you undo my changes before I can even fix it. Have some patience. It takes more than 30 seconds to reinsert comments made in four or five different places that took a half an hour to insert. Atom 16:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I have had the same problem, the system does not warn me of an edit conflict and my addition cancels out others edits. HighInBC 16:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Jeffpw; I opened the edit window to add a comment, and found that what I meant to comment on had disappeared. Atom, I can see no-one who responded to your complaint characterising it as a personal attack. We did, however, say that DavidShankBone was doing nothing wrong. You might not like that response, but you do yourself no favours by attacking us. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, when did I attack you? I'm fine with you disagreeing, that's why I asked for your opinion. Atom 19:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, it would have been nice if someone had merely answered my question regarding self-promotion, rather than trying to characterize it as some kind of personal attack. The reason I did not discuss this with David in advance was that I was asking a question about the nature of borderline self-promotion. Had I gotten some confirmation, I would have discussed the issue directly with him. Had others said, "NO I don't think so" I would have dropped the issue. Atom 16:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Atom, an issue you thrust upon yourself is that you are wasting time going after *good* edits, correcting typos on a Talk page, and causing other editors to spend their time with addressing edits that add value, when there are a lot of edits that need to be removed. If you have an itchy editing finger, I suggest you watch the Years and Days pages, where several pre-teens a day add their birth under "notable births" --DavidShankBone 16:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This also does not address the simple question I asked for opinions on. Atom 19:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

All right, then. I think it's entirely appropriate for David to place a sentence on his user page pointing out the free-use images he's contributed. And I think it's entirely inappropriate for you to edit his user page without even trying to discuss the matter with him first. From what I can tell, you seem to have been upset by a change he made somewhere, and then decided to dig through his contributions in return. A simple attempt to communicate with him should have been your first step. Shimeru 20:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

If you had read my comments above, you will realize that I asked for guidance here before discussing it with the user, because I was unsure if the boerderline promotion was too much, or not. I removed his self-promotion, which is in accordance with Misplaced Pages policies. And, no I was no upset with anything, I was asking a question about whether his subtle approach to self promotion was over the line or not. I only came upon his user page after he put one of his images in an article. I have previously never met the fellow, and as you can see by my comments above I have no animosity at all about him. Asking other people their opinions about whether his self-promotion was within wikipedia acceptablility, or not, is fair game. Certainly since I had doubts, asking here first was more appropriate than chastizing him for self-promotion when I was uncertain if it was borderline over or under the line. Since that time, others have asked him to tone down his self-promotion also, and it seems that it should not be a problem. Atom 21:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I think you miss my point. Asking for input is good. Removing content from another user's userpage and then coming here to have your decision validated, having at no point spoken with said user, is not so good. Coming here first and asking "Would removing this be justified?", or bringing up your concerns on David's talk page and asking him to remove or rephrase that wording from his page would have been a more appropriate approach. Also, while you say you have no animosity toward David, your approach reads to me as rather hostile -- in just your reply above, we start with "borderline promotion," proceed to "self-promotion" without the qualifier, then to an assertion the user was violating policy, and finally to "subtle ... self promotion," which might be taken to imply that he is intentionally subverting that policy. This is possibly not what you meant, but taken together with your numerous postings above, can you see why you might be (incorrectly) seen as upset? Wouldn't you agree that speaking to the editor in question (preferably) or to other uninvolved editors before making such changes to a userpage might be a better approach? Shimeru 09:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, as we all know, we do not own our own user pages, they are a community resource. The only thing on his user page I touched was the line "SPRUCE UP YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE/ZINE, POWERPOINT, BLOG, ADVERTISING OR COMPANY NEWSLETTER WITH MY IMAGES, FREE FOR ALL!". As you know, removing promotion is within Misplaced Pages policy. See Misplaced Pages:User page for more detail. I did not ask here for validation of my change to his user page, as the legitimacy of that has not been argued by anyone. I asked if the set of several minor things seemed to be self-promotion to others. I didn't accuse him of violating policy -- clearly his statement is promotional. Few people would disagree with that. "Self promotion" is a more precise description. I was asking if that borderline self promotion was excessive enough with the other elements to violate policy. To answer your last question, certainly after this fiasco, in retrospect, doing anything before posting something here would be preferable in the future. I had the mistaken impression I would benefit from other peoples wise advice by asking here. In the end, I did benefit as a few people were kind enough to address my question, but at the expense of a great deal of grief. Atom 18:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you're not receiving the kind of response you'd expected because the issue isn't nearly as clear as you believe. It's true that WP:USER says "You are welcome to include a link to your personal home page, although you should not surround it with any promotional language." But it also says things like "Another common use is to let people know about your activities on Misplaced Pages" and "You might want to add quotations that you like, or a picture, or some of your favorite Misplaced Pages articles or images" and "In general it is considered polite to avoid substantially editing another's user page without their permission." Is the statement you quote self-promotional text that should be removed, or is it just an enthusiastic pointer to the images this user has contributed? Clearly you think it's the former, but the latter interpretation is not unreasonable. It's certainly not your typical case of advertising copy and spam links. Shimeru 20:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Tokyo Watcher

Tokyo Watcher falsified ratings of the {{Template:Wikiproject Japan}} template at Talk:Tsuki no Misaki, denied any discussion, and finally removed the template.

• first falsification
• second falsification with some comment but not understandable
• third falsification without any comment
• first template removal without any comment
• second template removal with groundless accusation

Recreation of Hijiri zaka and other articles concering non-notable slopes which were deleted as a result of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Hebi zaka. After my deletion with notice, he or she reverted it with abuse of the {protected} template at , accused me without grounds at .

major part of these are previously appeared on Excavator's first edit and second one

--Excavator 16:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I get the feeling that this is a newcomer who doesn't quite understand how things are discussed and decided as a community as a whole on Misplaced Pages. Also, I get the feeling English is not this user's first language - complicating things. Regarding the priority template, a newcomer might ask, "Where did these ratings come from?" Because Misplaced Pages isn't a database interface unless you are a developer, they could might as well be thinking that any arbitrary user could change these ratings to what they wanted. x42bn6 Talk 17:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the prompt comment. The user also has an account on Japanese Misplaced Pages and I think Japanese is the user's first language. However, the user seems to be troublesome even on it because of the user's uncomprehension of Misplaced Pages and a sort of obstinacy. In my feeling, the user could wear out the community of English Misplaced Pages more easily and I'm afraid some kind of cooperation between English and Japanese Misplaced Pages communities would be efficient. --Excavator 18:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC) change work out to wear out --Excavator 15:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

06:39, January 28, 2007 Steel359 (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "65.32.231.232 (contribs)" with an expiry time of 1 week (WP:NPA)

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