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Jeffrey O. Gustafson?

Hello. I opened an ANI inquery into the actions of Admin Jeffrey O. Gustafson, with a lot of details provided. It has since been removed and I have not been informed of the result. Thanks for your attention to this matter. Captain Barrett 02:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Read the top of this page very carefully, and you will soon know why there were no "results". - WeniWidiWiki 02:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, which section are you referring to please? On my previous post I did add "diff's" and did everything which was recommended to me. Captain Barrett 18:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

He might be referring to this part:

Dispute resolution: This page is not part of our Dispute Resolution process.

If you want to make an open informal complaint over the behaviour of an admin, you can do so here. But this is not the Misplaced Pages complaints department. If your problem is a content issue and does not need the attention of people with administrator access, then please follow the steps in dispute resolution. These include: mediation, requests for comment, and as a last resort requests for arbitration.

If no one acted on your request it's possible that no admin felt there was anything actionable under the charter of AN/I. That's just a guess, I didn't read the original entry. Hope it helps, though. ++Lar: t/c 20:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well, an Admin made a polite recommendation to Jeffrey to Recuse himself from a contentious AfD we are involved in, but that is all. Also he has not recused himself yet, still very active. Captain Barrett 01:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Red Links

(refactor)

Note this this user has no user page. Axiomm 22:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe that's because he himself deletes it from time to time. Rightly or wrongly, admins do sometimes do that. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 23:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

From time to time? It's been redlinked consistently since May '06. The only reason the log is so bloody large is because I keep having to redelete vandals and well meaning fools. And nothing says I have to have a user page either, rightly or wrongly. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I was just explaining for the user asking, why you don't have a user page. From time to time is a generic term that certainly encompasses "often". I did not comment on whether you should or should not have a user page in answering the question. Sorry if I gave offense, it was not intentional. But now that you mention it, while I agree there is no firm requirement, I do think it's reasonable to expect an admin to have something on their user page, however small, that users can find when they have questions, rather than being redlinked, and the user's remark that one wasn't there seemed reasonable to me. That's just my opinion, I'm not claiming it is a generally held sentiment. ++Lar: t/c 14:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

No worries, I wasn't offended. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 20:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Having a redlink userpage instead of a redirect to one's user talk page is pretty much done just to annoy people, much like voting oppose in every RfA and so on, but there's no actual policy against it... so he can continue, if he really likes annoying half of Misplaced Pages over something so petty. --W.marsh 20:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Please try to maintain some semblance of civility. I honestly couldn't care less about whether he has a user page or not, but that comment was over the line. Ral315 » 23:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Saying "he's being annoying" isn't incivil, especially if the claim is supported, which it was. --W.marsh 23:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's uncivil. Actually, I think it's pretty accurate. Why can't he just have his user page being a redirect to his talk page? The redlink is just annoying and makes it harder to contact him. --Cyde Weys 02:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

First, I my redlink is not to intentionally antagonize or annoy people, and I take offense at that. Second, I have never bought into the ridiculous claim that it makes it "harder" to contact me. Honestly, two clicks instead of one (and just one click if you're savvy)? While we do have our share of idiots, most Wikipedians are not as lazy or stupid as you seem to think. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If you want people to stop ascribing your actions to malice, perhaps you could stop referring to fellow editors as "fools" and "idiots."

Out of curiosity, why do you prefer to maintain this red link? You're entitled to, but why is this something that you want? —David Levy 18:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not the biggest deal in the galaxy, but I have always considered maintaining one's username as a redlink to be inappropriate for an administrator. Newyorkbrad 23:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Why, if I may ask? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) It serves no useful purpose to not have one, and it makes you less approachable for many users. I know I often check out userpages before leaving messages, and I rather doubt I'm the only one. While you're not required to have one, I do remember your personal policy statement that we should stick to best practices at all times, even when it's not mandatory, or something to that effect.

That said, oddly, I support Jeff's desire/right/privilege/whatever to have the thing redlinked. I've certainly defended having a transcluded .sig for quite some time (including to the developer that wrote the code to prevent people from doing that), which some people find annoying, and I think the instant matter is a good example of why everything not mandatory is not prohibited.

—User:Adrian/zap2.js 2007-02-21 09:51Z

In answer to Jeffrey's question "why?": (1) because it's distracting to have completely unnecessary redlinks (the least important reason, but still true), (2) because it suggests (incorrectly in your case, to be sure) that the user has not yet fully engaged with the community, and (3) because it misleads people not familiar with you into underestimating your role on the project. The latter concern is not a purely theoretical one, I will add, although it is complicated to capture just how without violating the "all contributors are equal" ethos we rightly have here. A couple of months ago, in discussion of one of the controversial Philwelch blocks which occurred at a time when he had a deleted userpage and a redlinked username, it turned out that Phil had tried to explain policy on something to the editor, and the editor had disregarded the explanation because, in substance, he assumed that anyone too inexperienced to have created their userpage yet was unlikely to be a fount of policy experience and advice. The editor indicated that had he realized the person making suggestions was an experienced editor and admin (the former being as important as the latter, really), he would have reacted very differently. So other than being different for the sake of being different, why do it? Newyorkbrad 11:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

For me, it basically boils down to the fact that he's doing something that people are saying "Hey, this annoys me" and it wouldn't effect him to change it or let someone change it, but he says "No, you can't make me, I am going to continue annoying you because I can." And yeah, he can. We all could do a lot of things that annoy eachother but aren't technically against any rule. Thankfully, most of us don't. --W.marsh 14:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, you blindly misinterpret my intentions. It should be reminded that everyone has the right to have (almost) anything in their user space deleted. I can because we all have that right, not just because I have the ability to. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 16:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

In spite of the fact Jeff (inappropriately) supported a ban on me (probably didn't read all the facts) -AND in spite of the fact that he reverted that "you all need to get a job" comment just a few minutes ago (a perfectly legitimate, if slightly insulting comment) -I support his desire to use his User Page in whatever way he wants -so long as, like, he isn't threatening, cussing, or slandering. You people all need to get a life -and leave Jeff alone- duuuude! Talk about a major waste of time on such an unimportant matter- man oh man...--GordonWatts 17:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I think less focus on your "rights" and more focus on what's best for the project would be appropriate here. Friday (talk) 16:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What's best for the Project? Good grief! Having a userpage is no more beneficial to the goals of the Project than not having one is harmful. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Have you not read any of the discussion above, then? Turn it into a redirect, already. What possible advantage is there in not doing so? Friday (talk) 17:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

When there is no explicit harm or benefit, then what I desire to do with my user space takes precedence over the personal tastes of others. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

There is explicit harm: this annoys people and makes it slightly more difficult to contact you. There would be explicit benefits: it would stop annoying people and make it slightly easier to contact you. You're under no obligation to create a redirect to your talk page, but I wonder why you choose to exercise this particular right. —David Levy 18:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that exactly what I said? I never disputed that you had the right to do it... it's that many people have come to you and said it annoys them, and you won't change it. You don't care that you're annoying a lot of good editors. If you're going to do that, I have "the right" to point it out. --W.marsh 16:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think he has the right to not have a user page, which includes not having a redirect to the talk page as a user page. But why not just have the link in the signature be to the talk page instead of the redlinked user page? Unless the intent is to show people that there is no user page. Leebo 16:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm suddenly tempted to delete my own userpage, except it would have the confusing side effect of improving Misplaced Pages's aesthetics. Even some arbcom members have pretty red links. A userpage is an editor's expression of his or her currently preferred Misplaced Pages personality. Sometimes editors prefer that to be a tabula rasa: "make of me exactly what you will"; or, alternately, "My edits stand on their own". Or possibly, "you people have nitpicked my userpage sufficiently that I'm not going to bother having one." Given the way self-expression on user pages is over-scrutinized here, I can understand that point of view. --jpgordon 16:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A redirect to one's user talk page is totally harmless, though. A lot of people find a redlink userpage annoying. --W.marsh 16:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Then they're being too easily annoyed. --jpgordon 17:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You people need to get jobs. --Ideogram 17:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me why my comment was reverted? I thought people weren't supposed to do that. --Ideogram 17:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I unreverted it with my reply here - I am supporting Jeff here (in spite of his recent vote against me in a RfBan) -least he can do is chill out and let you post.--GordonWatts 17:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm assuming that it was an unintentional hit of the rollback button. It would have been unacceptable (and strange) to use rollback on what appeared to be a joking comment. ChazBeckett 17:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of interesting things and tasks awaiting for you guys which are more important than arguing why someone decided to keep his userpage blanked. -- FayssalF - 17:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey everybody, let's chat on IRC! --Ideogram 17:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think the preceeding drawn-out discussion about a (seemingly) simple matter (redlinkage) most eloquently illustrates the difficulty I have been having in working with Jeffrey as an Admin on both AfD:Ebony Anpu's.Captain Barrett 22:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh for the love. Jeffrey's attitude, responses, and style may not benefit the community, but if anyone is "annoyed" by his lack of a userpage, they need to grow a thicker skin. Seriously folks, this is the Internet. Misplaced Pages is not censored for a wide array of things, and one of them is annoyance value.

Eleanor Roosevelt rightly observed that no one can offend you without your consent. The same goes for annoyance. If this is getting to you, think about why, and what you can do to temper your reaction. It is not the responsibility of the universe to shield you from all vexation -- you will encounter many annoyances in life.

A user can do anything they want /w their userspace within policy; users are not intended to be cookie-cutter homogenized mutually substitutable apparatchiks.

Please, let's give this a rest. Thanks. —User:Adrian/zap2.js 2007-02-22 00:17Z

Keeping an empty userpage is fine. geez. InBC 00:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

On the point first raised, of it making Jeff any harder to contact: I think that would be a very good point if he had no link at all, to either talk page or redlinked user page (as I raised recently for unrelated reasons at WP:SIG), and a half-decent one if he only had the redlink. However, as he links directly to his talk page (and actually, to both), I don't really see any substance to that. Personally, I'd have a distinct preference for admins (specifically) having user pages, and I recall this arising as an issue in some RfAs. Beyond that, I'm not sure there's much of a "so what", as clearly Jeff is aware of several people's such preferences, and as been noted, it's not against policy. However, it does seem extremely pointless to have a link to the lack of a user page (unless the point is to annoy people, or to make a "I deleted my user page" 'statement', or something along those lines, to speculate freely). Perhaps he might consider de-linking the user page from his signature, while he chooses not to have one. Alai 01:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

BabyDweezil redux: proposing a one-month block

A long thread just a few days ago discussed the behavior of BabyDweezil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and nearly every comment contained the word "disruptive". I hesitate whether or not to unarchive it here, but I hate to add a whole big thing to this already groaning page. I urge you to please take a look at the archived thread before commenting here, though. It's quite recent! Several admins stated in that discussion that they were on the verge of blocking BabyD simply for disrupting the discussion itself. S/He has been blocked three times in the past couple of weeks (discounting one 3RR block made in error), but it's really more pertinent to note that s/he seems to spend all the rest of their time skilfully balancing on the very verge of being blocked for edit warring, for personal attacks, for disruption. The archived ANI discussion didn't slow the user down any, nor do the wimpy reproaches I resort to on his/her page and mine (because I don't want to be the one to always block the same user). These recent edits which Smee just brought to my attention show BabyD's characteristic talkpage manner and disruptive WP:POINT article editing (truly ridiculous, those last). If s/he does any useful editing, it eludes me; perhaps s/he does. But I'm very sure that the sum total of his/her impact on wikipedia is negative: that the poisoning of the atmosphere of talkpages, and the disturbance, annoyance, and sheer waste of time of other editors amply outweigh any good edits that may be hiding in some corner where I haven't looked. I don't think this is yet a community ban matter—though it's not hard to see one approaching—but I do think a long block is due and overdue. Hopefully it'll get the user to rethink their approach. I propose a one-month block. What say you? Bishonen | talk 04:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

• In the past, other editors have brought up similar thoughts as well, on the user's talk page: User talk:BabyDweezil. The archived version of that prior discussion of "disruptive" behaviour, mainly in violation of Misplaced Pages:No Personal Attacks, has been archived at: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive202.

