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User:Pigsonthewing/Andy Mabbett and featured article of the day

User Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett) is a user who has made some valuable contributions. He is an expert on Pink Floyd and has established a local Misplaced Pages group. However he also been at the centre of a number of conflicts and has an extensive block history including an Arbcom ban of one year.

Recently he has been displaying some very pointy behaviour regarding featured articles of the day. On 19 July he inserted a table into the then FA of the day, reinserted accusing one of the main article creators of giving bogus reasons despite the source beign substandard for an FA and claimed that there were problems with WP:OWNership.

On 25 July, he inserted an infobox into the FA of the day. By the following week he was again making accusations of WP:OWN. There has been a long-running and boring dispute regarding the use of infoboxes in classical music articles. Andy's contribution to this dispute has led to some of his blocks. It was obvious that there could be no consensus reached to make such a change during the day that the article was FA of the day.

I think the attempt to start edit wars on FAs of the day can only have a negative impact. The author of the first featured article mentioned is no stranger to robust argumentation, but that is not the case for all content creators. Spoiling an editor's pleasure of being on the front page can easilly affect their willingness to work on another FA.

I think a topic ban from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day is appropriate. Perhaps also a topic ban from all classical-music related article would be useful. I shall post a notice of this thread on AM's talk page imminently.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Let me make sure I'm clear on this. Andy inserted an infobox that was clearly within policy so you brought him to ANI? If having someone's article improved "spoils their pleasure" that's their problem, not the problem of the person who inserted the content. Ryan Vesey 16:41, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

No I am sayign that an editor with an extensive history of disruptive editing and a block history to match is making WP:POINTy edits to the FAs of the day thus stirring things up when things should be kept as quiet as possible when somethign is FA of the day. There has been a long-standing agreement on infoboxes and classical music articles of which Andy is fully aware and he removed an instruction that explicitly said that no infobox should be inserted into the article.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::Ryan, I see you are a member of WP:ER... I'm not sure if you fully understand the significance of your last post. Or, for that matter, of the "sniping" – to use Tim riley's exact word – that was going on in that discussion: including repeated idiolect digs from another editor at teh brilliant prose (Tim riley is surely among the best stylists and most capable copyeditors that Misplaced Pages has had). —MistyMORN 16:54, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Had. He retired today. Citing sniping. Very bad news for the project.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a quote by me of myself from a post re Ian Fleming and it's referring to the whole focus of FA being intent on the original term for FAs and failing to deal appropriately with structural issues. I too am sad to see Tim withdraw his skills from the project and have said so. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 17:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a quote by me of myself from a post ... Did I really read that right? —MistyMORN 18:06, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• I take this accuation of trolling by User:Br'er Rabbit to be a completely unprovoked personal attack. —MistyMORN 18:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

And this edit summary alluding to wankery the delights of self citation? isn't trolling? Or the badgering on my talk, yesterday? Br'er Rabbit (talk) 18:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

No, it was a serious comment. And yesterday I politely let you know that I'd started a serious thread on Jimbo's page about the principle, not the participants. Since then, you have regaled me with multiple edit summaries of goaway and Bzzzt (whatever that's supposed to mean). —MistyMORN 18:33, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Wrong answer, please try again. No good comes from starting threads on "principles" on teh Jimbo's talk. That's about inflaming disputes, as is this fucking page. This is all toxic snipping and drama-mongering. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 18:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I leave it to others to pursue this thread. I feel physically sick. —MistyMORN 18:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Tim's one of the few people who doesn't gush about my articles but gets into the bones of it and tells me what's wrong. This is very demotivating.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm on good terms with Tim; believe I'm one of those he was referring to with and have had stimulating email exchanges with two other contributors to the above. It's quite unseemly for others to seek to use this as a weapon, as is on display just above. That is the sort of snipping that Tim's distressed over. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 18:15, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh really? . I don't think you have any right to put words or interpretations into Tim's mouth. —MistyMORN 18:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I will admit that I wasn't clear on this and have stricken my comment. Ryan Vesey 18:21, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe that WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and a total disregard for WP:CONSENSUS is the problem here, and when it comes to coordinates, Andy has a bully approach - anyone who disagrees with his view that they should be displayed as full DMS coords and linked within prose or added into tables is accused of ownership issues. See Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Highways/Archive 4#RFC on coordinates in highway articles, Talk:Manchester Ship Canal, Talk:Ontario Highway 401#Coordinates and many more that I haven't witnessed or been involved in first-hand. It appears the insertion of infobox into TFAs is just another arm on the octopus. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  _¢ 16:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Would a topic ban or weekly 1rr be appropriate from this in line with what I suggested re classical music articles?--Peter cohen (talk) 18:54, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Astute readers will note that one of the above refers to a case where Floydian added coordinates to an article to overcome an issue raised at its FAR, only to remove them as soon as it passed FA. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing#Pigsonthewing placed on probation, Andy is still on indefinite probation even though no actions have been taken under it for some time.--Peter cohen (talk) 17:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually I have now found Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing#Request for clarification: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing where this was confirmed earlier this year.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore, he was given a year ban in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing 2. --Rschen7754 18:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• As a general comment, I think a lot of Wikipedians don't realize how stressful "TFA day" can be for the people who have put a ton of work into the TFA article. It's not a bad idea to wait until the article's off the main page to propose potentially controversial changes. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:15, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

  This editor doesn't propose though. They just implement their controversial change (often having made a similarly controversial change recently), then argue vehemently against numerous editors that they were in the right to make the change, and accuse those numerous editors of OWNership issues or trying to enforce a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Andy just determines what consensus is, and implements it matter-of-factly. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  _¢ 18:24, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

  • That is exactly what I was thinking, Mark. The debate over info boxes is a valid debate, but it is a matter of timing. I have no idea why it couldn't wait, and allow the article, as it was approved, to be left more or less free of major changes while it is on the front page. That just seems a bit of courtesy and a way of gaining good faith from fellow editors. And I tend to be in favor of infoboxes in general, but not in favor of choosing the worst possible time to make a stand on them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Infoboxes are not mandatory, not required and generally all of this page-by-page debate is doing nothing more than stirring up a lot of trouble and pushing people away. To see this brought up at the Village Pump is absurd. Really. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:40, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• A simple topic ban from TFA for Pigsonthewing would appear to be the simple and easy solution here. It still leaves him 4,000,000+ articles to edit. Black Kite (talk) 19:14, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Or we could look at the ownership issues, or the inappropriate local consensus issues. TFAs get a lot of edits from a lot of regulars. There's talk of an RfC re infoboxes on my talk. That's a better option. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:19, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Fair point, but for the one day that the article is on the Main Page, we don't need those issues. Black Kite (talk) 19:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I still think that the ban should be from the moment an article is proposed for a particular day or scheduled for that day until it has either completed its time as TFA or been replaced in the schedule for the proposed day. Otherwise we'll have the disruption merely pushed forward.--Peter cohen (talk) 19:30, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That's it's "disruptive" is not established. I have good faith that Andy believes what he is seeking is for the best of the project. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:37, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Editors are supposed to be bold and there is considerable support for the infoboxes (millions of them). Dunno about that table, though. This issue need a wider discussion (and a calm, reasoned one), not reflexive feeding of those churning up drama. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't buy it. Regardless of what the consensus is on infoboxes (or the other issues for that matter), making a WP:POINT on the article's one day on the front page is simply obvious attention-seeking. The wider discussion can take place when the article isn't the first thing that millions of people see when they log in. Especially when you're sourcing your POINTY edit to someone's TescoNet homepage. Black Kite (talk) 19:42, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Skipping right past that dead TescoNet hompage link, the infoboxes are quite arguably widely accepted improvements. I agree that these various infobox discussion are not productive. Part of the problem is that they're held on the home turf of the opponents of infoboxes. Everyone should mellow out and agree to a wide participation RfC. I will escort Andy there myself. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Except editors are not supposed to be bold when they know they don't have consensus to be so. He is clearly making a WP:POINT edit. Whether he thinks he is benefiting the project or not, when you don't have consensus or when something is controversial you stop and discuss first. -DJSasso (talk) 19:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The infoboxes question is a red herring; he does this with coordinates too. --Rschen7754 19:49, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course, the issue regarding infoboxes and coordinates is one of ownership too, except its associated with a set of templates and not with articles.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I second Peter's comments. Eisfbnore  20:05, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

see: {{TFA-editnotice}}. "Constructive changes are welcome". {{ArticleHistory}} on talk for FAs says "if you can update or improve it, please do so". Br'er Rabbit (talk) 20:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I have seen it, but that doesn't change the fact that you aren't supposed to make edits you know will be controversial without discussing them first. He was well aware the edits were controversial. Be bold only applies when you don't know prior to your edit that they will be controversial. -DJSasso (talk) 02:46, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

• zOMG censorship. Although the whole thread is still probably going to be a train wreck, I think it took a *severe* turn for the worse starting here. I've simply removed comments from several editors, putting me in direct violation of numerous guidelines and policies I'm sure. If this pisses you off and you simply must restore them, please at least think of one single benefit to the encyclopedia for doing so. In the process I also removed a couple of harmless comments that no longer make sense once the silly ones are removed; no offense intended. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• There's no benefit to any of this, it was train wreck much before it got here, but suppressing comments without linking to them simply allows more comments like the one below to pile up. The best thing to do would be to archive the "discussion". Truthkeeper (talk) 21:19, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• But there's nothing wrong with the comment below; you may agree with it or disagree with it, but Disagreement is OK. I was just trying to nip in the bud the devolution into 100% snark, not stifle a discussion. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• The snark has been going since last November with no end in sight. Would you mind at least linking to bit you snipped? Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:33, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• But that would defeat the purpose of snipping it. I might as well hat it, then. The whole point is, I think those comments should just go down the memory hole. If snark has been going on since November, what possible benefit is there to restoring more here? However, I am not going to try to prevent anyone from linking, or restoring, or anything. Just be convinced you're improving the encyclopedia by doing so. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:38, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Okay. This has value. The rest has none, but it is important to remember that editors write these pages and only so much snark can go so far. Unwatching here now. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:45, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Andy's contribution to classical music discussion pages is to be welcomed, not supressed. The classical music wikiprojects are very insular, with their own special rules about infoboxes, and they need to encourage outside criticism. If we ban Andy from classical music discussions it would at least have the appearance of stifling good-faith criticism of the projects. On the broader issue of making stylistically-controversial changes to featured articles while they are on the main page, I have no opinion. ThemFromSpace 21:16, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Pigsonthewing is a great editor, with good intentions, but he's terrible at explaining things once confusion or disagreement has arisen (eg, and more, unrelated to infoboxes).

However, This really isn't (or shouldn't be, despite the page it's in) about the particular tempest.

It's about writer's voice. It's about knowing-your-audience, and grokking the context and background and nuances of a dispute. It's about personality archetypes smashing into each other, and not seeing the fallout. It's about retirees arguing with youngsters arguing with 'foreigners' (humans with entirely different mental intonations and landscapes). It's about empathy and insight. The only thing we have to encourage/enforce empathy is wp:Civility (and an entire navbox full of bitter&hilarious essays). And nothing can 'enforce' insight. But we do, desperately, need better ways to communicate with editors who are completely missing a point in a dispute. Like some of the consistently sarcastic afd nominators. It's acidic, and exhausting to others, in a subtle but influential way. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• I support Peter cohen's original proposal, "topic ban from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day". The infobox question (despite the insistence of some here) IMO is still open, and so too is the issue of coordinates. I don't find the argument that uniformity and metadata should override the preferences and consensus of those actually building the articles particularly persuasive. Especially in the situations presented here, Andy seems to be deliberately sowing dissension in pursuit of his aims. I can imagine how demoralizing it must be for an editor who has sweated and slaved to get every detail right for FAC, it goes to the main page, then someone shows up simply because they feel the need to make a point. Yes, we are encouraged to be bold and try to improve articles. No, that is not the right place to do it. As a fallback to get consensus for a restriction, I'll also go for Black Kite's option, topic ban from TFA. Franamax (talk) 22:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• I oppose the original proposal because it's based on little substance and insufficient attempts to find common ground. If you want to ban folks who disagree with you, you need to be a lot more convincing. The core of the disagreement is Andy's belief that particular articles benefit from infoboxes versus Peter's assertion that Andy's view may be dismissed without consideration because a WikiProject has predetermined the rules for infoboxes for all of its articles. That brings us to the secondary complaint: that Andy has accused others of WP:OWN. The assumption there is that he is mistaken, but Peter's own second statement gives the game away. This statement, "he removed an instruction that explicitly said that no infobox should be inserted into the article", is the clearest exposition of OWN that could be made. Nobody has the authority to give instructions of that kind - just look at what OWN says on the issue: Some contributors feel possessive about material they have contributed to Misplaced Pages. A few editors will even defend such material against others. It is quite reasonable to take an interest in an article that you maintain—perhaps you are an expert or perhaps you just care about the topic. But if this watchfulness starts to become possessiveness, then you are overdoing it. - and that is policy. I recommend Peter takes the time to read through Misplaced Pages:Ownership of articles and and try to judge dispassionately if Andy actually has substance to his view. I'd particularly draw his attention to the section On revert, as it does have many echoes of the arguments I've observed here.

I'll make a counter-proposal: If anyone believes Andy is deliberately focussing on TFA to make a point, try going to his talk page and politely explaining your concern to him. Peter certainly doesn't seem to have engaged with Andy in that way within the last 1,000 edits to that talk page. If Andy doesn't discuss the concerns, then you'll have convinced me to change my position. --RexxS (talk) 23:42, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Look at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing 2/Evidence and you will see that people have been discussing Andy's WP:POINTy behaviour, his abuse of accusations of WP:OWNership and his edit warring over infoboxes for years. That Arbcom case resulted in the second of Andy's one year bans. It's not something that someone needs to go to raise on his page afresh. That's why Arbcom have left him on indefinite probation.--Peter cohen (talk) 01:12, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I've looked at that five year old case, and I see no sign of you discussing anything there. If you find a problem with another editor's behaviour, yes, you had better go to their talk page and discuss it with them rationally. I find it repugnant that you seem to think that you can instigate an ANI case questioning an editor's behaviour without having made any effort whatsoever to discuss that behaviour in the proper place. --RexxS (talk) 13:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The only discussion of my referring to WP:OWN on that five-year-old page is about this, where I responded to a comment including "the editors... have discussed it" and "the primary editor's plan". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• I support Peter's proposal that Andy stay away from FAs once its announced they will be on the main page, until they're no longer linked from the main page. That can be a stressful time for FA writers, and no one else should be choosing that time to make major changes. It's a question of respect, not OWN. SlimVirgin 00:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• I oppose all of this. The proper outcome here is an RfC, as is being discussed on my talk. Frankly, the meta issue in play here isn't infoboxes or metadata (or coords), it's about the project having a coherency across topics. There are endless local prefs that groups assert over subsets of articles and little of it is helpful. Another desirable outcome would be to persuade Tim to return. Please. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• This discussion is expanding very fast. It is impossible to read the whole discussion and understand where the problem is. Why the discussion whether to use a table or not was not discussed in the talk page of the article and the subject came to ANI? I am sure that the talk of TFA gets a lot of attention anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

It is Andy's repeatedly showing up at TFAs to make a style change, then insisting he has a right to because of and and sophistry in quoting from P'sNG's. The issue is not the underlying merits of each discussion on which exact way of (prettying up / meta-fying) articles. I can see both sides of tables and boxes, but that doesn't matter. This is about gate-crashing done systematically, why in particular is WP:TFA being targeted? Hence the very simple suggestion of a topic ban, which does not prevent any of the underlying content discussions from proceeding. Franamax (talk) 00:45, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

gate-crashing: "the act of attending an invite-only event without invitation". That sounds a whole lot like an endorsement of WP:OWN. The whole world is invited to edit the TFAs. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:53, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

That is utter nonsense Br'er. It is obviously not constructive to show up and demand style changes after and article has been through a review process with involvement by multiple editors. You can assume that there is a solid consensus for any style issues in an FA and the only way that should be change is by trying amicably to form a new consensus on the talkpage - not by trying to strongarm your ideas into something that others have spent hundreds of hours working on. If Andy cannot understand such a basic example of collaboration he has no business editing here at all. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Adding and infobox is not a "style" change, it is a structural change and an addition of content. Style is italics; ephemeral stuff. The FA review process is *flawed*, it misses all kinds of stuff. I find problems in most articles appearing on the main page (most common is duplicate named refs). The whole process is focused on too narrow a criteria of our best. Andy is participating in a fair number of talk discussions about these issues; certainly far more than he is editing TFAs. ↓↓ FA "stewardship" can be a good thing (I've invoked it, at Brian's suggestion). I've not looked at just when that got added to OWN; it's a wiki, so someone drove a truck sized hole through OWN. Anyway, it's often abused. ↓↓↓ The FA regulars may have had a prior shot at most TFA, but most of the ones that go by are articles I've never heard of. I expect it's the same for Andy and most other regulars. TFA is often no party for the primary author. See the whole mess discussed on Wehwalt's talk re the immediately prior TFA Gregorian mission. No party for Ealdgyth: "My preference would be no more of the articles I've done the major share of the work on on the main page ... but I know that's just the TFA talking. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)" Br'er Rabbit (talk) 03:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

That is utterly irrelevant. Andy has to collaborate with those who reviewed it and wrote it not antagonize them. Making major structural or stylistic changes to a recently reviewed article on the day that it is on the mainpage without prior discussion or consensus on the talkpage is antagonistic in the extreme.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:28, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

/sigh/. I rarely look at who worked on an article before I edit. I'm much more likely to check for recent vandalism, first. And I don't think I've ever checked who reviewed an article before editing it. I find and fix problems with TFAs about every other day. I'll usually work on them a day or two before (if possible;) as day-of is too edit-conflict-rich. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 20:53, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know we're not discussing you behavior here, but Andy Mabbet's. That suggests there is a qualitative different between how you approach editing the TFA and he does. Even so I do know that you have also gotten into conflicts because you have been to quick top restructure other people's work without involving them in the process.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

/sigh/. I rarely look at who worked on an article before I edit. I'm much more likely to check for recent vandalism, first. And I don't think I've ever checked who reviewed an article before editing it. I find and fix problems with TFAs about every other day. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:47, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

/double sigh/. Maybe its time you begin then? You apparently also "fix" things that are not considered problems. And apparently you do so knowing that others don't consider them problems. That is not helpful but antagonistic and disruptive. It should be obvious to anyone that the lack of an infobox in a recently reviewed article is not a problem but a decision. Pleading ignorance in this case just makes you look...ignorant.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:59, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Uh huh. And where, do you imagine, did I plead ignorance? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

When you tried to excuse your antagonistic and confrontational behavior by saying that you didn't look at who had edited or reviewed the article before editing it and therefore presumedly didn't know against whom you antagonism was directed. It amounts to saying "its not personal" - when you ought to know very well that doesn't matter one whit to those who've worked on the article and decided not to include those features you want to include.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:54, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I did no such thing. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:18, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Everyone who is able to read can see you doing so two comments above this one.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:50, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd agree the review process is flawed, perhaps for different reasons. I would think that a great many of the huge blunders in FA-rated articles are picked up on their TFA day.

Take for example this correction on TFA day of a wildly erroneous statement in an FA promoted only just last year. The date that's more than a decade wrong was cited to a single foreign-language source when the article was promoted to FA, accepted without question by nominator, reviewers and promoter alike. It's also a key fact (perhaps the key fact) in the "Reaction and aftermath" section, establishing the significance of the entire case itself. One of the most important facts in the article.

Some might think the 1990s are a long time ago. Ten to fifteen years doesn't make much difference? To compare great things with small, what if an article about segregated education said that it was still legal in the USA in 1981? Would it matter?

Now why do I think that so many errors are picked up on TFA day? Well because the genuine errors that are picked up, like the one I just mentioned, stand a very good chance of getting reverted right back like this, and then again without even looking at the edit summary for the first change, by the owner of the article.

