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Unblock of Callmebc

So, about a month ago Callmebc was indefinitely blocked because he had basically given up on "editing in a collaborative spirit" and was becoming abusive and disruptive over the topic. Since there was no apparent way to fix his behavior, he was blocked for a long period of time. While blocked, he has remained up to date as a lurker on the topic he was previously engaged in, and we have been (quite genially, I might add) discussing how his editing habits might be improved, since he has an honest desire to contribute to these subjects in a constructive fashion. As you can see from his block log, he has not been a perfect editor, to put it mildly — however, we've discussed a lot of these issues, and I think he has a sincere desire to begin "editing in a collaborative spirit".

Since I'm not here to play parole officer, or pretend I'm some kind of behavior-police (something which I do not believe is the correct role of admins), I've mostly discussed with him how to address the concerns many people brought up in his previous blocks, and the discussion which led up to his indefinite block. In any case, since I didn't want to put words in his mouth or set "conditions" for unblocking him, we decided that he should work up a statement of compromises that he's willing to make to engage his unblock.

Statement by "Callmebc"

I wish to be unblocked from Misplaced Pages. I was indefinitely blocked apparently because of my attitude -- I put accuracy above all else, and I don't play well with others whom I suspect of not being honest. This has led me to be combative and somewhat sarcastic at times, with both other editors and admins. While I feel very strongly that whatever comments I have made were entirely justified in context, I understand that Misplaced Pages is not all about being accurate at all costs -- it is a social, collaborative effort requiring some degree of patience, tolerance, encouragement and giving editors and admins the benefit of the doubt even when I strongly disagree with what is being said or done.

I've been inactive over a month and thought about behaviorial & attitude changes I can agree to that would strike a balance between my wanting things accurate and up to date in a timely manner, and the Wiki process of collaboration and WP:AGF. This is what I think would be a good compromise:

1) I will refrain from making any changes at all to the main article page without first going through a Talk page discussion. If the discussion degrades to WP:TE, and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, and WP:GAME (as is often the case with politically sensitive topics), I will still avoid simply going ahead to make the changes anyway and instead will follow Misplaced Pages policies regarding WP:DR

The only exceptions I'll will be blatant vandalism and substantial undiscussed changes I have problems with in terms of accuracy and content -- I will just revert the first as a matter of course, and will revert the second with a note on the editor's home page to please discuss first on the Talk page. In the second case, if the editor makes an effort to discuss the changes, I will follow consensus and not object to putting the changes back even if I still have problems with them. If it is an issue with a single editor wanting to change something and there is no other feedback from anyone else, I will instead again follow Misplaced Pages policies regarding WP:DR rather than engage in an edit war.

2) I will endeavor to be polite, regardless of the circumstances and provocation. The articles I tend to be interested in are politically charged and regularly draw in anonymous IP's, sock/meatpuppets and the like. In the worst case I will only adopt a neutral tone and will strive to avoid even making sarcastic remarks, however "appropriate" the circumstances might be.

3) I will give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and then some, regardless of my suspicions. I will even go further and start with a clean sheet in regards to editors and admins I have bumped heads with in the past and regardless of my personal opinions. In real life, you get to pick your job but not your coworkers, and you are expected to get along regardless. The same is much the case with the Misplaced Pages -- you can pick which articles to work on, but you can't choose your coeditors, and you should try to get along regardless. They may include people you would never want to socialize with, but that's not the point of why you're there in either case.

4) In a nutshell, I will endeavor to improve the quality of articles without violating, however accidently, the collaborative spirit of Misplaced Pages.

-BC aka Callmebc

As you can see, it basically amounts to a self-imposed probation on all articles, with civility probation attached. I think this will satisfy most of the concerns which surrounded his editing pre-block, but I wanted to bring it up for discussion here. So, what do you think? It would be helpful if comment could focus on particular requirements you think are not met in this, if you are opposed. For consideration, --Haemo (talk) 04:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I am always concerned when users try to get themselves unblocked in unusual fashions. I would rather Callmebc go through (since email is not disabled) and just request an unblock through unblock-en-l@lists.wikimedia.org first before coming here. If that is rejected, then fine, but AN/I is frankly too fast for a discussion of this type. If some admin is willing to consider it, I'd suggest unprotecting his user talk page and discussing it there instead of here. No opinion, just a random admin musing through. Frankly, after seeing your diatribes as unblock requests, I'd say to at least wait until the end of the month before even considering it and learn why your unblock requests got you deservedly blocked even worse. I'll add this: if (1) this thread goes nowhere, (2) he's emailed unblock and they've denied it as well, have him email me and I'll consider unprotecting his talk page after December 28 . Even then, I'm going to ask that at least one of the users who you are edit warring with agrees to the restrictions and will reblocked immediately and permanently for any nonsense. After this many blocks (and especially given the attitude during the blocked periods), I think I'm being way more than fair. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, this is not really an "unusual fashion". I was discussing with Callmebc on-Wiki when he was appealing his block in the usual fashion. However, our discussion was cut short when his talk page was protected, but he had contacted me via email, so we decided to continue the discussion via email. There is nothing unusual about this, and it seems slightly bureaucratic to insist on jumping through hoops like reposting an extensive discussion we've had via email on his talk pages, or emailing a list which will only result in a discussion here — since this is clearly a case where the community needs to get involved. To be fair, in addition, its now been more than 1 month since his block was implemented. With respect to the "too fast" comment, the community sanction board was merged with WP:ANI — so this is de facto the only place to bring up discussions of this nature; the consensus was that WP:ANI is not "too fast", but is in fact the correct forum for these discussions. --Haemo (talk) 08:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

To be honest it may seem bureaucratic but it is justified, he knew his talk page was going to be protected if he used it disruptively and he went ahead and gave a rather pointy reason for unblocking, wich was: "See below -- I was in the middle of composing an answer and proposition to Haemo when MaxSem shot first without asking me any questions. That wasn't nice or WP:CIVIL of him, was it?" the talk page was protected shortly after this last request was denied, there is no reason why the desicion to protect could be considered out of place. - Caribbean~H.Q. 08:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying it was out of place — I was simply explaining that the discussion we began there was continued via email, instead of by arguing over the protection. I merely made the comment to explain why it was not an "unusual fashion" — i.e. it's not as though he contacted me out of the blue, or something, asking for an unblock. --Haemo (talk) 08:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• If Callmebc is unblocked, it should be on the proviso that there is a topic ban from articles related to George W. Bush's National Guard service, interpreted liberally and to include all comments including on user talk, and on a permanent final warning about WP:BLP. See VRTS ticket # Ticket ID parameter missing. and VRTS ticket # Ticket ID parameter missing. for evidence of this editor's single-minded determination to pursue an agenda in violation of WP:BLP, causing great offence to a living individual in the process. I am not in favour of unblocking, personally, but as I say, any unblock should be contingent on some form of editing restriction. The above comments about "accuracy above all else" do not augur well, indicating that Callmebc self-identifies as a bearer of The Truth™, rather than accepting or engaging the numerous legitimate criticisms. Guy (Help!) 09:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

  I don't have OTRS access, so I'll take your word for it. Since he appears to be mostly involved in the Killian Documents issues, and global warming, I'm not sure if he'll be willing to agree to that. However, he might, so I will consider broaching it with him after this discussion wraps up. He may be the bearer of The Truth™, but I think his comments show that he's realized that he has to compromise and engaged with us unenlightened ones, as well. --Haemo (talk) 09:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Normally he would be allowed to use his talk page to argue his point but he abused it for days so no one should act like he deserves to be unblocked or any sympathy for his circumstances. Now, he should go through the process and ask via email. Frankly, I didn't realize he was getting to the point of OTRS tickets (I probably wouldn't have even offered to unblock if I knew he was that far gone) so Guy's topic ban has to be strictly enforced (I don't even want him on the talk pages there). Maybe even a requirement that he can only go on articles that don't have WP:BLP concerns? Either way, if he does "jump through all the hoops", I'll go to each of the talk pages and ask about him. Frankly, Haemo, I'm doing him a huge favor (as I feel this is going to take a lot of my time) and honestly, I'd prefer it if I felt that he realized that editing here is a privilege, not a right that can be abused and then "I'm sorry", "all is forgiven" after a diatribe against everyone. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, he's a passionate guy — he's shown me as much in his emails. I think he has experience which might be of use to the project; however, the problems related to his behavior are an issue for the community to settle. Passion and conviction are not a recipe for temperance — as his past behavior has shown. However, I think he understand now that temperance is necessary to participate in this community. As you can see, he's made some serious concessions and appears willing to talk about things. This is a big step forward, and means a lot more than just an "I'm sorry". --Haemo (talk) 09:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• This editor should not be unblocked at this time. I have had first hand experience in dealing with him. Instead, advise him to participate successfully in another Wiki, such as WikiNews, for three to six months and then he can apply for reinstatement. - Jehochman 09:26, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• Do you really think that would help? The issue here is behavior; our sister projects are not test-beds for problem editors, and we should not use them as such. If we refuse to unblock him due to behavior problems, why would should inflict that behavior on a sister project in order test the waters for an unblock? It seems backwards — if he's trustworthy enough to edit WikiNews, then he should be trustworthy enough to edit Misplaced Pages — the negation of this should apply equally. --Haemo (talk) 09:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• Sister projects have much less visibility as Misplaced Pages. Those who merely want to soapbox won't bother. Those who have a sincere desire to participate will. - Jehochman 09:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that's compelling. Perhaps they have a sincere desire to participate in a proper encyclopedia, not WikiNews or Simple English Misplaced Pages? An editor could very well be ready to turn over a new leaf, but not want to spend half a year doing something they have no interest in as a litmus test for whether they want to use Misplaced Pages as a soapbox. Many editors who want to contribute in good faith, and have turned over a new leaf would balk at such a suggestion and refuse. It's seem pretty punitive, and serves little purpose — if he's unblocked here, and starts soapboxing, then he'll have violated the terms he's already agreed to, and will be blocked. I don't believe in sending our problem users to other projects, especially as part of litmus tests which have no precedent (IIRC) and little evidence that they will actually do what we want. --Haemo (talk) 10:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• JzG, I have OTRS access but can't see that one, either... o.O - Penwhale | 09:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I really don't support him being unblocked yet, I know that unblock consideration can take place anytime but the last time he displayed disruptive behavior was about three weeks ago, while blocked this shows disregard for losing his editing privilege wich makes me question his desire to return, not to the point of assuming bad faith but I have to wonder if his intention is to push his past agenda in a more subtle manner. I wouldn't even consider unblocking this user without severe editing limitations like the ones presented above. - Caribbean~H.Q. 10:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, he's come up with those above by himself as suggestions for restrictions he feels are reasonable. --Haemo (talk) 10:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I was refering to Guy's topic ban, and the subsecuent comment that sugested that said ban was extended to talk pages. - Caribbean~H.Q. 10:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Callmebc has repeatedly used talk pages to promote precisely the same offending content that was a problem in article space, and his abuse of his talk page for this was a factor in it being protected. I fixed the OTRS ticket links, incidentally. Sorry about that. Guy (Help!) 16:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I guess I can go along with this. The tone of his message is reasonable and the editing conditions he's come up with for himself look quite decent. Someone will always be around to enforce them. I don't think a topic-ban is necessary - if he comes back and does the same thing over-and-over-again we can just slap the ban back on. Cheers, Moreschi 10:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• I really do think we need to make it crystal clear that no comments about the individual concerned will be tolerated. Callmebc has offended the complainant, and the best course will unquestionably be for Callmebc to refrain form making any further comment in respect of this person. If that is acceptable to Callmebc then I have no objection; if Callmebc will not undertake to leave this person alone then I cannot support unblocking. Guy (Help!) 16:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I am a firm believer in second chances, but I think the myriad chances given to this user to shape up have been completely exhausted. It's rather easy for uninvolved spectators to say he should be allowed to try to edit articles again, but as a person who's borne the brunt of his attacks and incivility, I wouldn't consider it an option. ~ UBeR (talk) 19:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly saying that; rather, I'm giving him an avenue to express his desire to contribute, and the concessions he's willing to make. You've mentioned that your concerns stem from his incivility and personal attacks. What more would you like to see from him that is not already expressed in terms of what he's agreed to? --Haemo (talk) 23:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, my first restriction on him potentially is that he stay off article space completely for one month, once and if he's unblocked; only talk space edits. I want to see if he is actually interested in discussing his views and can get others to agree based on persuasion, not by force. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:04, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm a non-admin who has had a lot of contact with "BC" since before he registered as Callmebc. While our opinions about the Killian Documents are quite different, I would like to note for the record that he has helped improve our articles about those documents in some fairly significant ways. "BC" has sometimes drifted into a self-defeating pattern of incivility (this appears to be cyclical, as do his bursts of amazing energy), but I'd like him to get one more chance. CWC 03:55, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Since ArbCom determined that User:Vintagekits deserves a second chance, then this erudite and productive editor deserves several - and promptly. Alice 14:22, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Callmebc was deleting my edits because he couldn't find an online copy of cited material, and later because he couldn't find what was in it. He could still do that under his understanding of truth: "The only exceptions I'll will be blatant vandalism and substantial undiscussed changes I have problems with in terms of accuracy and content -- I will just revert the first as a matter of course, and will revert the second with a note on the editor's home page to please discuss first on the Talk page." Only his unnecessary Talk messages will increase. -- SEWilco (talk) 03:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Callmebc doesn't have ('special counsel') Giano on his team, so I should imagine that if he pulls a stunt like calling good faith editors vandals and reverting them, he will get chopped off at the legs again - this time justifiably.