By the way, can someone explain the difference between a longer block, versus a "community ban" ?? I have heard this term used as a warning in relation to this user by various Administrators, and I am curious as to its definition, and traditional usage? Smee 06:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

• • So Bishonen, you want to block him for one month because he displays an attitude when he is attacked and hounded? And because he put sourced trivia in two relevant articles to make a point? Sourced trivia. Relevant articles. He is already on a block and for those self-same trivia edits, why not see if he gets the message this time. Another editor making the same edits was blocked for one hour but somehow BD was supposed to know that and that his repeating the edits would land him 24-hours. Sheesh. Or a month. A month???!!! --Justanother 04:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Just a few minutes ago, I blocked BabyDweezil for 24 hours for violating WP:POINT and causing disruption on L. Ron Hubbard and Dwight D. Eisenhower. After that, Smee called my attention to this thread. BabyDweezil has had several 24 hour blocks before, but at least one of these was cancelled early. I do support a longer block. I would support anything up to and including one month. I think a ban is too harsh at this time. Johntex\ 07:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Over-reaction by an admin/editor involved with BabyDweezil in a content dispute at Barbara Schwarz. Johntex, I think that you should have posted this to an admin board and let someone else handle it as this looks a lot like "conflict of interest". I make no claim to be a mind reader and make no claim as to what motivated you in this block, I am telling you what it has the appearance of, to me. It would have been better to avoid that appearance. And if you are going to say that BD can appeal the block, I think that you know as well as I do that there is a big difference between another admin undoing your block vs. another admin not making the block for you in the first place. The former, undoing, is a much higher hurdle. The funny thing is that wikipedia is full of silly trivia and the Schwarz claims are interesting trivia for both Hubbard and Eisenhower and, certainly Eisenhower as he has a trivia section. It is trivia that he plays a part in the suits brought by the "queen of FOIA". So was it WP:POINT? Perhaps, but it was also a valid edit in Ike and needed only minor editing, to identify it as trivia, to be a valid edit in LRH. Personally, I see this block as piling-on on BabyDweezil. I think that a simple warning for the WP:POINT would have served, especially as the edits made were not egregious in the least. I do not think that BD wants more blocks and I think that he would have responded to a warning. Please remove the block and post it to an admin board and let a non-involved admin make the call. Thanks. --Justanother 13:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Calling it a "conflict of interest" for an admin who witnesses a user committing violations of several policies (yes, even if the user is alleging that he was 'forced' into those violations by The Cabal's failure to bow to the absurd demands he is making in a supposed "content dispute") to block that user for those violations is absurd. It would be as if a cop caught a drug dealer selling marijuana to twelve-year-olds, and the drug dealer claimed that he was just proselytizing for Rastafarianism, and when the cop arrested the drug dealer, some bystander forced his way to the front of the crowd and accused the cop of having a "conflict of interest" because he had previously had a "dispute" with the dealer over the issue of cannabis. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Sorry, can't respond. --Justanother 04:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
• In and of itself in this particular instance, the violations of Misplaced Pages:No Personal Attacks, and of WP:POINT are aggregious enough. But coupled with the User's past history on talk pages and elsewhere and disruptive nature, we can begin to see why multiple Admins have raised the idea of a longer block. Smee 14:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC).
• I ask again, as I did on the previous thread: Has this editor contributed anything of substance to this encyclopedia? No one has provided a single diff which made a positive change when I asked before. If BabyDweezil exists solely to disrupt and be a general PITA, why are we even discussing this? Support month long block, support six month block, support indef block, support anything short of walking the plank - we've asted more than enough time on this. No point whatsoever in continuing the pain. KillerChihuahua 14:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Copy of reply to JustanotherHi Justanother, thanks for your message. Yes, I considered that there my action may appear to be a conflict of interest and I still decided that to take action was the best course. There were several factors to my decision. One of them is that BD's behavior is consistently bad. This was not an isolated incident. Another is that I had previously blocked a different editor for the exact same thing. BD came along and made the same edits. It was a clear violation. Another factor is that BD has received many warnigs and even previous 24 hour blocks. Yet another is that the project favors action, and that any decision can be undone.

In short, I was confident enough in my actions that I didn't feel it was beneficial to the project to delay while waiting for another admin or set of admins to review the case. I stand by my action. I also note that no admin has yet found issue with the block. Johntex\ 15:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Responding only your second justification: "Another is that I had previously blocked a different editor for the exact same thing. BD came along and made the same edits. It was a clear violation." For the exact same edits in Ike and LRH, I guess? Well, I did not know that you had blocked someone; how was BD to know? And if he did not know then why would you increase the penalty on that account? --Justanother 16:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm not really happy about the 24-hour block—the timing isn't ideal. When I posted this proposal for a long block, I invited BabyD to come to ANI and comment—I didn't foresee that he was about to get a 24-hour block. I hope you don't mind, Johntex, but I've offered to unblock him for the purpose of taking part here, on condition that he edits nowhere else. Bishonen | talk 16:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC).
• Support - After reading the evidence in the last thread, including the user's confrontational reply, I think a break is called for. This user does not appear to be helping the project. -Will Beback · † · 17:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose one-month block - As someone that has stood where BD now stands, I have a bit to say and maybe some of what I say will be news to some. I really do not know BD's edit history or how much he has contributed. I "ran into him" on cult apologist, I think. But the fact is that there is a group, and a somewhat cohesive group at that, of "anti-cultists" editing here that, IMO, disrupts wikipedia and poisons the atmosphere here far more than BD could. If you want proof of that take a look at this by an editor, User:Wikipediatrix, that pretended to be one of them for a whole year:

  To pro-Scientology editors: I don't know what to tell you, because, frankly, it's a lost cause. If you make meek moves, you get nowhere. If you make bold moves, you get instantly reverted. If you try to discuss it on the talk page, you get ignored. . .

  To anti-Scientology editors: . . . You are hurting your own case by making all the articles look like total lurid attack pieces, and hurting Misplaced Pages's credibility as well. One editor actually said to me words to the effect of "we don't have to treat Scientology as fairly as we treat other religions". That was a real wake-up call to me. (emphasis added)

  Some of these people (actually, often the more moderate ones though still over-agressive "defenders") maintain highly biased websites off wikipedia dedicated to fighting what they, in my best AGF, consider destructive cults. Some of these "cults" are recognized NRMs that most of the members enjoy being part of and reap benefits from. Some of these "anti-cultists" are admins here and it is to their credit that they usually do not abuse that privilege. There was a recent such abuse involving none other than BabyDweezil, since reversed and apologized (I think). However, the "problem" is not the "anti-cult" admins; it is the "like-minded" editors that have created and maintain such highly POV articles as cult apologist. These editors have made the atmosphere in these articles very hazardous indeed for anyone that opposes their views. When I arrived here I was greeted by insults (still am, today I am a troll), 3RR-baiting, NPA-baiting, and just about every other dirty trick to put me in the same position that BD now finds himself. And this is not about Scientology either. I certainly do not think that BD is a Scientologist; he has never said one thing that would lead me to believe that he is. Personally, I think Smee has an abusive editing style when it comes to editors that he does not agree with. He may not see it that way but that is what he is doing. In conclusion, I really think that many admins here do not know what editors that oppose this group of "anti-cultists" are up against and, I think, that some extra leeway is in order for BabyDweezil. I think that editors and admins here should make a better effort to see that all are treated fairly here. And, to be honest, I think that some blame should go to the "anti-cult" admins because they NEVER step in to help or support anyone but "their side" and they are the ones that probably see the disparity as clearly as I do. That said, BD still needs to follow the rules and should also contribute, contribute, contribute. Something I have already discussed with him and that I think has improved. --Justanother 17:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support a one-month block, though I'd also support a community ban. The user makes no or very few useful edits, violates NPA/CIV constantly, and soaks up a lot of admin time. SlimVirgin 19:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support a one-month block, somewhat reluctantly a one-week block followed by probation, per CC's suggestion below. KillerChihuahua asks whether BD has made any worthwhile contributions. If you look at BD's edit history it's pretty obvious that he's focused entirely on deleting content that he doesn't like from articles on Scientology and cult-related topics, and arguing about that in talk pages. The frustrating thing is that he's right about there being a lot of problems with cult-related articles on Misplaced Pages - unfortunately he seems to be blind to, or simply doesn't care about, the abrasive way that he deals with other users. He's had multiple blocks, hasn't learned from them and seems to be incapable of working with others effectively. -- ChrisO 23:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Chris, don't you think that you should recluse yourself from this one as you are one of the "anti-Scientology" admins here? Wouldn't avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest be more important than getting a vote in? Not to mention that you have been an active "opponent" to BabyD in the Schwarz article that led to all this. I mean, I don't know how this works here, but I imagine that involved editors like me or Smee would be kinda suspect and that the opinions of non-involved or neutral admins would count for more. But you are not exactly any of that, are you? --Justanother 04:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I'd not even heard of BD before last week, and I've only encountered him on the Barbara Schwarz article. But it's clear from his contributions that he's been active on a range of articles, that he's made many contentious edits and that he's wound up a lot of people with his lack of civility. If he can get it into his head that Misplaced Pages is a community where you need to get along with other people, he could be quite an effective contributor. Right now, though, he doesn't seem to understand that. It has nothing to do with being pro- or anti-Scientology, it's a basic issue of being able to work effectively with others. -- ChrisO 07:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Sorry, guys, I'm slightly sleepy. You advocate a spurious ban for all sorts of POV-reasons. Fair enough, that's how Misplaced Pages works: Hail to the zealots (aka POV pushers). Oppose JFTR. Fossa_?! 03:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support - per Admin SlimVirgin's excellent points above. Smee 04:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC).
• Support a block, but I'm uncertain as to whether 1 month is necessary or helpful. A week, with several months of probation following that sounds like a better idea. If he does anything disruptive during that period, he gets a longer block (though not without discussion here or on some other noticeboard). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd go along with a week-long block followed by probation. I've changed my vote accordingly. -- ChrisO 07:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • CC, I appreciate your vote of moderation. However, I think that the specific issues raised by Bishonen as justification for this action are insufficient. Please see my comment directly related to them near the top. The issues cited are displaying some attitude under stress and making edits of sourced trivia to relevant articles to make a point, one of the edits in the actual "Trivia" section. I see Bishonen's putting this up as a "rush to judgement", and a rush to sanction; behavior sometimes termed "railroading". --Justanother 13:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Some of that might be going on, but BabyDweezil does show a bit of a tendency towards disruption when under stress, and could use a short cool down. It really looks like the Eisenhower edit was put in repeatedly to make a point. Yes, it's sourced. It is, however, a crazy fringe conspiracy theory. Schwarz is only "noted" because of her bizzare FOIA requests, something which BabyDweezil has criticized about her article (Talk:Barbara_Schwarz#What.27s_the_point_of_this_ridiculous.2C_gratuitous_article.3F). Hence the WP:POINTyness of adding this mention of her, especially worded in the way it was. It was intentional. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 14:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Oh, it was absolutely intentional and it was absolutely WP:POINT. The thing is that it was by no means egregious, and another editor got one hour for it. So where does one month come from? He got 24 hrs. He "served" it. Now why not let's see how he does and hold this in abeyance for the moment. Does that sound fair? --Justanother 15:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
        • A month is definitely uncalled for. Because of his history though, I think a few months probation are in order to make sure that he's actually going to cut it out in the future. I'm flexible on my week block suggestion, it was mostly the probationary period that I thought was important. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 15:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
          • Understood. Thanks. I will have to bone up a bit on what exactly "probation" means in this context. I certainly think that asking him to demonstrate clearly that he "got it" regarding CIVIL, 3RR, and POINT is appropriate. I just do not think the "probation" period should be so long or the terms so strict that he is almost guaranteed to fail. If that is how it works then I say ban him indef now and be done with it. --Justanother 15:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support whatever block (one week or one month) - BabyDweezil has declined to work constructively, he prefers to use "bad boy" methods, i.e. "delete first, talk later". Am example is cult apologist, where he deleted an entire segment, although the core dispute was about one single word. Even after several blocks, he hasn't improved his modus operandi. This would also send a signal to other editors, who have begun to imitate his methods. --Tilman 22:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support one-month block, and I'd also support a community ban for the same reasons Tilman and SlimVirgin have stated above. Orsini 04:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Now just a cotton pickin' minute

Awrite, I've refrained til now from responding here, not being much of a fan of inquizatorial imbroglios and all, and hey, what can one really say in response to a couple'a folks, including generally combative and aggressive and often nasty edit warriors wearing newly-minted angelic halos pointing out what a useless, nogood, disruptive evil sack of poop i am? But my friend Tilman's comment above tickled me--so please, kind sir, please could you cite the names of those unfortunate editors who have succumbed to evil BabyDweezil's demonic charms and have "have begun to imitate his methods"? Names, please names...we must nip this in the bud, good sir!! BabyDweezil 03:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Section break, and noticeboard disruption

Justanother, you're getting close to disrupting ANI, in my opinion. You've posted 8 times in this thread, written 47% of all the words, and keep leaving reason further and further behind. I suppose you're not simply trying to make the thread so long and boring and chronologically confusing that nobody'll read it to the end? For an example of unreasonableness, dip in anywhere... here's one: you claim that I'm "railroading" the user by proposing a one-month block, because "the specific issues raised by Bishonen as justification for this action" are merely that BabyD has an attitude, and that he "put sourced trivia" into two articles. Qué? If you didn't notice, or have forgotten, what my "specific issues" were (emphasized and exclamation-marked at the beginning of this thread), here they are again: there's a link, which I beg people to click on, to a just-archived previous thread detailing, proving, and diffing BabyD's long-time past and ongoing disruptiveness and admins' frustration with it; plus, BabyD has been blocked three times (now four) in the past couple of weeks; plus, he's spent the rest of his time balancing on the verge of being blocked for edit warring, for personal attacks, for disruption These issues, that I laid out explicitly, you summarize as me wanting to block BabyD for a month "because he displays an attitude when he is attacked and hounded" and "he put sourced trivia in two relevant articles to make a point." Must you stuff this thread with so much nonsense? Bishonen | talk 02:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

Wow --Justanother 03:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Justanother, whatever were you thinking. That this noticeboard was a place for you to express your opinions, or some dang foolish such nonsense? BabyDweezil 04:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

mmmpphhh --Justanother 04:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Screen name1234: possible sockpuppet of Maleabroad

As happens every ~4 days, a possible sockpuppet of User:Maleabroad is back (this time under the username User: Screen name 1234) recreating deleted article, adding highly contentious and POV edits to his-usual-set of articles, and leaving uncivil edit summaries. Can some admin please look into this; is there a more permanent solution than filing periodic checkuser/ANI reports and reverting his edits individually ?