Most of those making the correction, be they registered, unregistered, administrators or something else, wouldn't be back to check after the first "cleanup" restore of the error. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Br'er, that's the attitude that's causing writers to leave the project. OWN makes the point here that FA stewardship isn't considered OWNership in the negative sense, and that applies even more when it's on the main page. It's one thing for a new editor to turn up to fix punctuation, but an experienced editor making substantive changes to a TFA knows that it's likely to upset someone. SlimVirgin 01:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

What it actually says is "Featured articles ... are open for editing like any other... explaining civilly why sources and policies support a particular version of a featured article does not constitute ownership". It certainly does not say what others have claimed is the case, for the two articles in question, that (I paraphrase) "the editor who puts an article through FA review gets a veto over others' edits". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I figured someone might question that aspect of my link, but it was the best I could come up with for my intended concept. Congrats Jack on ferreting out the worst possible interpretation. Yes of course the entire world is invited, early and always - but here you show the sophistry I mentioned above. For Wikipedians who are already here, you, me, Andy, Slim, Maunus, whoever - we ALREADY HAD our kick at the can. Every single one of us knows the score and we all know damn well that if there are issues, then we need to discuss them well in advance. It's quite disingenuous for you to resort to wide-eyed innocence, that edits can be made to TFA context-free as though we are all newborn. So formally: NO, not at all and no-one OWNs anything. But FFS, on the day the TFA appears, yeah this should be a party for the people who made it happen, and this should be an occasion for all the rest of us to celebrate the editors who go that far. Even if you think it's a flawed process, take that up elsewhere, TFA is special. And deity knows that I've taken mucho satisfaction in correcting featured content typogrammos myself. ;) But to start up a war over a style issue like an infobox or microformat? I'm not saying your ideas aren't important, but why are they so important within that context? Franamax (talk) 02:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• I support peter's proposal of a TFA topic ban. --Guerillero | My Talk 01:22, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• I'm inclined to support the topic ban, though I won't formally cast a vote that way simply because I've gone around with him more than once with the same problems. I can certainly relate to the frustrations, and if he is driving good editors away from the project, then I am finding it difficult to see why we should accept his continued presence here. Resolute 01:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support TFA topic ban. We are here for the encyclopedia, and that requires a collaborative community helping the content builders. Even if SOMEONE IS RIGHT, they need to avoid actions that drive away good content builders, and harassing good editors over technicalities like coordinates and infoboxes is the worst kind of disruption (obscenities, vandalism and POV warring are relatively easy to handle—it is the drip drip drip of relentless sniping that damages good editors). Johnuniq (talk) 03:33, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Johnuniq is right on one point: "harassing good editors over technicalities like coordinates and infoboxes is the worst kind of disruption". If those who have only a narrow view of the full range of skills needed to build this project can't (or won't) understand the importance of technical aspects, like accessibility, functionality and re-usability, they need to step out of the way of those good editors that do. --RexxS (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support Peter Cohen's proposal of a TFA topic ban. --JN466 13:54, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• I also support a topic ban. There is a competence issue here: if Andy cannot edit without driving top editors off the project, he is per se incompetent to edit, and must be restricted from an area in which he is likely to offend such editors.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:03, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

"if Andy cannot edit without driving top editors off the project" Since I have driven no top editors off the project, your point is moot. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Ahem. --Eisfbnore  14:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I stand by my statement. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:29, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, if that is your attitude, then move me to a formal support of this topic ban. Resolute 19:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I see. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:34, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban The guy has already received two year-long blocks from ArbCom for this kind of behaviour. He's also apparently on indefinite probation. Maybe take this to Arbitration enforcement if necessary? --Folantin (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban as per the comments above. -- Cassianto 15:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban per Wehwalt. Eisfbnore  15:52, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban per above...Modernist (talk) 18:32, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• No, a site ban. I'm sick of these uncouth bullies. Get rid of him. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban per Peter cohen and Wehwalt's reasonings. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 19:24, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose This is not the way to handle this. Secretlondon (talk) 19:27, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• So we juist continue to hand more rope? Life is too damn short for that. Ceoil (talk) 23:58, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Disagreeing with others is good. People can disagree in good faith about infobox usage. The way one disagrees makes a difference, and Andy consistently disagrees in a way that is not conducive to collaborative editing environment. Frankly, there probably needs to be further discussion about the usage of infoboxes (actually, I've never really gotten why we can't just drop it, but it's clear enough that we can't), but this editor doesn't need to involved, at least not when the article are on the main page. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 20:03, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support, as Heimstern explains quite nicely. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:52, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support per my previous observation that there is a proper time and way to disagree, and if you can't figure that out, you need to not be around it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Ban'. Andy's approach is poision, and he knows it, I suspect gleefully, and shame that its gone on for so long and shredded so many others nerves. I see him as a net negative, in every respect. Ceoil (talk) 00:43, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Ceoil's comment follows this edit (edit summary: "go pleasure your lazy self, seriouslyu"). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:35, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
    • He has a point - if you shotgun {{cn}}s all over an article, instead of say using {{refimprove}} or {{unreferenced}} on a section, it could be interpreted as laziness to find the sources yourself. I found a few sources myself and added them to the article in question. --Ritchie333 17:14, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Carrite (talk) 17:12, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support (and nodding at user:Anthonyhcole). I edit ANI maybe once a year, but I can't stay away from this one. The user in question seems driven too much by an agenda not formally acknowledged as part of the goals of Misplaced Pages, as far as I know. The whole business of "making articles more 'semantic web'-friendly" is, in my estimation, a pet project with a little value but not when pushed relentlessly and rudely and to the detriment of other editors. We need formal policy on the degree to which people who are now referring to the (technical) "structure" of articles as some kind of pinnacle of achievement for an encyclopedia are allowed to make idiosyncratic changes to wikitext through templates or otherwise—implying some invented convention or precedent—that scarcely change the reader's experience while making editing sometimes more difficult; as they defend the practice with reference to hypothetical software-mediated "re-users" rather than the basic textual re-use which is a cornerstone of the philosophy behind the project. Riggr Mortis (talk) 23:42, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

  Don't be silly: hypothetical software-mediated "re-users"

  Try maps.google.com and turn on the Misplaced Pages layer. Amazon has all the books. They download the whole database, over and over again. That includes all the structure, templates, /everything/. Get with the information age, pls. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 12:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

  Or Dbpedia. Or the BBC. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:50, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban from TFAs, and would be willing to expand it to articles in the que for TFA. Andy seems to have a bit of a fixation with these articles, as per comments above, and it seems that his conduct of himself in the process is far less than acceptable. One does get the impression that these edits may be motivated more by an urge to get attention than anything else. And I think common sense would indicate that making substantive potentially controversial edits to FAs, on the day when they are most visible, is a very bad idea. WP:COMMONSENSE would seem to apply here. John Carter (talk) 00:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Since when did single edits to just two articles, with one reversion, amount to a "fixation"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Response

Sadly, several editors commenting above have chosen to take Peter Cohen's asertions at face value; so it's useful to analyse them:

On 19 July he inserted a table into the then FA of the day,

I replaced a table which had previously been in the article for many months four years, but which was removed for no apparent reason prior to the FA review, and misleadingly, as "ridiculously sourced".

reinserted accusing one of the main article creators of giving bogus reasons despite the source being substandard for an FA

the reason given for the subsequent removal of the table was "anyone who wants this table included needs to find a better source than Tesco". The source given was not Tesco (it was a dead link, which now redirects to Tesco, and an archive version of the original has since been found). Further that source is used (as attribution, not citation) for only one column of the table. If it was a bad source then that column could have been removed, or a better source requested; it did not require removal of the whole table, most of which comprises features cited elsewhere in the article and coordinates which do not require individual sourcing per a prior RfC. Finally, after discussion in the article's talk page, consensus appears to show that the table should indeed be in the article.

claimed that there were problems with WP:OWNership.

In the cited diff I did not claim there were "problems with ownership". I asked the editor who said: "Malleus and PoD were the main contributors who got this article up to FA and John and myself also made some contributions along the way. You have made one drive-by edit that changes the whole look of the article on the day it appears on the front page. As far as I'm concerned If Malleus doesn't want to see it there it shouldn't go in unless you can convince him and PoD otherwise" to "please read WP:OWN". The claim that I had only made "one drive by edit" to the article was false; I've made many eidts, adding content to the article.

again making accusations of WP:OWN

No; I said "We have a policy for this. Please see ]" in response to a reference to "consensus among those who work on articles in this category" (I removed the quote of "as the most frequent toiler in this particular vineyard", seen in the diff mischievously cited, within seconds, as I realised I had taken it out of context). The correct diff is this one.

attempt to start edit wars on FAs of the day

No evidence is offered to support this false accusation regarding my supposed intentions. I have calmly discussed and justified my edits on the talk pages of the articles concerned. in the case of the ship canal, I made one singe revert of the removal of encyclopedic content, which is not otherwise available in the article, for reasons explained above. In the case of Solti, I made no reverts.

things should be kept as quiet as possible when something is FA of the day

I'd be interested to see the policy which enshrines this dictum.

There has been a long-standing agreement on infoboxes and classical music articles of which Andy is fully aware

Bunkum. There is no such "agreement", other than among a limited and self-selecting subset of editors. I am though, aware of the wishes of that group of editors; but the RfC which they initiated found no such consensus, as its conclusion makes clear. I made this point to Peter on the Solti talk page, but he chooses to ignore it.

he removed an instruction that explicitly said that no infobox should be inserted into the article

Rexxs has addressed this point already. But really: an instruction!? Surely, it is the people who place such messages, or seek to enforce them, in contravention of their own RfC and wider policy, who should be facing sanction?

the issue regarding infoboxes and coordinates is one of ownership too

If this is intended to refer to me, then, again, no evidence is offered for this unwarranated slur.

Finally, for now, this page says at its head: "Before posting a grievance about a user here, please discuss the issue with them on their user talk page." Where did Peter do this?

I'm out of time now; I may comment further later. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Andy, I might agree with you conclusion about infoboxes, but I find your timing to be incredibly bad. That is my problem, that you couldn't wait until it came off the front page. You can quote all the policies and pillars you want, I'm relying solely on common sense here, which dictates that if it is controversial, just wait a couple of days and discuss it. It almost seems perfectly timed to create the maximum amount of drama, instead of being timed to create the maximum chance of your perspective being considered. As to policy regarding the day FA articles hit the page, no policy should be needed. Common courtesy and common sense should be sufficient, and that is what makes your timing look intentionally disruptive, and pushes the boundaries of good faith. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

There were over 50 edits to Gregorian mission during its time as yesterday's TFA. While a few were vandaism and reversions thereof, most were not. There is clearly no policy (explicit or de facto; "common sense" or not) against working to improve an artice while it is a TFA. Further, as already pointed out above, {{TFA-editnotice}} says "Constructive changes are welcome". {{ArticleHistory}}, on the talk page of FAs, says "if you can update or improve it, please do so". One or both of those also link to WP:BOLD. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

If the changes are controversial, they're not constructive. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 16:52, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

That's quite untrue. People make a fuss over constructive edits all the time. For example: diff; that fixed diffs for users of the secure server. It was reverted. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 17:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Are we by that statement supposed to infer that ownership digs which eventually end with the departure of FA writers are "constructive changes"? Eisfbnore  14:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

quit trolling. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 15:07, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Are we supposed to infer that "FA writers" are somehow different from ordinary writers? I'm an "FA writer", but I don't demand special privileges as a result. If you want a policy saying that no established editor may edit TFA (other than vandalism reverts) go and propose it at WP:VP and see how far you get. --RexxS (talk) 15:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

For the record: To my knowledge, Tim didn't ask for any privileges either. But eventually he simply voted with his feet. —MistyMORN 13:16, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Andy, your motives on the day, I feel, were not to "improve" but to enforce your weird ideology that all articles should adopt your preferred format. An infobox, IMO is not an improvement. Also, your timing was completely inappropriate and may or may not have been a primary factor in WP loosing one of its greatest ever contributors. -- Cassianto 15:20, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Noted: your feelings; your opinion; "may or may not". Nothing substantive. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:24, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The answer to your first question is yes, and if you would have read this novel you would have known what happens when you sabotage the individuals who create something. I'm not sure whether the departure of Tim riley was the intended goal for Andy & Jack, but their subsequent unapologetic behaviour does indeed give me the impression that they thereby have gotten a feeling of mastery. Eisfbnore  15:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

your bad faith is appalling: diff of User talk:Tim riley. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:07, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

AGF doesn't mean to switch off your brain. That post of yours at his page was simply a politically correct message, so that you could continue in the same vein as before. Why didn't you simply apologise for your sniping at Talk:Georg Solti and Talk:Peter Sellers? Tim's last edit before the day of retirement was the addition of a comment to the former talk page; you ought to be somewhat more compunctious and not put the blame on MistyMorn. Eisfbnore  16:24, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Because it's not sniping. You and MistyMorn are not acquitting yourselves well here. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

So you mean that Tim was wrong in citing the relentless sniping/trolling of yours as a reason for his departure? Or that somebody else sniped him? Just curious. --Eisfbnore  16:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

you're trolling; goway. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:49, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Eisfbnore, the belief that Rand's fiction bears any resemblance to real human endeavour makes clear your disconnection with the reality of editing Misplaced Pages. This is a profoundly collaborative endeavour, not a pastime for divas who want to elevate themselves above their fellows. Tim was the very opposite of the model of "FA writer" that you are trying to promote. Indeed he most recently spend an entire day helping other editors as well as academics at the WWI Editathon – along with Andy as it happens. If you ever come to understand that content writers and the technicians who create and maintain the framework for that content depend on each other, you'll understand what Misplaced Pages is actually about. I see you're already familiar with Canoe River train crash; do you think that would be such a great article without the different contributions of multiple editors? --RexxS (talk) 16:59, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

diff of Canoe River train crash && diff of Canoe River train crash. nb: teh Randian stuff flies well with teh Jimbo ;> Br'er Rabbit (talk) 17:09, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that page was really nice before it was transformed into a mess of load time-expensive citation templates. Also, it would be great if both of you could have a look at Misplaced Pages:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations. Then you'll perhaps realise that von Mises was right when he said to the Russian radical that "you have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you." NB that I'm actually a Rothbardian and despise everything about the Ayn Rand cult; however, she, along with Schumpeter, understood that it is the innovative spirit of a few individuals that changes the world. Eisfbnore  17:32, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Except that Wehwalt asked me to fix the citations on that page (and many others;). And {{sfn}} is really fast ;> Br'er Rabbit (talk) 17:57, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

You see, your lack of knowledge really makes the point. The 40 {{sfn}} templates increase the rendering time from 6.1 sec to 7.3 sec and you call that "a mess of load time-expensive citation templates". And 95% of our readers don't even see that slowdown because they get the page from the cache. It's depressing for anybody trying to improve articles to have such blind hatred of anything technical used as weapon, as is happening here. If you really don't understand what you're talking about, you need to take the cotton wool out of your ears and put it in your mouth. --RexxS (talk) 19:54, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

To anyone who's been here awhile, this should be obvious: Don't screw around with the Featured Article of the Day. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:03, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I've been editing TFAs for some time; and often. This is the first time it's been an issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:29, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Unless there's something obviously wrong with a TFA, such as gross misspelling (or vandalism), you should leave it alone. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:49, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

That fallacy has already been addressed above. Though you're welcome to lobby for a policy change (and a corresponding change to the boilerplate in the relevant templates) to that effect, of course. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:54, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not talking about "policy changes", I'm talking about "using your head for something besides a hat-rack." Why is there any need to muck around with the TFA? Is every other article absolutely perfect already, leaving only the TFA to require "improvement"? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:20, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Whether you admit it or not, you're advocating a stance which is diametrically opposed to current policy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:25, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it is clear that there is other important aspects of current policy that you are not really in touch with - not to mention basic principles of collegiality and sociality. Yes you have a right to edit the TFA - that does not mean that you must do so when you should be able to foresee that others might disagree.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:28, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• Andy Mabbett is technically correct: other people's feelings don't matter, and anyone can edit, and TFAs often get good edits on the day they are on the main page. Since Andy is relying on that techincal argument, I agree with the comments above that a full site ban is required as it obvious that Andy will never let an opportunity pass to force his view, and will argue indefinitely that HE IS RIGHT. There is not sufficient proof to convince a court of law that such behavior drives away good editors, but this is not a court of law—we can rely on commonsense and consensus. Looking at the situation shows what Andy is doing, and it is not helping the encyclopedia. The community has a choice: remove troublemakers and support content builders, or enable troublemakers and spit in the face of content builders. Johnuniq (talk) 02:21, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
  • It is beyond shortsighted to suggest that the dichotomy is between "content builders" and "troublemakers", and outright insulting to exclude an editor with 45,000 articlespace contributions from the former on the basis of that dichotomy. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:26, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
• I think what a lot of folks here want, and are not seeing anywhere, is for Andy to acknowledge that he made a bad judgment call - -- Quiddity (talk) 05:11, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

  Andy? Any chance of a reply to this? I really do believe it would help the situation, for all of us... -- Quiddity (talk) 21:42, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

  I'm loathe to stick my oar into this too much, but I just want to pick up on this point. I don't really know Andy particularly well, I haven't seen any form of edit warring or any edits he's done that haven't improved the encyclopaedia from at least some angle, and his enthusiasm for the place is a great asset. I see his point of view that you should be bold and improve stuff if you have a sincere belief it will result in an overall benefit. What I am seeing a lack of is not so much that he made a bad judgement call (I'm sure he'd argue otherwise - remorselessly) but an acceptance of the other point of view. Something like "I believe my actions were correct, but you know what, I see why you'd be annoyed. It's not the end of the world, after all. Sorry about that." Exactly what we can do about that, who knows. Probably nothing. --Ritchie333 16:16, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Both: I told Quiddity in email I'd post a reply on Tues, but in the light of Georgewilliamherbert's request, below, I'm going to hold off for now. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:17, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Question According to Misplaced Pages:Probation#Placed_by_the_Arbitration_Committee, it states "Pigsonthewing may be banned for good cause by any administrator from any page or talk page which he disrupts." It has an indefinite expiry date. Does that mean we don't actually require a full consensus for a topic ban, and hence can quickly resolve this before this discussion goes on and on and on even more? --Ritchie333 13:06, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

My reading is that the probation allows banning from individual pages as and when problems arise on those individual pages. A topic ban can be preventative. I also think thta we are getting consensus for the topic ban. SOme people want to go further but I think thta they will regard the topic ban as at least a start.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:53, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Close request

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

This has been running for 55 hours as I post here. I am and have always been a firm advocate of a two day running time for most long-term sanction discussions, to give everyone one turn of the planet to think about it, then another turn to give an opinion. Most discussions here attract a closer before that time, but I'm happy with this - and now it's time for someone uninvolved to step up and close it. I'm counting about 20 opinions above supporting an editing restriction, at least 3 opposes, and some comments that could be interpreted either way. The various policy bases are also laid out clearly. Obviously I prefer one outcome, but I really think the task of the closer here will just be to set the scope of the outcome I prefer. So who is willing to step up here? Thanks! :) Franamax (talk) 02:17, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

ANI is not the right venue for the introduction of complicated editing sanctions at the behest of a mob (whose suggestions run the gamut from a ban on editing TFA to a full site ban). It's not at all clear that there is a consensus here, and it's absurd to suggest that this has somehow met some sort of upper threshold on desired community input (twenty editors, most of whom are either long-term advocates or opponents of Andy, chipping in over a weekend). This needs a formal resolution and not an arbitrary close. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:55, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Close it. Clear consensus here merely confirms the findings of two Requests for Arbitration. --Folantin (talk) 09:04, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Thumper, while there are clearly related issues that need resolving, there is no consensus that there is an "Incident" here that needs admin action.

Propose the section is simply hatted and we move on. Rich Farmbrough, 11:22, 13 August 2012 (UTC).

Yeah. See Secretlondon's comment: "This is not the way to handle this." Br'er Rabbit (talk) 12:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

The proposed topic ban from TFA has broad support above, and it's not such a big deal as to require another arbitration case. 99.99% of editors wouldn't even notice being topic-banned from TFA ... JN466 13:02, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

99.99% of editors don't work on editing TFA. That means that the 0.01% who do (and that estimate is still several of orders of magnitude too high) are precious. They shouldn't be shed lightly on the basis of straw polls in which the majority of the participants have significant reasons to either support or exclude Andy's efforts on the project outwith the rather narrow domain of TFA. By and large straw polls on user conduct don't work after an editor reaches a certain threshold of fame / notoriety. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:19, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Why should Andy be allowed to continue editing TFA if his editing there is disruptive? I'd understand the need for an exemption if a Featured Article he had been a significant contributor to was at TFA, but as far as I can see, he's never written one. JN466 16:55, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

People who judge contributions to FAs on the basis of accumulated stars are why we shouldn't have a star-accumulation system. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:15, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, let's just assume that anyone who makes a nuisance of himself at TFA is someone who has made unknown but nevertheless vital contributions to Misplaced Pages's featured content, far more vital than the contributions of those who actually wrote that content. That makes a lot of sense. JN466 17:28, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that perpetuating the false dichotomy between "nuisances" and "those who actually wrote that content" indicates that you understand the point being made. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:57, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you're misjudging the arguments. They aren't saying we should judge Andy based on his abundance or lack of stars; rather, they are stating that his lack of involvement in the process highlights the disruptive nature of his edits at TFA, and that he is not a "precious" editor to the TFA process by any means. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  _¢ 21:34, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

As ArbCom has ruled: Mabbett "disregards the Misplaced Pages way of doing things and is unable or unwilling to improve his pattern of participation." Nothing has changed. He's still on probation (see ArbCom list here). This should be a routine matter of enforcement, despite what a small minority of his sympathisers claim. An editor who can't or won't moderate his behaviour despite repeated sanctions has to be reined in (again). Plus, we don't have vested contributors. --Folantin (talk) 16:00, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

That essay describes ("long-term contributors may begin to feel a sense of entitlement and superiority") not my behaviour, but the behaviour of your fellow classical music colleagues in regard to one ("consensus among those who work on articles in this category"; not to mention repeated references to a bogus instruction; see above), and others in regard to the second ("the main contributors who got this article up to FA... You have made one drive-by edit... As far as I'm concerned If doesn't want to see it there it shouldn't go in unless you can convince him and otherwise"") of the two single TFAs mentioned at the top of this sorry thread. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:36, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

And that ArbCom statement describes your behaviour in this and other areas. --Folantin (talk) 17:02, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

If this were genuinely a "routine matter of enforcement" then it wouldn't be generating this level of heat. Rather, the matter is complicated by a) the significant period of time between the sanctions and the present and b) the quite obvious desire for certain notoriously insular wikienclaves to rid themselves of a perceived pest. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:13, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

For the record, my tally (ending with Riggr) was, reading from my envelope, 5 +PC, 13 +TB, 3 +cmt, 3 +opp, 2 +ban. The range of solutions is not all that complex to analyze. Also I need to pay an instalment on my contents insurance. :) Franamax (talk) 01:23, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Could an uninvolved admin (that does not include the admin who hatted the discussion) please close the discussion and implement any sanction which the community may have decided on?--Wehwalt (talk) 12:06, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Exhaustion of community patience?

Reading the specifics of the close request discussion above, I think that I have to restate this in terms of a "exhaustion of community patience" case. This is an established, if relatively rare, sanction basis. The specific incident that precipitated this seems not to rise to the level of actionable, by itself (though an argument is being made that the pattern of prior action and probation might make it so). It and Andy's response do seem to have raised a high degree of ire in a wide swath of the community.