Callmebc needs to promptly give the undertaking to refrain from any personal comment whatever concerning the "complainant" (as Guy suggested) and then he should be unblocked. A preliminary step should be for his talk page to be unprotected so that he can give plain and unequivocal assurances there in full view of the aggrieved parties (and, hopefully, those same parties can confirm there and then, on Callmebc's talk page that they accept the undertakings in good faith). Misplaced Pages is a collegiate project and Callmebc needs to demonstrate that he has learnt that now; his relayed statement above certainly talks the talk - unprotecting his talk page would mean we could all be satisfied that he walks the walk too. Alice 05:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, just exactly that. Guy (Help!) 23:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• I hope I don't seem like a sucker here, but it seems that callmebc recognizes the problems that lead to his block/ban and will endeavor to prevent them in the future. I, for one, would be supportive of a trial unblock to see how it goes. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Passionate at times. If he can control that, he will be a great editor. In addition, notice that, to the best of our knowledge, he has not used socks which supports the view that he is a good editor, just loses it at times. Give him a chance. Brusegadi (talk) 06:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• unblock It is Christmas. Give him a chance (again). Seriously, he states he will make a strong effort to improve. He can always be blocked again if he reverts to his old ways. Gtstricky 17:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Another non-adminstrator who's had exchanges with callmebc in the past; well said, Gtstricky, and a Merry Christmas /or insert winter holiday of choice/ to you all. htom (talk) 17:51, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It's now five days since the matter of Callmebc's block and user talk page protection was raised here.

Although Guy does not seem to violently disapprove of the protection being removed, he's still omitted to un-protect User talk:Callmebc (I also requested that here).

Mindful of ArbCom's opinion in another matter: "Since administrators are strongly discouraged from reversing one another's blocks, it is of particular importance that blocking admins respond to good-faith requests to review blocks they have made. Similarly, administrators who perform independent reviews of unblock requests are expected to familiarize themselves with the full facts of the matter before marking the unblock request "declined."" and "It is important for all users, but especially administrators, to be aware of their own agendas, feelings and passions, and to deal with them appropriately, avoiding both biased editing and ill-considered administrative actions.", can anyone now suggest a way forward since the consensus seems to be to exercise some generosity of spirit here? Alice 02:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks like no admin is willing to unblock. Having said that, I will make an offer. I've had a little experience with Callmebc and think that he is capable of being a constructive editor -- even a very good editor -- if he can rein in his passions. I'm willing to unblock Callmebc and give him advice as to how he can proceed constructively. The condition I require is that if he goes over the line, I will reinstate the block at my sole and uncontested discretion. I'm willing to serve as an informal advisor but am not willing to get into an endless back-and-forth. If he gets into a rut of tendentious editing or other inappropriate behavior, I re-block and wash my hands of the matter. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that's very fair, Raymond. I hope Callmebc and Guy will think so too.

By the way, I've stolen your Highland Cattle for my user page. Alice 03:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Listen, just relax. I too am willing to unblock him, given the discussion here, but I want everyone to be able to chime in, and to get Callmebc's opinion about some of the suggestions made in the thread. I have been in constant contact with him via and email, and he is pleased with the way things are going. There is no need to create any additional conflict over this issue. --Haemo (talk) 04:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I oppose the unblock, as an editor who sees that callmebc still thinks he's got 'The Truth', as evidenced by his opening statement justifying all he's previously done: "I put accuracy above all else, and I don't play well with others whom I suspect of not being honest." That's "I have The Truth, thus I did the right thing and you all can't see it." Why would we continue to invite someone back whose 'apology' is 'yeah, but i was right and they weren't so they started it and i was just fixing everyone's mess'? No. No more agenda warriors and POV pushers, we have plenty. ThuranX (talk) 14:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

With respect, Thuranx, I don't read his statement that way. I read it as him being honest and non-delusional about his own innate motivation and world outlook and recognising that it will take a big and constant effort from him to adapt to our collaborative way of doing things.

But I do think that this is a dialogue that you (and possibly others) need to be having with Callmebc himself - which is why I would strongly plead again for his talk page to be unprotected right now. Alice 19:45, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

A little late to the party (been away for Christmas) but I'd just like to add that I support an unblock and am willing to do it myself. I'm going to leave that action up to Haemo, of course, but I wanted it to be clear that there are admins willing to unblock. - auburnpilot talk 03:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

That's three admins who have clearly stated they are willing to unblock and I concur that unblocking is best left to Haemo who says that he is in constant contact, but what about the page protection? We need to be fair not just to Callmebc but to those who have reservations and wish some dialogue so that they can be reassured (or otherwise). Would one of you admins please unprotect the talk page right now as I can not see any objections being voiced to that unprotect after more than a week of discussing Callmebc's block and user talk page protection. Alice 07:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Given the torrent of abuse that he previously let loose on his Talk page, I'm not willing to unblock the page. He's in contact with Haemo so that's fine as far as communication. My own unblock offer does not require discussion, just a simple yes or no (which can be communicated by email). Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing productive that can come from this user on the Killian Documents issue. He should be unblocked only on condition he stay away from that topic, per Guy. Otherwise he'll go right back to insisting on including his original research in that article (and I'll be happy to return from my Wikibreak for the express purpose of stopping that from happening). - Merzbow (talk) 03:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Just so everyone knows, I emailed him a little while ago to try and wrap up this whole thing. I will keep everyone posted! --Haemo (talk) 04:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Alice 04:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll be away for a few days and I know that this section will shortly be archived (into oblivion?) so, would it be possible to drop me a line on my talk page (or by e-mail) when there are any developments, since this page falls off my watchlist after 9 days? Alice 00:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

the GFDL and attribution

I am trying to reconcile my understanding of {{gfdl}} with the current mechanism for renaming categories.

Currently, unlike articles, when someone proposes renaming a category, a brand new category is created, with the new name, but the text of the old category. Its revision history shows it having a single author -- the robot that created it, not the actual human authors.

Any different revisions the text of the category underwent are lost. And, if I am not mistaken, if that category had a talk page, it is silently erased.

We grant generous rights when we release our contributions under the {{gfdl}} But don't we retain an entitlement to have the history of our contributions retained?

It seems to me the current mechanism doesn't retain the attributions in our contributions to the text of categories. Geo Swan (talk) 20:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that the consensus is that the prose contents of categories are trivial, and mostly scenes a faire material which isn't subject to copyright in general; it's meta-information and not subject matter. I suppose there are cases where a category would bear enough originality and prose to be protectable, but then a simple acknowledgment in the edit log should do. — Coren  21:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

They are, or should be anyway. However, Cydebot does list the editors of the old category, so the information is retained in the history of the new page. If there's a talk page for a renamed category, it gets moved to the new name, e.g. here and here. About as good as can be done with the current system. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Not all the editors are shown in the edit summary if the edit history is too long. Some of the edits made to category pages are creative enough that they should be preserved per the GFDL. A solution would be to move the category page to the new name (along with its talk page). The way that could be implemented is, I believe, as easy as making category pages move-protected by default, rather than having the software completely prevent movement of category pages. Carcharoth (talk) 01:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that that's simply a great idea. Though I have a vague recollection that categories should be "empty" before "turning into" a page (which then can be moved). - jc37 02:31, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

In answer to Coren -- I have started categories where the text has been vandalized. I have started categories where the contents clearly were longer than too trivial to merit copyright protection. I don't see how the suggestion that a mention in the edit log could be sufficient for those instances where the category has been vandalized, or has been the subject of disagreement, or edit warring. It still seems to me that this does not fulfill the wikipedia's obligations to honor the rights contributor's retain under the {{gfdl}}.

I don't understand why category renaming should lose the edit history, when the edit history is not lost when articles are renamed. Geo Swan (talk) 14:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

If I am not mistaken the current mechanism erases the content of comments in Category talk:* space. I checked my edit history and came across a contribution to Category talk:Chadian rebels. Even if, for the sake of argument, the comments here were misplaced -- I dispute that this means they should be flushed without any warning or discussion. Geo Swan (talk) 15:10, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

There are almost a dozen entries in the edit history of Category talk:Afghan politicians. If trashing the talk pages of categories is due to a programming design choice then, IMO, it was a poorly advised one. See also:

• Category talk:Saudi Arabian extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
• Category talk:Afghani anti-communists
• Category talk:Saudi Arabian terrorists
• Category:Guantanamo Bay detainment camp

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 15:31, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

For the record, administrators can see deleted edits. You have over 100 deleted edits that were made to various Guantanamo Bay categories (most were discussed at Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_March_27#Category:Guantanamo_Bay_detainees), and 6 that were made to category talk pages. I agree that category talk page discussion is sometimes very useful and should be kept if the editor wants to put the thoughts somewhere else. I have 17 deleted category talk edits and over 150 deleted category namespace edits. I'd be happy to retrieve your category talk edits if you want them. Carcharoth (talk) 19:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there a technical objection to using move rather than create when renaming a category? I certainly know of categories that have significant textual content that would very clearly not be scenes a faire ... if not for the categories, could we at least move the talk page? Again, I know of categories that have VERY extensive talk pages with dozens if not hundreds of contributions. Seems like policy and practice should favour moving. ++Lar: t/c 22:05, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I support Lar's proposal. Badagnani (talk) 22:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The technical problem is that you can't redirect categories. Well you can but all articles added to the category will still be listed under the redirect rater than the redirect target, resulting in some confution. Various proposale to fix this have been floating around for years but it's aparenlty not easy to achieve. Basicaly you either have to go though and automaticaly change the text of each article that's a member of the article when it's renamed (but how do that reliably and effectively?), or just make the target category list all the content of any category that's redirected to it, but then what if multiple categories redirect to the same target etc? --Sherool (talk) 13:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Forgot about that you can't easily just move the category... it doesn't have a move tab! (I agree that once moved, a bot would need to clean up all the pages that categorized to the old name). Well I still think category talk pages should be moved if possible.. there's a move tab visible on those so it's at least theoretically technically possible to move them. ++Lar: t/c 18:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

V-Dash quattro

After reviewing the contribs of SPD V (talk · contribs), I have blocked him indef and, as per JzG's warning to him here, blocked V-Dash (talk · contribs) for two weeks for abusive sockpuppetry. I would appreciate a review of my block. -Jéské 09:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a little difficult to determine the relationship between SPD V and V-Dash, since the former only edited article space and the latter seems to have recently confined themselves to the talkpage. Providing you are certain that the correctly indef blocked puppet was being used by V-Dash then I concur with that block also, per JzG's warning. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

SPD V was edit-warring over the exact same things that earned V-Dash his last 3RR block from me - the genre section of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. Also, his talkpage post there, written in French, is little more than a chastising towards those who do not fit his POV that D&P is a straight RPG (minus the J), i.e. most everyone. -Jéské 21:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I saw a lot of edits to the same articles, but wasn't able to establish a consistent pov (because most of V-Dash's edits were a revert war over the same couple of sentences on the talkpage). If you are happy that SPD V is not an impersonator sock account designed to get V-Dash into trouble then I am happy too. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Your comment made me consider the last post by SPD V, which was in French. I am not certain whether V-Dash knows French and so I amended the SPD V CU to ask if this is PolluxFrost. -Jéské 07:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

V-Dash unblocked as innocent; SPD V is Dash Jr (talk · contribs), who is indefinitely blocked for harassment of V-Dash. -Jéské 19:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Man, this guy just keeps dodging every accusation! He's a genius! :) J-ſtan_{User page} 21:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Tag Team POV pushing

In the article Bryges several users have been conspiring together, re-posting a paragraph that is purely POV. The paragraph is full of inaccurate statements and is a one-sided criticism of a respected academic. It has no sources to back up the accusations because they are incorrect. That sort of NPOV does not belong in an encyclopedia. The main tag-team editors are user:Megistias, user:Kékrōps and user:3rdAlcove. Two of these editors have a history of violations and have been blocked for similar behavior. Recently there was an arbitration case opened due to this type of behavior. Any help solving this conflict will be appreciated. Ireland101 (talk) 04:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems like an edit war. I think blocking them as a vandal-only account or meats of each other would be recommended. —BoL 04:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this situation can only be described as an edit war, and those accounts are vandal-only. It is also reasonable to assume that those accounts may be sock/meat puppets as they only post in the same articles and make the same edits. Ireland101 (talk) 06:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

We'd need more proof than that to start blocking. I've asked for sources on the talk page let's keep an eye on ot for now. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 10:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