See earlier ANI case reports: and , which list further evidence, sockpuppets and checkuser findings. Thanks. Abecedare 04:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Screen name1234 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Also, the checkuser flagged Benevolent56 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Geomatician (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as sockpuppets of Maleabroad, which is borne out by this diff, among others. Orpheus 09:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Username2577u (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) may be another one. I agree that Benevolent56 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is probably a sock. Buddhipriya 21:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC) Buddhipriya 21:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Due to Maleabroad's uterly unrepentant behaviour, and his systemic edit-warring, uncivility, pov-pushing and block evasions, I've blocked indefinitely Maleabroad.--Aldux 23:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Benevolent56 is actively disruptive as of now Buddhipriya 00:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Also today we have and arriving on the scene to take up battle along similar lines. Buddhipriya 00:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked User:Sp44 but I'm avoiding blocking the IP for now. Since it belongs to a university, I think a block can wait a bit.¤~Persian Poet Gal 00:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Another one that just popped up but which looks suspicious is http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/Sattelitesqdf Buddhipriya 03:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Self-block Review

I recently blocked the user User:Melonbarmonster for WP:NPA violation. He had been in an edit conflict with another user on the Karate article and was in danger of breaching WP:3rr. So I sent the user a friendly warning regarding the policy. The user responded with the following comment on my talk page:

Please keep your "warnings" to yourself from now on. I have a right to make good faith edits without having it unilateral reverted by a single over-zealous editor. At least be fair in your "warnings" and give the instigator the same warning to at least give off the perception of objectivity for goodness sakes.Melonbarmonster 04:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I then went to the user's talk page to tell him that WP:NPA was a blockable offense. He responded with the following comment on my talk page:

Yeah that's quite laughable. You need to count correctly and learn how to use the history page correctly. As the instigator of the revert the other guy would have to violate the 3rr before I would be faced the the decision of passing the 3 mark. Please take your POV crap elsewhere.Melonbarmonster 13:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

After this comment I blocked the user for 24 hours. Considering that the comments were made towards me personally I would like to see if I have confirmation for my actions by the rest of the community. Thanks.--Jersey Devil 14:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse. Calling you an involved party would be wikilawyering. Valid block. — Nearly Headless Nick 14:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Bad block. Sorry. I agree with Nick that insulting you does not make you "involved", but personal attacks are not blockable offenses, except in prolonged cases and certain kinds of threats. Please read WP:NPA carefully. Melonbarmonster seems to be engaged in soapboxing , but some guidance would have been better than blocking. I have protected the article for 7 days; the parties should seek outside review of their content dispute. Thatcher131 14:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Nope The thing is that User:Melonbarmonster is right in mentioning that the other involved party User:RogueNinja didn't receive any note whatsoever. Both parties were engaged in edit warring. -- FayssalF - 14:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• I guess Thatcher is right. The other party might as well be investigated. — Nearly Headless Nick 14:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Sorry, this was not a good block. Remove the post as trolling, if you like, but its not a blockable offence. Kudos for realizing this might not be the best judgment and bringing it here for review, btw. KillerChihuahua 14:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I've just unblocked the account according to comments above. Feel free to review it as well. -- FayssalF - 15:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Continued attacks against an IP user:

Congrats on your google skills in digging comments I made on a different website. Rabid racism is also a minority view as well neo-nazism, beastiality, etc.. Crawl back into your black van.Melonbarmonster 21:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Also removed my 3rr warning. --Jersey Devil 01:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for 31h for personal attacks. -- FayssalF - 10:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

User:NetOracle

User:NetOracle has recently gone on something of a AfD spree, proposing for deletion or supporting the deletion of many webcomic-related articles on grounds of notability (always without first applying a notability template to allow for cleanup by authors). While some of these arguments doubtless have merits, his unflinching desire to delete anything webcomic-related seems very suspicious (see bolded text by Erk). Furthermore, there are some arguments to be made that he is, in fact, a purpose-built sockpuppet and/or disruptive user. As he does not fall under any of the categories for WP:CHECK, I'd ask that an Administrator:

• Perform a checkuser, and
• Evaluate the issues with the user I have brought up

Even if he is not a sock, it is my opinion that he is acting as a disruptive and negative force to the project as a whole, and I'd like to see if, in fact, my views on that are shared by a neutral, third-party administrator.

Your attention to my case is appreciated in advance. Jouster 15:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Found an additional reference for malice. Jouster 15:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

NetOracle’s focus on deletion nominations (edit count) looks a bit odd and the manner in which those nominations are done falls far short of the best current practice. However, I find it important to assume good faith here. NetOracle’s understanding of the distinction between policies and other project pages seems hazy and the nominations are annoyingly vague and repetitive. The nominations don’t seem to be preceded by any other effort to improve articles, such as tagging them or posting on talk pages; this is not very polite towards editors working on those articles. Also, the description of AFD contributors as ‘kooks belong on fan wikis and in chatrooms, and not on a place whose goal is intellectual writing of a meaningful nature’ is discordant with AGF and WP:NEWBIES (the latter due to the webcomics-related noise off-wiki having attracted new editors). While it’s not an actionable matter, NetOracle’s actions have furthermore unnecessarily caused some bad feelings off-wiki. I’d like somebody uninvolved to consider talking to NetOracle about these things to ensure better communication and cooperation in the future. Nevertheless, I do not currently see a need for administrative intervention.
Note: I am or have been involved in several related deletion discussions and cannot claim to be unbiased. Also, while I have focused on NetOracle’s behaviour here, some editors opposing him have displayed attitudes and behaviour which I cannot endorse, either. —xyzzy_n 18:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Final Note - I'm going to have my peace, and then I'm done here. Administrators - please block my account indef; I don't intend to return.

I've been reading Misplaced Pages for years. It is, by far, the most informational site on the entire Internet. I never contributed regularly or as a non-anon, because I never had the time. I was reading Misplaced Pages during a recent vacation, and saw some errors which needed corrected - this is when I registered my account. After performing some editing, I came across an article which I thought didn't belong, so I read up on the deletion process and other meta-functions, and went ahead and proposed it. This was my first experience with the insane deletion process here.

It was after that that I saw the insane deletion process, and a complete mess at a certain AfD, that I began to lose faith in Misplaced Pages. But, because this is a Wiki, I decided to try and create a push to enforce existing policy and keep the site clean of non-notable material, just as others try to keep it free of vandalism, free of spam, and free of harmful hoax edits. As I intended to become a serious editor, I tried to do my part in cleanup so that I didn't feel as if my time was being wasted, and my edits diluted by non-notable cruft, and other materials of little to no academic interest. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't jump head-first into heavy editing, and instead learned of the direction in which Misplaced Pages is headed as a direct result of the broadening userbase. Several editors have raised the non-issue of my comparatively small number of edits in article space, and no amount of reason seems to convey to them that non-notable material, and other forms of cruft, is a serious detriment to Misplaced Pages's reputation, and results in the discouragement of many serious and academically-focused editors who really don't want to be part of a cesspool of cruft, tribute pages, and non-notable pop culture.

Apparently, though, no other active editors seem to share my concern of Misplaced Pages being overrun with fancruft, and the only people who do actually care are shaking their heads in silent dismay. Even though such material may be well-written (and in the case of the articles I nominated for deletion, it was), the issue is that it simply is out of place, and goes into an inappropriate level of detail, after failing to convince an impartial person reading the article for information (not for editing) of the notability of the subject. The very best how-to guide still needs to be deleted from Misplaced Pages, as Misplaced Pages is not a how-to or DIY website; a similar approach needs to be taken to articles whose subjects may be known and loved by a small majority, but aren't notable in the grand scheme of things, and don't exert very much influence on media, culture, society, and humanity in general.

Instead of continuing to beat my head against the wall here, and make relatively little progress, I'll just do other things with my time and use other sites for reference. There is no point in trying to be intelligent on what is becoming more and more like a community bulletin/graffiti board every day, with standards approaching Geocities as t approaches infinity. The majority of editors don't seem to care that Misplaced Pages is becoming a giant repository of random/useless trivia, tribute pages, and fancruft in general. Misplaced Pages is not my site, and I don't hold delusions that it is going to change to fit my vision and my vision alone. NetOracle 00:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not a place for melodrama, and touching though your account is, it glosses over the apparent malice with which you pursued these AfD's. I don't think anyone is disputing that several of them were deserving. But when you went on a nominating spree unchecked by out-of-site verification of non-notability ("This may be one of the few notable webcomics") and—in my opinion, more importantly—unchecked by any attempt to use in-article templates to suggest cleanup and sourcing, your editlog just reads like that of an editor with a vendetta.

I encourage you, and all other similarly-minded editors, to participate in and make the most of the Wiki process. Despite your assertion of, " head against the wall here, and relatively little progress," you did successfully remove quite a few bits of fancruft encroachment, and I appreciate that they are gone. If you'd like to continue your work to make this project a place you can call your "intellectual home", so to speak, I'd just ask that you use all the tools available to you, not just AfD, to get the appropriate actions taken.

Administrators, I still humbly request a checkuser on this (NetOracle's) account, and I continue to request a review of his actions en bloc. Jouster 14:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Please request checkuser on WP:RFCU and stop baiting users by making deletrious allegations against them. NetOracle has NOT been disruptive; and I must disagree with xyzzyn as I DO NOT see the hazyness in his arguments. Please do not discourage other users from contributing to the encyclopedia and assume good faith. — Nearly Headless Nick 14:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I cited , where NetOracle alleged violation of ‘our established policies’ and listed WP:N, WP:WEB, WP:V, WP:RS and Misplaced Pages:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards. Of these five pages, only one is a policy; of the other four, three are guidelines and one looks like a project. Based on that, I commented that ‘NetOracle’s understanding of the distinction between policies and other project pages seems hazy’. See it now? —xyzzy_n 20:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

More petty harassment by SummerThunder

Some fresh socks of SummerThunder are at it again. It started ~8 hours ago with corrupting SummerThunder sockpuppet tags to point to his "enemies", in this case me and Jujube. Please see 71.156.39.30 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 61.78.147.15 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), and JuJvbe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (note spelling). I've reported these various to WP:AIV and requested some talk page protections, but I'm posting here too because I need to go to work and would appreciate it if someone would keep an eye on it for a bit. Thanks. —Dgies 16:33, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I handled some of these this morning; haven't seen any, for a bit, but I just got back online. Let me know if you spot anything, or report to AIV (as you probably know, I watch it). – Luna Santin (talk) 19:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yay my first wikigrudge! ^_^ JuJube 06:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Request block for Phasemc and User talk:68.72.123.53 believed to be same user.

This user has been repeatedly deleting merge tags on Mancow articles. The IP address and user are being reverted by many editors who regularly edit the Mancow articles, and has been left warnings by myself explaining why his edits have been reverted, and asking him to please stop. --Masterpedia

Repeated wikistalking

I have repeatedly complained about User:Aaliyah Stevens' wikistalking me. Today is the fourth instance of following me page by page, either reverting my edits or adding erroneous TotallyDisputed templates. In two or three of the edits she correctly enforces WP:WTA, but for the most part she just harasses me.

First instance of wikistalking on January 10, 2007:

• I edit Al Muhajiroun, she then posts erroneous fact templates.
• I edit Terrorism in Kazakhstan, she removes referenced content.
• I edit Jama'at al-Jihad al-Islami, she posts erroneous fact templates.
• She contacts SlimVirgin and lists all of my recent edits with an amazing display of incivility.

Second instance of wikistalking on January 18, 2007:

• I edit Terrorism in the United Kingdom, so she does
• I edit 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot, so she does
• I edit Salma Yaqoob, so she does

Third instance of wikistalking on February 7, 2007:

• I edit Counter-terrorism in Kazakhstan, so she blanks the page and redirects it.
• I edit Terrorism in Kazakhstan so she adds an erroneous TotallyDisputed template. Notice all content is referenced.
• I edit New Great Game, so she adds erroneous fact templates. Notice everything is sourced.
• I edit Ahmed Rashid, so she does
• I am in a dispute on Battle of Najaf (2007), so she gets involved in the dispute in an attempt to intimidate me
• She reverts my edits to all of the above pages on February 8 in addition to Omar Bakri Muhammad minutes after I edited the page and Mohammad Naseem, adding erroneous fact templates minutes after I edited
• She posts a list of all the pages I have edited where she has subsequently harassed me, with a highly uncivil message. She then reposts the message on SlimVirgin's talkpage. Notice: "He seems to be on a mission to poison wikipedia content for his obsession with labelling."

Fourth instance of wikistalking on February 21, 2007:

• I edit Pan-Islamism so she adds an erroneous TotallyDisputed template and inserts her pov

Valid reversion, the source does not back the claim. Guy (Help!) 22:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• I edit Abdul Rahman al-Barak so she posts a derogatory term for Salafis

Use of Wahhabism appears valid in context, a large number of sources identify Abdul Rahman al-Barak as a leading Wahabi cleric.

• I edit Terrorism in Malaysia so she removes content

Valid reversion, YouTube reference is (a) original research, (b) copyvio and (c) not a reliable source, it's docu-drama. Guy (Help!) 22:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

An administrator needs to tell her this behavior is unacceptable because so far she has not gotten the message. KazakhPol 22:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• I would caution you to stop making POV and questionable edits. Dispute resolution is second on the left down the hall. Guy (Help!) 22:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/KazakhPol where the issue of KazakhPol's editing is under the microscope. In a nutshell, all and sundry are being labelled "terrorists" using questionable judgment. And these edits are coming in thick and fast. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that someone has taken the trouble to go through KazakhPol's contributions to try and unravel this potentially horrendous backlog of soupy smears. I recommend that amateur WP:V and WP:RS sleuths take an interest in the ongoing proceedings, with their notebooks at the ready. -- Zleitzen 10:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit war turns into real-life harassment and threats of litigation

On February 19, User:Jance got into an edit war with me on my talk page when she deleted a list I was keeping of uncivil comments she had made to me. As a result, we were both blocked for 31 hours.