We have been bad about setting up better criteria for when someone has exhausted community patience. Exhausting one users' patience doesn't count; exhausting a bunch of users' patience also doesn't count, though at some point a bunch becomes enough. Andy does have an extensive history of various sanctions, but also extensive good editing. It's clear both that the number of upset people is in the tens (at least); it's not clear if that represents a consensus across those who pay attention to these matters.

With this in mind, I would like to request that previously uninvolved editors and administrators get involved and read up on this and comment. Please look at Andy's edit history as well as prior sanctions and the current situation. A consensus of otherwise uninvolved users would be far superior to an attempt to find consensus of ones who largely seem involved. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:06, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

• Statement of history. I know nothing about any of this. I haven't even been following the discussion above. For my own benefit and for the benefit of any other uninvolved editor, I thought I'd try to list Andy's "bad" history:

1. Andy's block log. Note that it shows the largest number of blocks in 2005, decreasing over time but still robust, and then a large gap between 2009 and 2012. Other gaps may be partly explained by bans listed below.
2. At the end of 2005, Andy was placed on indefinite probation. According to the Remedies section, Andy could be "banned for good cause by any administrator from any page or talk page which he disrupts." On January 25, 2006, he was banned from editing Misplaced Pages for one year. There are other "remedies". Andy is still on probation.
3. On August 19, 2007, Andy was again banned for one year.
4. According to the block log, on March 22, 2012, Andy was indeffed because of "BLP concerns" and until he "agrees to leave Jim Hawkins (radio presenter) alone." On the same day, the block was lifted because of a "clear emerging consensus for topic ban; block hopefully no longer needed". On April 2, 2012, a Hawkins topic ban was proposed. On April 7, the discussion was closed as no consensus for the ban.

That's all I'm doing for now. The next step would be for me to figure out what's happened more recently. But at least this history might help some other uninvolved editors who want to comment on the proposed topic ban. (If I've left out anything relevant, please let me know.)--Bbb23 (talk) 23:48, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

There was no topic ban regarding Jim Hawkins (nor idneed anything else), as a result of or connected to the March 2012 block either, and the blocking admin was criticised by others for his actions (Example). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

In this connection, I do note that Jimbo said "At least in terms of what has been presented, it is clear to me that a couple of people should be topic-banned from the article for being annoying for no encyclopedic purpose, and it should be indefinitely semi-protected." and also said "I already asked with kindness for Pigsonthewing to steer clear of the article. The mind boggles at the poor judgment of him getting involved anyway. ... Both of them should at a minimum be topic banned for being annoying to the subject." --Ritchie333 09:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

There were at least three topic ban threads, Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive233#Topic_ban, Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive744#Topic_ban_request and Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive234#Proposed_topic_ban_of_Pigsonthewing, . They carried on for weeks and eventually petered out. Also related are , Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive688#Jim_Hawkins, . In this section Jimbo Wales, Fæ, Kim Dent-Brown, Errant and Skyring pleaded with Andy to stop editing the article; he refused. --JN466 23:59, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. Again, invoking my status as uninvolved, I have to say that Andy's comments about the blocking admin being criticized (and reiterating that there was no topic ban, even though I updated that in the history) and Jay's comments generally aren't helpful for this editor. I can read those kinds of comments in the discussion above. I can't stop you from commenting in this section, but I sure wish you wouldn't and that you'd remove them. They will no doubt provoke more of the same.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:33, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I've removed the editorialising, but left the links I researched in response to your earlier query about the topic ban history. JN466 00:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I regret to say that I find Georgewilliamherbert's comments to be rather unfortunate. He repeatedly characterizes those who have called for a sanction against Andy as emotional (and accordingly, not as clear-thinking as he sets himself up to be) by referring to "ire" and people who are "upset", and at the end is rather dismissive in terming them as "largely ... involved". Plainly Gwh doesn't agree with action being taken against Andy, but I wish he would not make characterizations about the positions of other editors in that manner.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe that "largely ... involved" is an unbiased description of the activity above. If you want to break it down commenter by commenter in toto and that disproves the generalization, I will accept a correction.

I do not disagree with action being taken in the sense of registering an OPPOSE (either publicly or privately concluding such) - I have not been involved, and we want un-involved admins to assess and engage on problem discussions and community action proposals. My assessment is that a large group who largely are involved want Andy banned, in general and for an incident. My assessment of the incident - personal admin assessment, not overriding either the community writ large or another admin's judgement - is that the incident showed misbehavior (slightly disruptive disregard for other parts of the community) but not bannable behavior, even for someone under sanctions already and with an extensive record. My assessment of "in general" is that - as always - the community writ large can exhaust patience but a pool of involved editors cannot.

I understand where your and Jayen's frustrations are coming from. But we really, really need uninvolved input to determine community exhaustion of patience. Please. I am disregarding people because I see what appears to be involvement, yes, but that's the point: exhaustion of community patience needs that separation.

Again, if you want to identify specific people who commented earlier who aren't involved, if that stands up, their input is back in consideration. I would very much like to see additional input by others as well.

I'm not "in charge" of this - but I care about how the community sanctions process works and have been very involved with developing it over the years. I can't override other admins who may chose to do something, but I believe I'm doing the right thing here with this request and framing the question this way. If you think I'm being biased against action, the process is biased against action - by design, and explicitly. Enough uninvolved people need to comment strongly enough to establish whether the wider community really does want a severe sanction or not. Please respect the process. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:55, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Please don't add to it by referring to "your and Jayen's frustrations". It's the same style of argument. You're setting yourself up as the reasonable person and suggesting that those who don't agree with you are acting in an emotional manner. Very regrettable.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:14, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• (e/c w. GWH) Speaking as someone who you would have to invoke a multiverse with wormhole travel and time-distortion fields to consider involved in any way, yeah I'm not happy with the precise wording. But I do think that the previous commenters should back off, and that includes Andy, and let some more people chime in. Otherwise we're going to wind up with a "no result" as the same participants regurgitate, which isn't going to help anything. Franamax (talk) 01:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• While you folk duke this out, I propose a topic ban for Franamax for articles related to wormhole travel, narrowly construed to only those articles on another Misplaced Pages on a different Internet far far away.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

There is community support for banning Andy from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day. Would an uninvolved admin please close this? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:27, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The situation is more complicated than that. If I were as desperate to "get rid" of "uncouth bullies" as you in this case, I'd actually be keener on a formal resolution which might enact that than on the quickest punitive action that could be flung together at ANI. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Whether or not it is more complicated than that or no, I think the community has spoken, and that a closing admin will bar Andy from the TFA.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:44, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment As the original poster, I wish to popint out that the only other place I have posted about this thread is on Andy's talk page where I was obliged to give notice. I have not been to any of the classical music projects, the featured article project, to Wikipediocracy or to anywhere else to drum up support nor have I sent messages to anyone who had not already contributed to this discussion. Therefore the suggestion that this discussion involves more involved people than any other ANI ban discussion needs some justification.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I would join with that. I found the comments referred to condescending.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Whether editors were canvassed into commenting here or not (and let's point out that nobody has suggested any impropriety on behalf of Peter Cohen or anyone else in that regard), the overrepresentation of comments here by editors who have previously had some sort of major dispute with Andy certainly makes it less clear-cut that the current input represents the consensus of the general community. The classical music project, for instance, is plainly overrepresented, including one commentator who described himself as only coming to ANI once a year. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

And techies are overrepresented among Mabbett's defenders. --Folantin (talk) 15:52, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

But not in this discussion, which is the most important aspect of determining whether this represents the consensus of the community as a whole. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:02, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

FA process

What FlyingPigs said earlier has merit, as follows: Rather than targeting some overly-"helpful" individual, it should be a matter of etiquette, and of "not harming wikipedia", if not outright policy, to act as follows: "Once an article is a Featured Article, don't modify it without consultation. It has gone through the FA process and been seen by many eyes. Don't take it upon yourself to subvert that consensus." Or words to that effect. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 13:40, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The FA team have made clear that they explicitly consider the use of an infobox (or coordinates), or not, to be outside the FAC process's consideration. Surely, therefore, the fact that an article is an FA does not mean that that issue has been considered, or decided by the community, or has consensus? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:10, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Bugs, I think you wrote "many" where you meant to write "at least three or four".

Also, as per the example I gave earlier, where I see something wrong in a Featured Article, I boldly fix it - I don't go looking for "consultation" first - unless the fix is likely to be controversial. All editors are encouraged to do the same. The original incident under discussion here, allegedly has factors making it a bit different. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Fixing something wrong, such as an obvious misspelling or some such, is fine. Screwing around with actual content should be done with something resembling consensus. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:27, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The example I was discussing was fixing a major factual error in the article. That certainly is "screwing around with actual content". But "don't modify it without consultation" is a non-starter here. Misplaced Pages policy hasn't changed on that, and I don't see a consensus to change it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 10:23, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely not. A ghastly thought. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:14, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Putting the readers ahead of egoistic editors - yes, what a ghastly thought. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:27, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I think a better way of putting what Bugs tried to say is that you shouldn't make major alterations to a FA without discussion, or should not object to a reversion and be willing to talk it out. The lack of an infobox was not the same thing as a misspelling or a misused dash. And TFA day is difficult enough (especially since Raul's gone to a "just-in-time" scheduling practice) without having to deal with such things.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:17, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

That's already codified (1e in the FA criteria). This is a stronger proposal. I'm not even getting into the discussion about whether the addition of an infobox—routinely applied to every biography on the project without anyone batting an eyelid, unless the person in question wrote classical music for a living—counts as a major upheaval. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:31, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

"be willing to talk it out" In both (yes, there are just two) of the examples given at the top of this "Incident", I was involved in the talk page discussion; I started one of them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:38, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Surely the whole point of the FA process is to attract people to editing articles, isn't it? For example, we take pains to avoid protecting the day's FA so that we don't stifle new interest in editing it. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

... it seems that some editors, who have “bust a gut” producing an FA, even several years ago, get a little 'uneasy' when editors who are “too ignorant and lazy” to direct their attention elsewhere, try to improve it. Even when they open a discussion on the Talk Page to do just that. Perhaps what is needed, once an article has achieved FA, is a big permanent banner proclaiming who still owns the article – a whole new exciting direction for WP:OWN? I’m sure this would be welcomed by some editors. Although not by me. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:53, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Write one, and we'll talk again.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:02, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

You're obviously mature enough not to be so flippant on ANI, so are you honestly suggesting that input into this proposal (made by another editor who hasn't any successful FA noms AFAICS) should be limited to people with stars on their user pages? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:08, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Read what I replied to.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:33, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I had thought the process was meant to be collaborative and not quite so exclusively competitive. But then, I used to have that view about the whole project. Still, good job we can't talk again, eh? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:16, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Your sarcastic comments directed at those who write FAs are uncalled for, and as I pointed out, uninformed.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:20, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I see. Uninformed by the recent personal experience that has prompted my decision to consider leaving the project? Apologies for using direct quotes there, Wehwalt. And apologies to all the other, perfectly reasonable, FA writers. I do hope Andy is treated reasonably. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:53, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Right! Stop that! It's far too silly! Don't take this too seriously. Another user just wants you to know something you said crosses their boundaries of sensibility.

I don't think we're getting anywhere. Let's all take a deep breath, relax, and wait for a closing admin. --Ritchie333 17:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I tend to think that while some such idea would have merit, this particular proposal might not. I haven't been that heavily involved in FA process, but there do seem to be, and perhaps have been, several articles which have been promoted only to be rather quickly demoted again later. This might be because few people were involved initially, or that there was a "trend" in the field which later faded, or whatever. I would myself favor having the FA process explicitly involve reviewing the content of similar published reference articles on the subjects, which I think would help reduce the percentage of demotions. But, without that, yeah, academic opinions do change over time, sometimes quickly, and I think it is reasonable to make allowances for them. Particular concerns might be about politicians who see a major scandal in the brewing who might want to get their pointmen to write their bio up to FA level without any indications of the scandal in the offing. If we could make review of extant reference sources more of a factor in the FA process, then maybe instituting a later step like this might be a good idea, but we should probably try to get things done in the right order. John Carter (talk) 20:31, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Resolution: that User:Pigsonthewing be banned from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day

Above, Thumperward (talk · contribs) recommended a formal resolution be put regarding Andy. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Based on the above. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Support Same basis.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:11, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support It's not the time to start edit wars when something is TFA. The focus needs to be on fixing any errors or vandalism not on controversial cosmetic issues.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:59, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

*Comment1 Should the header for this vote be changed to level 3 not level 2?--Peter cohen (talk) 19:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment2 There were some people above who voted for a ban. If they wish to do so again, could they consider doing this as a separate motion with a separate header so that !votes don't get split 3 ways which makes it harder tor each a consensus? Thanks.--Peter cohen (talk) 19:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support Per previous comments (based on ArbCom findings). --Folantin (talk) 19:12, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Two instances of Andy making policy-compliant edits that the folks who WP:OWN the articles don't like. Despite Andy engaging on the talk pages, he's still pilloried. It's just a convenient means of silencing those who have different opinions. Additionally, it is now proposed that he be banned from editing any article scheduled as FA of the day. There has been absolutely no evidence brought forward showing any problems with Andy editing articles scheduled as TFA. If the TB is to be broadened that far, then it had better be debated first - rather than tacked on like a pork bill. --RexxS (talk) 19:26, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

When I said "formal resolution" I meant ArbCom, not all the same people as the above section bold wording their opinions again just in case anyone had missed the bold text behind the original (bonus points for Peter Cohen doing it thrice). Lord knows how this was misconstrued. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah. I misunderstood. Shall we close this thread and take it to Arbitration, or let it run and see if this makes the consensus any clearer? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

That would be best, lest some naive admin count heads here and be embroiled in what would seem to be the inevitable future ArbCom discussion on accounts on enacting a controversial topic ban. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Frankly, I find it rather annoying that you would characterize an admin who closed this on the same side as the numbers are as automatically "naive", as I do your suggestion above that I'm part of some mob. You've basically tried to set this up as some "no reasonable person would close this with a ban result", and that's just plain rubbish and insulting to those who are just tired of Andy's behaviour. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

So you would suggest that counting heads is a sensible option here? I notice that you're semi-retired yourself, and that you've made less than a dozen articlespace edits since the start of the year. That doesn't do much to shift the notion that this is a petition rather than an assessment of consensus. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 06:25, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, of course. If you can't discredit people's arguments, discredit the people themselves. Great idea. And no, I do not suggest counting heads, I suggest weighing arguments. If someone closes against a ban based on arguments, OK; as I'm OK with a close against me if there's an actual policy-based reason. Unsubstantiated mob accusations and insinuations that semi-retired (burnt-out, actually) users ought not to have suffrage are not policy-based. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 16:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Pointing out your lack of recent articlespace edits was not meant to disparage you, or suggest you are no longer allowed to have an opinion: it does, however, lend credence to the idea that the perceived support for sanctions here should not be taken on a naive (there's that word again) head count given that so much of it comes from editors who have long histories with Andy and that therefore less resembles a community weather vane as it does a petition. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:18, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• I support it, as it seems to me to be within the bounds of the existing ArbCom ruling of the editor in question. But, if others wish to, I could see that this might be sent to WP:AE for input. I rather seriously doubt that it would necessarily be taken up by ArbCom itself, though, given the rather straightforward nature of their previous ruling on the matter. John Carter (talk) 20:37, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support Clearly its necessary, but as John Carter says I have no problem with it being sent to AE. -DJSasso (talk) 20:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I also have no problems with it being sent to WP:AE for input, and I feel that Thumperward's resolution is necessary to prevent further issues. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 20:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Actually, I put the resolution. I misunderstood Thumperward who suggested the case should be taken to ArbCom. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 21:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support. JN466 22:00, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support, alas. I personally am in the camp of those who believe each and every article should have an infobox - however, as mentioned above, mucking about with an article that's on the front page sends wholly the wrong impression. If Andy would just say "whoops, my bad, I'll be more careful in the future - and remember that there is no deadline", this wouldn't still be going on. The fact he hasn't (as far as I can tell in all the nearly WP:TLDR debate above) said that, however, indicates that this is necessary. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support and to be clear, based on the methodology of the edits, rather than on the merits. --Rschen7754 01:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support, rationale already provided above. And I don't see any need to escalate to ArbCom here, unless we're going to suggest that the community isn't allowed to implement sanctions any longer. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support for exactly the same reasons as The Bushranger. Actually, I wouldn't quite go so far - I agree that it can be a valid application of WP:BOLD to update TFA with an infobox (eg: "I don't have much time on WP so I had to do it now", "I wasn't sure of process, so I just did it", "I'd never heard of the article today and wanted to help"), but my sense from the above discussion is we don't have a reasonable excuse that addresses everyone's concerns. Even so, an apology would go a long way to fixing all this. --Ritchie333 06:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support —MistyMorn (talk) 10:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support - perhaps we can avoid escalation? GiantSnowman 10:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Sorry Andy; the TFA process can't work if it's exhausting. - Dank (push to talk) 13:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support - certainly not the place for pointy and contentious editing. OhNoitsJamie 17:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per RexxS. I observe Andy's issues always seem to come in conjunction with small cabals of editors who display very strong ownership tendencies; and who to my mind seem to prioritise the acquisition of badges - GA, FA - above improving article content to a point at which an article unambiguously deserves those badges. In effect we're seeing standards being lowered so that borderline articles can be forced through. FA in particular should be a very hard look at an article to see if it is part of the best of wikipedia. It is exactly the sort of place that I would expect to see robust discussion. Sadly, I repeatedly see proponents of an article achieving GA or FA getting very emotional about what should be a rational discourse. And so now, to forestall nasty Andy wading in to argue in particular for structured information such as for coords or infoboxen, you want to ban him because you don't like arguing the point with him? That's really disgusting, and very much the thin end of the wedge. It is absolutely legitimate for any editor to express their opinion as to an FAC. You may not like the opinion. You may wish to argue against the opinion, (but you should be aware that Andy will invariably argue right back). But you should in good faith respect the opinions he holds rather than seek to no-platform him so that your FACs can have an easier life. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure who that's directed at, but I'm going to assume it's not me. As I've tried to make clear from several edits, I have no problem with Andy expressing an opinion, and I frankly agree with him that he had the perfect right to improve the article if he had a genuine belief it would be beneficial. Below you'll see a solution I have for making this a much easier ride for everyone. Having done about 3 hours' work this evening on getting an article towards GA quality (and it's still far from ready), I couldn't disagree more that GAN and FAC are a walk in the park - absolutely not. I've spent 2 weeks reviewing a GA article, about 3 days doing another one, I've got another one on the go as well, and I'm still getting (albeit constructive and welcome) criticism from the first. I can only imagine FAC is worse. However, you are correct about one thing - there is strong evidence for people not wishing to argue with him. And why should they? Is not WP:3RR just a specialised case of an argument? There is a very fine but distinct difference between arguing and simply agreeing to disagree and deciding a consensus. In my years of managing web forums and bulletin boards, I have come across a handful of people who seem to possess endless enthusiasm for disagreeing at absolutely everything, pulling apart sentences to pick out the one fragment they dislike, and at no point in the proceedings do they stop back and think "Is it worth doing this? Why don't we just drop it?" They're very difficult to ban outright as it's extremely hard to point to any actual direct ad-hominem attacks. Almost without exception, the two endgames of that are that that person gets finally gets banned (after years of aggravation) or takes an extended holiday following the threat of one, or the community disintegrates into a heap. We haven't had the first with Andy, and we can't have the second because we're one of the few communities big enough to withstand such a thing. The ban, at least from my view, is to protect Andy from going off on the rails and ending up doing something silly like this sorry example. I would urge you to comment on my alternative proposal below. --Ritchie333 20:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

@Tagishsimon I don't see where anyone has suggested that Andy be banned from FAC, so even if this passes he will still be able to comment there. Weighing in a FAC is a much better idea than waiting for TFA, anyway. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:42, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, yes. Off in my own little world, for whatever reason, thinking the proposal extended to FAC. Thank you, Mark. My oppose still stands, however. Looking, for instance, at the two articles cited by the OP, Manchester Ship Canal and Georg Solti, I see Andy adding a table of coords in one, and an infobox in t'other. I do not see any edit warring whatsoever. Stuff was boldly added. The additions were reverted. The matter got taken to the appropriate talk page. What's not to like about that? I'm finding it really hard to believe that anyone would want to bar Andy for having the temerity to do what we're all encouraged to do, merely because such a person doesn't happen to like coords or infoboxes or the style of Andy's argumentation. That sucks. @Ritchie333 ... if I understand your alternative proposal correctly, it is to require Andy to put together a GA or an FA, so as to increase his empathy for GA & FA writers. I don't support that, first and foremost because I don't see that he has done anything w.r.t. FAs that deserves any sanction at all. The evidence supplied by the OP is not ban-worthy. The idea that there are not ownership issues w.r.t. road & composer articles is risible; the fact that Andy will argue against ownership again is not ban-worthy. Of course it would be great if Andy - and any of us - showed more empathy. Including those who would ban him on such scant evidence. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the issue is more that Andy has certain standards and expectations w.r.t. wikipedia pages which are not always shared by others in the community. His interventions in the pair of article pages cited by the OP seem to me to be entirely blameless. And whilst I am a critic of his style of arguing I very much want him to continue arguing for the sorts of things he argues for - mainly accessibility and structured data. I'd like him to show more empathy

• Oppose per RexxS and Tagishsimon's observation. None of what Andy did was harmful, nothing he inserted was incorrect or poorly sourced. It was just went against the Wikiproject that owns the article. The proof is in the pudding, instead of discussing the merits of his edits, we're trying to topic ban him. ThemFromSpace 19:41, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support, again, maybe I should get one of those stamps made as my reasoning has not changed. It's unfortunate to see the lineup along ideological lines ("oppose because all articles should have an infobox") when to me it's behavioural and more about WP:COMMONSENSE: sure, your ideas have merit and are worth discussing, but why here and why now? When you know TFA will be a contentious time to do it, is your thing really that crucial that you have to muscle onto centre-stage, stamp your foot up and down and say "I AM ALLOWED to do this"? IMO that is attention-seeking behaviour. Franamax (talk) 22:31, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

A suggestion

There's a lot of "attack! attack! attack!" in this discussion so far, so I'm going to throw this offer on the table as a more positive way of resolving things in the long term that doesn't go remotely near blocking anyone. I see a lot of (IMHO) justified criticism that Andy has not demonstrated any empathy towards others. One possible way of resolving this is to encourage him through getting an article to FAC himself, to see things from the other side. There's a number of Pink Floyd articles that aren't FA but could be - my eye's personally on Atom Heart Mother, though that needs a lot of work just to get it to GA status for now. Still, it's the one I think we can get the best story out of against the Floyd albums that haven't gone through FAC as it stands. I can't see any obvious evidence that he's been involved in the previous FAC reviews (Parrot of Doom seems to be the main driver), so what he does with the Floyd articles, if anything, I don't know.

