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Concern on recent high-speed deletions by Fastily

Quickly, before I get blocked, Fastily has to be one of the worst admins I've ever seen. He', , , and according to his deletion log, he's deleted as many as 88 pages/images in a span of about 5 minutes . There's no way in hell any human being reviewed all of these appropriately. Fastily should be desysopped and blocked. Night Ranger (talk) 02:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment too much here, since I was a dick to Fastily the only time we've spoken, but - an edit summary of "p" is not acceptable, everything else aside. And holy cats, that's a lot of very fast deletions. Can someone who's not pissed in Fastily's wheaties like I have ask him if he's using a script? - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 02:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

That's clearly not me then, because I keep seeing instances of clearly inappropriate deletions by him. Snowolf 03:01, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

As can be seen at Night Ranger's talk page, Fastily recently made two pretty bad deletions of cat pages NR created, so yes, NR has a personal gripe here. But more to the point, it seems like Fastily's consistently brought to ANI in regards to bad/questionable deletions and/or overall deletion practices. The biggest concern is simply that he doesn't seem to respond to them at all—his response usually amounts to a one-liner and nothing more. Swarm 04:10, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Working too fast, making too many errors, and not communicating well with others is exactly what got Betacommand/Delta blocked by ArbCom after many years of that exact behavior. I would hate to see Fastily go down that road, but this pattern of behavior is sadly close to what Betacommand used to do right up until the most recent ArbCom case. It would be nice if Fastily instead modified his own behavior and worked better on improving his accuracy in deleting files and on his ability to communicate with other editors regarding his deletions, as well as his ability to admit and correct for his own mistakes in this area. If that doesn't happen, this will not end well. --Jayron32 04:16, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

In response to the above:

• I check my all the pages I ultimately delete, compile a list of pages to delete, and use a script to run through them.
• I have restored the two categories in question as a result of . I have better things to do with my time on Misplaced Pages than engage in drama.
• The tags on File:History of New England.pdf and File:Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.ogg were indeed mistakes. I do, however, stand by the tag on File:Woodman Spare that Tree.ogg (it is a derivative work with no obvious copyright information on it's sources). I would also like to note that I transferred over 500 files to commons over the last two days while screening them all for potential copyright problems. Being human, I do, and will make mistakes regardless of how careful I am. However, I'm sad that NightRanger didn't first mention these tagging errors on my talk page (in which case they would have been promptly corrected and we wouldn't be having this discussion), choosing instead, to come to ANI seeking vengeance.

-FASTILY 04:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not this again. I raised a similar issue with him here and it even caused me to seek clarification of the CSD criteria and so indirectly led to change in the CSD criteria (after discussion). After all the whole point of the source tag is to help prove that the file is usable here. If this can be done another way then it is not necessary to have a source but I'm not sure Fastily agrees with / gets that idea. I've reverted the tagging of the PDF as it clearly has an appropriate release on the last page so what it's source was is irrelevant for determining copyright status.

What I found more disturbing however is their seeming lack of willingness to discuss people's concerns. Most queries are responded to with a very short link to a sub page. I was lucky enough to get a whole sentence in reply, but that was it, which is hardly in the spirit of a collaborative encyclopaedia. Disturbingly I've not seen any replies or changes in edit habits despite a multitude of recent ANI threads. I'm sure they do lots of good work, and they may even be correct in most cases but this lack of discussion is very worrying. It suggests rightly or wrongly that they are unwilling to listen to others or to change their ways if that is what consensus suggests they should do. I really do think this is at the point where an RfC/U may be appropriate. Dpmuk (talk) 04:21, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

In reply to Fastily's post which I edit conflicted with. If this was a one of then it may be wikidrama but it's not. Concerns have been raised several times both here and on your talk page. I'm unsure what better things you have to be doing than discussing your edits with editors that have genuine concerns and certainly aren't trolling - discussion is an essential part of a collaborative encyclopaedia and failure to discuss is a serious problem. Your reply also suggests that you didn't even bother to read this thread properly. You mention restoring two categories yet the original complaint was about your tagging of pages. Dpmuk (talk) 04:28, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hm, funny you should say that, I haven't linked anyone to User:Fastily/E in weeks. Furthermore, if you'll look at my recent talk page archives, you'll see that I actually make an effort to discuss with users. Believe it or not, unlike Betacommand here, I am of the belief that I serve the community, and am therefore not deaf to its complaints. -FASTILY 04:41, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I was about to expand on what I'd posted based on your reply above. To be honest I have no real opinion on whether you're "deaf to complaints" or not but it does seem obvious to me that you often come across, possibly inadvertently, as being that way. Even if you had taken the concerns raised here on board a comment like "I have better things to do with my time on Misplaced Pages than engage in drama" does not suggest you had - it suggests (to me at least) that you'd restored the categories as the easiest way out rather than because you'd taken the concerns on board. Personally I'd have been happier to see you leave them deleted and explain why then simply restore and leave such a short statement. This was also how I felt when you replied to my comments I reference above - I was left with the impression (rightly or wrongly) that you hadn't taken on board what I'd said and you'd just replied in the manner which you thought would give you the easiest way out.