During the block, my work e-mail started receiving a variety of messages indicating that I had been signed up for a number of mailing lists: pornography, commercial marketing, etc. Someone had also used my personal information to sign me up for a mortgage loan application. Three of the e-mails--one from HornyMatches.com, one from Amigos.com, and one from BigChurch.com--indicated that someone had impersonated me and created an account in my real name and work e-mail address falsely claiming that I was a bisexual male who wanted to receive emails from couples for discreet sexual encounters. Those e-mails revealed the IP address of the person who had committed the impersonation: it was <IP number redacted>. <diff redacted> That IP address belongs to Jance. I will be happy to forward these emails to anyone who wishes to see them. At a minimum, these accounts were created to embarass and harass me; at worst, they were created in a fruitless attempt to offend my employer and get me fired. (Fortunately, my employer is used to its employees facing harassment, and I don't have it anywhere near as bad as my co-worker, feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.)

I have several different issues:

1) Do I have any recourse for this here? Is this sort of real-life harassment in retaliation for a Misplaced Pages edit war acceptable behavior on Misplaced Pages?

2) For full disclosure, Jance's dispute with me stems from the fact that I object to what I perceive to be the POV-slant of a variety of articles in my field of work, civil justice reform, where Jance and her predecessor editor identity, Jgwlaw, have made thousands of edits, often simply excising cited, verifiable, and notable information that supports reformers (e.g., , , , , , , , , ). I wish for these articles to accurately reflect both the point of view of civil justice reformers and opponents. I have frankly acknowledged my WP:COI, have added POV tags to articles I have edited, and AfD tags to an article I created, have attempted to restrict my edits to NPOV issues and comments on article talk pages about ways to restore NPOV.

This is complicated by the fact that Jance does not wish for me to perform any edits on any articles, and reverts my edits indiscriminately, and engages in personal attacks on the talk pages of articles where I participate, burying substantive discussion. She accuses me of a "stealth campaign" on behalf of my employer. (I do this as a hobby, and I'm not very stealthy when I use my real name and note on talk pages that I've written on the subject.) This accusation is ironic, because in real life, Jance is affiliated with a left-wing think-tank funded by indicted plaintiffs' law firm Milberg Weiss where she has the title of "Misplaced Pages Editor" on their weblog, where she is identified under her real name as a blogger. Unfortunately, I am prevented from raising the issue of Jance's WP:COI, because Jance takes the position that she is actually anonymous, that I cannot raise her COI without violating Misplaced Pages rules, and that she will sue me if I reveal link to her webpage:

• I have a legal claim for invasion of privacy
• ANd yes, I will threaten you with a lawsuit
• Next time I won't threaten
• If nobody stops your behavior, I will take further action and that is not a threat, but a promise
• Jance makes ambiguous threat meant to imply litigation

Her husband also emailed me threatening me with prosecution for "stalking" (again, ironic, given the actual identity theft committed by Jance).

An editor warned Jance about such litigation threats, and she has deleted the warning on her talk page.

I don't even think a warning was necessary: Jance has previously been warned about this. In fact, her previous account, User:Jgwlaw, was about to be permanently banned from Misplaced Pages because of similar threats of litigation; Jance/Jgwlaw avoided a permanent ban only by misrepresenting to Misplaced Pages administrators that she was leaving Misplaced Pages permanently and would not return.

3. Less seriously, but still annoyingly, there have been problems with WP:CIVIL that are not being addressed, and, in fact, resulted in me being blocked because I tried to keep a list of them on my talk page:

• Jance writes: Are you an attorney? Do you have a clue as to what you are even talking about?: No, you don't.
• Jance writes: What in the hell is your problem? Are you always this rabid?
• Jance writes: And evidently, he wishes to continue his propaganda here.
• Jance writes: This is the most stupid statement I have heard in a long time.
• Jance writes: Your venom h as been stunning. I will now let you rant to whomever you please, because I am no longer going to communicate with or to you.
• Jance writes: Bullshit.

I have other complaints about Jance's behavior, but I'd like to focus on stopping the personal real-life harassment.

I am happy to comply with Misplaced Pages rules, and I certainly don't want to be sued. I have learned that I need to focus on the substance of articles and edits, and avoid getting pulled into a mud-wrestling match. I just want to ask:

1. Do I have any recourse on Misplaced Pages for this harassment and these threats of litigation from a recidivist?
2. Is there a way for me to raise what are NPOV and COI problems in dozens of articles without these incessant attacks or threats of being banned?

Thank you for your consideration and any advice you might give. -- TedFrank 22:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

After this type of edit, this is clearly a case where indefinite blocking is absolutely required. Shoot first, ask no questions later. --- RockMFR 22:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but I'd rather ask questions first then shoot when (and if) ready. She has removed the threats of litigation has she not? I will ask her about the other stuff? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 23:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't see any point. Extending an edit war to real-life harassment is absolutely inexcusable. We don't need someone like this editing Misplaced Pages. -- ChrisO 23:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

As for the emails and stuff like that, her ISP is <redacted>, so you could fire off an email to <redacted> to let them know what she's done, which violates their acceptable use policy. Aside from getting a lawyer and pressing charges, that's all you can do. Paul Cyr 23:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

There is another side to this story, seeing as Jance came here a few days ago with complaints about TedFrank. I haven't followed the whole thing, but it sounds like TedFrank is only presenting the legal threat issue. There are more issues on both sides. Leebo 23:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I discussed Jance's complaint against me above. I mistakenly thought that she was not anonymous, and linked to her webpage where she identifies herself as a "Civil Justice Misplaced Pages Editor": she accused me of trying to end her anonymity. I apologized and promised not to do it again; she deleted my apology and promises and tried to get me blocked for the conduct for which I apologized and for identifying her previous user account. Jance's ANI complaint is part of the same pattern of harassment. -- TedFrank 23:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Hm... for my part, I'm going to address the on-wiki aspect of this. Off-wiki activities do concern me, definitely, but that's going into an uncomfortable territory where (a) I don't know anything, for sure, and (b) I can't do anything, for sure -- it's too far out of what I guess I could call my "jurisdiction." But as for her on-wiki behavior, she's definitely upset, and should probably take a breather at the least. I do support a block under WP:NLT, although I'm concerned about what drove this editor (who's been with us at least since Nov 2006) so far over the edge. I've left a note on User talk:Sarah Ewart asking if she'd care to comment. There may be more to this story than is being presented here -- if so, that worries me. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:23, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

And, just ten minutes ago, my work e-mail address received a fourth email indicating that <IP number redacted> had created yet another personal ad in my name. -- TedFrank 23:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Needless to say, this is an extremely serious situation. Someone in a position to investigate this entire matter thoroughly needs to do so quickly and gather all information available from both parties. (I know people at a law firm that has been tangentially mentioned in this matter and therefore am not in a position to do this myself.) Allegations of real-life harassment, litigation threats, or other alleged off-wiki misconduct of the nature discribed should not be detailed further on Misplaced Pages. I see that a block has been imposed for legal threats, but even were that not the case, both parties should probably refrain from editing and certainly from any controversial editing until this situation has been addressed. Newyorkbrad 23:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I have redacted certain identifying information from these posts. It should be shared with whoever looks further into this matter but not posted again on-wiki. Newyorkbrad 23:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Note that Jance's userpage and talk page have been protected, stating she's a "banned user" - a block makes sense until this can be straightened out, but the b word seems a bit premature, no? There's been a recent spate of on-wiki disputes escalating into off-wiki personal harassment - and way too much talk of lawyers, libel, and identity theft. For the love of God... it's just Misplaced Pages. Take the time you'd spend creating an attack page and go out to dinner with the spouse, play with the dog, walk around the lake, read a book, or do something to regain perspective. The list of users banned for a terminal loss of perspective is getting too long. MastCell 23:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• This needs CheckUsers, and that indicates ArbCom. Guy (Help!) 23:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The IP address shouldn't be an issue. The same editor has made hundreds of edits under her IP address and freely acknowledges it, as my diff showed before Newyorkbrad deleted it.

Per your request, I am taking myself away from Misplaced Pages until March 6; deleting my name from these dozens of mailing lists and talking to my IT department took up a full day of work, and I even had to decline a television appearance. People should feel free to e-mail me. Ultimate resolution should reflect the head-start Jance has had in adding POV to dozens of articles, however. -- TedFrank 23:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking more in terms of a day or two until this mess can hopefully be straightened out. As important as we like to think our article content is, it is of secondary importance to dealing with any sort of harassment of our users. Redaction of IP information and other details from your posts is in conformity with our general attitude toward and policy on user privacy. Anyone with need of the information I redacted can obtain it. Please rest assured that we take allegations of the type you have made extremely seriously. Newyorkbrad 23:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Why is it a surprise Jance (aka MollyBloom & Jglaw)is now alleged to have engaged in hostile or erratic behavior? This most recent episode is par for the course since her genesis. Please refer to (one of) her previous RFC's for more context with her stadard operating procedure. I too suddenly got a flood of porn-spam after dealing with her last year which I'd just attributed to chance, now I'm not so sure!Droliver 03:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• • • She has sent me an email where she admits that her husband signed Ted up to the porn mailing lists because he was angry. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 06:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this is serious enough to bring to Brad Patrick's attention (Misplaced Pages's legal counsel). I don't know how to do it or I would have gone ahead and notified him of this message thread. He needs to know about this in case this off-wiki stuff gets even more out of control. Cla68 07:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

You could probably just leave him a message on his talkpage: User talk:BradPatrick, but there is a disclaimer at the top with his email address listed, saying he prefers to be contacted by email for legal issues... Smee 13:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

How was your email address obtained? If it is private, then did some user use Misplaced Pages to somehow obtain it? If it was made public, then is Misplaced Pages to blame? Is this email address only used for Misplaced Pages purposes? Can you definitely say this user is responsible? Just a number of questions I have to ask. x42bn6 Talk 13:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

1. I don't use my work email for Misplaced Pages; any Misplaced Pages editing I do is in my spare time from my personal account. You would have to ask Jance how she obtained my work email address, though I can guess; it's not that hard to find out, since it's public so the press can contact me at my job. I don't blame Misplaced Pages for Jance obtaining my email address, never claimed that it was, and have no reason to believe that the Misplaced Pages entity has any legal culpability. I merely asked whether behavior from a user like this was considered acceptable conduct to intimidate other editors from participating.
2. I am quite confident that Jance is directly or indirectly responsible. As I documented above, several of the emails identified the IP address of the person who signed up my work e-mail address for the personal ad; as I documented above, the IP address corresponds to Jance's Misplaced Pages editing. I'll be happy to forward you these emails and the diff where Jance acknowledges that the IP address is hers, which Newyorkbrad redacted from my post. And if that's not enough, Theresa Knott's 06:28, 22 February 2007 comment says that Jance acknowledges her husband sent the emails. (Jance has yet to acknowledge this to me personally, and I have not received any sign of remorse or apology or responsibility from either of them. Rather, Jance's husband implausibly claimed that his IP had been hacked, and that there had been a remarkable coincidence that the hacker who just happened to hack their IP had happened to target the person whose Misplaced Pages talk page Jance had been blocked for edit-warring on, and then threatened me not to pursue the matter further.)
3. Even if Jance is correct that it is her husband who performed the actual harassment, rather than her personally, I believe the two should be held jointly responsible. On the weblog of the left-wing think-tank, Jance and her husband identify themselves jointly as affiliated with their anti-reform project by real name as "Civil Justice Misplaced Pages Editors". And the two of them previously tag-teamed editing articles together.
4. NB also Droliver's comment above, which suggests that this is not the first time Jance and/or her husband took this tack to harass editors who disagreed with their POV-pushing. -- TedFrank 13:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• This whole mess looks like it's just about ready for arbcomm. As far as I can tell from the history (see particularly AN/I here and Sarah Ewart's talk archive here, Jance objects to links to a page identifying her real name, or the use of phrases sufficient to identify that page. TedFrank originally offered those pages to rebut conflict of interest charges (through some kind of pot-kettle argument or to show that Jance's identity is not private. Ted apologized for using Jance's name but continues to refer to her webpage. Jance has threatened a bunch of lawsuits and, if Ted is right, Jance and/or her husband has started a campaign of off-wiki harassment. Unless the parties are willing to mediate, I would recommend some quick admin action, followed by arbitration. TheronJ 14:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree right now that given the potential for real-life ugliness, the best approach may be to have both parties stop editing (either voluntarily or via block) and have ArbCom, Brad Patrick, and/or Jimbo Wales look into it. I don't think any further resolution's going to come from AN/I. MastCell 21:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I emailed Brad Patrick to notify him of this situation. I agree that this is beyond administrator intervention level at this point. Cla68 23:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

BLP block

I have blocked Jmaynard (talk · contribs) for violations of WP:BLP after warnings. I removed a lot of material from List of Internet phenomena which was negative, unsourced, and involved private individuals. I made it clean in my edit summary that anyone reverting would face a block. I also posted to the talk page explaining what I was doing. Jmaynard argued with me, wikilawyered, and complained. I repeatedly explained that he could replace the material if it he provided WP:reliable sources. The argument went on on the talk page and on my userpage and showed his total disregard of WP:BLP. He was also aware of my warning that violators could be blocked. Finally, he reverted my removals as vandalism with some vague promise to add sources later. My patience is exhausted, so I've blocked for 24 hours. As he's sure not to accept this, I'm posting here.--Doc 01:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I came across List of Internet phenomena today for the first time when it was proposed as a redirect target for the Brian Peppers article during today's DRV. I took a look at the article, and in addition to a paragraph about Peppers (which I didn't think belonged here but which, to be fair, was more reasonable than any other Peppers write-up I have seen), there was a lengthy section called "People" about a number of mostly private individuals who have become famous, or infamous, typically because of something embarrassing they did that was captured on-camera or online and became an "internet meme." Many of these paragraphs raised concerns in my mind regarding notability, verifiability, and appropriateness for inclusion in light of privacy and related issues. I edited to delete a couple of the paragraphs I found most questionable. The paragraphs were restored shortly thereafter, with the reasonable observation that most of the entries linked to existing Misplaced Pages articles on these people and events, and therefore it didn't make sense to challenge the individual paragraphs. I mentally filed this as something that would be better addressed after the Peppers DRV was over.