Getting through the FAC review, as far as I can tell, requires research, diligence, and the ability to listen to criticism. If the FAC reviewer say "jump", you better jump. If you argue with them, you'll fail the review. Simple as.

If the ban carries, perhaps we could use getting an article through FAC himself as a condition of it being lifted.

Thoughts? Or this is just too much effort and a waste of time? --Ritchie333 12:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The difficulty is his contributions to the TFA. Bringing articles to FA is highly laudable, but how does it address the issue? This isn't a punishment, for which he must do community service to atone, it's to address unfortunate interactions that have helped to lose us a valuable editor and friend. If your concern is that he might not be able to edit his own TFA, I think it would be a common-sense exception that could be addressed once the article was scheduled or nominated for scheduling at TFA/R.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:23, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you've read that slightly differently to what I intended. The idea is that the act of getting an article to FA and through the review will hopefully make him understand what sort of constructive debate is required, and he'll realise that pushing back on things, even when he's sure he's right, isn't necessarily useful for a collaborative environment. --Ritchie333 14:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The concept of learning through walking a mile in the other guy's shoes is always attractive. My concern is that in real life, human nature usually intervenes somewhere along the line. Perhaps others feel differently.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Andy actually does understand, why the (infobox on classical TFA) timing was bad. Which is why I was suggesting an "acknowledgement" was needed, earlier.

There are logically two possibilities. Either:

1. Andy does understand, and is being tactical/stubborn. He is refusing to admit anything, because he doesn't want to "give an inch, lest they take a mile". (In this instance, he doesn't want to let the "article/wikiprojects can decide for themselves" infobox-precedent stand un-protested, for fears that it will spread...)
   • Possible Solution: He needs to recognize the perspectives/points of other people, when the disagreement is nuanced / ambiguous / non-clear / subjective, just a bit more often. It would also help if he spent more time editing his choice of words, avoiding divisive and inflammatory words as much as possible. ("straw man", "duped", etc). It will take longer, but work better.
2. Andy does Not understand the problem, due to non-neurotypical thinking, or similar.* If this is the case, then there are only two possible solutions:
   • Last-resort Prevention: community sanctions of some sort. He literally cannot be reasoned with in some cases, and in those cases we need a damage-control mechanism. (Like the 70+ biographical Featured articles without infoboxes, and hundreds of nonfeatured, that he'll eventually make his way around to (but "non-systematically" per the rfc).)
   • Possible Cure: find someone who can re-explain certain-things, in a way that does make sense to him, when he gets into a battle like this. (Wherein he sincerely doesn't comprehend the legitimacy of the other points of view.)

• *Note: I was reading this excellent essay (mostly by Pesky) recently, plus a number of books that touch upon similar topics and situations.**
• **Note2: See also: Exformation as brilliantly explained by zefrank. Our discussions (here, and throughout Misplaced Pages, and throughout life) are overflowing with exformation. It's a useful thing to understand. The newcomers don't have any exformation, and the oldhands have too much!

I earnestly hope that this framing of the situation will help. It's in the gray-zone of too-personal, which we usually and officially steer clear of; but it's a systemic/widespread set of problems (miscommunications that escalate), and if we can create a positive-outcome here (for everyone), then it could be immeasurably helpful in the future.

-- Quiddity (talk) 22:23, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Advice on a failed RTV

Please see

Short summary:

• • I see a user page on my watchlist deleted as a G6, but mostly as enforcement of a RTV
  • I ask Magog about the deletion
  • After discussion Magog restores the user page, though it stays protected (totally ok with that)
  • I also notice that the contributions are missing
  • Neither Magog or I know the proper thing to do/request
  • I come here

My preferred outcome would be to either link the contributions with the failed RTV account, or to the current account.

Opinions? Arkon (talk) 01:04, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• I wasn't necessarily thrilled with this whole vanish and start over thing, but this particular situation has really been talked to death about a dozen times, at ArbCom, at WP:BN, I'm sure at ANI... and I can't understand why we need to discuss it yet again. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• If you could link me to those that would be great. -Removed previous bad reading on my part- Arkon (talk) 01:51, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

  And by the way, this needn't be user specific. I tried to not mention names for that reason. In similar situations (SA), the contributions remain. Arkon (talk) 01:56, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The initial account was re-named to User:Vanished user 03, and that is where you will find the contribs (October 2003 to August 2010). -- Dianna (talk) 03:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah , I found that when I went looking for the SA situation. It's in one of my self reverted edits to this section actually. Arkon (talk) 03:08, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

This was just hatted. I reverted that. The rational given is that 'there is nothing to do'. I proposed 'something to do'. I'd appreciate comments. Arkon (talk) 08:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I did. So, what administrative action exactly do you want here? Regards, — Moe ε 08:17, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

It's in the original report, right above you.

I quote: "My preferred outcome would be to either link the contribs with the failed RTV account, or to the current account."

I (or any non-admin) can't do this. Arkon (talk) 08:25, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

If you're looking for prior conversation about Prioryman and his RTV, there are discusssions at Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 9#Official Comment requested and a couple threads at the top of Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 10 from a year ago, along with other threads at different boards I haven't been able to find yet. Like I said, ArbCom is already fully aware of who Prioryman is (as well as several other parts of community). Again, what is it exactly you intend to accomplish by restarting this conversation? Why is it necessary to have a link between the two or have the contributions moved? Regards, — Moe ε 09:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Appreciate the links, I hadn't read any of that previously. Arbcom being aware or not aware isn't the issue. The issue at this point is the linking of the contributions. I see no discussion related to the issue in your links, but admit to not reading them fully at this time (will do tomorrow.) Just because the failed RTV has been discussed, doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to come to a consensus of what to do when RTV fails. The fail I've personally seen was SA, and contributions are fully available. Get back to you tomorrow on the details :) Arkon (talk) 09:27, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

In my view, several things need to be done to normalise the situation:

• User:ChrisO should be marked as indefinitely blocked, and redirect to User:Prioryman.
• The contributions history currently attributed to User:Vanished user 03 should be reattributed to User:ChrisO (or User:Prioryman, whichever he prefers).
• User:L'ecrivant should be marked as an indefinitely blocked sockpuppet of User:ChrisO.
• Prioryman should tell the community and/or the arbitration committee whether or not he authored the material contributed to Misplaced Pages by User:Helatrobus (which, in case anyone is wondering, was not an arbcom-approved sock). JN466 13:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
  • More or less, that seems to be consistent with WP:RTV and would make sense, and I would support that. Vanishing should never be maintained by Misplaced Pages unless it is maintained by the user. I have no problem with Prioryman being here, but clarity and honesty as to the past should be required, as I would expect it to be for any user that unvanished themselves. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Why indefinitely block ChrisO? As long as the person running the account has done nothing to deserve such a block for all his accounts, couldn't it be marked as an alternate account? As far as I can see, the only situations when an indef should be applied to one account but not the other are (1) compromised password, or (2) disruptive socking or other problems that would result in a prohibition on Prioryman from editing as any other account name. Obviously the first isn't true, and I don't see a reason for the prohibition in the second to be enacted. Nyttend (talk) 17:52, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
      • User:ChrisO is indef-blocked already, per his block log. JN466 01:01, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Nothing should be done here, because of the history of previous ArbCom cases that involved a lot of secret horse tradings. People have made compromizes and if we now want to do things according to the book, then you end up undermining these informal agreements. Count Iblis (talk) 18:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I can't really grasp your argument here. "It's super secret, so hey, look over there"? Dennis and JN have hit the nail in their previous comments, I'd say. Arkon (talk) 18:57, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

If there are "informal, secret agreements" that contradict the book then they absolutely need to be undermined. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:51, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

In an ArbCom cases, you can always propose some compromize, you can get off with a lighter sanction in exchange for a volunatry editing restriction. In some cases, off site harassment may have been an issue and that can count as a mitigating factor. Such issues can be discussed privately with ArbCom and you can get a reasonable deal that works. However, to outsider things are not so transparant. What we really need to focus on is creating an environment that both Prioryman and Jayen466 feel happy to work in; continuing to fight old battles for which the ArbCom sanctions have long expired is not a good thing. Count Iblis (talk) 23:04, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

ChrisO invoked the right to vanish just before the conclusion of the climate change arbitration case, while sanctions were being considered against him. He then registered a sock, User:L'ecrivant, within hours of invoking the right to vanish. The sock was spotted a few weeks later by a steward, User:Avraham, who indef-blocked both the ChrisO account and the L'ecrivant account for abusing RTV. ChrisO then registered User:Prioryman; that account too was spotted by Avraham and blocked as a sock, but unblocked by an arbitrator (Roger Davies) after ChrisO came to an understanding with them about his continued participation. All that was discussed on-wiki at some length last year. The community did not learn that Prioryman was ChrisO returned until the summer of the year after that, when he began to involve himself in old conflicts (while pretending to be new to them). So the deal that got Prioryman back into the project was not part of any arbitration case. I don't have any problem with Prioryman working here at all; he has written some outstanding content. But the history should be transparent, if only for such cases where Prioryman argues that another editor should be site-banned on account of his block log, or other perceived infractions. Prioryman himself has a lengthy block log, and three indef blocks against his name, and he should not be able to pass himself off as a squeaky clean editor when proposing sanctions for others, which he is unfortunately fond of doing. Again, nothing against his content work, much of which is first rate. --JN466 00:22, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Normally, I would put this to a vote at WP:AN (or move this over there) as a proposal to unvanish, and point to (and protect if needed). At least that is what I did with SA, the last (only?) unvanishing I am aware of. It requires a 'crat to do the actual unvanishing, and is easy to do but takes a bit to filter through the process. I haven't seen Prioryman comment yet and prefer to hear from him first. I assume he was notified, which is a little confusing for him not to pipe in. My interactions with him have always been positive, but I agree about transparency, consistency in policy and how it might look like avoiding scrutiny if we didn't link them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 11:39, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep, notified him here. Arkon (talk) 14:12, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

The CC ArbCom case was a big horse trade session where the Arbs did not consider the relevant facts and instead declared everyone who had a significant editing history in the controversial topics to be guilty. You could only propose a voluntary topic ban (like e.g. KimDabbelsteinPetersen did), or else you would be topic banned. The fundamental problem was that lacking good policies for that sort of topic area, the majority of editors by consensus decided how the topic should be edited, which amounts to enforcing policies that do not exist. The editors who didn't like that considered that to be "tag team reversions".

ArbCom failed to identify the underlying cause of the problems (the lack of good policies), and faulted the editors who did their best to keep the articles in an acceptable shape. This was too much for some editors like ChrisO and Polargeo. If ArbCom ends up to topic banning a scientist who works at ESA who is an expert at Earth observation from climate science articles because they don't want to get into the relevant editing issues, then the whole ruling is worthless. Count Iblis (talk) 19:20, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, none of that is relevant to the question. Arkon (talk) 19:32, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying - I've been tied up with some more pressing things.

The status of my former contributions has already been addressed and resolved by agreement with Arbcom. It would be highly inadvisable for editors to unilaterally seek to overturn arbitrators' decisions - they don't seem to like that for some reason.

However, I don't have any objections if someone wants to redirect my old username to my present one. I hope that's an acceptable compromise. Prioryman (talk) 00:42, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous, the community cannot overturn an ArbCom decision, but there's absolutely no reason why it cannot impose a more severe sanction than ArbCom considered appropriate, or one that runs in parallel with it. Your "warning" in this context is quite inapppropriate and, considering the totality of your history, you'd be best advised to hold your peace and not make any more veiled threats. If ArbCom wants to warn admins against taking a certain action, they're quite capable of speaking for themselves without you chiming in. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:58, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Whatever agreement you had with ArbCom became moot when you revealed your identity by returning to areas of prior dispute, rather than avoiding them. And you never clarified whether or not the contributions made by User:Helatrobus were authored by you or not. Neither the arbitration committee nor the community were ever given a clear answer. Could you answer the question now? JN466 01:32, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm merely pointing out that the appropriate route to resolve this would be through Arbcom. It would be inappropriate to try to use a community process to overturn arbitrators' decisions. Their decisions are not usually subject to amendment by community processes. Prioryman (talk) 07:55, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

If it were a clear and specific decision made by ArbCom, you would have a point. "Horse trades" madeby ArbCom are not, howeverm in that category. ArbCom, for example, does not have the power to say "Editor X is exempted from Policy Y because we made a deal and for no other reasons" which is the case at hand. This is not an "amendment" to an ArbCom decision, and thus is properly discussed here, whether one likes it or not. Cheers. Collect (talk) 08:08, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe the community may now feel entitled to take Prioryman's continued refusal to answer the question whether or not they authored the contributions of User:Helatrobus as an admission that he did, and that this was yet another account he operated after the RTV. The Helatrobus account stopped editing a while ago, but should probably be indeffed as well. JN466 09:53, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Take to AN and Vote?

Dennis made a suggestion for the next course of action. Unless there are significant objections, I'd appreciate an admin taking the lead on this. Arkon (talk) 18:17, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I second the motion to take this to AN for an admin vote. Cla68 (talk) 23:31, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Significant objection. See above. Prioryman (talk) 00:43, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

As the subject of the potential action, you would be expected to object, so your comment is irrelevant. You do not control here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:02, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I also second this motion. --JN466 01:49, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's much benefit here. We are interested primarily in what editors are doing now and in the future. If there was contested behaviour in the past that is documented a Arbcom case, then the additional benefit of spending admin time on attributing every single edit seems slim to none. Seems like something where we can usefully move forward, rather than living in the past. Rich Farmbrough, 18:18, 13 August 2012 (UTC).

Apparently the effort involved is minimal according to Dennis above. I don't really see the rest of your comment as an argument against correcting this. Arkon (talk) 19:47, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

It isn't personal, and I'm not beating a drum over the issue, but unless there is a specific reason that Arbcom has to handle this, then it would be a function of WP:AN, not Arbcom. The policy clearly says it can be reversed by the community, not by ArbCom. Again, it has been a slow process, to allow plenty of time for someone from ArbCom to come in and present a reason, assuming you would ask them to. If not, an editor has asked for it to go to a vote, and I've just said that WP:AN is the proper venue, based on the fact that the last unvanishing was done there. That doesn't mean it will be unvanished, but there is a policy based reason why the editor would like to start the process, and regardless of how I feel about it, I don't see any policy based reason to deny it. Once again, no one has rushed here, and we are all ears as to how this is counter to some previous agreement, even though it is doubtful that an ArbCom agreement has the authority to bypass policy here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 21:23, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

To be fair, I would ask a wait of at least 48 hours, to allow ArbCom to respond if they choose. My understanding is that they have been informed. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 21:29, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

OK. JN466 22:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• I can't help but feel that this AN issue has been initiated due to some other cases that may be under discussion elsewhere involving Prioryman's participation. In the interests of getting on with other stuff, I don't believe there is anything to be gained at this stage by revisiting the RTV issue at all. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Feel as you wish, but I posted the diff of the reason I brought this here at the very top. Arkon (talk) 14:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Again, if we can just wait a day, I'm told there is an ongoing discussion and I'm always for a simple, peaceful resolution. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Personal attacks, possible off-wiki dispute

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• Random5555 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DiasMi012 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Somehow I stumbled on a dispute between these two individuals on articles related to Los Angeles-area public transportation, particularly Los Angeles Metro bus fleet (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). On 12 July I gave both users a level 4im warning ( ) as they were making personal attacks on each other's talk pages. In particular, Dias created an attack page on Random's main user page (since deleted so I don't have a diff), and Random has taken to edit summaries ( ). Dias even placed this comment on my talk page in response to the warning. I haven't had the time to wikistalk these two in the weeks since, but now that I've looked through their contribution histories I see that both have taken to edit summaries to continue their personal attacks ( ) and some of these edit summaries tell me that these two are continuing an off-wiki dispute ( ). This is a combination of edit warring, ownership of articles, and personal attacks, and I'd like some admins to take a look to see if blocking is warranted. —KuyaBriBri 18:24, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Well. I consider that an EW warning might be the way, and if they continue with it, maybe a severe sanction would be on the way. I have read the diffs and they don't are substantial enough to be considered personal attacks, IMO. In relation to the ownership of articles, this may also apply, but not totally sure, as EW is still the main issue and none of them have created the article nor being the major contributor. — ΛΧΣ21™ 00:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, they seem to have stopped editing on August 11, and as a result, the edit warring issue may be over. Unless the users start edit warring again, i'm afraid it may not still be any problem. Regards. — ΛΧΣ21™ 00:27, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Dias stopped editing on August 11, but Random is still active as of today. Kurtis (talk) 05:35, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• I don't want to jump to conclusions, and I hope neither of the parties take offence at my comments here, but am I the only one who thinks it's a very slight possibility that these two accounts are operated by the same person staging a sock battle on the article? They just seem to have a lot of vitriol directed at each other, and I can't for the life of me figure out what would provoke such bad blood between two people with virtually no interaction outside of Los Angeles Metro bus fleet. DiasMi012 has been editing since April 2011, whereas Random5555 has been here for just over a month; yet many of his edits are antagonistic towards Dias. Likewise, Dias has responded with somewhat snarky rebuttals, clearly out of some degree of frustration with Random. I think the best solution in this instance, assuming they are completely different editors (which I still consider likely, despite my sentiments above), is to strongly suggest that these two cease interacting with each other. It's pretty clear that nothing good will come of them having any further direct contact, given how they can't work out their differences in a reasonable manner. I also feel as if Random5555 would be best advised to edit elsewhere, as he obviously has very little control over his emotions while editing the article in question. If he does not prove to be constructive anywhere else, then I actually recommend a block — thus far, he doesn't appear to be able to collaborate effectively with other editors. In DiasMi012's case, I think a stern warning to avoid edit warring and to keep his cool, even when the editing gets tough, will do. If problems persist with him, it might also be best for Dias not to edit Los Angeles Metro bus fleet. Just my $0.02. Kurtis (talk) 05:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• I'll go ahead and give some more warnings, but Random has been warned about civility already, and I think that this taking to edit summaries to make their jabs at each other is just a backhanded way of evading direct contact (e.g., on a talk page). —KuyaBriBri 21:10, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot and hoax content

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In this edit User:Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot added hoax content to Larry Storch. In this edit to Talk:Larry Storch he indicates that he did it intentionally, knowing it to be a hoax. It seems to be part of larger experiment to see how long it takes Wikipedians to catch this type of vandalism. However, when an anonymous editor removed the vandalism with this edit, Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot simply reinserted it with this edit. In my mind this behavior is very detrimental to Misplaced Pages, but I would have been willing to let it drop. However, on several occasions (here, and here) I have asked Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot if he has similarly introduced hoax material into other articles, but he has refused to supply an answer. I have no choice but to conclude that there are other articles out there which still have hoax material in them that Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot has introduced. I am bringing this here to a wider audience so that others can look at his edits and help identify any other hoaxes/vandalism that Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot may have added to Misplaced Pages articles. Gnome de plume (talk) 17:34, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

This is really a non-issue. On July 10, I added some information, cited by Kinston.com, about an alleged noise pollution sentence by a Judge to Larry Storch, requiring him to play the teapot song in his car. I originally did not realize that this was satire, so I thought that I was adding valid information. However, a few days later, I realized that it was satire, but I decided to keep it because I wanted to conduct a little experiment to see how long it would take for the material to be reverted. The information was reverted by Gnome de plume on August 13, over one month after the material was added. This actually tells me of a potential weakness in our policies, or our enforcement of them, such that material in WP:BLP articles can appear to be well-cited and sourced yet still not be valid. So we, as editors, must be vigilant and cognizant of this, as well as aware of WP:RS issues. So no, I wasn't "vandalizing". I was just trying to illustrate a point. I apologize if I was seen as a common asshole vandal. WTF? (talk) 17:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

You were disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point. "Such tactics are highly disruptive and can lead to a block (possibly indefinite) or ban." —C.Fred (talk) 18:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I apologize about that. I didn't realize that my little experiment went against WP:POINT. I'll try to be more careful so that this doesn't happen again. Also, to answer Gnome's question about whether I have inserted hoax material into other articles, I think if you review my edit history, you'll find that the vast majority of my edits are valid and not considered vandalism. WTF? (talk) 18:06, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't question the vast majority of your edits - I can see that you are quite a productive editor here. However, I think your reply continues to be completely evasive about the direct question of whether you have similarly added hoax content to other articles. Gnome de plume (talk) 18:26, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so to be more direct in answering your question, no, I have not added similar hoax content to other articles. This incident is a one-article incident. WTF? (talk) 18:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

How is anyone to trust you on that? Consider this a single and final warning on breaching experiments on the encyclopedia: if any editor notices such again (including existing cases that WTF has not disclosed), ping me and I'll indef. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot has still not accounted for this reversion of an editor removing their hoax insertion. This was done August 12, long after "the couple of days" that Foxtrot claim they had become aware it was a hoax. That edit doesn't really match their explanation about it being a "test to see how long before the material was reverted". --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