This sort of Tag-team edit warring has been going on for a long time here are some more articles where the same editors have been pushing the same views and beating the 3RR by posting for each other , . Ireland101 (talk) 18:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. If anyone needs to be blocked, it is User:Ireland101. He is insidiously trying to manipulate the administrators to block users who don't agree with his extreme nationalist views. Specifically, he seems obsessed with two things: Proving that the ancient Macedonians were not Greek, and proving that they are related to the modern day Slavic Macedonians. Pretty much every single one of his recent edits is towards pushing one of these two POVs, as his contribs log will attest, so if anyone is guilty of POV-pushing it is him. He makes his edits in a highly aggressive manner, without consulting the discussion page, and then accuses anyone who undoes his edits to be a "vandal". Because he is in the minority, he repeatedly runs to admins for help. He has repeatedly insulted me, accusing me of "vandalism", threatening me, and even going so far as to imply that I use a sock puppet ]. He has a history of violent, aggressive confrontation and insidious appeals for "help" from the administrators, so far without result. It's all in his contribs log and talk page, which speak for themselves. The users he is denouncing are anything BUT vandals, and have a long track record of constructive contributions to wikipedia. All are upstanding members of the community, as their talk pages and contribs log attest. His attempt to get them blocked is as despicable as it is insidious. I would therefore like to use this opportunity to request that disciplinary action be taken against Ireland101. --Tsourkpk (talk) 22:27, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for calling me "despicable" and "insidious", this only lets people get a better picture of the personalty of your friends/meat puppets and your self. There was recently a arbitration request by administrator Future Perfect regarding this situation and this is an excerpt of his statment "Greek tendentious editing can generally get away with murder; Bulgarian tendentious editing will have its way as long as it's not against the Greeks; Albanian editors get their way because Greeks and Bulgarians come to their aid just to annoy the Macedonians; and most Macedonian editors are immobilized to such a degree they can hardly get an edit through without having it reverted immediately - leading to predictable outbreaks of sock attacks and other forms of retaliatory disruption from their side." What Tsourkpk is trying to say is that he is right because he has several meat/sock puppets that agree with him. This is really shovanistic as these meat puppets really think that they can get away with clear vandalism as pointed out in above posts just because there are a few of them. Ireland101 (talk) 00:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

So now you are accusing the users whom you tried to "eliminate" of being sock/meatpuppets of mine? LOL, that is too funny. I won't bother responding to that. However, I have noticed a pattern whereby Ireland101 tries to dispose of anyone who disagrees with him using baseless accusations of sockpuppetry and vandalism. He has already tried to eliminate me in a similar manner by ratting me out for supposed "vandalism" here ] as well as insinuating that I use sockpuppets here ]. From this, and his above postings, it seems that his definition of a vandal and a sock/meatpuppet is any user who disagrees with him. His accusations of sock/meatpuppetry are baseless and ridiculous. All three users Ireland101 is accusing are upstanding wikipedians with distinguished track records that speak for themselves. Notice how there is not a shred of evidence to support his accusations. They are not sockpuppets or meatpuppets or any such nonsense. Nor is there any evidence that they are tag-teaming. They simply disagree with him, and since it seems he cannot tolerate a dissenting opinion, he is trying to get rid of them any way he can. As for the above quote, what User:Future Perfect at Sunrise is trying to say is that it is users from the republic of Macedonia that are guilty of "predictable outbreaks of sock attacks and other forms of retaliatory disruption", no doubt due to the frustration they must be experiencing. While I sympathize with that, I think Ireland101's accusations are a perfect example of such behavior. I have been very patient with him, but I have had enough of his baseless and slanderous accusations and request that he be disciplined. --Tsourkpk (talk) 01:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Also not how he twists my words, just like he did those of User:Future Perfect at Sunrise. I did not say that he himself is despicable or insidious, just his attempts to eliminate users whose only "crime" is to disagree with him.

I have posted all the evidence that I need, you and your friends are posting a blatant POV paragraph in the article and there is not one source to back up your accusations. As for track record of your friends a majority of them have been blocked in the past. Ireland101 (talk) 01:54, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, a source regarding the unrelatedness of ancient and modern Macedonian was provided (see? it's not just users disagreeing with you, scholars do it as well) on the talk page by user Megistias before you even started complaining here. It was just a matter of inserting it in the article text, which is done. The question, then, is: why are you still complaining and pushing a POV, even after a source has been provided? 3rdAlcove (talk) 02:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I just saw what you are talking about and even though it is not at the same academic level as Shea's thesis on the issue it is unrelated to the issue. All that source says is that Ancient Macedonian was in the Hellenic category. All though there are so sources that state where they came to this conclusion it does not state that modern Macedonian is unrelated to ancient Macedonian. Ireland101 (talk) 03:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Ireland101's persistent attempts to establish a genetic link between the ancient Macedonian language and the unrelated modern Slavic language, against all scholarly consensus, can only be described as a desperate POV push that will of course be reverted by the rest of the community. One only needs to read the relevant articles to establish that there is no such connection. The reasons for this user's behaviour are elaborated in the relevant article on the Macedonia naming dispute: Conversely, a minority of Slav Macedonian scholars have attempted to show that ancient Macedonians were Slavic-speaking, a theory rejected by virtually all mainstream scholars, including mainstream Slav scholars. In other words, User:Ireland101 is trying to impose a tiny-minority view, a clear violation of WP:UNDUE. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 12:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a little comment regarding the edit-pattern of User:Ireland101 - he's been engaged in the same edit-wars in a great number of articles and is obviously trying to promote his Point of View to a vast area. As a consequence he was reverted on a number of times in articles like Samuil of Bulgaria, United Macedonia, Greek Struggle for Macedonia, Vergina Sun, Justinian I, Macedon, Hellenization, Psychological warfare and so on and he was warned to stop edit-warring by at least a couple of other editors respectively (including me as obvious by his talkpage). So I think that suggesting the problem might be with him and not with the others does not sound far from the truth.--Laveol 15:49, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The comments of Laveol and Kékrōps are nonsense, it is a real shame that they are making such outlandish accusations about myself when they are not true. I have never been in an edit war, my block log is evidence of this. On the other hand both users sounded as if they were describing their own edit patters. They have both started editwars and have a history of violations of wikipedia policy. The fact that these two users have been blocked repetadly in the past must be taken into consideration when reading their opinions. They are trying to make me look like some crazy editor yet they are the ones that have a documented history of edit warring. They have both been blocked repetadly for such behavior in the past and unfortunaly continue to do so. Ireland101 (talk) 18:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Stop inserting fringe views unsupported by mainstream scholarship, as well as your own, personal opinions and no one is going to oppose your edits. 3rdAlcove (talk) 18:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Here are some more recent examples of tag-team edit warring by the meat puppets ,Ireland101 (talk) 21:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Cyric the All - harassment

Cyric the All (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

An obvious reincarnation of my impersonator; see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive343#I'm being harassed by my old account. Thanks. --Jack Merridew 09:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Cyric the One - harassment

Cyric the One (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

yet another as above... --Jack Merridew 15:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Cyric the One and All - harassment

Cyric the One and All (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

the user page says blocked, but the block log does not... --Jack Merridew 10:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The user was blocked 24 hours ago unless he created a new account.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 11:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

In the future, use the proper link, like Cyric the One and All (talk · contribs).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 11:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks; I've fixed my copy-paste mistake in the template above. --Jack Merridew 11:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Betacommand

Betacommand (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is unilaterally removing the edit links from thousands of stub templates (see, for example, ), despite significant objection on his talk page (see User_talk:Betacommand#Template:Paramilitary-org-stub and User_talk:Betacommand#AWB). As these edits are inappropriate, disruptive, and serve no useful purpose, I am requesting administrative assistance in stopping them. John254 03:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that Betacommand is misinterpreting Misplaced Pages:Self-references to avoid#Community and website feature references which seems to explicitly acknowledge that stubs have and should have self-edit links and that this is a good thing.

I disagree that "administrative assistance in stopping them" is required. Beta usually responds appropriately to sufficient and polite feedback on his user talk page. He's not a rogue we need to block over this or something silly like that... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

there is a simple reason for doing this, we dont need 20,000 external links to wikipedia in templates. I am attempting to work with the major issue of people mis-using external links to wikipedia, links that should be wikilinks, or a major issue of people using wikipedia to reference itself. Both issues need fixed. But we have tens of thousands of internal links that are not needed. Users have an edit button for a reason. we dont need to add a second one. Try doing a search for links to en.wikipedia, that use URL's you get a crapload. If we are ever to address the issue of improper linking, we cannot include extra edit buttons on every template. β 04:22, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not disagreeing with you that the external link aspect of how those are implemented is perhaps suboptimal. However... It is clear from the policy and discussion here and elsewhere that the community has reviewed and accepted that those external links back to self-editing are a good thing to have, all things considered, including the negatives that come with the external search engine indexing and all.

You cannot stand up and say "This is bad therefore I am changing it" when it's explicitly covered in established policy and people object to WP:BOLD actions. BOLD doesn't go that far.

If you want to either argue to change the community consensus and policy, or try to come up with a superior technical solution to the problem somehow, or both, that's fine. I am marginally inclined to agree with the community on the useful annoyance tradeoff, but I think a lot of people will listen to your basic argument there. And a better technical solution should be pretty easy to get consensus on.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The presence of the edit links in the stub templates provides convenient access for new users, encouraging them to expand the stubs. Rather than disrupting thousands of stub templates, Betacommand should simply modify the script used to search for links to explicitly exclude the stub template edit links. Betacommand's argument that the utility of thousands of templates needs to be curtailed for mere convenience in searching for links is completely frivolous. I would assert, based on Betacommand's continued removal of these links despite objections on his talk page, and based on his comments above, that Betacommand has no intention of stopping these link removals. Note that Betacommand has a prior history of similar disruptive link removals, as described in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand. John254 04:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I have retracted part of my comment above, as Betacommand appears to have stopped removing the links. If there are no objections from anyone other than Betacommand, I will begin to reverse the edits, though cleaning up completely may take several days. John254 04:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Reverting silly edits like these in masses may be more problematic than helpful. — Save_Us_229 05:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how. Not reversing them is definitely unhelpful, though some care should be taken when reverting the heavily-used ones, understandably. Grutness...wha? 05:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Please see further discussion of this issue on my talk page. John254 06:31, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that this actually points to a bigger problem with Betacommand which is his willingness to exploit the power given to his bot without following the rules relating the the use of bots. See Misplaced Pages talk:Bot policy#Bots that expand their scope without comment I must disagree with the statement that Betacommand is not a rouge. He is becomming a bigger one all of the time, applying the be bold policy to the use of his bot which is clearly against Misplaced Pages policy. Dbiel 07:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

...and where is BC using his bot? east.718 at 11:27, December 29, 2007

While I agree that these links are suboptimal when they point directly to wikipedia.org, and that they should be replaced by something among the lines of {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}}, I appears not to be the case here. I know it clutters Special:Linksearch, but perhaps the solution would be to modify it not to include URL that are the result of one of these magic words? However, at first glance this does not seem feasible. At the moment I think that while the idea of removing needless external links in the main space is a good one, the problems the implementation create for the end user are much greater than the benefits. I know it will take much longer, but checking on every page that has an external link whether or not it is part of the page, or a template (something you will need to do anyway if you want to remove the said link), is much more sensible than altering dozens of highly visible templates. -- lucasbfr 12:53, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it was poor judgement not to have argued the point on why edit links should be removed from stub templates before doing so. Changing a long-standing method to encourage new editors appears radical and cavalier when not explained and discussed beforehand (or even an explanatory edit summary). However, I'm not sure that the loss of the "click here to edit" link is terribly bad. The article page already has an edit button on it and the stub template can simply encourage readers to push it. DoubleBlue (Talk) 22:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

While I'd prefer to see the links stay, my real concern is what makes BC think he can do this sort of thing without any prior discussion. Even if the community consensus ends up being to remove the links, doing so without discussion (and with the powerful tool of AWB) is not how we do things around here. With all due respect for the time and effort BC puts into Misplaced Pages, he should be warned that this kind of unilateralism is not acceptable, and that even titans of the wiki can lose their privileges to use tools like AWB and bots. — Swpb 23:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

LackOvComprehension

Could someone please block this charming troll? His lovely edit summaries should be enough, but here's an example of the kind of "work" he is doing. AniMate 08:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The user would have received theire 'blatant vandal stop or be blocked' message after their last vandalism. I'm watching their contribtions, if they go any further the account will be indef blocked.--Alf 08:19, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Why do people who indulge in racist vandalism get to have the regular litany of block warnings? Anybody who edits in such a manner as AniMate showed above, should be blocked immediately. Corvus cornix_talk 19:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Why limit to racism? assuming good faith is a two-way process and anyone who so blatantly fails that test should be shown the door with extreme prejudice. After all, it doesn't stop them starting another account if they decide they want to edit constructively. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 19:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Was abot to post similar to above. And the block now on that account is for just 31 hours - surely 12 months wouldn't be excessive? Whitstable (talk) 19:55, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

someone editing my page constantly

Removed linking of title of this section. Rjd0060 (talk) 15:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

guys I need some help here. There is someone who is editing constantly the article about Darko Trifunovic who is fighting against terrorism. I recieved the information that certain Afan Pasalic is a hacker who is behind all this and he has been already warned by the lawyers. he is leading online campaigns against Darko Trifunovic and in this way sabotaging him and other intelectuals to fight against terrorism. Please look at the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/Darko_Trifunovic and see history and talk page.I have warned him several times, with no success. I belive he is hiding behind several nicknames such as AlexandarNYC, AccountInquiry and Corvus cornix. I am not sure if this is all one person (could be), or several persons on the side of muslims trying to sabotage the correct information about our intelectuals.