Given the amount of actions you undertake I honestly don't think your error rate seems too high and I will also admit that in many of the areas you work we don't have enough admins and so it probably can be hard to prioritize replying fully to all queries versus dealing with backlogs. Bearing all that in mind I do honestly think what we have here is a communication issue rather than and significant problem with your actions (and this is why I suggested an RfC/U to try to get you communicating). If you honestly do take note of every error you make and take on board the concerns raised then it would appear that if you could give that impression as well as acting that way we may avoid many of these issues. Hope you don't take any of this the wrong way. Dpmuk (talk) 04:54, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that so many nasty people play 'no talkies' and when someone who is rather busy is brief then it looks bad, whether it is or not. The speed of editing and error rate doesn't matter. If people want to avoid mistakes the best way to do that is to do nothing at all. He seems to have a page to tell people what they want to know, and it seems more helpful to refer someone to G10 or whatever on that page than say nothing at all when deleting a page. Shrug. Unfortunately no talkies seems allowed by policy in many circumstances, but Fastily doesn't seem to adhere to the no talkies idea as much as some other editors. He seems chatty but busy. Penyulap _talk 05:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

That's interesting. We had a very lengthy and on-going discussion on AN that you basically made a couple of comments on and walked away while people continued to discuss you for days without any further input from you at all over several raised issues. You even went so far, in early february, to claim a complaint about you from December was "extremely old" You then further went on to self-impose a restriction that didn't remotely begin to address the concerns being raised (in that they were from entirely different areas of admin work) and called all further complaints moot. I'm not really sure how that makes you not deaf to the community's complaints.--Crossmr (talk) 07:58, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Links for the lazy, please? The archives are huge. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 15:12, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

You took part in the discussion Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive232#WP:TFD_deletions_by_admin_User:Fastily. The last comment he makes to that thread is, as far as I'm considered, a lie. He walks away at that point, and people continued to discuss him for 3 weeks before it got archived with no further input from him. Look for the part where you asked me for diffs, I provided them, and Fastily's response was "all of these are extremely old", despite one of them barely being 2 months old. He then says "I hereby agree to self-abstain from closing long, contentious discussions without providing a statement of some sort. At any rate, I no longer plan on closing such discussions anyways, so I guess that makes the concerns we're having here moot :P" with a cute little emoticon no less. Despite the concerns being raised not only being about his closes, but his deletions he declares all concerns done because he's going to self-impose a restriction that he no longer does closes. Not sure how that addresses the bad deletions at all, but as far as he was concerned they were a done deal because of that. So again, not really sure how this is an indication that he's listening to the community's complaints. It looks like quite the opposite.--Crossmr (talk) 00:26, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Which it appears he's now done again. Despite on-going discussion and direct statements being made to him, he's continued to edit without returning to this discussion. I don't really see any evidence that Fastily is listening to the community's concern and instead appears to be saying whatever he feels is necessary at the time to appease the community and then walking away. As I mentioned before, the Deja Vu is very strong.--Crossmr (talk) 14:38, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Just my take on the three files cited above: File:History of New England.pdf was a useless PDF ("wikibooks") compilation of existing Misplaced Pages articles, falsely tagged as uploader's "own work" and public domain. Could have been speedy deleted on sight as a copyvio (done so now). File:Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.ogg is legit copyright-wise (obviously user-created), but has no foreseeable encyclopedic use; nominated at FFD now. File:Woodman Spare that Tree.ogg seems legit to me; it's a user-created, synthesized computer rendering of a song that itself is obviously PD-old. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:19, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with the speedy of File:History of New England.pdf as it's nowhere close to being an "unambiguous copyright violation". I've just checked again and all the appropriate attribution and licensing information is in the pdf so this is simply a case of wrong tagging rather than a copyright infringement and we don't speedy for getting the tags wrong. I'd agree that their seems little point in hosting it given that it's just a copy of our articles but I'd suggest restoration if the user asks for it (e.g. if they want to use it as a historical snapshot). Dpmuk (talk) 13:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, even if the copyright had been fixed (and I agree it would have been fixable in principle), it would still fall under WP:CSD#F10, "files that are neither image, sound, nor video files, are not used in any article, and have no foreseeable encyclopedic use", so it's rather moot. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:09, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Well true, they'd have to come up with a good reason for keeping it, and I think that's unlikely to occur, which is why I didn't restore it. Given that most of the work do is in copyrights I pointed it out as I didn't want people to think I'd missed something when I commented above. Dpmuk (talk) 16:42, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I have no opinion regarding the deletion rationales of the images or the speed at which they were deleted, but I do have concerns about Fastily's deletion log entry for the two sockpuppet categories as "Attack Pages". It looks to me (at least from the comments on Night Ranger's talk page and in the block log) like Kumioko was indeed blocked for sockpuppetry, the socks were tagged and the populated categories were created. I agree that they could constitute attack pages of the accounts tagged were not Kumioko's socks, or if the category pages had personal attack language in them (did they?), but otherwise a sockpuppet category doesn't seem to be anything like an attack page. I'm also a little concerned by Fastily's responses when Night Ranger requested an explanation: basically providing non answers, answering questions with questions and then deleting the thread with the edit summary "troll". NR's subsequent response to that was not appropriate, but at least a little understandable. I'd be angry too. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:07, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