Shortly thereafter, Sam Blanning initially closed the Peppers DRV with a result of redirect to List of Internet phenomena. (The redirect was changed to a straight keep-deleted after Peppers was deleted from the List article.) At that point, I described this article as a "WP:LIVING/privacy/notability horror show," which it was. Doc, who has substantial experience with OTRS/BLP issues, seems to have decided to become pro-active on this article and his observation that sources are required is of course correct, although actually, in some instances sources will probably be simply cut-and-pasted from the linked articles themselves. But in addition to the sourcing issue, several of these paragraphs and linked articles will raise the question of whether the embarrassing content of the material and resulting damage that private individuals may suffer from keeping it on Misplaced Pages warrants our retaining this material in our encyclopedia even if it were to be deemed fully sourced and true—issues similar to those raised in the Peppers debate today.

I hope these issues can be addressed without having to block contributors, especially those who feel strongly about matters of principle. Today's deletion debate on Brian Peppers, contrary to expectation, was not grossly overrun with trolls and SPAs. There were some, to be sure, but there were also a lot of good Wikipedians sharing their ideas and points of view; and as much as I endorse the closure coming when it did (and opposed holding the debate in the first place, as regular AN/ANI readers will recall), much of the general tone was reasonable. I hope that the same will be true of discussions resulting from this article. Newyorkbrad 01:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

In fairness I engaged in extensive discussion with Jmaynard, as can be seen. But with living persons we err on the side of removal of material. I repeatedly explained he could replace what he sourced. However, when he replaced all the unsourced material, calling my removal 'vandalism', my hand was forced. Yes, we need to carefully negotiate issues such as privacy and notability, as here we have nuanced opinion. An here blocking good wikipedians would certainly not be an option. Discussion is the way forward. But BLP is core policy and non-negotiable - it is intolerable to revert it as vandalism. I'm rather expecting to be endorsed on this one.--Doc 02:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I've just returned here from a longish post on the blocked user's page, which may (or may not) assist in seeing if there's any progress that can be made, and am surprised there isn't more input by now. :) I appreciate Doc's taking a leading role on these issues. Newyorkbrad 02:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This sounds backwards. This is the list, cataloging these phenomena, summarizing them and pointing wikilinks to articles on them. The list doesn't need references for anything which is referenced in the WP article pointed to. Jay's right that referencing on the list too is silly. If there are BLP problems with the target articles, fix those; if the list comments inaccurately summarize the target article, fix that, but deleting it off the list due to BLP seems very wrong. IGeorgewilliamherbert 03:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree in the cases where we actually have articles on them, but some of the entries (like the infamous Brian Peppers) are too short for their own articles, so either shouldn't be mentioned at all, or must have references on the List page if they are. --Delirium 05:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

If you were to have read the articles you knocked off the list, many of them did have sources inside the articles themselves. A simple list does not need a source on every single little thing. I understand you're trying to follow WP:BLP, but blocking someone who's adding references in to what you deleted in an attempt to make it satisfactory to WP:BLP is way out of line. B=Plus, you appeared to block him while he was in progress of adding these citations. I'd say more but really, he did nothing blockable. He violated 1RR at best, and tried to improve on what was there.--Wizardman 06:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. No. The List didn't just contain a list of articles (if it did then it would be a category) - it made statements about the individuals concerned. BLP states all such must be sourced. The onus is not on me to fish the sources from elsewhere or other articles and to check they say what they are claimed to say. The onus is on the one who wishes to keep the statements to source them and then replace them. BLP is deliberately designed that way to make sure we err on the side of exclusion not inclusion. If it was that easy to source the statement on the list, then those that wished them kept should have done that and replaced them rather then fighting me. We've have our policy this way so that busy people like me that specialise in BLP enforcement can do our job without let or hinderance. Bulk replacing material removed under BLP without sourcing it is quite unacceptable - and the party was well warned.--Doc 09:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Whoa! What's all this business with blocking people after you've gotten into an argument with them? That's not exactly the right thing to be doing. --FOo 09:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, we do it vandals all the time. I was not in a content dispute.--Doc 11:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Whatever Jay is, he's not a vandal. Georgewilliamherbert 01:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that. I'm sure Doc doesn't disagree either. He was pointing that there are exceptions to FOo's statement. Vandalism is one; BLP is another one. Newyorkbrad 01:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

BLP shouldn't trump AGF and talking about it, if there's disagreement over what applies and there isn't any evident harm being done. Georgewilliamherbert 02:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I've filed an RfC on this issue Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Doc glasgow--Doc 11:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ongoing discussion on these issues is continuing at the RfC and its talkpage. Newyorkbrad 01:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

R68 (New York City Subway car)

I'm not sure exactly what's going on here. One editor and his sockpuppets insists on reverting to a previous version, while several others continue to revert. Some of the information being re-added may be good, while some may be wrong or unverifiable. It's certainly unreferenced, but so is the whole article. This has been going on for months. --NE2 03:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I just spent a few minutes trying to figure this out and couldn't tell either. At first blush it doesn't look like pure vandalism on either side, since each version includes seemingly reasonable information the other omits. There is commentary in the edit summaries, but it's not very enlightening, and the talkpage is completely empty except for tags. Can anyone else figure this out or maybe someone involved in a relevant project can take a look at it. Newyorkbrad 03:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope no one minds, but I hit the page, looked through it, and hit the talk page. perhaps a debate moderator role is needed, and I jumped in. If this is some sort of wiki-nono, then I'll back off, but I think a little conversation's the first step. I've also notified all the editors who seem actively involved and who edited in the last 3 or 4 days. ThuranX 03:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Mike Huckabee

(This was posted here before(around 5, Eastern standard time), but due to an edit conflict and some cut n paste oopses of my own, got prematurely archived. I'm reposting now.) I'm coming here now (Most of the following was previously posted at another admin's page in hopes he could look things over, but he hasn't). There is a ridiculous problem I'm finding at the Mike Huckabee page. HI, I know you're a busy admin, but I'm bringing this problem to you as as result of your established experience with the subject. User:A.J.A. has been involved in a long-running tendentious editing content dispute over at Mike Huckabee. Both myself(my political views are my own) and a self-declared Republican, User:ai.kefu, have been lobbying (pardon the pun), to keep in a section of Criticism regarding the West Memphis 3, and Huckabee's involvements, or lack thereof. A.J.A. initially objected on grounds of NPOV, where he announced his biases, and lack of citation. The section was reworked and citations found. He then engaged in removals citing lack of notability. ai.kefu wrote a lengthy reply on the hucakbee talk page, and A.J.A.'s response was to 'dismiss it', in his own words. He maintains a version of the article on his own talk page in which much of the criticism is conspicuously absent, User:A.J.A./Tohu&Bohu/Huckabee, and it appears he has no intentions of ever standing down on this, no matter what sources, style of writing, or what-have-you is done. In the past couple days, this has ramped up severely. He is now on my talk page asserting that by callign his undiscussed repeated removals 'blanking vandalism' i've horribly insulted him. He's now nearly obsessed with seeing me completely apologize for all my comments suggesting he should elaborate on his thinking, all my referrals to his undiscussed actions as hostile, incivil, and then vandalism. When he was talking, it waas one thing, we could try to work it out. But his explanations got fewer and fewer, his reversions and removals more and more frequent, and after a while, it passed from content dispute to edit warring, and now it's really hitting incivility and vandalism. I'd appreciate some other editors looking into this. I'm going to leave the page alone for 24 hours for review. Thank you all. ThuranX 03:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Erwin Raphael McManus

Multiple users keep reverting to a critical version that links to a bunch of attack blogs and removing the cleanup tags. I don't know who this guy is (just came across it a week or so ago on recent-changes patrol), and frankly don't care if his page is positive or negative, but by WP:BLP we can't have a negative bio that sources its info only from blogs. I've protected it as an interim measure, but I think User:MOPmember and User:ErwinMc should be blocked. I'd do it myself but since I've been involved in this page it would be cleaner if someone else did it. --Delirium 04:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Nasz

User has a long history of making disruptive and bizarre edits.

Here is one example:

• . Note the strange header "LiV" and the unintelligible image captions "Lao Tzu do two fingers to" and "two to, on an ancient Greek vase". I asked him about this edit, to which he replied here with a bizarre response that makes no sense.

Here is example of a deliberate disruption on the WP:AIV board:

• . Note he reposted someone else's complaint after it had already been deleted.

He blanks his talk page to remove any complaints against him:

• Note the many complaints that have lodged in the past month.

-- Stbalbach 05:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I got mixed up in this as a result of patrol of recent changes. What a tremendous waste of energy this disruption causes. Buddhipriya 05:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• His disruptive nonsense continues today, e.g., this addition of a link that goes nowhere. Buddhipriya 01:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Deceptive AFD trick

I just say a nasty little trick that users do to make sure that their content stays on Misplaced Pages] despite a successful AFD. This particular user User:DJ BatWave moved the article 6 or 7 times making the history obsured throughout many pages. After a successful AFD for the article Cody Runnels and Shawn Spears, a second copy existed at Runnels & Spears and he simply moved that over the old history, getting rid of the evidence of a prior AFD and my edits to the page completly. This is highly inappropriate and I hope someone actually watches DJ Batwave before he does that anymore. PS> (Pardon the WP:BEANS) — Moe 06:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It's really easy to G4 that, so I don't see how it's so nasty. And I'm not entirely sure why we would assume that he deliberately did the pagemoves a month before in case of an AfD. -Amarkov moo! 06:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so he managed to destroy my assumption of good faith with his "how dare you delete my article, no true article should be deleted". -Amarkov moo! 06:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. — Moe 06:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh and it was a particulary sticky situation because he made it seem like it hadn't been deleted, the article history dated back to early January and the deletion by Mailer Diablo was in February. It was weird because I didn't see the history of me adding the AFD notice or anything and there was history a month before untouched. It was all rather confusing. — Moe 06:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hackersteve

User:Hackersteve has been adding "hacking instructions" that appear to be an attempt to harvest passwords. (That is, anyone foolish enough to follow them would be e-mailing their password to an e-mail address he presumably controls.) The new articles he created have already been tagged for speedy by User:Qxz, but can his edits to Hack and Hacking also be removed from article history? —Celithemis 08:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why that's really necessary - the old revisions aren't visible unless you're specifically looking for them, and deleting revisions from large articles is (from what I understand) kind of a pain, particularly for articles with lots of revisions. (IMHO: If anyone decides to dig it up and follow the instructions, they deserve what they get anyway.) Zetawoof 08:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Just for the heck of it, I've given him a selection of usernames and passwords to play with. --Carnildo 09:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

His articles were quickly deleted and he's been indef blocked --Steve _(Slf67) 12:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I blocked Wikiload (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) a few days ago after he wrote basically the same article and made a report to gmail abuse (his article was phishing for gmail password). We may want to ask for a checkuser to find and block any other names this individual has + the IP. --BigDT 12:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Do we have to oversight things like this even though they might not work? x42bn6 Talk 12:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

MIGHT not work? All that is going on there is that he registered thexxwhateverxxserver@yahoo address and makes other little kids who want to call themselves hackers send him their passwords. For the love of god, you dont send javascript commands through an email. Thats not how things work.. Hes a 12 year old kid who thinka that this makes him "l33t" or some crap. He can call himself a hacker all he wants, untill he can bang out an actual executable program on a PDP-10, hes just a kid who wants his friends to think he's cool. No oversight needed, fer' chrissakes. -M 15:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Then even worse - he could well use this diff to grab passwords and hide behind the claims "Misplaced Pages says so!" x42bn6 Talk 17:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No, no its not. No one who's technically savvy enough to dig through previous revisions is not going to be retarded enough to go through with it. And if they are, well, its a Darwinian process at its best. -M 20:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

That's about the same level as saying "Your money is on fire! Quick give it to me!" InBC 15:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

IP dealings

For the past two months I have been dealing with 74.195.3.199 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (who also edits under the name Boukenger (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log); for the purposes of this post, he will be referred to as Rocky, his self-released name). Generally, Rocky leaves comments on talk pages for a handful of articles that I watchlist, and they mostly deal with information that cannot be accurately or reliably sourced. Occasionally, he makes personal attacks against other users who discuss things with him. Because of Rocky's actions, his user talks are full of warnings against WP:CRYSTAL and WP:CIVIL. His offtopic semi-attacks are often removed from the talk pages by other editors. However, within the past 24 hours, this comment was removed, but was replaced by this. I removed it with this edit summary. That was met with this. Right now, I don't think I should block Rocky, again, for repeat offenses (that and it's nearing 4 am), but his actions need to be discussed elsewhere.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Undoing page move