It's worth saying it again: We're an encyclopedia, not a bunch of lab rats in a cage. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Consider the possibility of a one-week block. This would be intended to reduce the frequency of unwanted experiments in the future. "Trying to illustrate a point" is something that our policies strongly frown upon. WTF's last effort in that direction was on August 12 so this isn't a long-ago problem. He was revert warring two days ago to restore information to an article which he knew to be incorrect. Any assumption of good faith faces an uphill struggle here. EdJohnston (talk) 22:41, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

That would be punitive. WTF should hopefully now understand our zero-tolerance approach to inserting false material into articles. If not, his next block for the same will be his last. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the previously mentioned edit on August 12, I didn't say anything about that because I didn't see that as that big of a deal. To be honest, it was more of a reflex reversion instead of a hard-and-fast revert -- done before thinking -- and assuming that the anonymous IP in question was vandalizing. Looking back, that was a mistake. I don't think a block is really necessary in this case because I have already learned that this type of editing is wrong and not acceptable. I can assure administrators here that you won't see my username on this side of the fence at this page again. Thank you. WTF? (talk) 23:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I propose an experiment. Block Wiki Tango Foxtrot for a week and see how long it takes him to appeal the block. JOJ 01:14, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Comment Rather than raise hell and blow this out of proportion. Just make this a one time warning not to disrupt/vandalise to make a point and leave it at that. Assume good faith this time and leave it be. Blackmane (talk) 08:31, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Unfortunately AGF is running low when somebody gives themselves a trolling sig. GiantSnowman 08:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• It isn't bright orange, doesn't have a drop shadow and isn't three lines long. I've seen worse. For now, WTF has had the only warning he should need (and the only one he will get) not to do this again, so I think we can close this off. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:14, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

91.74.118.88

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This user 91.74.118.88 has been warned several times regarding using Misplaced Pages as a soapbox, in response to posting multiple complaints on the Flydubai page. They have also been blanking their own talkpage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amp71 (talk • contribs) 18:38, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

IP address blocked following report to WP:AIV Noom _talk 18:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

132.3.29.68

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The user 132.3.29.68 has been warned multiple times from the talk page about vandalism and other things. This IP recently edited Soledad O'Brien twice, both times were vandalism . Before that, editing Brokeback Mountain, here, and then Detroit Pistons, here. I am aware this is a shared IP address but at least we can disable anonymous editing? Toasty (talk) 19:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I don't see enough recent vandalism to justify a block; additionally, most of the warnings on the talk page are stale (>1 month old). I'll issue another warning; if vandalism continues please report this IP at WP:AIV. —KuyaBriBri 21:26, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Personal Attacks

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User:Trasamundo call me "Sockpuppet Santos30" 3 times in the Talk:Spanish_Empire. After I give clear explain in the Administrators notice board he call me another time: "Sockpuppet Santos30".. I feel as a personal attack when he call me Sockpuppet after I give an explanation. It is a long discussion and I'm worried this brokes my Talk. Thank you.--Santos30 (talk) 21:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

It does seem to be a personal attack, yes. But it will not break your talk. pablo 22:52, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

That calms me thanks--Santos30 (talk) 23:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Jack Merridew and the main page featured articles

Jack Merridew, user:Br'er Rabbit, has been harassing me for the last six months or so. This is continuation of the same behavior (harassment and sockpuppetry on a grand scale) that caused him to be sanctioned by the arbitration committee for the last six years or so.

For the last few weeks, it's gotten especially bad at Misplaced Pages:Today's featured article/requests‎, a page which exists for the sole purpose to help me coordinate requests for main page featured article scheduling. Jack has been trolling there something fierce over the last few days.

I removed some of his trolling from that page, and he began revert warring with me. So I've taken the unusual step of arbitrarily banning him from that page. I've removed all of his posts to that page, and protected the page until he's dealt with.

I know I'm not the only one he's harassing. He seems to go from harassing one person to the next with alarming frequency. I think it's about time we discussed a community ban. Raul654 (talk) 22:14, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that an interaction ban could be a more helpful alternative. --Guerillero | My Talk 22:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

As long as it keeps him off the FA pages, that's fine where I am concerned. It doesn't really help the other people he continues to harass. Raul654 (talk) 22:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

better to fix the FA process. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 22:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

FPP for snarky remarks? Not consistent with involved, and since when can a single admin declare a ban? Nobody Ent 22:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(misuse of tools;) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 22:32, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Full protecting the page on which you are having a dispute with another editor is not supposed to happen. You have used your tools inappropriately here, in my opinion. -- Dianna (talk) 22:34, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree - using admin tools in a dispute in which you are clearly involved is an abuse of them. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:36, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, if nothing else, at least Raul didn't simply block Jack. I agree that he has gone overboard with the full protection, but it is also obvious that Jack is both disrupting the process and acting in a fashion designed to piss Raul off, likely to make a WP:POINT. I think both need to back down here. Resolute 22:41, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The FA director has discretion with how FA administrative pages are administered. That's why I can do it.

And I did it not just because of the snarky remarks -- it's that he's graduated into actively subverting the rules (rescheduling featured articles himself ) and encouraging others to do likewise . Raul654 (talk) 22:36, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The discretionary powers of the FA director cannot extend to the abuse of admin tools. Not gonna happen. -- Dianna (talk) 22:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Being FA director does not mean you can ignore the admin rules that the rest of us have to abide by. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:41, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The FA pages don't operate like articles do. It's not abuse - it's reasonable discretion. And note to anyone reading that DIanna has been one of Jack's long-time apologists. Raul654 (talk) 22:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't mean I'm wrong. -- Dianna (talk) 22:43, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Raul, I respect the job you do, but man, you've gotta accept that you've overstepped yourself here. Please reverse your protection. The only thing you are accomplishing here is to let him bait you into becoming the focus of attention. Resolute 22:44, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with unprotecting the requests page provided other measures are taken to curb his trolling. Raul654 (talk) 22:45, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The rules regarding the use of admin tools are not restricted to their use on article pages - they apply to all pages. And you don't get to impose conditions before you agree to follow the rules regarding use of admin tools - you need to reverse your abuse of the tools unconditionally, and then *ask* for help, -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict x4) Just looking over this case from afar, I can see a case to be made that Raul's removal of Jack's comments and subsequent lock of the page meets the "only involved in an administrative capacity" exception given by WP:INVOLVED. However, indefinitely full-protecting the TFA requests page because of one user's conduct seems... unwise, to say the least. And I'm also not certain that Raul has the authority to "ban" Jack from the page in question; that would seem to be something that should be decided by the community at large. Evanh2008 22:48, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The rules regarding the use of admin tools also acknowledge the existence of discretion, like the clerks on arbitration pages, or the FA director on the FA pages. So you can shout "Abuse!" all you want, it does not make it so. Raul654 (talk) 23:00, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Bans can only be given out by the community-at-large or arbcom. --Guerillero | My Talk 22:59, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

That is flatly untrue. Arbcom clerks can ban people from arbitration pages. Raul654 (talk) 23:00, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

At least in my time as a clerk, we have only banned a person with arbcom's consent. I see us as the messenger. --Guerillero | My Talk 23:15, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

You mean from the Arbom pages, yes? KillerChihuahua 03:50, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

This is at least partially incorrect. A lot of decisions have been kicked up to the Arbitrators, but individual clerks have the authority (and probably should use it more) to ban disruptive editors from ArbCom pages. I'm actually surprised here that everyone seems to be against Raul's original premise that he has the authority to remove Br'er from the TFA/R pages. Is the office of FA director powerless? NW (Talk) 09:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Teh Power. Taht wut tihs iz really all about. Wiki is not supposed to be about Power™. It is supposed to be about collaboration. FA is supposed to be about our best. The office should be abolished. Br'er Rabbi (talk) 10:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Raul, would a well-structured RfC produce sufficient evidence of disruption to justify a site ban? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 22:49, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Any look at Jack's behavior over the last six years would show an extensive history of harassing others. Whether this would justify a site block in some peoples' minds, I cannot say. Long-term harassment isn't exactly easy to demonstrate in a few short diffs, and RFCs don't have the best history when it comes to long-term compliated misbehavior. And Jack has a pretty well-established cadre of apologists. (Witness this very thread). So I think it's much more likely to turn into a huge time-consuming drama-fest. Raul654 (talk) 23:00, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

It would certainly be time-consuming, and may not result in a community consensus to site ban him, so that would require then taking it to arbitration. But it's worth doing, if there is enough evidence. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 23:07, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I tried that in May. The arbitration committee's response was appalling. Essentially, they invented out of thin air exceptions to their own previously imposed sanctions. So the previously imposed sock puppetry prohibition became a green light to use as many sockpuppets as he wants. And when it was shown that he violated what few sanctions they did leave intact, they simple ignored the complaint until it was archived. Raul654 (talk) 23:17, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In addition to my comment below, I do think that indefinitely full-protecting this page is a misjudgement. AGK 23:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• "The FA director has discretion with how FA administrative pages are administered. That's why I can do it." No, you don't, and no you can't. You don't WP:OWN the FA pages and using your tools in a dispute you are involved in is a clear abuse of admin tools. ArbCom have just desysopped someone for less. There are processes to deal with disruption and that isn't it. You should have come here first. Black Kite (talk) 23:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• And you also need to stop spraying the word "apologist" around as well. WP:NPA applies to the FA director as well. Black Kite (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I am on the record as supporting Br'er Rabbit's return to the community, and I recused in the most recent committee proceedings which concerned him. Therefore, I do not say lightly that Raul is probably able to exclude editors from that specific page, that in this case he was justified in excluding Br'er, and that Br'er urgently needs to avoid this type of behaviour. Trolling such as that is completely at odds with the purpose of Misplaced Pages. I must confess I am surprised: Br'er usually knows better than many that we are here to build an encyclopedia. AGK 23:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Disregarding the appropriateness of Raul's actions, comments like this one from Br'er Rabbit seem quite out of line to me. Don't make snarky remarks about other editors, especially not if you're accused of hounding them. It might give those accusations credibility. --Conti|✉ 23:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• As a regular contributor to WP:TFA/R, I am outraged that the page has been fully blocked (or whatever the term is), and believe that Raul, whom I usually respect, is far overstepping his powers. Br'er Rabbit has often been a useful contributor to that page, and the big deal that Raul has made about him is far too POINTy for my liking. I request, at the very least, that TFA/R be open for editing again. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 23:06, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Temp page protection upon removal of disruption of process pages is arguably legit (per uninvolved) but I don't think there can be a page ban, unless it's endorsed by the community. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:08, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• this is an abuse of both admin powers and the authoritah of the post of Featured Article Director. pablo 23:10, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• History or not, admins should not be using their tools in disputes, and not one single page on this entire project is under the unilateral control of a single editor. This is flagrant abuse of both the admin bit and the general sentiment behind OWN. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:12, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Raul has obviously been involved with regards to Jack/Alarbus/Br'er since the RFC last winter. This is a transparent abuse of tools. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:14, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
  • That's a joke, right? That RFC was started in an attempt to find areas of improvement. Jack, Wehwalt, Dianna, et al hijacked it to try to replace me. The community sentiment was 90% in favor of keeping me. Since teh RFC didn't go his way, Jack decided it didn't matter and he would simply ignore the result, which is why he's now trying to do the scheduling himself and encouraging others to do likewise. Raul654 (talk) 23:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
    • The long-term history is irrelevant anyway. You two edit-warred at that page and then you locked it in your version and removed his comments. A clearer example of using admin tools when involved I don't think I've ever seen. Black Kite (talk) 23:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
    • That's false. Show me where I ever said that I wanted Raul out of office. What I said is that the Featured Article Director should do more than he does. Which at present seems to be picking the daily article and engaging in heated discussions, see here. I was expressed no preference as to whether that was Raul or someone else, so long as more was done.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:28, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
      • His long term misbehavior is certainly relevant to this discussion. And as has been previously stated, the rules and established precedents allow certain people to have wider discretion on certain pages, ala the arbcom clerks. Raul654 (talk) 23:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
        • Please feel free to indicate exactly where it is stated that you are allowed to circumvent protection policy on certain pages, otherwise undo your protection and then the community can discuss your original point instead of your actions. AFAIK the only situations where a single editor can impose page bans are your example and also on pages where general sanctions are active. Black Kite (talk) 23:33, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
          • The FA process has always operated with a great deal of directorial discretion. If you need this written down at the top of the FA administrative pages, I will be happy to oblige you. Raul654 (talk) 23:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
            • I'd suggest you'd need a community policy discussion to alter WP:INVOLVED first. No-one is saying that the FA director isn't influential at those pages, but that does not extend to IAR'ing policy. Black Kite (talk) 23:43, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
              • As has already been pointed out like 15 times on this thread, the involved policy explicitly excludes administrative involvement. 'Involved' does not apply when someone sets out to troll the administrator. Raul654 (talk) 23:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
                • I count at least eight admins here disagreeing with your interpretation of that policy. Black Kite (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
                • Balls. You feel that you are being trolled so you make up your own rules? pablo 23:55, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
    • @Raul § 23:19: Be that as it may, you're still involved. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute.. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:38, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

While I'm not a fan of "featured articles", Raul654 is correct about the discretion he has. Jack's known for his provocations, despite being given a clean start on condition that he behave in future. As for Mark, well he's about as trustworthy as they come and has demonstrated good judgement for an extended period. If he's suggesting a community ban my response is that we should consider it seriously. --TS 23:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your trust, Tony, I'm honored. But I don't think we should ban Raul. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:32, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

While it's nice that you are so eager to bask in Tony's compliment, the "Mark" he was referring to was me. Raul654 (talk) 23:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

_{I wondered what I did to impress him so much... Mark Arsten (talk) 23:44, 14 August 2012 (UTC)}

Okay, a whole bunch of editors with a sysop bit have commented on the inappropriateness of the protection, but I'm still seeing "View Source" instead of of "edit this page." Nobody Ent 23:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• And a whole bunch of others (including an arbitrator who previously supported Jack) have said it's OK. Raul654 (talk) 23:40, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
  • There is a clear majority (including AGK) saying that your protection was a misjudgement. Please undo it so we can have a discussion on the main issue. Black Kite (talk) 23:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Raul, I'm hoping you will undo this yourself, but the consensus here is clear, and if you don't lift the protection, I will. You're letting him make you disrupt your own process. Resolute 23:53, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• "This page isn't a community hang-out. It exists to serve a specific purpose -- to help me coordinate the featured article requests If it's going to be a forum for trolling, then it's no longer serving its purpose" what a joke. And what exactly is this alleged trolling? Hot Stop 23:48, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• While I don't know much about the background of this dispute, I am seriously flabbergasted to see Raul saying that since he runs FA, he can do what he wants in violation of admin policy. No, you can't - you're an admin and an editor, and you have to abide by the same standards we hold other admins and editors to, even in your fiefdom. If the way the role of FA director has historically been treated has had something to do with why you now think you're not bound by our policies, then maybe it was a good idea for people to try to run an RfC on the topic of that position. I daresay if you stick to your guns here, insisting that you aren't bound by policy like the rest of us, another will be forthcoming rather quickly. Raul, please, take a deep breath and reconsider what you're trying to do here. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:48, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Totally agree with Black Kite and Flutternutter here. PumpkinSky talk 23:52, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I've unprotected the page. Do whatever you want -- I think I'm going on wikibreak. Raul654 (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Disclaimer: I have collaborated with Br'er Rabbit on numerous areas, but I have not been involved in any arguments about the FA process. What is clear to me though is that bad blood has existed between Raul and Br'er/Jack for many years. I am also concerned that I've seen editors whom I respect greatly being put under stress by having very short notification of an article that they took to FA appearing on the main page. The process needs to be helped along and it is quite wrong for Raul to cause problems and then strike out at those who want to see those problems alleviated. This is what is actually being complained about:
  • "This article has been scheduled to appear on 21 August, four days before its 150th anniversary. Was this a random article selection? Hawkeye7, who nominated the other 25 August article, has said he is happy for it to wait" - Tommy20000 TFA/R
  • "I moved it to the right day. The staff can fix the bottom links once they figure this out. This section should be removed, soon." - Br'er Rabbit TFA/R

Br'er fixed a mistake (Tommy's article clearly scheduled for the wrong day) and even pointed out that the bottom links need to amended. In any other featured process, he'd have been thanked for helping out. Somebody needs to figure out why that doesn't happen in the TFA process and then fix it. --RexxS (talk) 23:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Although Jack/Br'er/(insert name here) can be abrasive at times, he generally has the interests of the encyclopedia in mind. Right now I think that protecting TFAR is an overreaction that is doing more harm than good. Unprotecting it so we can discuss this somewhat rationally is a good start, methinks. There may be need for an interaction ban, but Raul should know better than to react like this. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:59, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Moot now, though. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:59, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - I hate to wade into this because I always get hammered and don't like being hammered but just have to say that the constant drip drip drip seems to be affecting content editors and the FAC process. If Raul's gone (maybe the desired outcome), SandyGeorgia's gone (maybe the desired outcome), others such as Dabomb and Ucucha, and many more, apparently no longer editing, at some point the question is whether the loss of either key content contributors or those facilitating the FAC process is important to the project. Does a line need to be drawn, or is it okay that we're losing contributors? I dunno, but I do on the one hand see editors such as Casliber pushing content building with the Core Contest, while at the same time see that we're losing editors who write content. Just saying. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:01, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• I think that Raul does have the authority to protect the page as FAC director; this was done earlier this year at WT:FAC. Now, in this particular scenario, this probably was not the best idea, as it locked everyone else out of the page. --Rschen7754 01:26, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• If the page exists for the sole purpose of planning FAs, and Raul is the FA director, and a user is making disruptive edits to that page, I don't see a problem with him taking action to prevent that user from disrupting the page. I don't think he's trying to make a grab at power over any user on any page; I see him trying to stop disruption on one page he uses for a specific role he has on Misplaced Pages. Kcowolf (talk) 03:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Interaction ban proposal

Based on the agreement I see above, I ask you all to consider this proposal:

Raul654 (talk · contribs) and Br'er Rabbit (talk · contribs), or whatever username he holds at the time, are indefinitely prohibited from interacting with each other, or commenting in any way (directly or indirectly) about each other, on any page in Misplaced Pages.

I think that this should cut down on drama. Feel free to rewrite this as you see fit. --Guerillero | My Talk 23:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Impractical unless Jack is also topic banned from FA processes that Raul directs. Is that an intended aspect of your proposal? Resolute 23:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

It's starting to strike me that we may need to make better provision for when Raul has a conflict of interest in the FA processes. The delegates are good people, but they're his delegates ...--Wehwalt (talk) 23:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

What's with this apparent rash of disrespect for the FA process? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Not disrespect, but it shouldn't be an autocracy. It should be based on community consensus, so an arbitrary banning of an editor violates that need for a consensus. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Sure. If an editor screws around with an FA, then he's exercising autocracy and violating community consensus. Or is that not what you meant? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:06, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)s It amounts to the same thing, as long as Raul is the FAD. And thus is just a restriction on Br'er Rabbit alone, seeing as Raul's exalted position seems to allow him to make it up as he goes along. pablo 00:01, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict X100) My first draft included a sentence that said something to the effect of, "due to Raul654's long standing position as the Featured Article Director, this restriction applies to Misplaced Pages:Today's featured article and all of its subpages." I thought that it was redundant so I removed it. In addition, a delegate can handle a request if Br'er significantly comments on it. --Guerillero | My Talk 00:05, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• I think Resolute's observation adequately points out how disingenuous this proposal is given the context. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
  • See my comment directly above. --Guerillero | My Talk 00:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't think it was disingenuous myself as this was a pretty standard proposal for two squabbling editors. It is an unintended consequence that Guerillero may have overlooked due to a failure to consider Raul's position. But even without a formal interaction/topic ban, I hope Jack will realize that his... zealous... actions are causing disruption and voluntarily back off from edits at TFAR other than commenting on nominations for the time being. Resolute 00:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Or not, heh. Resolute 00:09, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• I think that given the amount of bad blood that's clearly (oh, so very clearly) gone between Raul and Jack, some sort of interaction ban is necessary. However, as Resolute points out, Raul's position makes that very difficult to enact. I would hesitate to say that he can't help at FA because Raul works there - this is not a divorce, and we don't "give custody of the children" to one editor and not the other. If Jack wants to participate constructively in FA, he should be allowed to. Same for Raul. Obviously Raul can't be handling Jack's requests, and vice versa - so what can we do here? Bar them from interacting even in FA space, and say that someone else needs to handle FA-space in regards to Jack's requests/submissions/edits? I understand that Raul is basically king there, but even kings must have advisors, regents, and crown princes who can step in if something needs seeing to and the king isn't available. Surely there's someone else who can speak to Jack in the context of FAs? If there's not, and Raul is unable to treat Jack neutrally, then we have a larger problem here. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion - how about adding User:Mark Arsten as a "facilitator", not a "delegate" but more independent, as Mark is always around and really reliable and wouldn't abuse tools, so he could prevent the situations where 59 minutes notice for main page appearances could be prevented—since the delegates and Raul654 aren't around that much. Then all this friction could be prevented. Just a suggestion, as I don't know the right procedures. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:37, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