TLDR: In Misplaced Pages, socks are sock unless they have admin friends. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:54, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Which admin are you talking about? --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:20, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Sockpuppet categories are not "attack pages" if the socks are correctly tagged. If they were, deleting them under G10 is a no-no. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

correctly tagged being the key phrase here. :-) — Ched :  ?  12:31, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Even if the sock accounts were tagged incorrectly, a category is not an attack page. You could make a case for someone tagging random accounts as socks as attack pages I guess, but as far as I can tell those were confirmed socks of Kumioko. Attack pages say things like "Joey is a Nazi", or "such and such person is *insert unsupported negative claim here*". Not a category that simply populates user pages based on userpage templates. Kumioko was, indeed, blocked for abusing multiple accounts. The deletion rationales of those categories aren't correct and without condoning his subsequent behavior, I can see why NR was upset. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:01, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

CommentIn my humble opinion, if Fastily feels that he has better things to do than engage in drama then I suggest he move to the (relatively) non-controversial areas of expanding articles and editing out-dated or bad references which require minimum interaction with others. These are areas where smart scripting etc. is of good use. My point is that Fastily's behavior is borderline contempt (or maybe even full contempt) that clearly demonstrates his beliefs that other editor's are not competent enough to question his conduct or maybe he is far superior to others. I can't imagine an experienced user not being able to answer simple queries for technical or other reasons. Wikishagnik (talk) 07:45, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I can understand the view that Fastily tends to show up here on a semi-regular basis over these types of deletion things. I can even understand the concept of comparing some things to delta/beta. My problem here though is this: Some people are actually good at doing computer programming, and perhaps they're not the most "chit-chatty" types of folks. But if you try to talk to them, they can give you some very valuable information, and be very helpful in the end. You may not come away with a "warm fuzzy feeling", but that doesn't make them "contemptuous". Sure, maybe a break now and then from various activities can be good for all of us - but in the end, if you stick with what you're good at - then it shouldn't be an ABF issue. — Ched :  ?  15:51, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem is the deletion logs are incorrect. Autopopulated categories aren't attack pages any way you slice it. See my comment above. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:05, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I recently had an image deleted, no warning, that was a drawing made by me in the public domain?? Bzuk (talk) 17:23, 19 March 2012 (UTC).