I find a vandal has renamed a page Issaquah Middle School is now Issaquah Middel Skool for failures~!. I don't seem to be able to reverse this without administrator assistance, but please let me know if there was a better way to deal with this. Notinasnaid 09:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Dealt with. User blocked. Collect your $200.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

For future reference, {{db-move|place where the page is}} on the location where the page ought to be would be the tag-based way to do it; I'm not sure whether that would be a better or worse way to attract admin attention. Probably worse, because CSD is normally more backlogged than ANI. --ais523 09:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Requested moves: WP:RM. KillerChihuahua 12:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I have a follow-up question. I can see the user is indeed blocked , but I can see nothing on the user talk page. Is this normal, as I do sometimes see this? I ask because I have in the past made the mistake of requesting a block for a user who, as it turns out, was already blocked. Notinasnaid 09:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The talk page message will only come up if the blocking administrator adds one (they have templates like {{subst:test5}} for the purpose). --ais523 09:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

You can check whether a user is blocked by going on his or her userpage and clicking "block log." It will list whether the user is (or ever was) blocked, by whom, for how long, and why. Newyorkbrad 12:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Need followup after checkuser

Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Somethingoranother

User:Somethingoranother was blocked for 48 hours for 3RR violation at 02:34 on February 19, 2007. A number of IP accounts and two sleeper accounts then revert warred on and vandalised the United Kingdom article with increasing frequency until 04:54, February 20, 2007. Those accounts have now been confirmed by the above checkuser request to have been sockpuppets of User:Somethingoranother. Could an admin take appropriate action as regards this proxy vandalism and block evasion? WjBscribe 10:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• The addition they are trying to make appears to be cited and in good faith. I would try telling them it is a duplicated effort with the existing section on their talk page (which is easier to notice than edit summaries). I've protected the article because it still suffered edit warring. _ Mgm| 11:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

  Oops, I realise now that I caused some confusion by the fact I originally titled this "follow up from checkuser". To clarify, no action has yet been taken as regards Essjay's findings (ignore my follow-up request). WjBscribe 13:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Its the repeated deletions that were the concern: e.g. , , . Nevermind the fact that the sockpuppeteer avoided his block by editing via a number of sockpuppets. A further block is surely required? WjBscribe 12:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, following on from his deletions, edit warring and sockpuppetry, I was also concerned by this latest round of reversions, this time it was his odd insistence that "his" edits must remain, regardless of the fact that a (better written) sentence to the same effect exists two paragraphs later. ie it wasn't about truth and references, it was that his dogged determination to include showed he was in fact acting in bad faith. Gsd2000 00:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Sock vandal

Apparently, there's a guy who's threatening to create a bunch of sockpuppets and vandalize, per a rather odd message on User talk:Seraphimblade#User:Furverts. He appears to be making good on that so far, not sure what the usual procedure is there, but something to keep an eye on. Seraphimblade 11:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

User:69.249.222.195

I'm posting this here instead of WP:AIV as the user appears to have gone offline and is done editing for the day. A quick look at the edits of 69.249.222.195 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) will show a pattern of vandalism over the last several days. Is it appropriate to block this address and leave account creation enabled, so that it would only be able to be used by registered users, please? --After Midnight 11:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• You don't need account creation enabled to do that. Just use "block anonymous users only". If you do that and block account creation, the vandal can't get in. It may inflict some damage on other unregistered users from that address though, but I think that allowing creation would simply lead to them creating an account. - Mgm| 11:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, well, I'm just looking to stop the vandalism with as little collateral damage as necessary. Can someone please do this? --After Midnight 12:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks, MGM. --After Midnight 13:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggesting indef block on User:Storm05 for continued image violations

I think this problem has gotten to a point where Storm05 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is no longer capable of making smart decisions when it comes to images. Please have a look at his talk page (as of 12:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)) and this talk archive - many, many warnings, both from bots and humans, about images - lack of sourcing, imagevios, fair use violations, intentional mislicensing of images.

What has prompted me to bring this here, though, after so many months, is that even though we've tried to drill it into his head (not using templatised messages), he still continues to say he's right, totally ignoring valid concerns, and at the same time behaving incivilly - answering every warning he's given with "Wrong." or "Incorrect." when it's obvious he's in the wrong, and just looking for some way out. Are we really going to allow users to get through loopholes in unclear situations?

This user generally is not a net positive to the project - he's been caught adding copyright violations to articles and has been blocked previously for ignoring consensus after SIX warnings to him, over a period of a few weeks, but he continued disrupting against consensus.

His Misplaced Pages-space edits to XFD are totally to say "delete per WP:NOT" etc, and then with no clear need for it, tags articles already at AFD {{hoax}}. He has also twice in the past been warned for canvassing at AFD (both AFDs were against his own articles, one of which was no consensus and the other a delete).

Is there any reason such a user is still on Misplaced Pages? Are we going to keep him around until he gets the foundation sued, because he DELIBERATELY mis-licenses his images when he's already been told time and time again that he cannot do so?

I think it's time that he be indef'd, and I think it would be a preventative block. I welcome input, although it is my opinion that such users are a detriment to the project.

– Chacor 12:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The user continues to upload questionable images (including one I just tagged {{wronglicense}}). I think we may need a preventative block (even if a short one) soon. – Chacor 15:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yet another potentially problematic upload. This seems to stem from him thinking "anything on an NOAA US Govt. page is PD", which, as he's been told countless times, is not necessarily the case, but he won't listen. – Chacor 15:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

48h is enough for this time. We'll see if that would help. -- FayssalF - 15:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I have a feeling he'll say he won't do it again, get unblocked, then continue to do it. Sorry, but I really can't AGF with such a user. – Chacor 15:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

A possible further violation would result in a harsher block. -- FayssalF - 16:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

True, fair enough. Thanks , we'll see how it goes. – Chacor 16:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Mtcupps and Derek Bell (baseball player)

For some time, an anonymous user has been re-inserting a joke/insult to Derek Bell into the article listed above. Recently, that same anonymous user registered an account, and has persisted in his reversion, claiming that it should be included because people like it and it was part of old versions of the article. This isn't a pure content dispute, since it cuts across BLP issues, and he isn't listening to me and doesn't seem willing to check policy pages. From his other edits, it also appears that he could use some help with things like signing his posts and fair use image guidelines, but I'm pretty sure that he won't be disposed to hear about them from me. If it's not too much trouble, would one of you mind having a word with him? I don't want to see this escalate any further, since he's made some good contributions in other areas, and I'd rather not see him get blocked for doing something dumb out of ignorance. -Hit bull, win steak 13:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there are BLP issues; it's sourced elsewhere in the article. And, you can't really say "redundant" on there and "BLP issues" here and maintain a coherent position, can you? If it's a BLP violation, whatever it's redundant with is also. --Random832 16:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"Operation Shutdown" was Bell's own reference to his unhappiness in spring training of 2002, saying that he wouldn't compete for a job he felt should have been his. To say that it is ongoing today is absolutely a BLP violation (Bell is retired and has more than once expressed regret for his outburst), and is an attack on Bell to boot. | Mr. Darcy talk 16:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't familiar with this. Regardless, I think that even though the tone of this section was absolutely inappropriate, the fact that some people were still harping on this four years later can be mentioned without violating policy. --Random832 16:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the only guy who's still "harping on it" is Mtcupps. If there were a newspaper running an "Operation Shutdown" counter on the side of their sports section, that'd be a different animal, but as it is, it's pretty much a dead issue at this point in the outside world. WP:V, yeah? -Hit bull, win steak 16:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I still don't think he really gets it. He just warned me here for reverting his removal of content here. -Hit bull, win steak 18:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

And he put the content back into Derek Bell (baseball player), so Operation Block Mtcupps is now officially on day one. | Mr. Darcy talk 03:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:AIV

If anyone's available to check this, that would be great, it's quite badly backlogged and several vandals are still going merrily along. Seraphimblade 14:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Clear now, so thanks to whoever got there before I did. Newyorkbrad 18:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:POTD

Transcluded vandalism I can't track down. Noclip 15:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Slow revert war...

...at Fräulein. Anonymous editor keeps reverting to biased version under different IP adresses. Warnings without effect. Watchlisting article / blocking IPs might work, perhaps even semiprotect. Thanks. Kosebamse 16:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

User Mikomouse

Don't know how admins would deal with this, so I might as well report this. User Mikomouse added the sprotected template on the List of programs broadcast by ABS-CBN article even though the page itself was not placed under protection/semiprotection by an admin. It turns out that this user noticed that the article about a rival station (List of programs broadcast by GMA Network) and thought that he could do the same for the ABS article. The unauthorized placing of this template has since been removed (by another user), and I placed a user warning on this user's talk page. --- Tito Pao 16:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This kind of thing can happen as an honest mistake by inexperienced users who think an article needs protection and don't realize they can't do it themselves. The user needs to have this explained, but I don't think the {{uw-vandalism2}} template that you left is going to assist comprehension. I'm going to remove it and give an explanation. Of course, if it keeps happening after this explanation, then you can simply pursue it by normal WP:AIV means. — coelacan talk — 19:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That makes more sense. Thanks for the heads up :) --- Tito Pao 21:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Can Someone stamp out this Sockpuppetry Nonsense.

Someone needs to do something as I am being accused of sockpuppetry, again. I am not a sockpuppeteer of Bowsy and I don't think some users (ie. RobJ1981 and Geoff B.) realise this. Also, because of this sockpuppetry case, people are treating Bowsy and I like one person, rather than the two people we have been proven to be. Henchman 2000 18:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The issue isn't sockpuppetry but, rather meatpuppetry. You and Bowsy are editing discussions support each other's points. Something you were severely warned about in the sockpuppet investigation. Metros232 19:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee has ruled that, for the purpose of dispute resolution, when there is uncertainty whether a party is one user with sock puppets, or several users acting as meatpuppets, they may be treated as one individual. (from the Sockpuppet page. Referring to you as one person is correct. -M 21:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This is no excuse, we have the same opinions and we should both be allowed to express it. Henchman 2000 19:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Recruiting editors to the wiki to back your poistion is definately wrong, and definately against policy. See WP:MEAT. kthxbye. -M 21:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It's meat puppetry in my opinion. Bowsy and Henchman have voted in the same AFDs, same RFC on a talk page, and so on. At Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of Mario Party 8 minigames: Bowsy stated: I would like to point out that wikipedia operates on a "one person, one vote" and not a "one computer, one vote" basis. I think that's incorrect when it comes to meat puppetry. If that was the case: someone could make lots of names, and just make slightly different comments at an AFD and get away with it. Something needs to be done about this. They were clearly warned not to do this type of thing at the sock puppet case. RobJ1981 00:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Shadow of the Colossus

There is a grotesque image being displayed on top of this article (as if it were overlayed). I cannot find where it is coming from, so some help would be appreciated. (jarbarf) 19:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Image deleted and the uploader has been blocked indef. -- FayssalF - 19:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, how annoying. I had to compare three different articles to find which template was in common. What I want to know is why the template which was directly affected was not showing up in the whatlinkshere page. (jarbarf) 19:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

{{MusicBrainz_album}}. -- FayssalF - 19:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, eventually I found it (ten minutes later), but I am asking why it did not list that template under the whatlinkshere page. (jarbarf) 19:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Mystery of the wiki. You'll probably have better luck with this method: when you're editing a page, scroll way down to the bottom, and you should see a list of all the templates currently being transcluded (as well as their respective protection levels, if any). If memory serves, this should also include metatemplates. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

If that's the case, I see one two transcluded templates which are not protected. Corvus cornix 21:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Some sort of protection bot would come in handy at times like these... Christopher Parham (talk) 23:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

molecular gentic as "pseudoscience"

2 minutes after I added refernces to PNAS.

this happened wirh comment (rv pseudoscience).

Nasz 19:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Content dispute. Try to use the article talpage. -- FayssalF - 19:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Refer to wp:dispute resolution for some advice on how to handle this. As FayssalF said, the first thing to do is discuss it on the article's talk page. — coelacan talk — 19:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

not so much a content dispute as a case of trolling and/or surrealism (adding gibberish to articles isn't a "content dispute"). See Nasz' talk history (he keeps blanking his talkpage) for my string of warnings. In my book, any further prancing around of this sort will lead to blocks. dab (𒁳) 20:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

IP-hopping vandalism

There is a vandal in an IP block which I'd define as 81.145.2*.*. He is continuously vandalizing Sailor Moon articles, talk pages, and the user pages of its editors, including multiple death threats to User:Eternal Pink. We've semi-protected his favorite article, Mamoru Chiba, but that's just made it worse. At least two versions of him per day are making multiple destructive edits before each is finally blocked. He usually then abuses the "unblock request" templates to make further insults. To see a sampling of his work, check the histories of Mamoru Chiba and its talk page, Chibiusa, Talk:Sailor Moon, my own user page, Eternal Pink's userpage. He has not been limited to those areas, but they're the major ones. Check out his various talk pages for the personal attacks and death threats.