Is it possible to protect the content of the page and prevent anyone from changing it further?

thanks. Sh3 (talk) 11:03, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

You are having a content dispute. Other editors disagree with you about the degree to which this person was responsible for a controversial report. Dispute Resolution offers some suggestions for dealing with content disputes; you could try assuming that the other editors are adding information that they believe to be true and verified by the sources they are adding, and discussing it with them on the talk page- not accusing them of sabotage or threatening to call lawyers, but simply and politely discussing whether or not the available sources confirm that this information is accurate. You may want to familiarize yourself with the three-revert rule. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 11:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way- the article certainly does need cleanup, so you shouldn't insist upon removing the {cleanup} template. And you don't have the power to protect the article, so please stop adding the {pp} template. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 11:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

thanks for fast response. I dont agree with you - person who is constantly editing the page is leading internet campaign against antiterrorist intelectuals. there is a much larger issue behind it, and I will give you all relevant links and information if you tell me how to contact you (mail or pm). I am tiered of monitoring the page and engaging into the edit wars - i really dont want that and i dont want to end up being banned because of it. Sh3 (talk) 11:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

if you are saying that article does not need cleanup, why is then a tag for cleanup always coming back? who is putting it? if it doesnt need it - it should not have the tag right? Sh3 (talk) 11:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

No, please don't email large quantities of information to me. I'm not a referee in content disputes, just simply and clearly explain the important sources on the article's talk page to discuss it with other editors. Don't bother explaining the larger issue behind it or the campaign against antiterrorist intellectuals; the only things that matter are the verifiable facts that will go in the article. And I said that the article does need cleanup; in formatting and structure, it's a mess. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 11:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: I've filed Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Darko Trifunovic. Snowolf 12:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

this is nonsense. Snowolf please see the comment I left on your talk page. You have no rights to accuse me for usning multiple accounts just because I am editing one article. I use only this one username: Sh3 and none other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sh3 (talk • contribs) 12:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Sh3 is in violation of multiple policies here and clearly edit warring and trying to WP:OWN the article. There's a decent case for WP:DUCK and sockpuppetry. Article reverted to earlier version and protected, and warning left for Sh3. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I do agree with you on the violation of the policies, however I withdrawn the SSP report: it's irrelevant. Snowolf 20:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Jrdo kid

Currently has been uploading like crazy and all licensed them as "GFDL" despite the copyright able nature (mostly logos) of his images. --Howard the Duck 11:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

He has several notices about this on his talk page and they appear to have been deleted. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Said user has a history of uploading copyvio images (see also upload log). Looks like at least 10 copyvio uploads are still live. MER-C 12:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The user is also the majority editor of Notre Dame Broadcasting Corporation. Perhaps this is a conflict of interest of some sort. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:31, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I've warned the user, let's hope it was just lack of understanding about copyright policy. — Coren  16:25, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy actions. Hope this will be resolved soon. Note that several uploaders actually use the {{GFDL}} tag to circumvent policy and to avoid their user talk pages from overflowing with copyright violation notices. --Howard the Duck 17:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Review of an editor requested

Is User:Besa Arvanon a new editor trying to add valid information to Misplaced Pages but unfamiliar with our conventions, who should be taught how to edit more clearly? Or is she a nationalist bias-pusher with a single agenda who is undeterred by reason or advice? Frankly, I'm not sure, and it would help if I knew more about Albanian politics. Would someone else like to review her contributions? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea either, but I have left her with a {{uw-balkans}} notification. This allows administrators to issue discretionary sanctions if her contributions turn out to be problematic. Sandstein (talk) 14:22, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Obvious sock of User:PIRRO BURRI. Has been bothering these articles for months. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Neat, thanks! I hadn't encountered that user before, but I'll bet I'll recognize her if I see her with a new name. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 00:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Mentorship of Andranikpasha by VartanM

• Andranikpasha (talk · contribs)
• VartanM (talk · contribs)
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2

The full analysis of the edit history of Andranikpasha and VartanM involvement in that article is available here. Penwhale placed VartanM on A-A 2's restriction which he later explained as "this".

According to EconomicsGuy per this archived discussion the mentor of Andranikpasha is VartanM. This seems to be acknowledged here by VartanM. According to Andranikpasha's block log he was blocked indefinitely but this was later reversed to give mentorship a chance.

Normally when one is in dispute with a user under mentorship, one is supposed to consult the mentor. In this case I had problems with the mentor removing reliable and verifiable sources from an article. Now I have problems with the person he is supposed to be mentoring committing similar edits as the mentor. I think there is a serious conflict of interest here.

I am posting this here rather than at the Arbitration enforcement page because that page seems to be nothing more than a flame war after another. Nothing much seems to be done as a result (no offense to the people working there as it is not their fault).

-- Cat 16:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I've put Andranikpasha on the A-A 2 revert parole - not so much due to this as due to other incidents of edit-warring, usually with Vartan there reverting in tandem. I ran out of time to get this done yesterday but it's been coming for a while - Andranikpasha's disruption of this volatile area of the encyclopaedia needs to stop. See here and here. Moreschi 17:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm requesting that you act neutral and place White Cat on revert limitation. He edit warred as much as Andranik. VartanM (talk) 18:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Shrug. Relatively pointless now that I'm hoping the edit-war will end now, though I will if White Cat continues to edit-war here or on any other Armenia-Azeri-related articles. Andranikpasha has a history of edit-warring at enwiki and disruptive editing across multiple projects, and the revert parole was more for other business than for the edit-war on this particular article. I completely agree that White Cat's conduct was pretty poor, but revert limitation for one edit war is overly harsh. Moreschi 21:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Shrug? so you give him a green light to push his propaganda sites? Thats good way of mediating, keep up the great work and I might give you a barnstar. VartanM (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

More shrug. You'll notice I got him to remove one propaganda site - the Turkish government website is not a lot better but these specific facts are not in dispute, so at least it's giving correct information. Moreschi 21:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest that any future mentorships are logged together with any further restrictions? Also, I do not appreciate being referred to as a meatpuppet by VartanM. As an unrestricted editor in continuously good standing since I started editing here I'm allowed to voice my concern over the fact that half the AE page is about this dispute. I haven't edited any mainspace pages related to this, I became curious after an informal chat with White Cat and was appalled when I saw the level of debate going on there. The concerns over the mentorship were completely justified and VartanM could not be allowed to brush that off as a simple content dispute. I have the deepest respect for Moreschi's no nonsense approach to these disputes but surely it must be possible at any given time to tell who the mentor is when someone is unblocked on condition of mentorship. VartanM wanted community input - when he didn't like it he refers to me as a meatpuppet. Misplaced Pages isn't a game, it's an encyclopedia. EconomicsGuy (talk) 07:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide a diff where I called you a meatpuppet? Don't even try, it doesn't exist. As far as I can tell you have knowledge about the region, history, or the users editing the articles. And you yourself confess that White Cat asked you to come and give your opinion. Feel free to learn the history of the Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey and then I'll be more then happy to discuss content with you in the talkpage of the articles not some offwiki chatroom. Good night and good luck studying the History of Armenia, its quite old. VartanM (talk) 08:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me? Be honest, White Cat asked you to come here didn't he? That's the very definition of a meatpuppet. Can you refute that you did not inform White Cat that you were the mentor? Can you refute that you edit warred side by side with the person you should be mentoring? I hardly think so. As for the rest of your reply you still haven't showed that this was a content issue. You tried to brush it off as such eventhough you had threatened White Cat on the article talk page with a thread here on ANI if he reverted again. Like I said this isn't a game and if that's hard to understand then enough time has been wasted on this and the parties who are already subject to a long list of restrictions should be shown the door. EconomicsGuy (talk) 08:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Several people are continuing to campaign to remove governmental sources over personal reasons. The are not even disputing the validity of the content on the articles. Some of these people are admins which is why this is more worrisome. -- Cat 07:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

By governmental he means Turkish government. VartanM (talk) 08:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Why yes. Turkish government is not censored out now is it? I think your very statement demonstrates the problem. -- Cat 08:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Request block.

contributions needs a block to prevent the text removal without discussion. I think 8 hours might do it. Thanks, Mercury 18:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Warned user, no warnings on talk page or history. Rgoodermote  18:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

You may have missed it then. Best regards, Mercury 18:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I did sorry about but it is state the user must have a full set or at least a clear understanding that their actions are going to result in a block. Adding warning 3 should be sufficient enough to stop the anon. Rgoodermote  18:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

No need to apologize. I think CBM's warning was clear enough. We don't always have to wait for a full set of warnings. But if you want a full set, that would be fine also. Best regards, Mercury 18:30, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

As an addon, it appears he has stopped removing information and is now discussing. Mercury 18:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

He appears to be discussing legal matters. Rgoodermote  18:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats, WP:COI on Giovanni di Stefano

http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Giovanni_di_Stefano#sense_of_injustice

FYI, see also these contributions. If he is the subject, as claimed, he is also editing his own article and adding unsourced information. Lawrence Cohen 18:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

• My best recommendation here is to proceed slowly and thoughtfully. Mercury 18:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The user is making legal threats a block is usually instantaneous and also after my warning the user received his 4th final warning for legal threats and as well blanked added some unsourced information about a living person info from the article. This means the user has gone over his final warning. Rgoodermote  18:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

If they are threats, they are very borderline. I don't know if I could call them threats, but they may give the impression. Let us keep in mind we are dealing with the subject, something I did not know until the recent talk page message. Talking may get more done than blocking at this time, something to consider. Thoughtfully. Respectfully, Mercury 18:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I deleted your extras, I have already filed a report at WP:AIV. May have been hasty but I have my doubts the user will respond to talk. Rgoodermote  18:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Best of luck in the discussion with the user, I am stepping out of this before it becomes a huge discussion. Rgoodermote  18:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Your comments are helpful. And thank you for the luck wishing, we could all use some. :) Best, Mercury 18:49, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

He was not blocked by the way, I was about to remove the report anyways but it seems some one beat me to the chase. Rgoodermote  18:52, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

• And round we go again... I encourage anyone thinking of being bold there to talk to Jimbo and Fred Bauder. Guy (Help!) 22:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats on Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

We have been having repeated threats of legal action on the talk page for Assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Following the first use of them, Snowolf promptly blocked the user, User:70.129.22.217. However, the user now seems to have returned and is making further threats. User:75.8.80.211 has made legal threats on the talk page and on users who are editing the article's talk pages. SorryGuy  Talk  21:12, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

These are not realistic legal threats. They are merely trolling and verbal abuse. Don't feed it. I've blocked the IP. Ping me, or report this on WP:AIV if it reoccurs. --Doc 21:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible conflict of interest

I was asked to take the issue to ANI instead of commenting on 3RR, so this is what I'm doing. Today there was a 3RR report against User:Jaakobou by User:Bless sins. In the discussion that ensued, an impartial administrator stated that two users were edit-warring (Jaakobou and Eleland), and action must be taken against either or both, because neither is completely innocent (or guilty).

There was also a small discussion which I consider fairly irrelevant, but whoever is reading this will probably want to read it as well. In any case, even though the 3RR case was disputed and wasn't a clear violation, an administrator (User:Tariqabjotu) decided to block the accused party (Jaakobou) for 84 hours (a very long block, although understandable because it's not his first). He also didn't say anything against Eleland, who was involved in the edit war, not even issuing a warning on his talk page, or anything of the sort.

The obvious initial problem is that an admin acted against only one user in an edit war, whose 3RR was disputed, and against the wishes of another admin. Normally, I wouldn't say anything, because who am I (a non-admin) to question this decision? However, the problem here is the User:Tariqabjotu is highly involved in articles related both to Israel and the Palestinians, and clearly is not an impartial admin. At the very least, he could have left a comment and asked another admin to do the block.

I am therefore appealing the decision and hope it is fairly reviewed by other administrators. I also invite uninvolved users to comment on what seems to me like a conflict of interest.

-- Ynhockey 22:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Ynhockey omitted the fact that, as I said when I responded to the 3RR report, Jaakobou has been edit-warring on several articles over the past several days (such as House demolition in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian, Second Intifada, and Islam: What the West Needs to Know). After blocking Jaakobou, I took a look at Eleland's edit history and saw no such pattern of edit warring. One must note that the discussion on WP:AN3 only surrounded the edits of Jaakobou and Eleland on one article, House demolition in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I'm okay with objections to the block (although I firmly believe the block is justified), but accusations of conflict of interest are misplaced. Ynhockey's latest comment on WP:AN3 shows what obviously is him jumping to conclusions about how certain admins react in response to touchy subjects. Contrary, apparently, to what Ynhockey believes, I don't pigeonhole people as "pro-Israeli" or "pro-Palestinian" and make decisions based on those assumptions. So, I would prefer Ynhockey not do the same to me. Ynhockey does not know what I believe about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and as well, because my beliefs, especially on that subject, have no bearing on how I act within this project. His assertion that I am "highly involved in articles related both to Israel and the Palestinians" is an exaggeration and, more importantly, I am not involved in any conflict with Jaakobou (on any of the aforementioned articles or elsewhere). Decry the block if you must, but this idea that anyone touching Israel-related or Palestinian-related subjects is editing and acting from a biased standpoint is harmful to the welfare of our articles related to these subjects. It's no wonder many of our Middle Eastern articles have repeatedly been the subject of fierce edit wars. -- tariqabjotu 22:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Tariq, I did not imply that you were either pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, sorry if it came across this way - indeed the other two users I mentioned were clearly pro-Israeli and another clearly pro-Palestinian, that does not include you. I was merely commenting on the fact that you are highly involved in articles related to Israel and Arab countries (and by extension, Islam), and if 7 of your 15 top-edited articles are on these subjects, and you helped bring 2 to FA status, does not mean you are highly involved, then I don't know what does. I just thought that an involved admin, even if not in the specific article being disputed, should not pass judgement over articles they're close to. I probably would've disputed your decision even if you protected the page, for example, which would've been my suggestion/decision if I was an admin.