Ched, do you honestly believe that's the issue here? I can understand somebody being pre-occupied and focussed in their work and I too have met my share of Geeks (scholars etc.) but civility and trust are very important in Misplaced Pages. A person merely busy now can choose to reply later. A person not very communicative can make a few terse statements. We are all used to that in Misplaced Pages, but refusing to pariticipate in a Misplaced Pages discussion to me shows either contempt for the policy structure of Misplaced Pages or towards its editor's. Wikishagnik (talk) 18:26, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Fastily is clearly working too fast/carelessly. He recently deleted with over 1000 edits and 16k of text as a copyright violation because someone inserted 200 bytes which may have violated copyright. (I have removed them, but the first admin to review it thought it was reverse copying.) The page remained deleted nearly 2 months before someone requested restoration at WP:REFUND. Errors are bound to happen, but I don't see how an error like that can be made unless someone is either 1) automating deletion without evaluating merits or 2) going too fast to properly evaluate things.

Additionally, I have read over the previous ANI conversation and find the lack of communication quite disturbing. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I just took a second to review Fastily's last 10 deletions and quickly found 2 errors - both Aztec Warriors and Rhetorical Strategies were deleted as A10, when they should not have been. At minimum, both are plausible search terms and Aztec Warriors arguably expands on the topic (albeit without references). To delete good faith contributions such as these is very BITEy IMO. (I have restored the articles and redirected, so anyone can review them for his or herself.)--ThaddeusB (talk) 01:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Expanding the review to the last 34 deletions (six pages) from article space, I found:

• The X-101st deleted under A1 when it had sufficient context (doesn't fit any speedy criteria, but not restored because its clearly not notable)
• Prince Tupouto'a Tungi a redirect that had existed since 2006 and is clearly valid, but pointed to bad location b/c of a bot fixing a double redirect after a bad page move. NOte:Fastily himself deleted the implausible title it was briefly pointing to and so in theory should have known the situation even w/o checking the article history. (restored)
• W. eugene smith fund deleted as G11, but not promotional and most likely notable (restored and moved to proper capitalization/name)
• The Voice - Britain's Favourite Black Newspaper deleted as G11, perhaps validly so. However, the content is clearly written by a fan, not a business person, and is a good faith attempt at writing at article, including references. (I have not restored because The Voice (newspaper) already exists and I don't want to clean up the language and merge myself. It does, however, have unique content)
• System 12 created by a (good faith but improper) page move to System 12 (disambiguation) and then G7'ed leaving the dab page impossible to find (move undone)
• April Masini deleted as G4. While the article was deleted after AfD in the fall, G4 doesn't really apply as the content is completely different, with many references added. (I have held off on restoring for now. Restored upon request of article re-writer.)

I should note that the vast majority of Fastily's deletions are files w/insufficient source info or unused non-free images and thus are probably fine. (Although I think it is clear he doesn't check and just deletes are such pictures that has passed the "expiration" date.) However, 8/34 is a ridiculous high error rate for article space. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: Fastily has announced a Wikibreak saying he is burnt out. Hopefully after some time off, he'll come back more focused and make fewer errors. --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

• COMMENT WE JUST HAD A MONTHLONG DISCUSSION OF HIS DELETION ACTIVITIES, with the strong suggestion by several editors of taking action against him.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:19, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Recall that this was mentioned in Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2012-02-20/Discussion report regarding Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive232#WP:TFD_deletions_by_admin_User:Fastily.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
• Mm, well, somehow the notion that he's taking a Wikibreak just as the heat's turned up again is no surprise. Let's not let that affect the discussion. Thaddeus is absolutely right: 25% is an appalling error rate, one for which we'd haul a newbie up by the short hairs, and is intolerable in an admin with deletion tools at his command. As others have said, this is damned reminiscent of Betacommand's antics, which drove away and/or soured many good editors. Perhaps a restriction on automated admin actions would be something useful to hand him when he gets back. Ravenswing 20:51, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Once again its time other admins stepped up to this area. There aren't many active in those areas which means F deals with a lot. The level of mistakes are too high but so is the workload. Look at his archives there is no evidence he doesn't engage with people on his talk page, he always has. He used to use automated responses but no longer does, he replies in full. In regard to speed he compiles lists to delete and does it in batches, which is why the deletions are done quickly not because he does not look at them. There has been a witch hunt against Fastily in the past every time it comes up its the same people that complain. If people really think there is a problem create a RFC and move on. This just goes round in circles.Edinburgh Wanderer 23:40, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, no excuses. There are only three possible reasons for an error rate so high: incompetence, indifference or inattention. You can decide for yourself which it is, but I'm sure you'll agree that none of the above are desirable in an editor or tolerable in an admin. It is also quite possible for uninvolved people who have never had any interaction with him (raises hand) to examine the evidence and conclude that his editing pattern is out of line. Bizarre as the premise may be, there are actually frequent complaints about some editors and admins for no sinister reasons beyond that they are chronic offenders. Ravenswing 03:50, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no witch hunt here. Here are two facts from recent discussions: Fastily dismissed a 2 month old AN/I thread as "extremely old" and then claimed an IP was forum shopping by taking an undeletion request to a noticeboard and not discussing it with him when the diffs clearly showed the IP took it to Fastily's talk page nearly 24 hours before he took it to the noticeboard. When questioned about the first, he stopped participating in the discussion despite it continuing on for nearly 3 weeks after that point. When questioned about the second he stopped participating in the discussion and declared a wiki-break. These are not the desirable ways for handling interaction with community members.--Crossmr (talk) 13:53, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