Is it possible to block an entire set of IPs, not just one? We're really starting to get sick of this guy. --Masamage 19:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Okie doke -- for starters, I've protected both of your userpages. I've looked into this briefly -- WHOIS suggests that the range of IPs available is 81.145.192.0 - 81.145.243.255 -- not quite a /16, but most of one. It's an irregular range, I think, so the best I can figure is the following three blocks:

• Special:Blockip/81.145.192.0/19
• Special:Blockip/81.145.224.0/20
• Special:Blockip/81.145.240.0/22

I haven't done anything past those two sprotects and the WHOIS, just yet -- gotta head off to class. ;) Looking at the past contribs of some of the involved IPs, it's clear there's multiple people in this range, even if most of them aren't all that active. That or our little friend has had a change of heart. I'd like to put in a little more thought/discussion before we decide if a mass-sprotect or some rangeblocking is in order, but given the scope and duration of this nonsense, I'd say it's clear that at least one of the two is justified. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Went through, sprotected a few pages. Will try to keep an eye on this -- let me know if I'm missing anything. – Luna Santin (talk) 22:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much! He hasn't been terribly active today; maybe he's finally getting bored. Anyway, those sprotects will help. --Masamage 00:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Serbian languge

There's a very passionate user, User:Luzzifer, who keeps reverting structural changes without really understanding why they're being changed in the first place, mostly through an IP account. The revert war has primarily been between me and him, but the rather innocuous changes he is aggressively disputing are standard language article structure and has received support from one other user already. I've made an attempt to attract some attention through an RfC, but without any results. Is this an admin issue or not?

Peter 21:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

If it is a disagreement over article content and/or structure, then it's a content dispute and not an admin intervention issue. If he/she appears to be violating Misplaced Pages guidelines (3 reverts, personal/legal attacks or threats, vandalism, spamming, etc) then it's appropriate to bring to this forum. Cla68 23:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm a meatpuppet of JoanneB....

...and I admit it outright. Yes, Joanne has asked me to vote in some contentious AFD's.... but there you go!

And there's nothing wrong with meatpuppetry, Joanne's been doing it for ages here on Misplaced Pages, but you didn't know that, until now.

Heh, she's unmasked now.... well, until I find any more new evidence. --Yossben 21:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Copied from AIV: This doesn't make any sense. According to the account creation log this account just registered today. How in the world could this account have voted if it was not even registered yet? If such an act was comitted the account with the AfD votes needs to step forward.¤~Persian Poet Gal 21:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Examining this further makes this smell very fishy.¤~Persian Poet Gal 21:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason why we should take Yossben's mere allegations seriously. If there's evidence, I'll reconsider. But so far it seems like baseless allegations with an intent to smear JoanneB. For the time being, I have blocked him with the explanation "apparant single-purpose account to smear JoanneB... blocking until we straighten this out". Feel free to review the block but this may be more appropriate for AN/I at this point. --W.marsh 21:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• So far I agree that a block is in order for being an obvious SPA.¤~Persian Poet Gal 21:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted the content of this person's User page which basically reiterates what they were claiming here. Corvus cornix 22:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Betacommand

(moved from WP:AN)

Could someone look into the fact that admin Betacommand has been blocked indef by User:Pschemp for running an unauthorised bot? seams slightly OTT for me RyanPostlethwaite 21:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• This looks bad. But if it is an unauthorized bot, it is a valid block per WP:BLOCK. Betacommand has already been unblocked though by Wangi. --W.marsh 22:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Is it a bot or a script? No bots on admin accounts though, and it looks like a second offense from the block log. Maru was desysopped over this, by the way. Thatcher131 22:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • After looking into it, it doesn't look like the bot Betacommand was running actually used admin tools, it just reported possible bad user names to WP:RFCN. Not sure what Maru's was doing exactly. There's discussion leading up to this block at User_talk:Betacommand#Auto_reporting_Bad_username. --W.marsh 22:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Oh yeah, not sure if this is a bot or a script, but seems like a bot. Sorry for the imprecise language. --W.marsh 22:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeh I agree if he's running an unauthorised bot its a valid block, however, I fail to see where Pschemp has even asked him about it, and its not certain he was reporting to WP:RFCN with a bot RyanPostlethwaite 22:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I had already discussed this on IRC with him. Then when the bot started up again, I again attempted to contact him and he didn't respond this time. This was not an out of the blue action. OF course, next time you could do the polite thing and ask me personally what was going on, which I see you didn't. I would be glad to explain, yet you didn't give me the chance. This is extremely rude behaviour, taking it to AN without even asking the blocking admin. Wangi acted just as rudely by reversing my block without asking either. It does say "Remember, there was probably a good reason for the person to be blocked. Please discuss the block with the blocking sysop before unblocking." Glad to see people ignoring that. pschemp | talk 22:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be discussed on wikipedia with him rather that IRC? RyanPostlethwaite 22:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm allowed to have a discussion about behaviour privately. You accused me of blocking without warning. However, I'm just saying that isn't the case, I already had discussed it with betacommand. As for discussion, you didn't even try to discuss the block with me, just went right to AN. Follow your own advice. pschemp | talk 22:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I took it to AN because you can't just take it upon yourself to block an admin without any evidence to that he is definately running a bot and not just a script. Theres also no evidence on wikipedia that you discussed it with him, rather you just put this comment on WP:RFCN which was quickly removed. You can't expect Betacommand to go around the history of every page to see where he is mentioned. RyanPostlethwaite 22:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Betacommand wasn't blocked for running an unauthorised bot, rather for WP:POINT, and personally, I'd really much rather have a bot reporting suspected 'bad' usernames to WP:RFCN and being looked at rather than them being blocked on site and loosing a potential good user. There's no reason why a clone of the AIV helperbot couldn't keep RFCN clear of blocked users with Werdnabot archiving everything else every day or two. Bad block from pschemp, good idea, poor execution from Beta. -- Heligoland 22:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Betacommand was running the bot as revenge on people goin through his block log. He makes that very clear on his talk page if you read it. That is a point violation. btw, if anybody had given me a fucking chance to read betacommand's reply I would have unblocked as he explained it was a mistake. But no, instead, we jump down my throat, wheel war and go straight to AN. I'm disgusted people didn't even try to ask me what was going on. pschemp | talk 22:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I did try to go directly to you regarding it and you pretty much brushed me off and told me to keep it on his page. I did not know another administrator had already unblocked him and was consulting you for that action. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 22:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you did. I didn't brush you off, I told you I'd already applied to your question on Betacommand's talk page. How is that a brush off? At that point, Betacommand had not replied. pschemp | talk 22:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I apolagize for jumping to the conclusion that iwasa a brush off. I felt like it was the most appropriate course of action and, from your response (which i now understand because the reply was in another place), I felt like i was being brushed off. No worries though! -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 22:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

We should try to have discussion on-wiki about these types of things before blocking, and not limit discussion to IRC. This is part of the reason I dislike IRC so much... Prodego 22:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Unauthorized bots should be blocked on sight according to the bots policy, talking to the user on IRC first is a courtesy. This wasn't a discussion had about if to block or not. --pgk 22:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

But what was the block reason? It wasn't WP:BOT... /wangi 22:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It was POINT and running a bot on the Betacommand account, which, I beleive is not an authorised bot account. pschemp | talk 22:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

That starting to sound very bureaucratic, the block reason wasn't precise enough (and well all know what wikipedia is not) --pgk 22:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Betacommand has made some inappropriate username blocks lately, and doesn't seem particularly responsive on this issue. I'm not convinced he should have been unblocked until we're satisfied that his inappropriate blocks will stop. Friday (talk) 22:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Friday I am attempting to solve that issue with the development of this tool. I was not "getting revenge" I was trying to make a point with the limits of WP:POINT while not violating it. people have questioned my blocks so I am attempting to take care of that. is a perfect example. I guess I'm damed if I block the users and damed if I report them. Betacommand 22:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Your words "Im getting tired of being bitched at for no reason. thus I am reporting VERY block to make sure the bitching stops" sounds like a POINTY revenge to me. pschemp | talk 22:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Has WP:RCFN changed then, I thought it was for input into if names were inappropriate prior to blocking if someone declined to change when asked, not for a review of every user blocked for an inappropriate username. You say "I'm damed if I block the users and damed if I report them", in that example you did both. If you aren't confident it's a valid block, then don't block. --pgk 22:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflict) The background here is that Betacommand is one of the two administrators who has been most active in reviewing lists of newly created usernames and blocking on sight those which are patently unacceptable. (The other admin who's been active in this area recently is pschemp herself.) As Betacommand mentioned in a thread a couple of weeks ago, every day hundreds of usernames are created that need to be blocked on sight; he assembled a memorable list of them (of which "Newyorkbradisreallyboring" was my personal favorite). He and pschemp are both to be commended for this activity, as every one of those accounts was vandalism waiting to happen.

Over the past several weeks, though, there have been a number of inquiries raised as to why a given name had been blocked. Good-faith editors who find themselves blocked at inception because of what does not even appear to be a violation of the username policy are apt to be perturbed over the matter, and within the past few days a number of these blocks have been brought to Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User names and reversed. (Since I'm giving out credit in this paragraph, it should be noted that HighInBC has been most responsible for the operation of that board in the past few weeks, with pschemp pitching in as well.) As the number of questioned username blocks increased, there was an RfC requested on Betacommand, which was defused after it was pointed out that he should be allowed to explain what was going on. It turns out that there are criteria other than the obvious ones that he applies to these blocks, for example, when a new username is close to that of a prior persistent vandal. In the process, new good-faith contributors are sometimes ensnared.

To avoid being criticized further, Betacommand apparently reset his program to report many, if not every one, of these username blocks to RFC/N. This was unnecessary, and cluttered RFC/N, which is generally a pretty obscure backwater, with requests that the community validate the blocking of User:Bitchslapper or User:Ryulongs. This isn't necessary. I'm sure we can work out a mechanism to obtain community input before blocking new User:Guest9999 or Qwerty12345, without requiring the same before blocking User:ImHereToVandalizeWikipedia and User:NewyorkbradsANIPostsAreWayTooLong. Newyorkbrad 22:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

So to summarise we've got two guys doing good work, in the same field and they just need to knock their heads together and sort it out, nicely. Lets discuss, no block. /wangi 22:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we could have worked it out without all the drama and your intervention, but you didn't exactly give me a chance. pschemp | talk 22:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the drama certainly wasn't down to my intervention - you managed that yourself :) I don't want o blow this out of proportion (after all we all make daft blocks now and again), but an indef-block and no on-wiki discussion isn't exactly the way to work this through. Ta/wangi 22:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No, As soon as I blocked, I left a message waiting for Betacommand to respond. That is on wiki discussion. Also, you totally and completely were rude and inconsiderate by reversing my block without even talking to me. Yes, I'm upset about that, and that does deserve drama. Wheel warring is not acceptable, and reversing blocks without even have the courtesy to ask what is going on is beyond rude. pschemp | talk 22:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is rude to assume bad faith on an admin action and reverse it without discussing first. No, that does not mean it deserves drama. You of course took the high road and didn't replace your block when it was removed, which if we had more of, we'd have less wheel wars. Discuss first people. It's extremely simple to avoid wheel and edit wars. Simply don't revert. Precious few things are urgent on Misplaced Pages. - Taxman 23:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

And to be fair, I didn't know about an RFC until NYB's comment above, but that is over the top. Recently WP:RFCN has become a very unpleasant place, where people go through other's block log and pick and whine about every single thing. I don't blame Betacommand for being upset with this. And, he did agree to stop the reporting after a discussion. He says it was mistake it was turned back on, and I believe him. I would have unblocked then and we could have gone our merry ways, but for 8 other people turning this into massive unneccesary drama. Seriously. Pgk has it right when he says that "I thought it was for input into if names were inappropriate prior to blocking if someone declined to change when asked, not for a review of every user blocked for an inappropriate username." That's what is is for. Not to harass the people who do the blocking work. pschemp | talk 22:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't this remind you of a certain user who had a block-bot that blocked users with edit summaries like (user...) which were rather cryptic?? I'm not sure about an indefinite block, but may be a 48 or 72-hour block would be more suitable. --sunstar net 22:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think he needs to be blocked. I think he needs to just make sure he's careful about the blocks an reasons. pschemp | talk 22:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what is meant by the "tool". Does this mean these blocks were done without human intervention. A casual glance at Betacommand's block log shows many obviously appropriate blocks, but also some without adequate explanation. Betacommand, I suggest you stop blocking while this is discussed. Friday (talk) 22:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

So much for blocking being to protect Misplaced Pages, looks like some of us are discussing punitive blocks. -- Heligoland 22:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I was having a lot of my username blocks questioned so I created a tool to help explain that and stop the questions. and provide explanations for my actions. The "bot" that i was using is a lot like pgkbot on IRC only thing is It flags only certain usernames. I decide what usernames need blocked as I am not running a Curpsbot what I am running is a reporting script that helps Identify bad new usernames, And IF I THINK the username was bad I placed a block Betacommand 22:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

I'm at a loss in trying to comprehend why there's so much fuss being made of a really good leap forward in dealing with new users in a way that doesn't result in new users being blocked instantly for having a slightly ambigious username. I've said above, run RFCN like AIV, blocked names are removed by a bot, everything is archived after 24 (or whatever) hours if there's no block or further comments, just like this board. We can quite easily rustle up a template and have the bot tag the users talk page saying their username is giving cause for concern, could they comment and again, send them a message when the username discussion is archived saying (after 24 or however many hours) we consider the username to be acceptable at present. -- Heligoland 22:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Because it is uneeded duplication of work for usernames like user:fuckoffbitch. Its also WP:CREEP and a total waste of time for something that is already being dealt with effectively. Bots should not block usernames, they can't AGF, or make decisions that people can. Also, the exact same thing he reported is already being reported to vandalism channel if you want to see it. It also totally contradicts the purpose of WP:RFCN which is to discuss borderline names before making a block, not to go back and do the big brother trick on every single username block. Every single username block does not need to be reviewed. Your proposal is a solution to problem that doesn't exist. pschemp | talk 22:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a work creation scheme to me. There is no need to scour the new user log looking for names which "might" after some debate be considered inappropriate. Many accounts created never edit or edit once or twice, if their username is borderline then there is no point in wasting peoples time reviewing these. If on the other hand they do start editing, then in the natural course of things someone will notice and ask them to change if need be (and possibly onto RFC if need be).