Secondly, it is wrong to say that Eleland does not have a history of edit-warring. Clear examples which come to mind are Saeb Erekat (for which he was reported for 3RR) and Battle of Jenin, although I'm sure I could dig up a dozen more if I actually went over his contributions.

-- Ynhockey 00:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I have a strong interest in the Middle East, but that still does not equal being highly involved in every Middle Eastern subject. Involvement in (for example, as you mention in your latest comment) Islam-related articles is still quite a leap away from being involved in articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Furthermore, there is far more to Israel and Jerusalem than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Palestinians. Although those subjects are certainly related to the articles, you will see I stay away from articles more central to the conflict (such as, for example, Israeli-Palestinian conflict). As far as I am concerned, a conflict of interest is only of concern for a block or protection when there is a conflict with a specific editor or article. Neither is the case here. You have provided evidence that I edit articles related, in varying to degrees, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but you have provided no evidence that this has impeded my judgment, or made me biased, in blocking Jaakobou based on entirely different articles. If anything, the fact that I have been able to contribute substantially to Israel and Jerusalem and bring them to featured status is a testament to my ability to keep relatively neutral on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So, take out the conflict of interest claim and you leave what I believe should be the real purpose of the discussion – whether the block was fair, my interest in the Middle East notwithstanding.

Eleland's edit-warring on Saeb Erekat and Battle of Jenin dates back to (as recent as) December 4 and September 30, respectively. Jaakobou's edit-warring on Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian, Second Intifada, and Islam: What the West Needs to Know dates back to (as recent as) December 29, December 29, and December 29, respectively. I have no doubt that Eleland has edit warred on several articles during his time on Misplaced Pages, but the proximity of Jaakobou's edit-warring across multiple articles is the real issue. Jaakobou's response below further reinforces my point that there is an problem; he does not appear to understand that his edit-warring is unproductive, and claims he hasn't been edit-warring at all. -- tariqabjotu 03:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me like both users were edit-warring and since both have a history of making contentious edits on these sort of articles, both deserve similar treatment. However, I think jaakobou was acting in good faith, and not trying to push his POV and when I just looked over some of Eleland's latest contributions I saw at least one case of obvious POV-pushing that cannot be reasonably considered as good faith and loads of personal attacks. It seems that when we have 3 editors on one side of an issue and only 1 editor on the other side watching an article, the numbers "win" and the one gets blocked when really both deserve to be handled similarly, as just because someone didn't revert more than three times (and didn't violate the letter of 3RR), it doesn't justify his edit warring. Yonatan 23:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been asked to post this on behalf of Jaakobou. Nick (talk) 01:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment regarding block reasoning:

Following this (static version) WP:3RR complaint by User:Bless_sins.

I admit of being involved in a high volume of edits on a number of articles and also admit to what could be construed as an edit war together with User:Eleland on House demolition in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

However, inspection into my '"edit warring on a number of articles"' reasoning stated by User:Tariqabjotu is superficial and incorrect as well:

1. Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian - My recent conflict with Tiamut, was by no means an edit war. He had a misunderstanding regarding the history of the region and we resolved it (I believe) quite quickly when I added the reference/source to my correction of the error-ed text ("Palestinim, Am Behivatsrut," by Kimmerling, Baruch, and Joel S. Migdal - Keter Publishing, ISBN: 965-07-0797-2).
2. Second Intifada - There was a multiple user conflict, which consisted of as many as 6-7 participants. After an edit war was already ensued between two very different versions - I've engaged in the article with a major attempt to resolve the disputes . After resolving two of a the many disputes the discussions devolved into reverts once the issue of "intifada (uprising)" was a bit stuck but I have again reopened, a second discussion attempt on that issue and it seemed to be moving quite reasonably. I don't believe that my attempts to resolve the disputes on said page should be portrayed as an edit war and stand against me on other article disputes.
3. Islam: What the West Needs to Know - In this article, for some reason, User:Bless_sins (same editor who opened the 3RR) claims that it is a BLP violation to re-write what a participant in the film stated and to support his BLP theory he removes the entire synopsis section. I don't see my objection to this as an edit-war at all.

Considering this overview of the disputes and my efforts to resolve them, and considering that Palestinian-Israeli articles are filled with high emotions , incivility , pov accusations , and pov violations .

I believe, just as the first admin who inspected the 3RR notice believed , that if 3RR rules are to be applied to me regarding this dispute (where I have reverted 3 exactly times), then they should be applied evenly.

Lastly, if the descision is made to block anyone, and because I was given 84 hours. An inspection into my block log shows that apart from one 3RR mishap in July, my 3RR blocks were all rescinded. Jaakobou 01:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but Jaakobou's description of the facts is simply not accurate. The reference he added to his edits at Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian did not address the concerns I raised regarding his rather polemical insertions of material there. I have sinced retained the reference he added but removed the unsourced additions, while adding a source for an item he tagged as lacking in sources and doing a general copy edit of one of the sections in question. He has also been edit-warring at October 2000 events, changing a sentence sourced to two references to read as he pleases, despite my attempts to reason with him on the talk page. Tiamut 14:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that tariqabjotu made an error of judgment in his reason to block Jaakobou, but not Eleland. I don't believe there should have been any block for either since both have made exactly 3 reverts on this issue within the article and have started discussion on the talk page. I'd also like to suggest that many good editors go 3 reverts (not 4) on the Israeli-Palestinian articles without expecting to be blocked and it would be an interesting development if suddenly we are going to change the way blocks have been implemented thus far. Please, if there is a policy change on this, let us all know about it beforehand. That is my opinion anyhow, from reading and following these articles he was involved in of late. Eternalsleeper (talk) 02:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

For the record Jaakobou made 4 reverts not 3. Eleland made less than 4 reverts (else I'd have reported him/her too).Bless sins (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I must not be making myself clear: Once again, I blocked Jaakobou for the sum of his edit warring, not for the edit warring on just House demolition in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Please get the facts straight. -- tariqabjotu 03:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC

It is my perception of the WP:3RR intention is that reverting an editor on different issues does not add up into a single issue, meaning that, each count as separate issues (imagine 5 editors arguing over a 5 issues). Therefore believe it was only 3 reverts and not 4. Also, Jaakobou explained the true nature of the "sum of his edit warring" and I honestly believe you have made a judgment error here blocking only one of the two, incorrectly declaring him as a rotten egg, while missing Eleland's activity on articles such as Child suicide bombers in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also now where he helps User:Bless_sins avoid 3RR by reverting for him with the same dubious justification at the Islam movie article. Seeing that discussion were already on their way on talk, I think you should have only protected the article. The block will certainly not resolve the content dispute and everyone must wait 84 hours in anticipation. Eternalsleeper (talk) 04:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

YnHockey, I can understand when you say User:Tariqabjotu has edited, in the past, Israel/Arab related articles. You also agree, with tariq (and myself), that he/she is a completely neutral editor, neither 'pro-Palestinian' nor 'pro-Israeli'. In that case I don't see any conflict of interest. The fact that tariq is involved means he/she is very familiar with types edit warring that takes place in such articles, and how admins usually handle this. In that case tariqabjotu is a suitable admin for the job.Bless sins (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

We should probably discuss the use of 3rr as a weapon in a content/POV push dispute. It certainly seems like some members of the community are keeping it as a weapon to beat their opponents with... Rather than blocking editors, who seem to be disengaging from the edit war, shouldn't the blocking admin have protected the pages in this case since discussion on talk pages had been occuring? Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 03:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Pages are generally protected when there are several different members in each of the edit-warring parties. In this case it appears to be a case of Jaakobou alone against 3 editors. Also, insisting that a user follow wikipedia rules is not a 'weapon to beat opponents with'. You are forgetting that the 'opponents' wouldn't be in this situation if they observed wikipedia policies like WP:3rr.Bless sins (talk) 07:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyright problems with toy photos

User:Mathewignash has uploaded hundreds of photographs of toys (primarily Transformers), most of them listed under the GFDL. Unfortunately, the use of that license here is invalid. The Wikimedia Commons page on derivative works makes it clear that photographs of copyrighted toys are derivative. Since the toys and characters are currently under restrictive copyright, we can use photos like this only under a claim of fair use. Mathewignash has previously been blocked for copyright violation, but he was recently unblocked by an administrator who was apparently unaware of this particular aspect of copyright policy. I am sure he is acting in good faith (like the users who inaccurately label a screenshot as GFDL-self) but the photos will almost all have to be deleted. Also, he needs to be advised of this. *** Crotalus *** 22:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Photos 3D toys are indeed considered to be derivative works. This is often a point of confusion. 1 != 2 22:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is much doubt of good faith, however, and indeed I think he has been previously advised otherwise (that promotional pictures are bad, but that self-taken pictures would be correct); he need to be set straight but not chided. — Coren  22:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I have gently advised Matthew of the correct policy on his talk page. Someone is going to have to go through and clear the backlog; not being an administrator, I can't delete any of them. *** Crotalus *** 22:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, because 90% of 2D images of 3D things are fair game. Not sure what we can do to prevent other users making this mistake (I have a horrible feeling I've made it recently...) without over-complicated wording on the upload pages. The best result is to make sure that all people involved - uploaders, people-that-notice, admins-who-don't-delete, admins-who-do - all keep up the smiley-happy-anyone-can-do-this-in-error thing. Slapping down of anyone, in either direction, is poor form. ➔ REDVEЯS says: at the third stroke the time will be 22:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I probably have: Image:Modern Stylophone.JPG. Advice on what to actually tag it with, deletion of it, or "other" all accepted. But if anyone wants to give me a template warning for uploading it or call for my head... well, game on. And we'll see who's sorry first. ➔ REDVEЯS says: at the third stroke the time will be 22:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that one's almost certainly okay. The case where a copyright or trademark would trip a self-made photo are "distinctive appearance" and "visual branding" cases; toys which are characters, works of visual art, etc. It is possible that the Stylophone is covered by such, but it's not very likely. — Coren  22:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in, but I was advised - after having a photo of a toy deleted from Commons for a similar reason - that tagging {{tl|Non-free use rationale}}, plus {{tl|Non-free 3D art}} or {{tl|Non-free character}} (it was a doll) would be appropriate in that situation, on en.wp only, which seems to have been okay so far. (Of course, now I've drawn it to people's attention...)--Kateshortforbob 00:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

(As the person who told Mathewignash that these were OK...) This has always been a grey area in policy, even I've known that. That said, images like, for example, Image:PlayStation 2.png contain copyrighted elements but happily sit with GFDL tags. I inferred from this that, although these toy images contain copyrighted works, a photo of them licenced as GFDL would be acceptable. If I have erred here, then I will accept that, though I'm not clear what the difference between the two cases is. After a conversation with someone who knows more on this than I, who confirmed that this is a contested issue, it seems these toy images could (apparently) be acceptable on en.wp (not commons) if tagged both with {{GFDL-self}} and {{trademark}}, and so long as they're used in a reasonable manner (say, Optimus Primal#Toys). The other suggestion was simply to make a claim of fair use on them. Either way, I defer judgement to others; I'm still trying to wikibreak and don't pretend to be an expert on this. – Steel 14:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem stems that, as sculptures and character art, toy figurines are afforded more protection tan an industrially designed device simply baring a trademark for instance; nobody here blames you for falling afoul of that grayish area of Copyright law which is byzantine at its best - It also has been stretch to strange forms by some corporations (Apple, for instance, has DMCA'ed sites bearing photographs of some of its devices claiming that the case design were creative works of art making the photographs derived works — something that is not entirely silly on its face). As a rule, however, consumer devices are okay if they do not include works of art or (protectable) character images. The case of a Mickey Mouse watch, for instance, would fall squarely in the gray area.

Copyright law is a monstrosity long past its prime, but we have to work with (around) it as best as we can — fair use does allow us some leeway, but we have to be very careful.