• Fastily is pretty much the only admin that works in PUF and FfD, he does hundreds of deletions a week because of this. The number of mistakes is tiny. If there were other people also doing the work, it would fall less on his shoulders, and he'd be able to spend more time on each item. That being said, Misplaced Pages only has about a dozen to two dozen people who work in the file namespace, only a few of them admins. Any area where there are many, many more people complaining about how work is being done than there are people doing the work, you're going to have massive bleedoff of workers and the area is going to be largely dysfunctional. The file namespace isn't the largest, it's just the most extreme case. Sven Manguard Wha? 14:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
  • While this thread was directly instigated by some questionable FfDs, there's rather more to it that that. I've been a little concerned of late by some (IMO) somewhat hasty deletions by Fastily at TfD (which had default summaries provided by a bot: I would personally expect any XfD with differing opinions to be accompanied by a manual deletion rationale), but that was merely concern over the method rather than because I thought the closes were wrong as such. I appreciate that we have backlogs all over XfD and that we really do need help in these areas, but false positives beget drama and harm the community more than backlogs do. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

There is one thought that I believe that most know intuitively but few put into words relevant to both Betacommand/Delta and Fastily, (and many less severe situations that people are uncomfortable with) even if they hadn't made outright errors. Most Misplaced Pages guidelines are not written with sufficient precision and exactness so that one person can just do major things based on their interpretation of any part of it. Giving notice, opportunity for discussion, actually having discussion when requested, making a careful review/investigation of the situaiotn are things that are intuitively expected before major actions, and intuitively considered necessary in light of those imperfections. It would be best if the concept of somebody feeling free to say that they get to play rapid judge, jury and executioner because they are "just following the rules" were to end. North8000 (talk) 14:32, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

@ThaddeusB - from your examples above, can you explain the context of "The X-101st legion was a clan base in Roblox". You say that you did not restore it because it was clearly not notable. You know as well as I do (or at least should) that when a page is marked with a speedy deletion template, when you go to delete it the deletion reason autopopulates with the CSD tag. So, in essence... if you had arrived at that page first, and decided to delete it because it was clearly not notable (tho you apparently know inherently what a Roblox clan base legion is without any further context), what deletion category would you have used? Do you think there is any chance that Fastily went to the page, said 'Uhh A1 doesn't apply, Roblox is clearly the MMOG for kids but beh this is really trivial for its own article', went to delete it and just took the speedy classification of the tag as read? I think its very easy to go and second guess, and expanding on Sven's comment above I wonder how many of the folks taking Fastily to task do any kind of deletion work themselves. Syrthiss (talk) 14:39, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with Syrthiss that some of the comments above are coming from people who have no problem bitching at other people bu can't be arsed to get out there and do the dirty work themselves. Guess what; it gets annoying when people who refuse to accept they may not know as much as you endlessly carp over minutiae and miss the broader picture. I can't get all worked up over the wrong numeral being appended to a deletion (and as a broader aside, I still don't quite understand why CSD is the one policy which Must Be Followed To The Letter At All Times Or Else); what ultimately matters is that the damn thing was deleted, and clearly should have been. And yes, I would have accepted A1 as a perfectly valid reason to delete that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 10:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