I propose a much simpler system, if the username is clearly inappropriate, block it on sight. If it's borderline leave it, it'll either follow the paths above, will be blocked by someone else as inappropriate or will start vandalising and be blocked anyway. --pgk 22:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll add to that, if you keep finding people complaining your obvious blocks were borderline (or not so obvious), move your threshold. --pgk 22:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFCN works perfectly fine, legitimate concerns were raised with Beta's blocks and I see his script creating as an active step to calm others concerns, In my eyes it was at too low a threshold as RFCN was getting blocked up. Concerns must be raised if usernames are blocked on sight without a legitimate reason, it is not right that admins have the right to block usernames if they aren't blatantly against WP:U, it is simply biting, hence where WP:RFCN comes into play to discuss these blocks. RyanPostlethwaite 23:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

What is your issue? Its that kind of "admins are abusing newbies, the world is going to end" witch hunt attitude that caused this whole thing. pschemp | talk 23:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

If I might Id like to turn the script back on and have it report to User:Betacommand\Log only. are there any objections? Betacommand 23:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Not from me, think its a good tool to notify yourself of username violations RyanPostlethwaite 23:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

What WP:RFCN is really for

The issue here is that WP:RFCN is for getting feedback on questionable names before blocking, not for hunting witches in people's block logs and then harrassing admins who do the work over it. (you have to be feaking kidding me that people thought an RFC on Betacommand was a good idea. Try talking to him first!) That attitude has been extremely pervasive there lately, and frankly I'm tired of it. This statement Ryan, "it is not right that admins have the right to block usernames if they aren't blatantly against WP:U, it is simply biting, hence where WP:RFCN comes into play to discuss these blocks." is totally wrong. If you think an admin is blocking incorrectly, the correct action is to talk to them first, then take it here to ANI if you think the community needs to comment. WP:RFCN is not the place for that. Its purpose is discuss before you block, not after. I used to play a large part in maintaining that page, when it was being used correctly, but I refuse to participate in the lynchings that have been going on lately. Your automatic assumption of admin wrongdoing is condescending and offputting. That witch hunt mentality is the root cause of this entire thread. pschemp | talk 23:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I totally disagree with that, RFCN is there to comment on usernames, the reason why blocked usernames have been brought there is because after all, its a request for comment on usernames, whether they've been blocked or not, it is the place to discuss these issues. Its not right that every time an admin makes a mistake with a username block it should be brought up here. The problem with Betacommand was, initially he wasn't responding to talk page messages and hence they were brought up at RFCN. By blocking a new editor because of a username which doesn't seam to infinge on WP:U is going to stop them editing. At RFCN, if a blocked user is brought up, they are quickly unblocked so they are able to comment, thus hopefully keeping a few of these new editors on wikipedia. I agree that it should be discussed with the blocking admin first, however, it is often a lot quicker to resolve the matter by talking on WP:RFCN RyanPostlethwaite 23:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this resolved?

So, is this resolved now? Have we made any progress? Where are we? Newyorkbrad 01:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Latest Homeontherange excitement

Homeontherange is back, and editing using 5 different accounts, User:General Idea, User:Hashomer, User:Sixth Estate, User:Dimitroff and User:Jay Dee Are. Both the technical evidence and other evidence is extremely compelling. On at least one occasion recently he forgot which account he was logged in as, and corrected a post made by another of his sockpuppets: He had also started using his sockpuppets to stack votes.

Even worse, he's been creating new sockpuppets since October 13, 2006, at the same time he was arguing that all evidence of his previous sockpuppeting should be removed, in return for him quietly leaving Misplaced Pages. In the end, huge amounts of material was deleted on his behalf, based on that promise. The timing of the creation of these new sockpuppet accounts shows that he was never serious about keeping his word. In fact, the very day the last piece of identifying evidence was removed, he created his second new sockpuppet.

This is exactly what he did in August 2006; his sockpuppet category was deleted then, on the promise of good behavior going forward, and he immediately went and created another bunch of sockpuppets. That time he (and his facilitators) claimed they weren't really "sockpuppets", but rather "alternative accounts" or "role accounts" or some such nonsense. The key for him is getting the evidence pages deleted; once the list of IPs is gone, it's much harder to tie the new sockpuppets to him.

Since his agreement to "go quietly in return for deletion" was with Jimbo, I've been in touch with Jimbo asking if I can now undelete the deleted materials, and tag and block his latest socks. Jimbo has given his full approval, and I have done so. I've also reverted and removed some of the material he created, though there's far too much of it to do in any thorough way. Jayjg 22:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Admireable detective work. ThuranX 23:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh gosh... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Second the kudos for the excellent detective work. Second also the "oh gosh..." I'm guessing we're no longer going to agf this editor (sarcasm mode operational, apologies) KillerChihuahua 23:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

If community ban is "on the table" here, I support. Cla68 23:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Echo all of the above. "Kudos", "oh gosh", and "I support". Musical Linguist 23:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ditto, with thanks to Jayjg. SlimVirgin 00:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I think most of us knew this was going to happen, so let's not act too surprised. —freak(talk) 02:08, Feb. 23, 2007 (UTC)

In the spirit of WP:DENY, I'm biting my tongue a bit. Thanks Jayjg. Great job. Kla'quot 03:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

As much as I'd like to point fingers in that direction, I'm afraid WP:DENY was not the only factor enabling this abuse to continue. —freak(talk) 03:51, Feb. 23, 2007 (UTC)

Daigacon and User:Silentsam84

Silentsam84 (talk · contribs) has, for the third time since its AFD, recreated the article Daigacon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). He is apparently someone who is connected with the convention in question and has promised to keep recreating the page if it's deleted again. Also all of his edits have only been in relation to this convention. So I would like for someone to have a word with him about the situation. --Farix (Talk) 23:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

During the time I took to type this report, he decided to blank the whole page. --Farix (Talk) 23:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I would support protecting this article. But I would also put it through AfD once more just in case. x42bn6 Talk 01:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Why should go through AFD again if the article has not substantially changed from the one that was previously deleted in the first AFD? --Farix (Talk) 01:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Mike Krumlauf‎

Mikekrumlauf (talk · contribs) has created the article Mike Krumlauf‎ and repeatedly removed speedy deletion tags from it. He also has been repeatedly adding himself to the "notable residents" section of Naperville, Illinois. There's also a new account Screenplayer928 (talk · contribs) created about the same time and the only edits have been agreeing with the other account, sockpuppet seems a likely possibility. --Milo H Minderbinder 23:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Jat Page - Vandalism and Removal of Dispute Tags

I have added dispute tags over 6 times to this page and some vandal keeps removing them, without discussion. I was asked to add content to back up my dispute and have done. Can anything be done please? --Sikh-history 00:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Invite the users to go to Talk:Jat and discuss there. If that isn't inconclusive, then see WP:DR and follow the instructions one-by-one as a suggestion. x42bn6 Talk 00:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Users creating new policy pages

A group of users, or one user, seem to have been creating new policy pages without consensus or respect for policy. If you see Musical Linguist's deletion log, you will see what I am referring to.

The users have been blocked, but we should watch out for new WP: and Misplaced Pages:-space pages being created. --sunstar net 01:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Stalking and harassment by User:BackMaun

This user has undone most of the productive edits I made today. They seem to be stalking me. This user has previously made apparently intentional contentious edits (see comments on the user's talk page) and has also repeatedly posted uncivil messages on my talk page, even after I have asked them several times not to. I don't understand half the things the user is saying. I've removed the posts on my talk page, so check the page history. Could someone have a word with this user? I don't know them, and don't want to communicate with them any further. Anything I say does not seem to be understood, and the user continues to rant about things which don't actually seem to have happened. Khabs 01:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Just glancing at your contributions from today, I see that you have reverted this editor six times with no explanation in the edit summary on six different articles not including your talk page. Most of the reverts were uncalled for. Who's stalking who? You probably should cease knee-jerk reverting everything the other editor adds to the project if you want anyone to believe your statement is in good faith. - WeniWidiWiki 02:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Blanking and Removal of cited material

Tarharqa continues to remove cited material from Racial characteristics of ancient Egyptians. He is an extreme POV pusher and has been warned 5 times by 3 different users to cease his behaivor. NeoFreak 01:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Zclark111 (talk · contribs)

I marked the article Travis Steedle for deletion. Suddenly 3 people sprung up on the talk page to say what a great guy he was. All the accounts (including the original, Zclark111) were created within hours of each other. I suspect they may be sockpuppets or meatpuppets. The people involved are:

• Steedlefan21 (talk · contribs)
• Pmurph405 (talk · contribs)
• DaisyMay4Life (talk · contribs)

Nardman1 02:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Need a little help

Re: this little revert dispute on Template talk:WikiProjectBanners. Granted I've gotten frustrated with this issue, but User:Quadzilla99 is needlessly turning the topic I brought up into a heated debate based on his assumptions for my motivations. Myself and others had a past dispute with him when he was using a bot to add {{Talkheader}} to hundreds of talk pages, and he was asked to stop. (ironic, given the debate on Template talk:WikiProjectBanners) I really want to have a legitimate discussion about the issue I raised, but no one's going to want to get involved as long as he keeps pushing for a fight. -- Ned Scott 03:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that arguing about it is valid reason to delete the comments, even if it may deter others from participating... I don't know that it reaches the level of disruptive yet, he clearly feels strongly about it and is making reasonable if forceful comments, unless I missed something. Georgewilliamherbert 03:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I really feel he's just venting his frustrations from the previous dispute I was in with him. Template talk:Talkheader/Archive 2#Bot. What's the point of assuming good faith and asking people to be nice if you can't actually do anything about it? If I had deleted his comments I could understand, but I moved them to his talk page and then noted that I had moved them and provided a link. It's inappropriate and it's getting in the way of legitimate discussion. Is it not reasonable to at least allow one to move the comments in light of what I have brought up? -- Ned Scott 03:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Usually no; some uninvolved third party may want to get involved and talk to him politely, but I don't think moving the comments is the right thing. I would talk to him but i'm logging off for a while... Georgewilliamherbert 03:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I understand, but I'm not the most popular guy on that talk page right now, which is why I'm asking here instead of reverting him anymore. :P -- Ned Scott 03:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that the link I gave from Template talk:Talkheader doesn't have the actual dispute stuff, so it's not really a good example of what happened. Whatever, though, forget it, it's been shot to shit anyways and I'll have to give up on that discussion (no one will want to get involved). If you ask me, it's pretty shitty that if you make someone mad in the past they can just get away with what Quadzilla99 is doing to that discussion, and that no one will stand up for you because they disagree with you on an XfD relating to that page. -- Ned Scott 03:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Great Deals -- Reborn

The user "Great Deals -- Reborn" is persistently violating the 3RR on his talk page. Please block this person from editing, as I cannot report him/her in the normal AIV page. Nol888_(Talk) 03:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason for anybody to ever look at that page again, so it really doesn't matter much, but I'll go ahead and protect the page. Newyorkbrad 03:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, it was done already. Thanks Nol888_(Talk) 03:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Come to think of it, that could have been a bot or script doing the reverting, and might have continued to the end of time, so it's a good thing you mentioned it. Newyorkbrad 03:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowler user:IP198

Suspected sock/meatpuppet of user:Fowler&fowler. This user has edited in the same articles as Fowler&fowler (see here, here, here and here). He is being used by fowler to have me trapped into 3RR in Indian mathematics, an article I worked hard on but every single one of my edits (including citations from the Univ of Michigan etc.) get removed. Not only has this user been accused of being Fowler's sockpuppet, he has also reverted my edits to Fowler -- see here and here. I'm getting tired and in just a bit I'll either have to get caught in the 3RR or see my work removed belligerently in Indian mathematics. Please help urgently. _{Freedom skies| talk}  04:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

this anon account was formed on 22 February 2007. It has attacked Indian mathematics twice. Fowler had been working on the same "Charges of Eurocentrism" aspect of the article which can be verified here. I'll almost certainly have to watch my hard work go to waste or incur the 3RR. _{Freedom skies| talk}  04:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Need help at PlentyofFish

Hi. As one of my grunt tasks, I watch PlentyofFish as there seems to be an issue with repeated reinsertions of some guy's non-RS complaints against the admins on that site. Just went through a string of reverts with a single-purpose account, Rebeltiger. I went 4 reverts without thinking about it and, although it is probably not an issue in this case, I recently seemed to have been scratched off a couple of admins Christmas lists and did not want to take a chance so I self-reverted. Usually there is another editor or two there so there is back-up but apparently not tonight. Can someone give me a hand, please? Thanks --Justanother 04:20, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I reverted, and left a {uw-npov1}, comment about reliable sources, and {3rr} warning on their talk page. --Onorem 04:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Justanother 04:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

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