For the case at hand, a photograph of a Transformer toy would be quite covered by fair use in an article about the toy, less so for an article about the character, and not at all otherwise. — Coren  16:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Personal Attacks by Rosencomet (again)

Could another admin look into this behaviour, specifically, "You are truly shameless, Pigman. You twist the rules all out of shape to get your way." I have already warned the user today for Canvassing on AfDs. I am tempted to remove his statements as a personal attack on Pigman, but would appreciate more eyes on this. I've been working on some articles Rosencomet is very OWN-y about, and he's been yelling about me, too. BTW, this is nothing new from this user, as can be seen by looking at his talk page archive. He tends to call any enforcement of policy "harrassment" and "stalking". Those of us who've dealt with him before have tended to develop a thick skin about his tirades, and I think Pigman has been very kind in response, all things considered. However, I'm getting really tired of Rosencomet continually violating WP:CIVIL - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sysop.js

I've chaged Sysop.js so that we have better auto-reasons when we're deleting pages (it's basically ^demons tool) and the text of the page isn't displayed in the deletion log (which can be especially problematic with attack pages). The problem is, if you have ^demons tool, or any similar version of it installed, you now get two boxes, so you need to remove ^demons tool from your monobook.js. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Not to be pedantic, but isn't this more appropriate at WP:AN? -- tariqabjotu 23:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

As this is going to affect every single admin, I wanted to get as wide an audience as possible, and as quickly as possible. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:22, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I like the new interface. Just my $0.02. Keilana_(recall) 23:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not wrap the csdDeleteForm variable and the relevant functions and function calls in an if statement to test if it already exists? I think something like

if( typeof(csdDeleteForm) == 'undefined' )

would work. Then admins with local copies of ^demon's script would not be inconvenienced and would not notice two interfaces. Note that the name "csdDeleteForm" has been in use almost since the beginning of the script. --Iamunknown 00:07, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I slightly altered the original - we didn't quite want WP:NOT#MYSPACE as a deletion reason, would it still work? Ryan Postlethwaite 00:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... I got rid of this new interface because, to be honest, I found it highly annoying, and I have my reasons on autocomplete if I ever need them, because I usually clear out the content anyways. Maxim_(talk) 01:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Just out of interest, how is it worse than the old one? Ryan Postlethwaite 01:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Nah, I dislike the MediaWiki: list, but I'm OK with the sysop.js list but I still don't like it. Just put Twinkle into sysop.js and you'd have a csd tab that should work for 85% of sysops, and saves you a few mousecliks and looks after what links here for you. Maxim_(talk) 14:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Requesting review of User:Rosencomet block

I've just blocked User:Rosencomet for 24 hours for violating WP:CANVASS after being given a final warning. First warning (included diffs to canvassing posts and link to policies) . Second warning, by a different admin Redvers: . Rosencomet reverts admin (Redvers) removal of canvassing: . Because of my history with Rosencomet, I would like a review of my block. Cheers, Pigman☿ 23:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

• My fault: if I'd glanced up his talk page, I'd have seen the previous very clear warnings and would have done him for longer than your 24 hours (to the end of the AfDs in question, in fact). Support the 24hr block as protective of the the deletion discussion system. ➔ REDVEЯS says: at the third stroke the time will be 00:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: Thanks, Redvers. Again, because of my history of conflict with Rosencomet, I felt the need to be cautious in my actions. What he did was clearly a blocking violation but I didn't think it wise to make the block too long. Extending the block to the length of the AfDs is warranted I believe but I'm too close to the situation to make a call like that. That's why I immediately brought my actions here to put other eyes on the situation. Pigman☿ 01:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Support block and agree with Redvers that it would be best to extend the block till the AfDs Rosencomet was canvassing on (Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/WinterStar Symposium and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jeff Rosenbaum (2nd nomination)) are completed. As Rosencomet has shown himself willing to continue canvassing despite warnings from two different admins, and revert uninvolved admin removal of his canvassing, I think there is a risk of him continuing to violate policy when the 24 hours are up. The AfDs are also being hit by SPAs now, and judging from their comments, it looks to me like he's continuing to canvass off-wiki. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 01:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• According to his comments on Fred Bauder's talk page, this editor has been in a conflict with Pigman, Kathryn NicDhana and Matisse for quite some time. Given that, wouldn't it have been more appropriate to request someone else make the block? Particularly since it is a WP:CANVASS block, not exactly a critical reason to block first and ask later since you can put the canvass template at the AfD? Additionally, just above you reported him for personal attacks. All in all, you are clearly involved in a dispute with this guy and blocking yourself was inappropriate. Avruchtalk 01:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: You're probably correct, Avruch. Please note the canvass template was already on the AfDs and that Rosencomet was actively engaged in reverting Redvers' removal of Rosencomet's canvassing at the time. Still, perhaps this could have been handled by requesting the block instead of doing it myself. However I'd also like to note that, despite massive amounts of evidence of COI spamming by Rosencomet, there seems to be some reluctance to take action against him because of the Starwood arbitration (closed March, 2007). If you'd like to get up to speed on Rosencomet's actions and community responses to his behaviour over the last 16 months, I'd be happy to point you to RfCs, mediations, his archived talk page, the closed arbitration, etc. (he said sweetly) Pigman☿ 02:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

No thanks, I'm sure I could find it but I'm not terribly interested. I just happened to have Fred's talkpage watched, and then noticed that same editors name come up here attached to yours (twice). I understand there is a long history about this user, but I also understand that you have been involved in much or all of it (correct me if I'm wrong here). Given that, you absolutely should have asked someone else to evaluate the situation prior to a block. The template is to warn people who have been canvassed, not the canvasser, and anyone who has been notified by Rosencomet would see it and understand (ideally). A block is not a typical response to a WP:CANVASS violation that I'm aware of - can you provide diffs that demonstrate his canvassing was having a disruptive result? We allow notifications, and in fact its built in to project templates and etc and there is even a whole sorting WikiProject to make sure interested people have an opportunity to weigh in. Avruchtalk 02:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Avruch, the relevant policy is here: Misplaced Pages:CANVASS#Responding_to_disruptive_canvassing, specifically, "Users with a prior history of disruptive canvassing, which they have previously been asked to discontinue, may be blocked immediately without further warning, if such an action is deemed to be necessary." While it would have been preferable for another admin to set the block, I think that the fact that Pigman, by setting a short block to stop the violations in progress, then immediately coming here to ask for more eyes on it, has shown transparency and accountability in this. I believe Pigman was successful in preventing further disruptive editing. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 03:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware of the policy, which is why I asked for examples showing how his canvassing is being disruptive (as opposed to just irritating). A short block would have been an hour, or two hours. You folks are talking about blocking him for the duration of these AfDs, which is something entirely other than a short block. Avruchtalk 03:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Though the comments of Rosencomet don't inspire confidence, I think Pigman should undo the block, per Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute, from WP:BLOCK. Though one might argue that the canvassing offence was independent of the various content disputes, it is better to avoid the appearance of a COI in the blocking itself. If the issue is important enough, another admin can re-impose the block. If Rosencomet's block is lifted and no-one reimposes it, and that gives rise to additional misbehavior in the various AfDs, that can be taken into account by the respective closing admins. EdJohnston (talk) 03:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Pigman should not have made the block. A request should have been made here for consideration. No comment on the block itself, I don't have time to review the situation. Thatcher 03:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Ed and Thatcher, I think both your points are well taken. This is precisely why I brought it here. Rosencomet's blatant canvassing after being quite specifically warned about it led me to act a little more rashly and impulsively than I probably should have in this kind of situation. I'm usually much more circumspect, deliberate, and mindful of these issues. I agree that even the appearance of COI in a block is not good. I'm lifting the block but I'm doing so with the expectation that others will keep an eye on the situation. Cheers, Pigman☿ 04:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Good choice. Personally, if someone uninvolved decides blocking him is appropriate that would be fine with me (posting here and on his talk page with the unblock template is not a disendorsement of the idea of blocking him). I'm a little put out that my points weren't well taken too, though :-P Avruchtalk 04:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

My sincere apologies, Avruch. An oversight, to be sure, and no slight to you intended. ;-) I did agree with most of your points further up. A little less than entirely gracious and wholehearted perhaps but I've also been dealing with this ongoing mess for quite a while and I hope you can excuse me if I'm a wee bit edgy on the subject on occasion. Cheers, Pigman☿ 07:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal Threats by 75.8.80.211

User 75.8.80.211 has made legal threats against User WWGB . Edward321 (talk) 23:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Doc Glasgow got 'em. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Already blocked. This is just silly attack trolling, not a real threat. He threatened to call Interpol earlier. - --Doc 00:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for getting it; 75.8.80.211 had also made legal threats against User JoshHuzzuh . Personally, I think legal threats (whether silly or not) should be grounds for indefinite block. Edward321 (talk) 00:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

We don't indef IPs. And overreactions to trolling is just feeding it. Block it as common vandalism/abuse and ignore it. Legal threats are usually just silly trolling, or have some basis in a justified grievence which needs careful investigation (see WP:DOLT). Kneejerking or overreacting is seldom useful - take each on its merits.--Doc 00:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

ED O'LOUGHLIN

The deleting editor assumed wrongly (in both cases) that the dissenters were sock-puppets or single-topic contributors.

There was no announcement of the time of deciding on deletion. It was arbitrary, like alot of what goes on at Misplaced Pages - arbitrary and unprofessional.

The timing co-incided with the forced exclusion of the chief dissenter, on a trumped-up accusation of vandalism - when he was merely attempting to reverse the relegation of those wishing to retain the Article onto a subpage. The extremely poor formatting tools provided by Misplaced Pages resulted in unpredicted distortions on the text formatting and placement.

The responses of the Administrative Editors were wholly and manifestly unsatisfactory. None of the concerns expressed by the complainant (myself) were addressed. This was obvious because I was blocked within minutes of submitting serious questions about the Misplaced Pages mechanism of deletion and the behaviour of the editor driving the whole process for deletion of the article: "Eleland" when a proper and dignified response would have taken some time and space to fully elucidate.

There is something very rotten in the procedures of Misplaced Pages if these matters are not addressed. Claims that this is truly an encyclopedia must be challenged if arbitrary actions of a clique or cabal go without any proper accountability.

The suggestion by Admin editor that this contributor is unable to accept an opinion that does not agree with his own is insulting as it is untrue. It has nothing what ever to do with the questions leveled at the deletion discussion. The editor Eleland has a long history which is indubitable of taking a partisan approach on middle-east issues. In such a case he must not exercise deletion and or blocking rights over his opponents. Moreover such an individual must be seen to be extremely scrupulous with his facts. Unfortunately that was not the case in the Ed O'Loughlin article. Eleland made several errors. (1) A claim that I wrote a section of the article that did misrepresented the source reference was false. The section was written by Admin editor Fluri, as an exemplar to me as to how the section should be written. (2) Eleland has no record of ever interceding on the side of a pro-Israel exponent to deflect criticism from them, until 26th of December 2007 when he deleted a criticism in the biography of Isabel Kershner, in a futile attempt to achieve balance against hundreds of anti-Israel posts by himself evidence of which is littered all over Misplaced Pages. (3) Repeated assertions that the critics of O'Loughlin were solely Jewish pressure groups or belonged to some nebulous "Pro-Israel lobby" (when they have not a scintilla of evidence of this lobby). This had to be removed from the article when Eleland was confronted with valid criticisms of O'Loughlin by Lebanese Christian groups. (4) False allegations of sock puppetry to manipulate a vote concensus.

If this Misplaced Pages publication does not wish to be brought into disrepute as supporting individuals who are exhibiting unfair, foul, and possible racist proclivities in their attempts to overturn a properly referenced submission to a scholarly article about widely acknowledged controversial journalist in the Australian scene - it had better restore the article until it can supply a justification of the apparent arbitrary actions of its agents. 124.191.88.235 (talk) 15:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I apologise if this is not the place for this complaint, but the formatting and directing system of Misplaced Pages is decidedly not user-friendly and highly confusing.

124.191.88.235 (talk) 01:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

On the AfD, instead of discussing the article, you attacked editors. Little wonder you're not getting the response you like. —Kurykh 01:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I made a perfectly reasonable request to have the article "Ed O'Loughlin" undeleted setting out the grounds of complaint clearly. I particularly specified that I believed the grounds for deletion were not satisfied in the method and conduct of achieving "consensus" in which there were errors in counting of the involved editors 124.191.88.235 (talk) 14:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

"Perfectly reasonable"? In that DRV you were attacking editors. Please stop dressing your case up. —Kurykh 01:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The article was discussed plenty by me but the editors used coercive and unfair means to engineer the outome he desired. Check the now extensive record if you dont believe me.124.191.88.235 (talk) 01:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course I don't believe you, nor does anyone here. You started off your comments with personal attacks; how are we supposed to listen to you? —Kurykh 01:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Dont beieve me just look at the record and see that I entered into the discussion at the outset in good faith only to be treated with disdain by Eleland. Look at the facts please.124.191.88.235 (talk) 01:41, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Huh? You're attacking him right now! —BoL 01:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I've no idea why you continue to attack me instead of looking into the claim. It is made with reason.124.191.88.235 (talk) 01:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Is it just my troll-radar that's going off, by the way? Will 01:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about me or the IP? —BoL 01:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The IP. Will 02:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The absurdity of it all. This Misplaced Pages is like Kafka's Trial. 124.191.88.235 (talk) 01:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Already there are moves to publicise this whole Ed Oloughlin Eleland issue and Misplaced Pages's handling of it in the conventional media. Thanks for your lack of consideration. The matter will not rest with absurd rules and editing protocols with absolutely no accountability. 124.191.88.235 (talk) 01:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Due to personal attacks, trolling on the ANI page and threats, I've blocked this IP for a week. If anyone disagrees, let me know. Dreadstar † 02:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Some off-Misplaced Pages stuff:

• http://theblankpagesoftheage.blogspot.com/2007/11/ed-oloughlin-resume.html
  • Note Special:DeletedContributions/Adon_emmet
• http://theblankpagesoftheage.blogspot.com/2007/12/aussie-link-in-dishonest-reporting.html
• http://theblankpagesoftheage.blogspot.com/2007/12/exposing-dirty-tricks-matters-to-us.html
• http://theblankpagesoftheage.blogspot.com/2007/10/tutus-inquisition-against-jews.html

--A. B. 04:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Requesting block for edit warring