That's reasonable, and could also deal with the situations at TFA, FAC, and FAR where Raul has a conflict of interest. For example, Raul's article, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima recently passed through FAR and lost its star. Deciding the director's article was no longer worthy of the star must have been uncomfortable for the delegate.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your confidence in me, guys. The position isn't something that particularly interests me, but I'm willing to help if the community sees a need/people think it's a good role for me. Mark Arsten (talk) 03:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Interaction ban is unnecessary and almost unworkable. Why not all admins from this point on consider this a Delicate Situation and consider a (1) Low Threshold for Blocking for gratuitous Snarky Comments or Disruptive Conduct, and (2) Low Threshold for notifying the Arb Committee for Use of Tools while involved? Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, evenhanded. On the one side "give us a call" and on the other "block for snarky comments".--Wehwalt (talk) 01:20, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much from anyone, not just B'rer. The situation has inflamed tempers. Sarcasm isn't helpful either. The above discussion has pretty clearly delineated appropriate admin conduct from this point onwards so obviously any repeat will head our way. Yes, the FAR on Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima might have been uncomfortalbe but due process was followed, so I am not sure what your point is in raising it. I am ok with Mark Arsten facilitating.....or really any admin can keep an eye on proceedings really. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be wise to have someone designated for the situations I mention. I think the point is clear: the delegates derive their office from Raul and so it would be helpful to have someone for those cases, especially in close cases, which Iwo Jima was not of course. As for the sarcasm, I do see your point, but I also read your comments about Jack in the arbcom leaks.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Meaning what? He's aware of my concerns (which presumably you are referring to) - I am trying to work with the positives of what he has to offer (which is alot), before this gets out of hand and everyone calms down. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

This isn't the first time Raul has misused tools re myself. He overrode admin actions of both Amalthea and Wehwalt regarding my user pages and blocked over their declining to. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 13:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

A Featured Article topic ban for Jack Merridew would resolve this problem efficiently. --TS 01:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

So would any manner of weaponry. However, neither would be appropriate.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:23, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

We certainly need a facilitator right now, as Raul has announced a wikibreak and his sole delegate has not edited since the 27th of July. Mark Arsten is an admin, he's level headed, he's familiar with FA. This is a good idea, in my opinion. -- Dianna (talk) 01:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean for TFA? As far as I am aware, the other FA processes seem to be running... --Rschen7754 01:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes; the different sectors have different delegates; promotions, reviews, featured list candidates, etc. For quite some time now, the only task Raul has done personally is select the daily featured article. -- Dianna (talk) 01:59, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Featured lists are not part of the realm. They are proudly democratic.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:06, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

We have articles selected for a week in advance, and we also have some emergency standbys, so this sin't an earthshatteringly urgent situation, but I'd be happy with Mark too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

"proudly democratic" - Wehwalt, that is not helpful here. Can we try and bring everyone together without extraneous stuff? Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It's no secret that I support making the FA processes democratic. That's what I said in January and I've seen nothing to change my mind. But I agree, let's push on.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Say, something like this. That Mark is the FA facilitator, empowered to act in the event of a COI or in the inaction of the director/responsible delegates (i.e. the late notifications). That we'll let pass what happened earlier and hope that everyone will keep the peace.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Creating an FA facilitator to act in cases of "COI" (defined how, exactly?) seems like a significant change to the FA process. This probably isn't the right venue to propose substantive changes to the FA process, especially as it was just recently affirmed in a large RfC earlier this year. I don't see others raising COI as a concern here, and in the case you mentioned it seems that Raul's article was de-featured - which rather suggests that COI isn't a barrier to objective assessment. MastCell  02:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree that this is not the place for that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. Then I'm not sure we can do much more here, and I guess we will see what happens next.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:06, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

All Raul needed to do was the standard procedure whenever there's a hint of involvement—ask another admin to review and act if necessary, in their opinion. This system is looking very fragile if it blows up because of one difficult editor. Everyone get a grip and move it back into good working order. And could I add that this shows up the weakness of policy in the area of alternate accounts; I had a push to tighten it a few years ago, and ironically it was admins who resisted. Talk about making a rod for our backs. Tony (talk) 07:18, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Is there a consensus on who will prep the TFAs if Raul doesn't return in time and his delegates are not active? If no, I'll help. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Criticise arbitrary Power™ and get teh stomp? That would be convenient... for Raul. The issue here isn't my comments, it's the underlying issue of old-guard cabalism. And his being retired in place. Br'er Rabbi (talk) 10:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• I see complaints about Power and that FA should Not be an autocracy. Sorry, but no. The only relevant question to this noticeboard is whether Br'er and Raul are capable of interacting; they obviously are not. We have discussed this subject for quite long enough. Please ban them from interacting with one another, then close this thread. AGK 10:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

You've heard my comments on interaction bans before. They're a no-contact slow-dance. They actually tie users together. Mostly they're about avoiding addressing the underlying issues. They're a failure of dispute resolution. My criticisms are spot-on. The Emperor has No Clothes. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 11:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• An interaction ban would be a de facto ban on one party from the TFA process, and so I oppose. (And AGK presents a false dichotomy - though Misplaced Pages is not a democracy, it also isn't supposed to be an autocracy) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:59, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• We really need WP:AUTOCRACY. I think its jest when we call Jimbo the ultimate overlord, but if autocracy is allowed here then... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:03, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• That's what WP:VESTED is (supposed to be) for. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• There is a long history of antagonism towards Raul654 from a small group—that is to be expected as FA generally involves skilled editors, many of whom are high achievers in real life and who may not be able to get along with other opinionated people. Br'er Rabbit is expert at using casual chat to needle opponents, and when editing as Alarbus was part of a small group pushing wildly against consensus at WP:Featured articles/2012 RfC on FA leadership. Misplaced Pages is not an exercise in fairness or free speech, so the issue is quite simple, and boils down to this: Does it help if Br'er Rabbit continues to poke Raul654? Since Br'er Rabbit's criticisms consist of slogans with no content (see this discussion and the RfC), the answer to that is no, and there is no need for Br'er to interact with Raul, so support interaction ban. Johnuniq (talk) 12:05, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing about Encyclopedia that implies a front page or featured articles. It's supposed to a reference work. It's not like I go to look up caterpillar and say, oh, it's not a featured article, I'll go read star instead. To the extent Misplaced Pages works on a sort of follow your own muse principle, if editors want to challenge and encourage themselves to push the writing above average, that's a good thing. Alternatively if folks want to standardize the separator between Mexican and American, that's fine. The fineness stops when such activities become disruptive to the project as a whole. Given that there are two high churn threads going on related to FA -- the Rabbit/Raul and Andy Mabbett on top of the page, where behavior that would be fine elsewhere on Misplaced Pages is a big deal because it involves FAs, we ought to take a step back and assert the the needs and norms of the project as whole are what's important, and no subgroup, however passionate or filled with high Wiki-cred editors, gets to have their own set of rules.

Since Raul appears to be unwilling play nice with the Rabbit, I endorse the concept above the Raul recuse himself from interactions with BR and Mark Arsten (or someone else) sort out any TFA concerns raised by BR. Nobody Ent 12:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Well said. FWIW, I've worked a bit with Mark Arsten (and Crisco 1492, who similarly offered to play a role in FA), and think either (or both) would be a fine addition to the process. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 13:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Is there a reason Rabbit can't follow his muse elsewhere? If the community has set up a process, and the community has asked a volunteer to manage that process, and another user wants to help, but the first does not find it helpful, why shouldn't the second user just go help somewhere, else? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:45, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that Jack/Rabbit's recent attempts to help out at TFA were prompted in part by complaints by some FA writers about late notice when their article was TFA. Raul has said that he realizes there is a problem and will work to remedy it, though, so hopefully there won't be a need for anyone else to help out. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

We don't have editor hierarchies here, no matter how much some people seem happy to go along with them. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:25, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Question: How far do we push this interaction ban? If Jack simply comments on a specific request at TFAR, does that thus disqualify Raul from exercising his role as director for that article? Resolute 15:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Minty10200 continued reverting of Dual Survival article

User:Minty10200 keeps reverting the Dual Survival page to unsourced or information from non reliable sources about Dave Canterbury being fired . These edits involve deletion of fully sourced material. Attempts have been made to engage with Minty10200 in talk and on their personal talk page but user does not appear to understand Misplaced Pages reliable sourcing policy and instead makes personal attacks, claims I am censoring the "truth" as an argument. I made attempts to locate reliable sources for the information user insisted on and added these to the page but no reliable source could be located that Canterbury was fired, only that he was no longer with the show. --JournalScholar (talk) 01:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit behavior continues edits involve deletion of three sources and replaced with unsourced information. --JournalScholar (talk) 01:22, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I reverted the changes based on WP:BLP and WP:OR, and added a BLP warning on the users talk page. Nothing else to do yet, unless edit warring continues. Could possibly block for WP:3RR as well, but lets wait and see how the user reacts to this warning first. Blocking should be last resort. Try discussing on the talk page as well.--JOJ 03:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I've tried discussing on the talk page and added what I could find that could be sourced to address their concerns but user seems more concerned that the "truth" is being censored then properly sourcing their information. --JournalScholar (talk) 03:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

And the user was not notified. He has been now. JanetteDoe (talk) 16:22, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, it looks like JournalScholar and User:Minty10200 have each reverted 4x in 24 hours on Dual Survival. JanetteDoe (talk) 19:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

User:71.178.108.23 edit warring on multiple articles, strange edit summaries, removing WP:RS citations/POV pushing

71.178.108.23 (talk · contribs · count · api · block log)

User:71.178.108.23, who was recently the subject of an ANI dealt with by User:EdJohnston here after a report by User:Kansas Bear, has been active on numerous pages, edit warring, removing WP:RS citations and using unsourced non-neutral language. They have very recently been warned by User:Bbb23 here and myself here , yet have continued to edit war removing WP:RS citations and continual POV pushing. Here are some examples of the type of editing and edit summaries involved- here , here , here and here . Could we get some admin attention on to this? Thanks very much. Peacemaker67 (talk) 01:45, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Just some brief comments. I posted a final warning on the IP's Talk page, removed here, based on all the problems caused by the IP. It looks like the IP not only removed the warning but has continued their misconduct. However, I have not analyzed the IP's edits subsequent to the warning and don't have time to do so now (I have to eat dinner or I'll be shot). If another admin wishes to look at the events and block the IP, fine with me.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I am thinking of filing a sock case against this IP. Notice WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Velebit. The IP's main interest is to ensure that certain articles about WW2 Croatian Ustashe figures are sufficiently negative. What is most noticeable is the abuse which he directs against editors who disagree with him. In my opinion a one-month block might be considered. Velebit was also noted for abusing other editors. EdJohnston (talk) 05:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh it's Velebit alright. I've been keeping track of his cross-wiki edits here. Osiris (talk) 09:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Looks like here are, in joint action, three "experts" of Ustashe history. A common Misplaced Pages technique of character assassination is in progress: sock puppet, edit warring (!!), unsourced (!!) non-neutral language (!!) etc etc. Non-neutral language is to call war criminals politicians and intellectuals!! EdJohnston is always on guard when someone tries to "smear" image of his beloved Ustashe. The most hilarious attack posted on my user talk page is a claim, The next time you violate Misplaced Pages's biographies of living persons policy by inserting unsourced or poorly sourced defamatory or otherwise controversial content . For this user, the long time dead war criminal Andrija Arukovic is a living person!!
• All above attacks on me are just an excellent confirmation of the prof. Harnad statement about Misplaced Pages. Professor John Harnad, a world-renown Canadian mathematician, (who was blocked by Misplaced Pages) summarized his negative view about Misplaced Pages this way:

Misplaced Pages, on the contrary, is the enshrinement of contempt for learning, knowledge and expertise. It is, for many, a diversionary hobby to which they are prepared to devote a great portion of their time, as others do to computer based video games. Unfortunately, it has led also to an inner cult, shrouded in anonymity, with structures and processes of self-regulation that are woefully inadequate. Many of these tools and procedures are reminiscent, in parody, of those of the Inquisition: secret courts, an inner “elite” arbitrarily empowered to censor and exclude all those perceived as a threat to the adopted conventions of the cult; denunciations, character assassination, excommunication. An arbitrarily concocted “rulebook” and language rife with self-referential sanctimoniousness give a superficial illusion of order and good sense, but no such thing exists in practice.

It is truly a “Tyranny of the Ignorant”.

--71.178.108.23 (talk) 09:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

You've delievered that rant several times before (ahem), on this wiki, and on the strategy wiki. Give it a rest. Osiris (talk) 10:05, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I've reopened Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Velebit to allow action to be considered against 71.178.108.23 (talk · contribs) as a Velebit sock. EdJohnston (talk) 12:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The SPI was closed, but I had another comment... Can the interested admins take a look please? --Joy (talk) 14:30, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

IP User:64.175.39.242 Legal threat on talk page of User:MarnetteD

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

The heading says it all. After escalating trolling and personal attacks on MarnetteD's talk page, the IP user has escalated to a legal threat Time to bit this IP goodbye with prejudice. --Drmargi (talk) 07:03, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

And now, the same IP has left a threat on my talk page as well. I haven't even had time to warn him/her yet! --Drmargi (talk) 07:03, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Where is the personal attack? I undid an edit they had made as the earlier USER had made a reasonable edit., changing one word that made more sense. As soon as I had done that, I was called an "IP Hopping Troll" and something about socks was posted to me. A Troll is a vulgar insult and one that I don't see why I have to accept without complaint. Your comments above are highly inflammatory and unnecessary. If the insults to me are not reversed or removed, I see no reason why I should not take legal action to remove this defammation. If you see that as a threat, then so be it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.175.39.242 (talk) 07:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

This is what I edited:

(cur | prev) 06:43, 15 August 2012‎ 64.175.39.242 (talk)‎ . . (91,320 bytes) (+4)‎ . . (Undid revision 507479719 by MarnetteD (talk) Reviewing the edit, their is nothing disruptive i can see. It is a language improvement. It appears MarnetteD is simply looking to escalate problems.) (undo)

I had seen that MarnetteD and another USER under an IP address were arguing. I looked at the edit and it seemed perfectly reasonable, so I undid it with the above comment. Since then MarnetteD has continually abused me by calling me a 'troll' and accused me of using 'socks' which I don't even understand. Now the same user is saying that the problem is my attitude and insults to other editors. The above edit is the only one I made. This is intolerable. 64.175.39.242 (talk) 07:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

USER Drmargil has now joined in the name calling and abuse. Who is policing these editors and allowing them to abuse in this way? 64.175.39.242 (talk) 07:25, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)To anyone who takes a look at this you will need to take a look at the edit history of this page A series of IPs 216.31.246.114 (talk · contribs), 64.175.39.242 (talk · contribs), 85.237.212.195 (talk · contribs) and 64.175.39.242 (talk · contribs) - none of whom have an extensive edit history - has been using edits - some innocuous others not so much - to leave edit summaries attacking other editors, especially Redrose64. While most of the IPs are from California at least one has been from England so I fear this is a sock/meat puppet situation. They most likely tie back to the blocked user TVArchivistUK (talk · contribs) who engaged in much socking and personal attacks before being blocked last May. The language used currently is much the same as the blocked editor indulged in. Redrose64 has shown remarkable restraint in dealing with this but I feel that the attacks should stop and either the various IPs should be given some time off or any pages that they edit to continue their attacks should be semiprotected. It is late here so I will probably not be able to respond for several hours. My apologies to anyone who needs my input until then MarnetteD | Talk 07:29, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I think there's a little more to it than that, 64.175.38.242. Since July 12, you've also edited as IP User:216.31.246.114 here, here , User:85.237.212.218 here and here; and User:64.175.39.242 here and here in the first of a string of disruptive edits, always informing editors they cannot make edits not approved by User:Redrose64 (who appears to be an uninvolved party (see this edit). You seem to feel one editor owns the page, and that it's your role to defend that ownership to the point of making legal threats to both MarnetteD and me, while being unresponsive to warnings on your talk page. This is block worthy behavior that will not be tolerated. --Drmargi (talk) 07:36, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry to disappoint you. I have taken steps to resolve this now. Any editor that does not use an ID is assumed to be the same. I know nothing about technology, so I don't know where your evidence is coming from. But I hope the steps I have taken will be sufficient. To personally insult someone as a 'troll' is defammation. What will you be calling people next on this site? Witches? Crones? Worse? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.175.39.242 (talk) 07:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

While there are several IP edits to check to get the whole picture of what is going on the most important one regarding 64.175.39.242 (talk · contribs) is this where, with only their third edit, they mention Redrose64 by name. Hardly the edit of someone "brand new" to Misplaced Pages to to editing the List of Doctor Who DVD and Blu-ray releases article. It reads like a "quack" to me MarnetteD | Talk 07:56, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Legal threats aside, two IP's who have never edited before, on in Alameda and one in Emeryville (about 10 miles apart) suddenly making the same edits defending the "owner" of a page, both in the manner of a banned editor leaves us in the land of "pull the other one; it has bells on it." --Drmargi (talk) 07:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Although accusations of sockpuppetry without filing a formal WP:SPI report are sometimes slightly uncivil, and the word WP:TROLL can also be on the uncivil side, defamation only exists if it directed against a recognizable individual, which does not exist here. Indeed, calling someone an internet troll would never qualify for that. Regardless, the policy on No Legal Threats is clear: you must be indefinitely blocked while the "threat" (as useless as it is in this case) exists. dangerouspanda 08:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Self-promotion only account

Khursheed Khan Facebook (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has made two edits so far, both removing existing content to insert self-promotion. Both were quickly deleted (though no warnings given till later, by me), but perhaps this account could be blocked now as he is clearly not here to build the encyclopedia, without waiting for three more lots of silly vandalism for him to be warned about? PamD 08:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• I'll be charitable and suggest he could be doing these edits in good faith, and just doesn't understand what Misplaced Pages's for. I've put a welcome template on his talk page that should get the message through. If he still disrupts pages, put a higher level warning template on and wait for a reply. If he still does it, and doesn't reply to his talk page, then blocking might be acceptable at that point. --Ritchie333 09:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Fair enough, perhaps I was being a bit light on the WP:AGF - but removing good content to insert "come to my facebook page" stretches it! I usually add a welcoming template, but lack of AGF led me not to in this case. Will watch. PamD 09:09, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. If you've ever spent time at WP:NPP or WP:AFC you'll know what odd things turn up. --Ritchie333 09:14, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Assume ignorance of the rules :-) dangerouspanda 09:20, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• But, there's a lot more going on here: a search in User space finds:

• Khursheed Khan Pictures (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Khursheedkhanactor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Khursheed Khan Interview (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and User:Khursheed Khan Interview/sandbox
• Khursheed Khan Actor Picture (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• User:Khursheedkhan2012/sandbox

Ignorance and misunderstanding of what the encyclopedia is about. PamD 09:22, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

And he's been around at least 10 days - see User:Khursheedkhanactor. PamD 09:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Supreme facepalm of destiny. Oh my word. However, since most of those accounts aren't blocked, I can't honestly accuse him of outright sockpuppetry - perhaps he's lost his password. Still, competence is required - pick whichever the latest account is, tell him to use that one, and that one alone. I recommend using words of one syllable (although, in fairness, I suspect English is not his native language). --Ritchie333 09:37, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Have left a message on each of his talk pages except User talk:Khursheed Khan Pictures, where I see that username was blocked on 11 August as an unacceptable username - presumably on the assumption it was a film company! Have also, in passing, removed purely self-promotional content from the probably un-related User:Khursheed Khan of Dandoqa Swabi, whose only edit was to create a WP:FAKEARTICLE userpage about himself and his family. Interesting morning. PamD 10:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Abuse of process by Lionelt and Belchfire

I apologize for not having all my ducks and diffs lined up, but this report is a product of frustration, not planning. As you may be aware, Lionelt admitted openly that he plans to pester me with reports until I get blocked repeatedly and give up.

I don't have a full list, but along with his buddies from WikiProject Conservatism (Belchfire, ViriiK and Collect), he's lodged false reports against me for 3RR, SPI, ANI and more. You can see Belchfire's most recent attempt above this. Lionelt has gotten me blocked once, but only by miscounting reverts.

I'd like you to look at http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring&pe=1&#User:Still-24-45-42-125_reported_by_User:Belchfire_.28Result:_.29 and tell me this isn't the most obviously false report you've ever seen.