If I had the bit, I'd certainly get involved, but the reason CSD must be followed to the letter is because there are few checks and balances. Someone tags it, or someone finds and article and just deletes it. They are judge jury and executioner and the average user can't even hold them accountable unless they had a chance to see the article before it disappeared. If an administartor is found to be tagging articles incorrectly when they delete them, it puts into the question the care and attention they're giving to those deletions.--Crossmr (talk) 12:41, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be an argument by some that Fastily's behavior is due to overwork. Apparently few or no other admins choose to work in the areas where he works. I think it's important to note that NOBODY on Misplaced Pages is required to work on anything. The entire project is purely voluntary, so he has no obligation to produce results or work at such a high rate. Therefore, I don't think the argument that he's overworked holds much water because if he's overworked all he has to do is slow down and either let someone else pick up the slack, or let FfD languish long enough that people will take notice and join in rather than expecting him to just carry it all. I don't think he's overworked so much as indifferent. This is much like the argument that Betacommand should be excused for his similar behavior because he did so much work and I see similar responses from similar apologists. But nobody made him do that work and nobody is making Fastily work either. There's no excuse for such a high error rate, the indifferent and often haughty responses to other editors, disappearing whenever a discussion begins about his actions, and taking a wikibreak because he's "burnt out by people harassing him all the time". WP:DIVA anyone? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I've also seen similar behavior from Fastily, most notably in his super-fast nominations of dozens (hundreds?) of orphaned sound files several months ago. Because often files are deleted without further review at FFD, it is important for a nominator to have a decent success rate of identifying deletion-worthy files. Fastily had an extremely high error rate and did not respond well to criticism. I tried to check all the nominated sound files for several days, but I ran out of time reviewing and I'm sure dozens of worthy sound files were deleted. See old talk page revision. Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Lankenau is giving bogus warnings to intimidate users.

User:Lankenau recently left me this message on my talk page concerning original research that they put on the Abiogensis article and saying that by me reverting original research, that he interpreted my edits and vandalism. User:Drbogdan brought this issue to my attention originally and Lankenau left a threat to Drbogdan in his Edit summary.

Despite recent warnings to him by many users he has continued to leave intimidating warnings to made up rules. I would like for an administrator to explain that you cannot add original research to him because he does not yet seem to understand. One more thing to note is that he left a confusing message on my talk page about facebook and twitter and email.

Thank you for looking into my situation. Hghyux (talk to me)(talk to others) 19:43, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

• Whatever the merits of Lankenau's edits, how is this message an attempt at intimidation? I don't see what's threatening or "bogus" about it. It may well be that your edit was not vandalism and thus their claim that it was may be unjustified, but is that really a matter for ANI? Drmies (talk) 22:17, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Just my interpretation. The reason this has been brought to ANI is because the user has failed to understand the rules and continues to say that people are doing "Vandalism" just because they undid his work. Also, it was this edit that was intimidation. Hghyux (talk to me)(talk to others) 22:34, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

What, when he tried to establish himself as an expert, then suggested that if he didn't get his way on Misplaced Pages he was going to take his ball and go home? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 23:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I was more talking about saying that anybody that reverts his edits are doing vandalism. Hghyux (talk to me)(talk to others) 23:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Mislabeling edits as vandalism is, in theory, fixable - and not a threat. Yes, it's bogus, but if they don't get told the difference between their definition of vandalism and Misplaced Pages's definition, how do they know to stop? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:43, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

• Ahem. If anything is a bad edit, trout-slappable even, it's this one. Dirk Lankenau adds information to the article, referenced to six articles published in academic journals, and someone has the moxie to call it original research? "Oh yes but he has a conflict of interest and blah blah blah"--so f***ing what? He is not forbidden from adding articles he wrote or co-wrote, and Lankenau's name is not found in all of those articles, nor is that of his partner in crime (well, in science, for crying out loud). Even Drbogdan's revert, with the "COI" edit summary, is incorrect: the linked guideline doesn't forbid any editor from adding a reference to their own work.

  I want to see some editors re-read the original research section, esp. the part that says "if it's sourced to published sources it's not original frigging research", and I want to see humble pie eaten and hairshirts worn. I'm not even kidding. "Original research"--I'll show you some original research, Google Scholar style: . We got a scientist who has kindly come to help us out, and we treat him like this? Drmies (talk) 01:38, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

• Agreed completely with Drmies. This is legitimate source material, well referenced, from secondary sources (peer-reviewed book chapters), in a niche area that very few of us know anything about, added by someone who is knowledgeable on the area (as evidenced by even a simple Google Scholar search on their name). We should be encouraging addition of this content, not rolling it back in one fell swoop with allegations of OR. -- Samir 05:24, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I see no OR, but WP:UNDUE may be an issue here. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 05:57, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