IP User 24.91.119.156, apparently on a vendetta against certain well-established (& rather dry) geographic and demographic facts, has removed the same paragraph from Brighton, Boston, Massachusetts#Geography seven times in the past five weeks. Has ignored repeated invitations to discussion & to seek consensus, e.g., 24 December message on talk page User talk:24.91.119.156. No response, and no explanation ever given in edit summary space. Anonymous "account" is used for no other purpose than repeatedly deleting this content. Behavior pattern continuing after last warning (regarding disruptive editing), given on 25 December. It is an ongoing nuisance for me and another editor to watch the article closely and restore the deleted material each time. Please block this user long term or permanently. Thank you for your help. Hertz1888 (talk) 01:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I just thought I'd drop in and comment. Good call in reporting the user here. However, for similar incidents consider using Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. This user isn't the best example (though they did have a streak on November 23rd ), but for edit wars you can usually use that page. Cheers, Master of Puppets 01:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding: I do not think a short-term block would be effective, as there have been hiatusses of a few days to a few weeks between repetitions of the pattern. That is why I am requesting a long-term or indefinite block. Thanks again. Hertz1888 (talk) 03:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Given the infrequent nature of the edits, there isn't much that can be done. We don't block IP addresses indefinitely, because the person could come back with a different dynamic address or username if we blocked this one. All you can do is revert the edits if they are inappropriate. Sorry to be of little help, — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's really true. The fact that this IP appears static lends weight to the possibility of a long term (not indefinite, but far longer than 24 hours) block being effective. Indeed, another admin has blocked him for two weeks. Just as a registered user who intermitently vandalizes Misplaced Pages for several weeks with no constructive edits inbetween can be long-term blocked with no collateral damage, an apparently static vandalism-only-IP can be blocked for weeks at a time without inconveniencing anyone else. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Two weeks is reasonable, but the request was for something a lot longer than that. There really isn't much benefit to blocking an IP for months at a time just to stop one edit per month. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Apparent copyvio on the Main Page

Image:Agnes VST.jpg, currently shown in the DYK section of the main page, is apparently a copyright violation from here. It appears the Commons uploader has repeatedly taken Philippine government images and claimed them as his own work. Videmus Omnia 01:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I've removed it for now, I'll look for another DYK with a pic to use. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Damn that was fast. I barely had a chance to look for it. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm just too quick :-) Ryan Postlethwaite 01:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, I just deleted the image from Commons (and blocked the uploading editor for a week). EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

and...... replaced on DYK with a hook with a non copyvio pic. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Removal of RfC tag at Duchy of Oświęcim

A user with an opposing viewpoint removed the RfC tag at this article. I feel I am being set up to violate the three-revert rule by what I see as gaming the system. Note the talk page for the article, where I am trying to engage discussion. Can an administrator please restore the tag? I do not want to engage a dispute nor do I want to be set up to be blocked. Charles 03:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Put the RfC tag on the talk page, not the article. Avruchtalk 03:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, done and done :-) Charles 04:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

User:STBotI

This bot is malfunctioning and tagging images that have completed FURs. Can someone block it please? Exxolon (talk) 04:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Blocked, I'm trying to find ST47 on IRC now to inform him. Mr.Z-man 04:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Now unblocked as ST47 has fixed the issue. --D_arkF_alls 13:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

BRD question

If you're trying to work within WP:BRD guidelines, and another editor simply reverts but refuses to participate in discussion, what's the next step? BRD doesn't seem to work so well without the D. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 12:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You should seek help from others. There are several ways in which to do so: find a relevant Wikiproject and alert them, seek a third opinion, or raise a request for comment on the issue. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Good points. Do you have any additional suggestions if the other editors are IP editors? AliveFreeHappy (talk) 12:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

If an IP is revert warring and not participating in discussion, request semi-protection (don't do it yourself). Avruchtalk 13:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

DYK late again

...and none of the usual DYK admins seem to be around. It's almost six hours late and we have a very substantial backlog already, so could someone please post the update? I've thrown one together, but we need an admin to post it to the front page, I can do the rest. Gatoclass (talk) 12:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Did I do it right? I broke DYK the last two times I tried updating it. east.718 at 12:57, December 30, 2007

Did you remember to protect the image? Otherwise, it looks fine to me, thanks :) I'll do the notifications. Gatoclass (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not set this up to autorotate? It could easily be done with switch statements that will rotate per hour or every few hours. {{#expr: {{CURRENTHOUR}} / 6 round 0}}, for example, would give a number that would rotate every four hours. So {{#switch:{{#expr: ({{CURRENTHOUR}} - 3) / 6 round 0}} | 0 = did you know w | 1 = did you know x | 2 = did you know y | 3 = did you know z }} would give you a different did you know every four hours, eg, "did you know x" for this hour. Another switch could be made to include day mod 2 or mod 3 so that they can be setup several days in advance. That way someone doesn't have to just so happen to be available right at the right time. --B (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, please see User:B/DYK demo for a demo of this concept. If you transclude {{User:B/DYK demo}}, you will get only the current set, yet all four sets are stored in the same template. It's exactly like what is currently done - the only difference is you can set them up in advance. --B (talk) 18:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Review discussions regarding naming of buildings.

There has been ongoing debate and an independent administrator need to review the arguments regarding the articles. As wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy the number of support and oppose "votes" are irrelevant. Also the discussions have not concluded and changes to the articles have been made before the articles the discussions have concluded. Please review 201 Bishopsgate, 110 Bishopsgate, 25-33 Canada Square, 301/3 Deansgate, and 1 Blackfriars. Some of the articles did not even have discussions regarding the name on the pages and were moved unilaterally. With the full knowledge that discussions on the names of other buildings were being conducted. I believe that the naming convention needs changing and a proposal has been made Here.--Lucy-marie (talk) 14:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

There's no need for every edit and every move of a page to be discussed beforehand - in fact, we try to encourage the opposite, see WP:BB. Only where the actions are contentious does a discussion need to take place and consensus be attained. I can't really see anything going on here that needs administrator attention at the moment, although I will register my opinion on the proposal you've mentioned. Waggers (talk) 15:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I've just replied to this in the AN. Please don't forum shop. One place is plenty enough. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure what forum shopping is but I believe that each article is individual and should be discussed individually.--Lucy-marie (talk) 15:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Blatant forum shopping. Closing this one out. east.718 at 15:28, December 30, 2007

Threatening language by an Admin

User:Iridescent has recently posted on to my talk page and appears to be threatening me. In there any action I can take?--Lucy-marie (talk) 15:07, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It is clear that you've been edit warring a lot, and Iridescent has lost her patience — something she has every right to do. Edit warring is extremely discruptive and can result in a block, which is what she jsut warned you about.--Phoenix-wiki  15:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

To save cross-posting, see discussion here. — iridescent 15:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, and I haven't read the back-history yet on this, an administrators job involves telling users if and when they are engaging in behavior that's a problem, and if and when something bad may happen if they continue. That's part of their job, and expected. To do that they will use judgement to issue warnings, and those are intended to inform and guide.

In some cases sadly there have been admin posts that are improper, but these are a great minority. Note also that perfection is not expected, and lapses may occur; admins may at times be blunt, abrupt, curt, or to the point (but should still do so civilly); but good (or above average) conduct is anticipated to be the desired norm. The post on your talk page is blunt and curt. I would expect that "not assuming AGF" does not necessarily mean "seeking to assume bad faith". The admin notes that you continue to create (or be involved in) behaviors and conflicts of the kind you were previously warned about. Because you were told not to (but you continue), and because there is also evidence of other edit war related behaviors that are not part of good collaborative intentions, the assumption that these behaviors are mere innocent errors done unwittingly may not be appropriate.

That's how I read it. It is blunt to the point of abrasiveness I will agree; to the point I'd say consider wording it slightly differently, but that's my understanding of what he/she is saying. Hope that helps :) FT2  15:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

This and this are the diffs in question. Although she deletes them as fast as they come in, a skim through her talkpage history shows she's had more than enough warnings to reach "final warning" stage. — iridescent 15:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't have diffs to prove it myself, but I seem to recall this user (Lucy-marie) filing a lot of frivolous complaints against users in the past. JuJube (talk) 15:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't see any warnings since the block. I think it would have been better not to jump to a high level warning. --neonwhite user page talk 16:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

(from Iridescent's talk page, the disussion seems to be continuing here) Having reviewed Special:Contributions/Lucy-marie I think a short block of the user in question might be warranted. She's constantly edit warring, wikilawyering and generally being disruptive. Any opinions on this?--Phoenix-wiki  15:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide some evidence on this? I can see this user has also contributed alot of positive edits. --neonwhite user page talk 16:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think she means harm. I think she just doesn't understand collaborative editing. My impression is that for her, the rules as written down, are everything. She seems to see everything in black and white, no interpretations are needed, no working with others are required. I don't feel a short block would remedy that :-( Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the warning was out of order, if anything it was to lenient, AGF does have its limits. - Caribbean~H.Q. 16:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the wording of that warning may be a bit more curt than even I would use, but Iridescent's impatience is quite understandable, and Good Faith has been more than assumed as demonstrated that this editor is not already blocked. — Coren  16:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I recall blocking User:Lucy-marie a little while back for abusive sockpuppetry; my take from the occasional skim of her talk page (which apparently remains on my watchlist) is that Lucy-marie is an editor with serious difficulties in her approach, which seems abrasive and uncollaborative. For what it's worth. MastCell 20:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack by User:Oltnilen

This edit

It is in Turkish and says "This user is stupid". bu, kullanıcı, salak. --Ilhanli (talk) 16:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The user already had a warning, which I've further explained. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal threat?

I've not encountered one of these beasts before. Does this qualify? Assistance/advice appreciated. :) --Moonriddengirl 17:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I have assumed good faith, and assumed that the user was not aware of our position on legal threats. I have notified him/her of WP:NLT. If he/she continues to make such legal threats, blocking would be appropriate. Aecis 17:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. As I said, this was a new one for me. :) --Moonriddengirl 17:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Account sent a similar but expanded legal threat to me in email after the NLT warnings. Pursuant to policy, persistently making repeated legal threats is grounds for indef blocking, and I have done so. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Continued problems by User:Magnonimous/24.36.201.161

• Magnonimous (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) editing since 14 December 2007
• 24.36.201.161 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) editing since 5 December 2007

Articles

• Coral calcium (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Coral Calcium Claims (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) created 20 December 2007 by Magnonimous

(Magnonimous has changed signatures for 24.36.201.161 to his own , so I'm assuming these are the same person.)

Magnonimous behavior problems continue and are getting worse. See previous ANI at: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive343#User:Magnonimous.2F24.36.201.161

Since this last ANI, he has removed a number of tags including an afd notice from Okinawa Coral, the latest pov-fork of Coral calcium, and has spammed defamatory accusations to multiple talk pages: User talk:Ronz Talk:Stephen Barrett User talk:Magnonimous User talk:B User talk:KnowledgeOfSelf and User talk:Levine2112 --Ronz (talk) 18:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Afd notice was added without justification, without notice or relevant talk, and went against the general consensus we had on the talk page. I believe MoonLightGlory's contribution removed significant amounts of POV content from the original quote-unquote Coral Calcium article, and seemed to relieve the edit warring, at least temporarily. In retrospect it seems ridiculous to add more POV content to an article to try to balance it. I wish I had done what he/she did in the first place, and removed that crackpot's ramblings from the original article altogether. Matter of fact, I think i'll go do that right now. Magnonimous (talk) 19:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

On a sidenote, I had NO IDEA :-] about the ban on canvassing. Where did my mind go hm hm hm. Secondly, it's hardly defamation if presented as an opinion on an opinion based page. Magnonimous (talk) 19:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify what Magnonimous meant by, "Matter of fact, I think i'll go do that right now." He replaced the content of Coral calcium completely by that of Okinawa Coral, which is up for deletion as a pov fork of Coral calcium. --Ronz (talk) 19:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Above action was not without relevant support: "I wouldn't be opposed to a complete stubbification of the article, removing all poorly referenced material. However, I see no reason to change the name. Okinawa coral is a subset of coral calcium, so redirecting would seem entirely inappropriate." Someguy1221, some might say this verges on consensus. Magnonimous (talk) 19:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Administrators, I apologize for my colleague's continued dredging up of past issues that you shouldn't have been bothered with in the first place --Magnonimous (talk) 19:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked Magnonimous (talk · contribs) for 24 hours for ongoing disruptive conduct, including removal of AfD tags, recreation of deleted content forks, canvassing, abuse of article talk pages, WP:BLP violations, and a generally unconstructive approach. MastCell 20:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Good move. Alot of good material was being trashed by a couple editors who don't understand NPOV and the fact that all significant POV are included in Misplaced Pages articles as long as they are well sourced and written in an NPOV manner. We don't publish the "truth" here, we publish verifiable POV. That is regardless of whether they are considered facts, opinions, POV, "the truth", or whatever else one chooses to call them. What we don't publish is OR and articles that don't meet notability requirements. -- Fyslee / talk 20:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

FYI, as soon as he was blocked, Jerome709 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was autoblocked as a result. I'm assuming that means they are socks and based on the disruption I've seen from the two of them, I'd support a community ban. --B (talk) 21:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Continued ban evasion by Arthur Ellis