I'm asking for administrators to intercede, not on the bogus 3RR, but on their admitted vendetta against me. In specific, I suggest an interaction ban, but I'm open to whatever will actually keep them from harassing me in the future. I am absolutely sick of this. Their actions -- quite intentionally -- have made it difficult for me to contribute to Misplaced Pages. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 11:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say this, but you've brought it on yourself. You've received a ton of advice and you've neither listened to or followed any of it. Viriditas (talk) 11:39, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I am fully responsible for their behavior. I also make the sun rise in the morning, but when it rains, that's also me. Let's always blame the victim. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 11:41, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

You should read WP:NOTTHEM. You may need it soon. Viriditas (talk) 11:43, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

And I, in turn, suggest WP:MYOB. I'm hatting you. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 11:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The linked comment from Lionelt is basically just an exposition of WP:ROPE. It's not very nice when editors are that candid, sometimes, but nor is there anything actually wrong with it. The only way to get out of this particular trap is to behave yourself. Trust me when I say that if an editor repeatedly leaves bogus warnings on someone's talk, or cries wolf at ANI, then it is the antagonist who usually finds himself subject to scrutiny. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It would be, except that he and his friends have actively followed up on this with false reports. I trust you when you say it ought to boomerang, but it hasn't. It's impossible to actually contribute to an article like Paul Ryan while dealing with multiple false reports on a given day. The last time I wasn't able to respond (because I was sleeping), I got blocked despite a provably false claim. Misplaced Pages is not supposed to be a battlefield. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 11:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

If you're taken to 3RR by this group of editors again for a claim which is provably false (i.e. as bad as the one linked above), let me know. (incidentally, ANI's conflict detector has been on crack the last couple of days. attempt #5 here.) Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:56, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok. I think you're going to lose an editor at this rate, because I'm not willing to put up with this BS. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 12:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Although I personally believe you're clearly edit-warring, as per the definition, here's my idea: there's millions of articles. Go edit ones that will cause you less grief for awhile, and take the hotbed ones right off your watchlist. WP:BATTLE can go both ways. dangerouspanda 12:05, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Let's make a deal. From now on, you'll only get to edit articles that don't matter, that you care nothing about, on topics you know nothing about. In return, people will stop gaming the system to get you blocked. Sound like a good deal? Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 12:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It's a deal. Feel free to compare my contribs from this account, to those from my User:Bwilkins account - none of the articles on my main account are even on my current watchlist. So, now we can move on, yaaaaay. dangerouspanda 12:26, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

You can't control other people, only yourself. So focus on what you can do to help end the conflict. Viriditas (talk) 12:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

All good advice, but when groups of editors coordinate to hound good editors off certain articles, that's a double-plus ungood for Misplaced Pages. I'm sure it contributes to the gradual reduction in the numbers of regular editors we've seen. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:29, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It contributes to the systematic bias of articles. For example, Ron Paul is a virtual hagiography. The way you get there is to team up against editors who are active and effective at enforcing WP:NPOV. Get rid of them and you've got it made. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 12:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Still-24-45-42-125, you give as good as you get. Is WikiProject Conservatism coordinating in order to immanentize the eschaton? Probably, but what WikiProject isn't coordinating? When I brought this up earlier on the council page, the consensus was they aren't doing anything wrong. So it seems like a waste of time to rehash that when the community already looked into it (at my personal request) and found nothing out of the ordinary. Best to work it out like colleagues on the talk page in a calm manner rather than calling for blood. Viriditas (talk) 12:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Coordinating to improve the articles within a project is a good thing. It is, after all, what projects are designed to do; however, coordinating to get rid of good editors just because they don't have the same ideology is most definitely not good. Editors who do this should be advised by administrators that such activities are inappropriate. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:42, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, I obvious agree with you, but the community does not. I also think you would have a hard time proving your case. Viriditas (talk) 12:47, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The abuse of process is continuing. A 3RR report is supposed to be about demonstrating evidence of edit-warring. Instead, Lionelt and Collect are spreading dirt. It doesn't matter that it ranges from blatantly false to desperately misleading. It just has to bias admins against me so that they overlook the details, such as the lack of edit warring. There's a saying about this: "Don't wrestle a pig. You'll both get muddy but the pig likes it." Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Please try shaving with Occam's razor. A more prosaic explanation is that Lionelt etc. don't really understand the policies and guidelines, many of which are intentionally esoteric. Viriditas (talk) 12:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's totally what happened. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, they understand them well enough to abuse them. I'm a noob here yet I know that ANI/EW is not where you complain about civility or whatever. Occam's razor says they know what they're doing. I'm not the first editor they've "assassinated". Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 12:48, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Strangely enough, I have diffs from recent discussions on my talk page indicating that both Lionelt and Belchfire don't understand the policies, so yes, ignorance is one part of it and a contributing factor involving the bogus 3RR report. Are they intentionally filing false reports to silence their opponents? That is what Still-24-45-42-125 is trying to argue, but there isn't enough evidence at this point. Best to close this discussion. Viriditas (talk) 12:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

As I pointed out to Panda, the result of granting WP:AGF is taking away WP:COMPETENCE. In the end, it doesn't matter why they're abusing the system, only that they are. And, yes, since nobody's going to stop them from abusing the system, this discussion is pointless. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 13:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

In a way, it's a libertarian paradise (i.e. street battles in Somalia). Viriditas (talk) 13:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

My name is bandied again? Mo notice from the OP even? I would suggest to Scjesey that his post at etc. with edit summaries of Temporary break from the fuckwittery was the only reason I did not file a WQA on him after I asked him to delete personal attacks at on 14 Aug for such posts as And yes, I said you are deluded. And your recent comments also demonstrate that you're a dick as well with the edit summary of replies to assholery <--- more ammo for Mr Purer-Than-Driven-Snow and similar gross and egregious personal attacks on me and others, as noted many times (including a finding by ArbCom Scjessey (talk · contribs) has helped create the battleground atmosphere with a string of bellicose, polemic and uncivil comments in the run up to this case which shows an ongoing civility problem for the irascible Scjessey himself. So when I asked politely that he redact his attack, he "retired" for only enough hours to post an attack on me here, of all places! Scjessey, when you take a break, it meand to take a break and not to appear instantly to make further attacks. Really. And yes -- I find but when groups of editors coordinate to hound good editors off certain articles to be a direct accusation of meatpuppetry made not only without foundation, but egrreegiously so. I find however, coordinating to get rid of good editors just because they don't have the same ideology is most definitely not good. to be an egregious violation of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. This is getting ludicrous when an editor makes such accusations repeatedly, egregiously, without foundation, takes a "wikibreak" which is not even a "wikibreak" and then continues his attacks. Wikibreaks are not intended to allow such behaviour. Cheers. (BTW, I am not a member of any Wikiproject to the best of my knowledge, nor am I "buddies" with anyone - I watchlist well over 2500 articles, covering a very wide range, and I am not a meatpuppet, sockpuppet or any kind of puppet whatsoever! Nor have I "lodge false complaints" against Still24. I find this report sullying my name to be itself egregious behaviour on Still24's part. Collect (talk) 14:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I did not accuse you of anything in this thread, Collect, although it doesn't surprise me that you've showed up to attack me in this new forum and repeat your trumped-up charges. My "wikibreak" is a break from my watchlist. I can define my wikibreak in any way I see fit, as they are not part of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. I respectfully suggest you dial back your mock outrage. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

You showed up in this thread. I showed up afer being notified by an editor other than the OP who did not notify me as required at all. Your wikibreak had an edit summary noted above -- and was quite blatantly in response to my polite request that you redact your attacks. You showed up here and made comments - while you were on a "wikibreak" on a topic where the OP bandied my name. That you view this as Wow. This guy follows me everywhere is another blatant and egregious personal attack. All good advice, but when groups of editors coordinate to hound good editors off certain articles, that's a double-plus ungood for Misplaced Pages. I'm sure it contributes to the gradual reduction in the numbers of regular editors we've seen from you damn well seemed to refer to the cabal averred by Still24, and seemed to say that such a cabal exists. It does not exist. Period. So much for your comments accusing anyong of "stalking" here, and so much for your "faux wikibreak". (I request you redact your attacks on me which violate WP:NPA on their face. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC) seems polite IMHO) Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

You're making yourself look a little silly and hysterical, dude. Especially with your blatant and egregious overuse of the words "blatant" and "egregious" in most of your discourse. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Does Collect look a little silly and hysterical? Maybe. Is he overusing the word "blatant"? Most definitely. Was he lumped in with a group of "buddies" to be tarred and feathered for something he wasn't involved in? Looks like a big yes to me. I've been on the receiving end of this sort of "guilt by association" myself, and I can tell you, there is no merit to this kind of approach. If and when Collect errs (and he does) feel free to bring that up. But do not lump him in with others merely because he belongs to the same Wikiproject, or has the same POV. You've done two things wrong with that; you've not only inappropriately added him to a complaint about which he had nothing to do, you have now weakened your own case by distracting from your real complaint. Puppy's heartfelt advice; don't do this. KillerChihuahua 15:05, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

And since I do not belong to "the same Wikiproject" I found the claims that I do to be a teensy bit errant. And I still do not like having an OP not notify me when he inserts my name into the mix at the start. Collect (talk) 16:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Hence my use of "or" - I probably should have used "perceived" for the POV as well. I believe the point is clear enough. KillerChihuahua 16:30, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, This wasn't Scjessey's complaint. --Onorem♠Dil 15:20, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Apolgiesm I was adressng Still-24-45-42-125; I regret any confusion. KillerChihuahua 15:29, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• slightly off topic Can someone uninvolved please look at Still's recent (and frequent) use of hats on discussion boards? Little green rosetta (talk) 13:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

is interesting as it clearly shows Still24's aims here, there's nothing I can do now to stop the WikiProject Conservatism posse from continuing to file false reports until I'm blocked unless they are prevented from doing so. Which is a blatant misuse of the noticeboards, is contrary to the Five Pillars, is opposed to collegial editing, etc. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Advice to All editors in conflict with this thread WP:DROPIT Back away from the dead horse. For each thread I've seen and thought about banging your heads together like 2 empty halves of a coconut I've held my tounge. No longer. Still-24, in some cases a cadre of editors is going to form a mafia around a topic space. Try editing other topics similar, but not directly in their line of fire. Be fastidious in your observation of the rules/guidelines/essays of Misplaced Pages. If their behavior is so out of line other editors will see it and call them on it. Scjesey and Collect, please don't use annother person's complaint thread to re-ignite your flamefest with each other. Advice has been given, let's move on from this locus of drama and get back to improving the Encyclopedia as a whole. Hasteur (talk) 17:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree, there are serious issues at the core here, but this thread isn't going to help deal with them. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:45, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Request for move protection at "Men's rights", and other action

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

"Executive summary"

An RFC concerning the article Men's rights was closed by admin KillerChihuahua at 01:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC), with this edit. There are reasons to be concerned about that closure, and about its possible consequences. That controversial article has long been under article probation, with many new editors springing up out of nowhere and behaving badly. Feelings run high. This recently closed RFC was the work of a completely new account, who strangely knew exactly what to do. The notice at WP:RFC was vague and uninformative (deceptive, really); and it made no mention of a move for the article; but that's what it turned out to propose, among other more convoluted "reforms". Everyone at the talkpage knows that the title has been hotly disputed, and indeed there was a failed RM in November 2011 (hidden away in an archive, now; and barely referred to this time around), attempting the very same move. An article under probation must be treated with great care and propriety; but the participants in this recent RFC ignored the established principle in titling policy at WP:TITLE: all moves that are likely to be controversial should be processed through the formal procedures laid out at WP:RM. Well, that process led to "no move", last time; but it may be that someone has tried to sneak a move through without notifying the community. Most editors interested in RMs watch WP:RM; but nothing turned up there about this irregular process. So of course the RFC, started in a suspicious and surreptitious way, drew comments from those who monitored the page itself rather than from a spread of the wider community (as in a legitimate RM, and as happened last time for this page). Most irregular. Worst of all, admin KillerChihuahua closed off the long and fuzzy RFC (apparently within 19 minutes of first encountering it) without attending to what policy demands and what the community expects. I request that the page be move-protected, and that these errors be corrected. Noetica 14:09, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Background

The RFC had run since 10 July, when it was initiated by newly registered user JasonMacker within the first four edits he ever made under that username (see record of his contributions, and note the three relevant edits, which together add 15KB of well-formatted text to the talkpage: , , ). A bot duly posted the RFC notification at WP:RFC, with this text from JasonMacker's post:

"Trying to address scope of article, as well as issues with the use of sources when it comes to describing the subject. A lot of the sources come from other than the subject of the article, rather than self-declarations, and If feel this is causing problems with the article's tone, as well as WP:SYNTH issues."

There is no suggestion of any move of the article in that notification. But at the RFC itself (on the talkpage), the text continues like this:

"I'm proposing that this article be renamed to Men's Rights Movement, because the current scope of the article is only dealing with the men's rights movement. ..."

And a great deal more follows that.

Back to the present

KillerChihuahua was called on at her talkpage to close the RFC (by Slp1. See this edit at Talk:Men's rights; and see this edit at KillerChihuahua's own talkpage (22:14, 13 August 2012 (UTC)), to which KillerChihuahua replied (01:37, 14 August 2012 (UTC)):

"Sure, I can do it; it may take a bit for me to read through it; I wasn't even aware there was an Rfc there. :-/ So I'm not up to date on it."

19 minutes after making that post (saying she had been unaware of the RFC, and would need time), KillerChihuahua wrapped up the RFC, whose text runs to more than 5,000 words. (That edit again: , timestamped 01:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC).)

That is, on the face of it, 19 minutes to assess a complex and often rambling RFC proposal and discussion. But there is more. For most of that RFC discussion there had been only oblique mention of an RM in November 2011 (duly processed according to WP:RM protocols), which is now archived. The proposed new title was the same as in this RFC, except without capitals: "Men's rights movement". That RM was closed in this edit and the preceding one, without moving:

"The result of the move request was: not moved. The article has changed significantly since the majority of the comments were posted. The majority of the current article is not about the men's rights movement per se. A new move request may be proposed, although a separate article on the movement itself (separate from the rights) would probably be a less contentious undertaking. Aervanath (talk) 03:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)"

KillerChihuahua had commented at that RM (but did not vote). She was therefore aware of the genuine RM, and of the closing admin's finding that "a new move request may be proposed"; but this recent RFC was not part of the standard procedures laid out at WP:RM, and was never advertised to the community, in any proper forum that people have on their watchlist, as involving a move. A serious failure to inform the community.

Now, perhaps we must suppose that KillerChihuahua found time in the critical 19 minutes to read the present RFC (5000+ words), check key links in the RFC, review the only genuine RM for the article (8000+ words; making a total, with the present RFC, of roughly 27 A4 pages, single-spaced), check the state of the article itself, formulate a response, type in that response, check it, and close off the RFC.

Important to note also: at 06:30, 20 October 2011‎ (UTC) KillerChihuahua began this article probation page for the article; and article probation remains active.

Despite that article probation, I do not at this stage document anything about the style of KillerChihuahua's recent posts on the article's talkpage, preferring that the more substantive facts be addressed as a priority. I claim that the closure of the RFC was hasty and improper, and that the only legitimate way to determine a move for this article is given unequivocally at the relevant policy page, WP:TITLE:

Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves, and consensus reached before any change is made.

It is beyond doubt that Men's rights, under long probation since before a properly conducted but failed RM, is "potentially controversial". It is equally beyond doubt that the initiator of that probation knows full well how controversial it would be. Yet admin KillerChihuahua appears to have ignored a clear ruling in policy, and to have acted precipitately. I raised a complaint about this at the article's talkpage (see Talk:Men's rights#Improper closure of discussion regarding a move of this article), because I am particularly interested in RMs and also in Misplaced Pages's treatment of gender issues. I had participated in the properly conducted RM of November 2011, and wondered if there might be another one some time. I check the WP:RM lists daily; but no RM was notified. Almost certainly, other interested editors also missed the opportunity to have their say. It is therefore not surprising that a different and smaller cohort of editors, for the most part, took part in this RFC; nor is it surprising that the tendency of opinion was different this time, given that only "locals" knew what was proposed in this RFC.

What happened next?

Kevin Gorman has written (see the section I started, liked just above):

The minor procedural points that have been brought up are easily covered by WP:NOTBURO. If you disagree, please take this to ANI within the next 24 hours or I will begin to implement the close.

Hence this post, which I make reluctantly. KillerChihuahua does not agree to reverse her extremely poor administrative decision in favour of an unadvertised attempt to move a highly controversial page; so I feel I have little choice.

Proposed remedies

• An immediate move protection of the page, while the matter is discussed here.
• A retraction of the admin action that closed the RFC with a decision that the page be moved.
• Continued move protection of the page, until either a new RM discussion is conducted or the matter is referred to some other appropriate forum for determination.
• An affirmation that clearly stated policy provisions at WP:TITLE are to be respected, in the processing of move requests.
• Consideration of further actions under the terms of the page's article probation (for which I reserve the option of presenting evidence from the article's talkpage).

Notifications of all named editors

• User:KillerChihuahua: diff
• User:JasonMacker: diff
• User:Slp1: diff
• User:Aervanath: diff
• User:Kevin Gorman: diff

Thank you!
☺
Noetica 11:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• • Sorry, I don't understand how the name question is controversial, could you give an executive summary of that, please, Noetica? Sending people to the discussion on the Men's rights talkpage to find out would be a little cruel, since it is, as you say, very… uh… very full of words. (I gave up in something like despair, myself.) Obviously an article on men's rights is going to be controversial, but what's the big deal about what it's called? Is there a tendentiousness in either of the names — "Men's rights" and "Men's rights movement" — and if so, in what way? That's surely the main point at issue. A pocket version of why it matters would be much appreciated. Bishonen | talk 12:56, 15 August 2012 (UTC).

Thanks, Bishonen. I have now taken the opportunity to explain my concerns more succinctly at the top (see "Executive summary"). I was at pains to get this done before the deadline set by User:Kevin Gorman (see above), and I knew that ANI demands all the diffs and details. So I rushed to give all that, and had no time for highlighting key points early on. In fact the naming issue looms large in its own right for this page, as in most matters of gender politics. But I was most concerned about the abuse of procedure by admin KillerChihuahua, who ought to have acted with probity and caution but did not. She doesn't hesitate to wield the tools against any suspected miscreant, and she set up the special article probation for Men's rights – and uses it, you can be sure. Yet her own behaviour has been appalling here. No doubt she will have support for "political" reasons, at such a political page. But Misplaced Pages has to rise above such bias, and so must its admins. I respect Misplaced Pages policy, and I expect to see our admins do the same. When I drew KillerChihuahua's attention to her lapse this time, she did not for a moment stop to consider that I might have a point. But I make my point with reference to due process, and to clear and established policy. That's the bottom line; and any opinion expressed here that ignores the administration of Misplaced Pages policy by admins seems very odd indeed. To me, at least. What do you think?

Noetica 14:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for summarising your previous long post, but I'm no wiser regarding the question I asked. I must have been unclear. I try again: what's the significance of the difference between "Men's rights" and "Men's rights movement"? Is either or both of them tendentious? Politically, ideologically? If not, or if the difference is too subtle to be briefly explained here, why do you care about timestamps or shades and niceties of procedure, and why should we? I have trouble forming an opinion about the administration of policy in response to your challenge ("What do you think?"), as long there is this vacuum in the middle of the room. (Kind of the opposite of an elephant, if you see what I mean.) Bishonen | talk 15:06, 15 August 2012 (UTC).

The difference between the two is not the issue. In fact, I have no time to analyse all the gradations of meaning and connotation in the two competing titles, nor to form a new opinion based on the vague to and fro of the recent RFC, or on developments in the article itself. I did not take part in the RFC. I wasn't alerted to it in a way that would have got me interested. The point is this: many readers do contest the content of Men's rights, and along with that they naturally do contest the title – and even whether the article should exist. Since they do contest all that, and since behaviour has been so reprehensible in editing and on the talkpage, special sanctions were imposed. Article probation, by KillerChihuahua. That places an onus on everyone involved, including especially herself. She has failed in her duty, as I have shown. As I write, I am still waiting for anyone to show any defect in my appeals to policy at WP:TITLE, and in my call for calm, slow, openly declared deliberation toward genuine consensus.

I'm afraid that if my concerns are to be dismissed as to do with "niceties of procedure", then I might as well give up. Is policy at WP:TITLE a mere ornament? Are the duties of an admin to assess a month-long discussion (with its deep and obscure background) properly dispatched in 19 minutes? News to me, at least! ♥

Noetica 15:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Not to butt in but the difference is this: the men's rights movement can be sourced but there has been significant offsite WP:OWN issues (meatpupetry & personal attacks most of which have been aimed this time at Kevin Gorman) but also attacks on BLPs to prevent renaming because apparently renaming the article effects the movements campaign and we shouldn't be touching "their" article. I can't link to the bad sites but this article from Jezebel covers it--Cailil 15:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

To try to answer Bishonen's question (and as she says, that talk page is "very full of words"), as far as I have been able to figure out, the difference between "Men's rights" and "Men's rights movement" is that "men's rights", as you might expect, has to do with fatherhood, men breaking gender barriers, changing unreasonable societal expectations, and opposition to media portrayal of men as sex-obsessed womanizers, and incompetent, misogynistic, brutish slobs with few redeeming qualities; whereas the "men's rights movement" is made up of activists like this:. There are several dozen websites more like that one, some specifically about Misplaced Pages; if you want to see more, just ask.

As far as I can tell, the biggest problem with the "men's rights" article right now is that it is considered to be lacking in reliable sources and full of unsourced, non-NPOV material added by single-issue editors recruited from other websites. Changing the title to "men's rights movement" will open the door to using these sources now considered to be non-RS, since you can reference someone's own blog for information about themselves.

Neotarf (talk) 15:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The problem is there is no agreed upon definition of "men's rights". The term doesn't really exist outside of the current men's rights movement. So any article titled "men's rights" is going to have inherent POV, OR, and RS problems. This is why all the regular editors of the article want to move it. If you look at the article's talk pages, it's just the same arguments over and over again, almost all related to lack of sources outside of the men's rights movement. Kaldari (talk) 20:14, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Disclaimer: I participated in the RfC. This RfC ran for over a month and had nearly unanimous consensus to move (7 support, 1 oppose). In my opinion, Noetica's claims that this discussion was somehow irregular are unfounded. The reason it only took KillerChihuahua 19 minutes to close the RfC is because the results were relatively clear. Noetica is welcome to start a new page move discussion after this page move is complete, but I can't see any reason to block the action of this RfC at this point, per WP:NOTBURO. Just my 2 cents. Kaldari (talk) 13:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Kaldari, you write: "Noetica's claims that this discussion was somehow irregular are unfounded." But you do not address the concrete points that I make at all. Read them, and answer them. Note the points about the misleading RFC notice; note the hard black-letter statement of policy at WP:TITLE. I look forward to your response to those, rather than your expression of opinion that simply fails to engage with the submission I have made. Noetica 15:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comments by KillerChihuahua: the Rfc was open for a month, and was publicly listed, so I don't know why Noetica thinks this was "unadvertised." It was open for over 30 days, listed to the community via the Rfc boards. The single oppose in the Rfc agreed with the proposer that all the sources speak of men's rights movement (&activists etc) rather than men's rights, and wanted to rewrite the article to match the title better, rather than moving the article to the desired name. To questions about how to write an article where none of the sources use the term you want to write about, he had no reply. So 7 support, and 1 oppose, with the one oppose granting validity and concurring with the rationale for moving. No, it didn't take as long as I'd feared it would to read that, and it seems quite clear to me that consensus is to move, and the Rfc was sufficient to that. I note Noetica voted NOT to move in the earlier RM, and seems to be relying heavily on "I didn't vote in the Rfc" possibly to give the impression of neutrality. No challenge has been made that consensus is not to move the article; Noetica's complaint is procedural only; that an Rfc is procedurally wrong to decide if an article should be moved to a new name, if that article has ever been at RM in the past. I don't see how any admin would have closed in any other way than I did; there is more than one way to determine consensus, and the Rfc was very well and cleanly done. If there are questions, I will try to answer; but I will be afk off and on for a bit so pls be patient if you ask and I do not immediately answer. KillerChihuahua 14:20, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

KillerChihuahua, you write:

"the Rfc was open for a month, and was publicly listed, so I don't know why Noetica thinks this was 'unadvertised'."