What I see here is a new, enthusiastic, and very competent wikipedian. Who just might be a little out of their depth in a content issue, to put it bluntly. OK, we've identified the problem, now lets look for solutions. I would like to think I've started that here--Shirt58 (talk) 11:28, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Me, too; this is an editor who can be a real asset to the community. All they really need is to understand what is not vandalism, and they'll be fine here! Pesky (talk) 11:35, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Hyhgux, please trout yourself a few times for not reading WP:OR properly and mishandling the situation. Blackmane (talk) 11:37, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry guys, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this point (or, at the very least, I need some more convincing.) I'm not disputing that this guy is a legitimate scientist. But, I would caution you all on giving too much weight to that fact. I could point you to at least half a dozen Nobel prize winning scientists who then went on to become fierce advocates on one form of pseudoscience or another. I'm not saying that's the case here, just that we can't simply rely on the fact that he's a professional in the field to conclude that his hypothesis holds any weight within the field.

I have searched on Google Scholar and I frankly am getting the impression that this is hypothesis has not been accepted by many in field. His work has not been cited by many others in the field, and I can find no references to "ZN-world theory" by anyone other than him. The language in the Wiki article also made me very skeptical of this. I mean: "The Zn-World theory of Armen Mulkidjanian is the most realistic. sophisticated extension and improvement of Wächtershäuser´s pyrite hypothesis." Really? Maybe it is, and I certainly am NOT an expert in this field (nor am I a scientist.) But, this sounds like self-promotion more than it sounds like science.JoelWhy (talk) 14:18, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

"I have searched on Google Scholar and I frankly am getting the impression that this is hypothesis has not been accepted by many in field" - You are free to express scepticism of the hypothesis by providing reliable academic sources which refute it. But I would like to note that we do not remove information just because it's not true, we remove it if it is unsourced. The paragraphs that have been removed are clearly sourced reliably. —Dark 14:38, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, to clarify, my hesitation to accept this is not whether it's true or not -- it's whether it's noteworthy. There are probably a million hypothesis related to abiogenesis (and every other major theory in the sciences.) We don't include all of them (even when sourced.) We include those which are noteworthy. If this is a hypothesis that is accepted by an insignificant fraction of those working in the field, it wouldn't be included. I'm not sure that this is the case, here, but based on my search into the issue, it sure seems that way. That being said, I really have no stake in this game. If I am wrong about that, I would be happy to support the addition.JoelWhy (talk) 14:59, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

The issue is the rollback of the edits, which shouldn't have been done claiming OR. Discussion on whether undue weight is being placed on this hypothesis should be held at the article's talk page (where it had started) as opposed to just rolling back the edits. I am not an expert whatsoever on the field, but the PNAS paper was what made me think this warranted consideration for inclusion. The section needs to be rewritten also, because it does read rather confidently. Other gauges like article cites can be used to determine the relative significance of the hypothesis, but that is best discussed on the article talk page -- Samir 15:12, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I have pasted the relevant comments into the talk page in the abiogenesis page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JoelWhy (talk • contribs) 15:22, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Disruptive behaviour at AfD

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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

Skashifakram is behaving disruptively at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of Muslim Nobel Laureates‎. His/her initial !vote was cast here, then he added a second here. He was advised that he couldn't cast multiple !votes here, and acknowledged it here. Another editor made this attempt to reason with him. Then he proceeded to add more and more. I struck out all but the first here, but he partially reverted the edit here, complaining about "tampering". This seems very disruptive — could someone intervene? Jakew (talk) 12:10, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I've blocked - there weren't any warnings at the user Talk page, but the attempted discussion in the AfD made it clear enough. I've offered to unblock as soon as they agree to stop trying add multiple !votes. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:16, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Ummm, it's not a vote. Why does it matter in the slightest whether someone precedes everything they say at an AfD with "keep"? Any admin worth the membership fee will ignore them. Blocking for what amounts to a minor etiquette problem (certainly no less annoying than editors who insist on adding question or comment before every reply they make, something which has never gone punished AFAIK) is a little troubling. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:50, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

• Wait--there was a fee? Beyond my soul? Drmies (talk) 16:07, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Of course it's a "vote," the mythology of it notwithstanding. Save for SPA votestacking or other blatant examples of chicanery, when was the last time you saw a closing admin say "Be damned to the head count, I agree with the minority POV and that's how this will be closed?" Ravenswing 15:15, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