Community-banned user Arthur Ellis (talk · contribs) now seems to be using 209.217.93.84 (talk · contribs). I think we need a block here (which would be his fourth this week). For more background, please see see Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Arthur Ellis. See also Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Warren Kinsella#Log of blocks and bans. Thanks, Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 19:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Possibly bear Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden in mind? There may be a case for letting him edit this one article. Moreschi 19:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Uh, did you read the Proposed Decision page of the case that you just cited? Arthur Ellis was banned by Arbcom from editing articles relating to Canadian politics and the blogosphere, then had his ban widened for having violated the first ban by editing Rachel Marsden. Then the community hardbanned him for continued ban evasion, and the Arbcom rejected his appeal of the community ban. You might also want to check out the vandalism in the edit histories of the Arbcom pages that you just cited; most of it is from Arthur Ellis IP ranges. If an edit needs to be made to that article surely someone other than a long-term Misplaced Pages vandal and serial BLP violator can do it. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 19:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

At the time of the Rachel Marsden RFAR the ArbCom judged Ellis's edits to be in accordance with BLP. Moreschi 20:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you seriously questioning whether Athur Ellis is a serial BLP violator? Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 20:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. I'm simply saying he's unlikely to be violating BLP on this article. Moreschi 20:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

BLP applies to all people mentioned in an article. He violated it today with this edit: But moreover you are missing the point of banning someone from the project. When someone has given us a stream of vandalism and harassment, we want that person to and stop interacting with us and to forget about Misplaced Pages. Back to my original point: If an edit needs to be made, anyone can make it and defend it. If you need more eyes on the article, why not ask the thousands of active editors in good standing to watch it instead of inviting back (of all the people in the world) a long-term vandal and serial BLP violator? Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 20:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Static IP - 100% link spam

76.16.242.32 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 100% link spam indicates static IP. Final warning. Non current. Thanks -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 20:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for a month Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Ooops... I think we block-conflicted - I just blocked the IP for 31 hours. Though I have no problem with a month. MastCell 20:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Given that it occurs each weekend, a block that covers, at the least, next weekend would be more effective, thanks -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 20:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I've extended it to 1 month, as per Theresa's original inclination. MastCell 20:43, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

User:FCYTravis

This user is making useless edits to bypass redirects in violation of Misplaced Pages:Redirect#Do not change links to redirects that are not broken. When I explain this, he calls me "an insensate policy wonk". What should be done? --NE2 20:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Diffs or articles concerned? Avruchtalk 20:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

FCYTravis (talk · contribs) is making perfectly valid points on your talk page. I don't see the issue with changing a piped link that heads to a redirect into a piped link that goes directly to the target article. This is a completely pointless revert and an edit war worth WP:LAME if it continues. Please find a way to solve this dispute that needs no admin intervention... — Scientizzle 20:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The issue is that they are useless edits, and should not be encouraged. They also increase page size. --NE2 20:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It's more useless to edit war and argue over harmless, if useless, edits. — Scientizzle 21:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

If it stops the useless edits, it might be worth it. --NE2 21:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Moldopodo (talk · contribs) & Ungurul (talk · contribs)

Moldopodo complains about Ungurul

User:Ungurul, before vandalising the article Balti steppe, has never said anything on the relevant talk page. Further, this user has simply replaced every word "steppe" with "depression" and also added diacritics signs everywhere. None of these edits were justified. For none of these edits has user Ungurul tried to reach a consensus in advance. --Moldopodo (talk) 20:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)Moldopodo

User:Ungurul, also present on German speaking Misplaced Pages (according to me, as uses exact same insults and numerous personal attacks), - ref. , , on French speaking Misplaced Pages ref. , , , , on Romanian speaking Misplaced Pages (was blocked for obsceneities written in Romanian) ref., . User Ungarul was asked to stop personally attacking me under the above mentioned user names on all Wikipedias, to stop insult/personally attack me and vandalise disussion pages by repeatedly deleting sections containing discussion and research of consensus on the proper city name in the cocnerend language, namely on French Misplaced Pages).--Moldopodo (talk) 19:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)Moldopodo

Further explication of User:uNgarul's actions may be also found at my talk page, and namely at its edits history (the same applies for other language version Wikipedias). thank you for your time.--Moldopodo (talk) 20:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)Moldopodo

Ungurul complains about Moldopodo

Can one look about the behaviour of this user? He was blocked for a week, now is again trolling and being disruptive. I mean this guy is not accepting official name of cities and he's been blocked in others wikipedia as well. See French wikipedia for example. Moldopodo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and http://fr.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=Utilisateur:Moldopodo --Ungurul (talk) 20:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

FYI, Ungurul (talk · contribs) has recently been blocked for harrasing Moldopodo (talk · contribs). These two just can't get along... — Scientizzle 20:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I was not harrasing him, I just asked him on his talk page something. One can see my edit there. A very innocent question. Ungurul (talk) 20:41, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

For better or worse, Misplaced Pages projects are completely autonomous, at least in regards to user conduct, so whatever actions Moldopodo has undertaken on other projects should not be taken into account here. Whether he accepts official names or not is a personal matter. What should matter here is his conduct in seeking or following consensus and generally abiding by Misplaced Pages guidelines. I agree that Moldopodo has not been the ideal editor in those respects, but to be fair, you have also breached various policies, and Moldopodo's actions should be seen in the light of these mitigating circumstances. TSO1D (talk) 20:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that he's being very disruptive. I see that others from other Misplaced Pages also dealt with him properly. By blocking him. Ungurul (talk) 20:48, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I blocked him once, and I'm not going to do it again on your say so. You can both get along, or you can both be blocked. You are being as bad as each other. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 20:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

No, because I simply revert his POV pushing and I respected the rules. He didn't accepted even the consensus on talk page. See that he's reverting. Ungurul (talk) 20:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

See his disruptive trolling on Talk:Bălţi 20:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly contest the statement that I did not look for consensus. Please check relevant talk pages on any language on Balti, Balti steppe, everywhere I engage in the research of consensus and discussion, everywhere I always source my edits, and may be I am too strict by requesting the same from others. Also, User:TSO1D please provide a diff for your statements and namely where I personally attack User:Ungurul. To avoid repetetive attacks from user Ungurul, please find below a copy of my unblock request, where all is explained with diffs: Misplaced Pages 3RR says: reverts to remove simple and obvious vandalism, such as graffiti or page blanking – this exception applies only to the most simple and obvious vandalism, the kind that is immediately apparent to anyone reviewing the last edit. It is not sufficient if the vandalism is simply apparent to those contributing to the article, those familiar with the subject matter, or those removing the vandalism itself. (For other, less obvious forms of vandalism, please see Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism or Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents); In the present case, User Ungurul (just as User Dc76) never tried to reach consensus or to prove whatsoever, they just simply pushed through their unjustified personal opinion, without any single reference to a verifiable source, nor any other type of explication (talk page is empty), which is moreover, their personal invention called 'Balti depression'. How can you reach any consensus or any discussion if the person is not writing anything on the talk page. The only thing Dc76 wrote on the talk page (Balti steppe does not exist, that's why it will br moved to Balti depression). Please, have a look at just some randomly googled and selected links I have provided on the Balti steppe talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Balti_steppe), check also references and link on the last version of Balti steppe article itself, as edited by myself last time (http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Balti_steppe&oldid=179776522). User Ungurul. nor User Dc76 had not even tried to present any proof on the talk page. That's why it is mere vandalism and that's why the 3RR rule should not apply to me in this case. User Ungurul has edited much more than myself and violated 3RR much more times. Even if you consider my edits as "reverts", please check attentively, as I was continuing to write portions of the article this morning, user Ungurul kept deleting it and renaming it in the same time. These were not proper reverts from my side as I was continuously adding new text, pictures, links, etc... Also, Balti steppe is a widely known and studied gegraphic phenomenon, it is an established name for grassland type in Moldova. To the contrary Balti depression simply does not exist and the first time I saw this was from User Dc76. I also understad why no justification or attempt to find consensus was found on the Balti steppe talk page. It simply because there is nothing to prove it (google 'balti depression' and you will find 0 results pertaining to the topic). Not only the term is inexistent, the geographic phenomenon of Balti depression is inexistent as well. Look now at Balti steppe talk page, where I provided a random selection of available on internet references to Balti steppe, check also references on the Balti steppe article itself(http://www.biotica-moldova.org/ECO-NET/part6-2-2.htm) and and Britannica Encyclopedia (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9012051/Balti), but also: Scientific Ph. D. Research dated 2006 on Fertility of Chernozem in Balti Steppe (Beltskaya Steppe/Бельцкая степь in Russian)(http://www.cnaa.acad.md/files/theses/2006/5617/stanislav_stadnic_abstract_ru.pdf), press article in the major Moldavian newspaper (http://www.nm.md/daily/article/2003/06/03/0000.html), travel company site(http://www.spectrumtravel.md/eng/country.php?c=3&cid=13), Draft Assessment Report for establishing a national environment and natural resource information network compatible with the UNEP/GRID (http://enrin.grida.no/htmls/moldova/md_assm.htm), Beltsy Steppe(http://www.justmaps.org/flags/europe/moldova.asp), Belcy Steppe in Columbia Encyclopedia 2007 sixth edition, link to European Commission mentioning Balti Steppe (http://www.coe.int/t/e/cultural_co-operation/environment/nature_and_biological_diversity/ecological_networks/the_emerald_network/Pilot_project_Moldova.asp), National Council for Accreditation and Attestation www.cnaa.acad.md (http://www.cnaa.acad.md/en/thesis/5617/), Ministry of Environment and Territorial Arrangement (http://enrin.grida.no/biodiv/biodiv/national/moldova/Biodiv.htm) etc. etc... Balti steppe article is properly sourced. Have you found any source for Balti depression? This is why the 3RR should not apply to me, or rather apply, but with its exception. User Ungurul clearly violated the 3RR and this more than once, bringing all vandalism to the article. Please tell me why did you not unblock me taking in consideration the disruptive vandalsising editing undertaken by User:Ungurul, as suggested initially by User:Dc76, and why if you intend to keep me blocked, why was I blocked for one week and User:Ungurul for 24 hours. I would also like to check users for socket pupetting User:Bonaparte, User:Ungurul (uses exact same agressive style, does not listen to arguments and does not provide any sources, edits exclusively on Romania and Moldavia related topics), Utilisateur:William_Pedros (on French speaking Misplaced Pages http://fr.wikipedia.org/Utilisateur:William_Pedros) (exact same style, calling me right off "vandal"), User: 89.185.33.40 (exact same editing style, calling my sourced edits "vandalism") and User:Dc76 (initiator of the page move); also User: 89.185.33.40 used exact same language as Dc76: "pushing POV, bordering vandalism, and edited only on Romania and Moldova related articles, namely to make sure that Dc76's edits or ideas are brought back. Thank you very much in advance for your answer and most importantly: "Happy Christmas!" (even if you do not celebrate it today)--Moldopodo (talk) 21:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)Moldopodo

There is no way I'm reading that whole thing. Can you just discuss it without edit-warring or making personal attacks? Is that really so much to ask? Avruchtalk 21:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Now you can see all how disruptive he is. Imagine how he destroyed all the articles with huge talk pages like this one. Yet, he said he never attacked me or he was never beeen disruptive. This guy is a troll, and a vandal. No wonder he was blocked so many times. Ungurul (talk) 21:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I repeat, there was no single personal attack from my side regarding User:Ungurul, however, there were plenty from his side in my regard, and the last one just here. Please, do take some time and have a look through my arguments and presented diffs. --Moldopodo (talk) 21:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)Moldopodo

Everyone can see, now you'll be blocked for good. People are tired of you and your vandalisme and trolling. --Ungurul (talk) 21:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

and User:Ungurul continues:, aslo check how User:Ungurul renamed this whole section "Banning user Moldopodo"--Moldopodo (talk) 21:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)Moldopodo

Don't worry, you're just a vandal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:Moldopodo

• 13:22, 23 December 2007 FisherQueen (Talk | contribs) blocked "Moldopodo (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week ‎ (Edit warring)
• 21:10, 26 November 2007 Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (Talk | contribs) unblocked Moldopodo (Talk | contribs) ‎ (on the proviso that he not go edit-warring again, espcially on romanian-related articles)
• 21:03, 25 November 2007 AGK (Talk | contribs) blocked "Moldopodo (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 31 hours ‎ (disruptive editing: edit warring in order to push a particular opinion, anti-consensus edits despite repeated warnings, failure to heed cautions, et cetera)
• 20:42, 19 November 2007 Nat (Talk | contribs) blocked "Moldopodo (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (Edit warring)

User:Jim62sch, bullying, and assuming good faith

See this edit.

User:Jim62sch disagrees with my editing styles, although he didn't see fit to really explain why in my sole previous encounter with him (and, per his comment there, was quite flippant about the idea of providing a reason in an RfA). However, this sort of comment is beyond the pale. I'm being treated like some sort of vandal, or serial abuser of the system, and don't deserved to be talked about derisively in the third person on random article talk pages.

His last comment on his own talk page, along with the general attitudes conveyed within, suggest that this is indeed what I should expect from him in future. I'm not sure how to handle this, especially as I'd rather not go through the same torrent of personal abuse and pointed insults as I did from the group of editors in question as I did during my RfA. However, while walking away from homeopathy entirely was okay (first step: back off), I'm not prepared to simply keep retreating every time I'm attacked like this. Suggestions? Chris Cunningham (talk) 21:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

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