Well, address what I have clearly laid out above. The notice of the RFC was deceptive. You did not address that earlier, in your actions or your hastily assembled comments; you ignore it now. Not good enough: for an admin who expects so much from others, and is ruthless with those who fall short.

"The single oppose in the Rfc ..."

Well, stop to think. There might have been more opposes, if people had known about the move proposal that was smuggled in. I watch for RMs very closely; but I had no way of knowing about this one through any accepted channel. You do not answer this point, so far. Please do.

"I note Noetica voted NOT to move in the earlier RM, and seems to be relying heavily on 'I didn't vote in the Rfc' possibly to give the impression of neutrality."

Well, we all like to give an appearance of neutrality, don't we? ☺ Anyway, as I stated, yes: I voted then. But as I also stated at the talkpage, I have formed no opinion after exposure of the present complex of issues in the present RFC. My reading must be a little slower than yours. In fact, I'm damn sure it is! I am more interested in style matters for Misplaced Pages, and titling principles, than I am in that truly impossible article. I am close to neutral about how things go there for content, because I think nothing can be done to give it stability. Hey, life's too short.

"No challenge has been made that consensus is not to move the article; ..."

Right. No sufficiently wide consensus has been sought for anything, because the nature of the RFC was not revealed to the community. You failed to pick that up, in your 19 minutes of administrative deliberation.

"Noetica's complaint is procedural only; ..."

Sure. Aren't many of your concerns procedural? Isn't this admin forum deeply concerned with procedure as laid out in policy? Isn't the article probation page you set up for Men's rights concerned with procedure? Don't we require admins especially to safeguard established procedure?

"I don't see how any admin would have closed in any other way than I did; there is more than one way to determine consensus, and the Rfc was very well and cleanly done."

Astonishing. You form that opinion, in less than 19 minutes? And then nothing will persuade you to contemplate an alternative judgement? Well, I won't try any more. But others will determine what to do here. An alternative (once again, and just for the record): an admin could take more than 19 minutes to assess a month of discussion, and could look at the present state of the article, the extent to which relevant policy has been respected or flatly ignored, previous RMs (if any), with previous admins' decisions, and so on. If an admin is too busy to do all that, an admin can hand the matter on to someone better situated. Theoretically.

Noetica 15:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

TL, DR version: Noetica doesn't say the consensus is not to move. Noetica's complaint is procedure wasn't followed. WP:NOTBURO: Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy without consideration for the principles of policies. ... Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures. ...A procedural error made in a proposal or request is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or request. KillerChihuahua 14:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: this is not to be taken that I agree with Noetica that a procedural error was made; I do not. I find a public listed Rfc which runs for 34 days sufficient to determine this. I merely note that even if the complaint is technically correct, that is no reason to ignore clear consensus which follows policy. KillerChihuahua 14:37, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I say that there was no well-founded consensus either way, in a deceptive and irregular process that you failed to diagnose. In the 19 minutes you allocated to the administrative task you took on. There was no "consensus-based discussion"; you failed to see that, and you seem unwilling even to consider that you might have been in error, or that you acted impulsively – despite the hard evidence of timestamped diffs. "A public listed RFC"? You continue to ignore the obvious response to that disingenuous characterisation. Are you as forgiving with those you would block at the drop of a hat as you are with yourself? You cite policy selectively from WP:BURO, as it suits you; but you leave out this part: "While Misplaced Pages's written policies and guidelines should be taken seriously, they can be misused." And you totally ignore the most relevant policy in this case, at WP:TITLE. See above. You abuse it by ignoring it.

Noetica 15:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Semi-involved comment: I didn't take part in the RFC mainly because I try to stay away from editing in this topic (due to long standing harassment by offsite elements) but notwithstanding that I've contributed to this topic over the years. Noetica's contention is that somehow the RFC is not good enough to determine consensus this is pure wonkery - it's also incorrect. I also have a major problem wit the massive assumptions of bad faith being levelled at KC. IF there is a procedural error say that don't construct an argument based on assumptions of bad faith it's thoroughly unnecessary and does not help a topic that is under community probation due to severe battleground issues--Cailil 15:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, assertions. Got an argument to support your contention that the falsely advertised RFC was good enough to determine consensus? How are the rest of us supposed to know about it (as a covert proposal to move the page), in the first place? I have shown the highly questionable way in which it arose; strange that no one else bothered to detect the fact that a new editor came up with so finely tuned an instrument, when detections of sock-puppetry and Satanism of every stripe are the norm at that talkpage.

As for assuming good faith, yes: you might try that. Please do.

Noetica 15:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Since Noetica has brought it up now twice, I have been tested at 900wpm at 100% accuracy and 100% retention. I was tested once at 1000wpm but retention dropped to 98%. My normal reading speed is between 500 and 700 wpm, and of course I scan much faster than any of those times. I would appreciate it if no one bothers me about this in the future; I have found that once people know they pester me about it and it's a little embarrassing. KillerChihuahua 15:23, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, I confess that I did wonder. I mean, you complained at the talkpage of Men's rights about my "wall of words", when I replied to your c. 100 words with my own c. 100 words (neatly interspersed with quotations from your own 100, for crystal clarity). I also note that you misread an exchange on my own talkpage, which you trawled for to make a personalising point against me when I dared to impugn your administrative actions. So yes: let's not talk any more about that.

Noetica 15:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

for those who are curious, I believe Noetica refers to this edit. KillerChihuahua 16:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• My main reaction after reading this thread was "Wow, Noetica really dislikes KillerChihuahua." Which is to say that I pretty much agree with Cailil's statement - if you think there's been a procedural error, that's fair enough to ask about, but you're making some rather astounding leaps of bad faith in how you're describing the situation, and I'm left with the impression that this is about "getting" KC, not about whether the article should be moved or not. I don't believe there's any particular reason an RfC can't reach consensus for an article move, so my feeling is that even the charge of "procedural error" here is weak. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:37, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It would be healthy to move beyond mere reactions and on to hard-headed analysis though, wouldn't it? I have no feelings about KillerChihuahua herself that have any bearing here at all. But I have opinions about her actions, and her responses when those actions are evaluated against the demands of policy. Perhaps you should look at her rather extraordinary assumptions about me, and her attacks on me when I criticise her actions head-on. It seems to me she can give it, but can she take it? I don't dislike her for not being able to, if that is the case. But it doesn't help in the fulfilment of administrative responsibilities. Anyway, if a procedural error has been made, let's just get it undone – and we can all move on. That's all I'm after. Should I not be? ☺?

Noetica 16:03, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. My "mere reaction" is my analysis of the situation, after reading the evidence available. For whatever reason, you dislike KillerChihuahua and/or her actions at an emotional level, and you are lashing out from that level. Maybe you think you're not, but it's really, really clear that you are (or else that you're doing a fantastic job acting exactly like someone lashing out from an emotional level). We are all here trying to tell you that the issue here is a non-issue. An RfC happened, it went the way you didn't like, it resulted in a move. None of that is something that needs to be reversed in such dire circumstances as to be an emergency action from ANI. There is no evidence of malfeasance - or even an error - here from KillerChihuahua. You need to stop beating that dead horse, because all its doing is making you look like the sort of person who resents horses. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

No, there some pretty basic confusions there. You don't respond to the points I make at all; you respond as if you have some privileged access to my psyche, and you're really sure of what you think you see. Well, don't be. It would be no one's business anyway. Evaluate the claims about admin conduct, read the date-stamped diffs, review WP:TITLE, and respond to all that. The rest is a distraction: and frankly, an insult. What is or is not an issue is not determined by any sort of appeal to groupthink, but by the hard evidence and arguments produced here. If you or anyone fails to grasp, or prefers not to grasp, the issues as they are laid out, then that is a fact to be lived with. I can live with it perfectly well. I have a certain respect for policy; it's not my fault, or ultimately my anguish, if anyone else doesn't do the same. You make declarations about KillerChihuahua's innocence, with no iota of evidence. I think we should beware of such unargued expressions of sentiment as much as of ridiculous distortions like: "An RfC happened, it went the way you didn't like, it resulted in a move." I advise you to pay attention. I would not have wanted that RFC to go any way, set up in any such way, conducted in any such way, or closed in any such way. Yes, I am concerned about gross departure from established procedures that would yield real, durable consensus. Once again, should I not be? ☺?

Noetica 16:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to assume bad faith or sinister ulterior motives of anyone here, but I ended up at the "men's rights" talk page because of this rather confrontational message left on Noetica's talk page. Neotarf (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I've already addressed what that message was about here and after; once the move discussion closure was protested, then nothing could be done without either (a) Noetica withdrawing his complaint or (b) outside opinion. (In that post "she" and "her" refers to Noetica; I was going by the ending "a" which is usually female, and erred. I have since corrected the gender.) KillerChihuahua 17:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

While we're on Noetica's talk page, it looks like there have been some disagreement over the point of view that the article should take. I notice that there was no response to Noetica's inference that he is not welcome to edit that particular article. Neotarf (talk) 17:34, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

"he is not welcome to edit that particular article" is not how I would summarize that post by Noetica. It reads to me rather differently. As to no response, there was no question, merely a series of complaints and disparaging comments about me. KillerChihuahua 17:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I was not the only one who did a double take at that message. Another editor found it "unexplained but very possibly WP:POINTY and threatening". Neotarf (talk) 17:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

And the comment I link to above was my response to him. I have already asked you on your talk page how "waiting on you" is a threat. KillerChihuahua 18:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• TL;DR (well I did, but I'm still a bit lost). I do have a question. Is it proper for an admin to be contacted on their talk page to resolve an RfC, especially if they've commented in a related area in the past? I imagine anyone would have closed it the same way, but that still seems a bit less-than-ideal. On the main question, a 30-day RfC on the talk page of the article really should be enough for anyone who cares about the topic. That said, the wrong process seemed to have been used. Is there a reason not to now use the RM process since someone has objected _and_ (given the last RM) there is reason to believe such a redo might get a different result? I'm not seeing a reason to rush and I like the idea of there being a fair process. That a sock started the RfC (which is what it has to be) just muddies the process further. Hobit (talk) 18:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

  Slp1 contacted me because I'm sort of the "uninvolved admin of record" - I wrote the probation page and have been active enforcing it in the past, and my comment "Reminding editors of applicable policies is helpful advice, not bullying - and playing the victim does not release you from your obligation to follow the policies." on that thread was in that role, none other. I also around that time made a number of other talk page edits in that role, such as "You are in error. This article is under probation; you will cease such hostile posts or you will be sanctioned, I assure you. Your choice." and I answered a few questions as here. KillerChihuahua 18:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

  Ah, thanks makes more sense. Hobit (talk) 18:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

  You're welcome. I appreciate the concern, but at no time have I made any comments in any role other than that of uninvolved admin ensuring policy was followed and sanctions enforced. KillerChihuahua 18:59, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

  I'll confirm that I contacted KC because they have been working as an admin on this article for nearly a year; they are not, and have not, been involved in the article otherwise; I would not have asked them if they had. I don't agree that User:JasonMacker is clearly a sock. There is a real life person of that name who has some related interests to be found the internet, and the long post he made analysing the article shows unfamiliarity with WP policies about WP:V, WP:NPOV etc. More importantly perhaps, voice/content is quite different from other editors who have posted on the talkpage previously.

As others have stated above, I don't see that a "wrong" process was used, or that any rerun is necessary. There are multiple ways of discussing page moves, and it is process wonkery to insist on a rerun especially when the discussion, which included article editors who know the literature and new voices, was pretty much unanimous.

Finally, I am appalled by the multiple bad faith accusations against KC and others that have permeated this discussion. No wonder admins don't want to work in difficult areas such as this, when they are given this treatment. Slp1 (talk) 20:13, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for the clarification on KC, sounds like all was perfectly resonable there. Secondly, having 6 wikilinks to guidelines/policies/essays in your second post isn't unthinkable. Nor is starting an RfC in your first 10. But it does certainly look seem highly unusual. Finally, I just don't see the problem with waiting a week or so for an RM. I doubt it will change anything, but I also don't think the delay is harmful and it might get some additional voices. Like I said, I think providing everyone a fair shake on things important to them is good. It helps with editor retention and generally makes people happier. So there is a point to the process wonkery IMO. Hobit (talk) 21:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• People had a fair shake on this. An appropriate process was used. For a month. A clear consensus was reached. I don't see any reason to reward an editor who takes such a narrow view of consensus decision making, especially when it is done in done in a highly inappropriate, accusatory manner. If Noetica really feels that the page should be moved back, let him start another discussion in a few weeks, on the merits of the move rather than technicalities. Slp1 (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• An appropriate mechanism (RfC) was used, a clear consensus for move was achieved, KillerChihuahua judged it well, KillerChihuahua did nothing wrong. Nothing to do here. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Viktoria Bolonina

Viktoria Bolonina has just been deleted without any debate taking place. It was originally tagged as lacking references, but this was rectified. Now I find it has been deleted without being nominated for deletion or without any discussion taking place.

Sardaka (talk) 12:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It was tagged for CSD A7, 16 minutes after the last time you edited the article. It appears to have remained tagged for about 6 hours uncontested before being deleted. Nothing amiss here.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 13:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Somebody should have at least put a {{Db-notability-notice}} message on your talk page, or if they thought they didn't want to patronise you per WP:DTR, give you a two line notice saying they added {{db-a7}} tag to it. You can probably get an admin to move it back into your userspace so you can have a look at it, and someone can check the references. If an article has references, then unless it's blank or saying something like "This is my cat. Isn't he cool" with a Facebook page as a reference, I would challenge it being a valid CSD-A7. I rant about this occasionally, but I've come across enough people who've said "Hey, I was looking at this page on Misplaced Pages a few months back and I can't find it now - where's it gone?" (yes, it went to Articles for Deletion, which they'll never see) to know that speedy deletes unless they really are blindingly obvious drivel can bite more people than you think. --Ritchie333 13:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The author of the article was properly informed.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The author's new and might not even have read the CSD template, or possibly even understood what it meant. Policy may have been followed, and for all I know it may have been a totally valid A7, but it's rare I see anyone except the author complaining about them, and usually indicates it's worth at least somebody explaining exactly why the speedy took place. --Ritchie333 14:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It was referenced, but not well-referenced. Two of the four references were to facebook, one to Youtube and one I didn't recognize, so at best, it had one reference. That said, I'll repeat what has already been noted, if you want it userfied (copied to a usersubpage, where it can be improved in peace), just say so, I'll be happy to.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to sound like a Wikilawyer, but while that sounds like a "snow delete" for AfD, it doesn't sound like an A7. We've got to get them right according to policy otherwise it can seriously irritate newbies (and FWIW, I can make bad calls on a speedy as well). Up to Sardaka if they want it to be userfied really. --Ritchie333 14:41, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

At best this should be a redirect to The Voice (Australia). GiantSnowman 14:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Ritchie333. None of the references are independent (the fourth goes to the TV show's website), so I can't see this existing as a stand-alone article. However, the article did assert notability ("She rose to prominence as being a contestant of the first season of 'The Voice Australia'"), so A7 does not apply. This should have gone to AFD, or a talk-page discussion for a redirect. Resolute 15:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Or, of course, Sardaka, are you aware of any decent coverage of Bolonina in independent media? That would help any assertion that this article can exist as a stand alone. Resolute 15:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I've just redirected it, didn't restore the page history. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:18, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Elephant in the room: The question of the presence and quality of sources is irrelevant, as sources are not required to avoid A7 - all that is needed is a credible claim of importance. And "She rose to prominence as being a contestant of the first season of 'The Voice Australia'" looks like a credible claim to me. As it stood, it wouldn't have had a chance of surviving AfD, but that doesn't make it eligible for A7. I suggest the most practical way forward is to userfy it, and explain the need for reliable sources in order to avoid AfD. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:01, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Boing! is right - it is a common mistake, though. I've had to remove numerous A7 tags for that reason - because a claim was made, and that's all that is needed. KillerChihuahua 16:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I would disagree with Boing about this one. Granted, A7 does not require sources, but it does require a "credible claim of significance or importance." Reality show contestants are ten a penny, and just saying she "rose to prominence" by being one doesn't make it true. JohnCD (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Indeed not, however that's a job for the verifiability of the article to sort that out via its references, and, by extension, taking it to AfD. My personal feeling is after reading a genuine candidate for A7, the foremost thought in your mind should be "So what?" It should be totally and utterly unsalvageable, even as a redirect (which, as we've seen suggested, could have been a possible outcome for this one at AfD). --Ritchie333 17:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It wouldn't likely stand a snowball's chance at AFD, but it does appear to have a credible claim, which is the standard for A7, so likely the CSD was hasty. Still, userfying may be the best solution, allow it to get worked up a bit and then moved back into main space, to give it a fair chance of avoiding AFD. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

While you're all having a meta-debate, notice that before this incident was started, Sardaka started User talk:Anthony Bradbury#Viktoria Bolonina, which is the correct course of action, but didn't wait a reasonable length of time for a reply and then came here, which is an incorrect course of action. Xe has since received a reply at User talk:Sardaka#Viktoria Bolonina. The next step as far as the article itself is concerned, Misplaced Pages:Requests for undeletion, still doesn't involve this noticeboard. We now return you to your scheduled meta-discussion of CSD criterion #A7. Uncle G (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Bah, we aren't bureaucrats, we do everything at ANI, even windows. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:17, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• He should have gone to Articles for Creation, the page would have sat there getting declined again and again until either it was properly sourced to survive an AfD or the author gave up. --Ritchie333 19:23, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• A7 is one of those CSD criteria that often leads to disputes. The point of that particular CSD rationale is to help us easily and quickly get rid of articles that don't even try to show why the subject merits inclusion. An article that says "Fred Smith is a tax lawyer from Alabama" has no place in Misplaced Pages and shouldn't have to go through AfD or even the wait of proposed deletion. Also, outlandish claims of importance like "Fred Smith is a tax lawyer from Alabama who has saved the world from destruction by extra-terrestrials on four separate occasions" don't fly. Hence why the policy states that they must be credible claims of importance. The problem is that the phrase "credible" is open to interpretation and is totally subjective. Some people insist that nothing that isn't verifiable is credible (and so expect to see sources) while others insist that any claim that's somewhat plausible can pass the bar we set. I lean more toward the latter than the former, but ultimately without a clear definition of what is meant by credible, this is always going to come down to administrator discretion. -- Atama頭 21:43, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Request for unprotection

82.132.249.193 (talk · contribs · 82.132.249.193 WHOIS) has requested that User talk:DeFacto be unprotected on my talk page. I protected DeFacto's talk page a few months ago after the second of his/her many socks edited that talk page. Rather than summarily declining the request because I can't see how unprotecting the page would benefit the project, I'll bring the issue here for community resolution.

Please note that several IPs in this IP's range were recently named in the latest edition of Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/DeFacto, and this appears to be the same editor. Toddst1 (talk) 20:41, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Oppose per WP:BOOMERANG. CityOfSilver 20:47, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

User;Onion hotdog

Onion hotdog (talk · contribs) apparently created an attack page against Dougweller (talk · contribs) at Metapedia and has resorted to personal attacks at Talk:Roger Pearson. Some attention seems warranted.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Its not an attack page, Metapedia merely records details on race denialist trolls, the same with Afrocentrics, and other promoters of pseudosciences. Misplaced Pages breaks its own rules on NPOV, by allowing race denialists on race related pages. Onion hotdog (talk) 21:13, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It is obvious from just a glance at Talk:Roger Pearson,that Onion hotdog has proven himself to be quite unable to function as an editor on Misplaced Pages. NPOV problems, battleground mentality, personal attacks both on- and offsite. I would expect that they are probably socking as well, since the level of dedication against certain editors suggest a much longer editing background than the few edits their contribs list has to show. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:26, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that both WP:RGW and WP:Advocacy may be of benefit to Onion hotdog and Teddyguyton. -- Atama頭 21:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Also WP:NPA... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:59, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Micronations being added to Category:North American countries

See Category:North American countries where Alan J. Villarruel (talk · contribs) is adding micronations to this category, and groups such as the Washitaw Nation. I'm off to bed so no time to deal properly but will notify this new user. Dougweller (talk) 20:56, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Implied legal threat by "Still-24-45-42-125"

• Still-24-45-42-125 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Anyone who has been active on any of the regular notice boards in the past few weeks is probably familiar with User:Still-24-45-42-125, a former editor who claims to have previously edited only as an ip, but three weeks ago created a new account and has racked up over 1600 edits in that time. Thats a large amount of edits in such a small amount of time, even for us high edit guys. But the number of exist is if no concern. It's what "Still-24-45-42-125" has done in those three weeks. He has been pushing POV on as many articles as possible, including and not limited to Mitt Romney dog incident, Chick-fil-A, Paul Ryan, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, ect, ect, ect. Most of the edits show a lack of any neutrality at all. Every edit seems one sided and focused toward a particular POV. A few threads on this page have already focused on much of User:Still-24-45-42-125's editing pattern, so I won't go into any more of that here.

What is of concern is a perceived implied legal threat by the user saying, On the advice of council, I'm not going to comment on the above action. If the user has currently retained "council" because of something that is happening on Misplaced Pages, I think some action needs to be taken, such as a block, until this "legal situation" can be resolved, per policy.--JOJ 22:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

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