• Ravenswing, please give admins a little more credit than that. I can't give you a diff of when that happened the last time, but when I close something, I look for this. But an admin should never say that, "damned be the head count", because it is not a head count. It's not. Drmies (talk) 16:07, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Any close predicated on one editor's multiple !votes would be overturned at DRV faster than you could blink, and any admin who would close an AFD without reading it enough to note that an editor posted a bold Keep multiple times (and had been called on it) shouldn't be closing AFDs. I'm also a little uncomfortable with blocking an editor for what appears to be a minor breach usual practice. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 15:37, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

• I agree. Boing, I think this "edit-warring" is really minor--I see only two reverts of their Keeps being struck through. Please reconsider. Drmies (talk) 16:07, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Editor has already agreed to stop and I've unblocked. But fair enough, I'd have gone with the consensus here and unblocked had I seen this first. In fact, I should have added my usual comment (which is there on my user page) that anyone is welcome to revert any admin action of mine if they think it is mistaken. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:34, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Alright then. Let's close this. Drmies (talk) 16:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Subtle IP vandalism? May need review

I've long fallen out of the way of how and where these types of actions are noted, but having just had to repair numerous instances of what appears to be subtle IP vandalism by 71.237.208.127 (talk · contribs) and 198.236.64.243 (talk · contribs), and noting that they edit over an area extending well beyond my interest area, all edits by these IPs over recent months and especially in the last few days should be treated as suspect. If you want to see what I mean for some examples, my own contributions today relating to postcodes of Australia contain the reversions. Orderinchaos 07:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I've blocked both IPs for 3 months. This is a first time block for one of them but I'm operating under the assumption it's all related; they both geolocate to Oregon and it looks like one's a school so the other's probably someone's home. However, reviewing the content changes requires a knowledge of Aussie postcodes and soap operas that I don't have :) EyeSerene 09:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

More incoming paid promotional COI work

Just a heads-up for those that track these things: related to a previous ANI thread (archived here) it appears a deal has been struck for additional articles (see ). EyeSerene 09:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Apparently, it's a thing:

• https://www.elance.com/r/contractors/q-Misplaced Pages%20Writing/
• https://www.elance.com/r/contractors/q-Misplaced Pages%20Editing/

--Kim Bruning (talk) 13:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC) excreted waste meets rotational air displacement device

Repeated violations of COI despite warnings

NatHandal (talk · contribs) (previously editing as NHANDAL (talk · contribs) has been editing the article Nathalie Handal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for several years. The user has confirmed both via OTRS ticket and on various pages that she is the subject of the article. (See for instance: , ) Ms. Handal has repeatedly removed sourced material from the article (, , , ) and removed the COI tag (, , ). Much of the editing that she has done has involved copying portions of her website to this article (this is the rationale for the OTRS ticket mentioned above). The user has been repeatedly warned about the COI policy(, ) but has continued to remove sourced information. Given that Ms. Handal seems to want to have ownership of this article regardless of the COI policy, I think that some sanctions are in order. GabrielF (talk) 13:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I've rechecked the editor's talk page to see if there is anything new since I last reviewed the COI issue in 2008. Lots of people have tried to explain our system to her, but in March 2012 she has resumed active editing of the article contrary to policy. For example, she has removed well-sourced commentary and links to published reviews of her work. Four years have passed since she began editing Misplaced Pages, you would expect that she should be willing to properly express her concerns on talk pages. Since nothing else has worked, and since there is no question of unsourced defamation, I reluctantly propose a one-month block from editing. The only alternative is to *give her* the article and let her post anything she wants and remove anything she finds inconvenient, even though well-sourced. EdJohnston (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Pedro Almodóvar death report

A heads-up. There are unconfirmed reports on Twitter that Pedro Almodóvar has died.--A bit iffy (talk) 16:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I've watchlisted the article and will monitor it for unsourced edits regarding the rumour. --Jezebel'sPonyo 16:24, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Some suggestions on Twitter that the Spanish government have confirmed it, other suggestions that it's a hoax.--A bit iffy (talk) 16:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm keeping my eye on the new reports - no reliable sources are mentioning it (as of yet). It will either be confirmed in the next few hours or blow over completely as another Twitter death hoax. --Jezebel'sPonyo 16:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Looks like it's a hoax: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/318689/20120323/pedro-almodovar-dead-alive-hoax.htm --A bit iffy (talk) 16:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

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