Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:26, 11 March 2013

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User in difficulties

A particular editor's comments at the Fascism talk page and at the UTP of one of his co-editors may need some attention. Although he announced his latest retirement on Feb 26, he has continued posting in this increasingly vituperative vein while the retirement banner has been on his user page; he removed it at last today, with an edit summary saying it "will be restored in a day, after I say my mind on that asshole user at Talk:Fascism, then I'm gone." This will be his third or fourth "retirement". Please would you take a look? Writegeist (talk) 20:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

"Retirement" has for all practical purposes no meaning on Misplaced Pages. Yes, the user is very angry and does not seem to behave constructively overall, but... what do you want me to do? I'm not sure that the situation is sufficiently clear to warrant administrative action. Have you tried any formal WP:DR?  Sandstein  20:22, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

No I just meant if he genuninely intended to retire in the permanent sense then the behaviour's downward spiral would be of no concern. As the retirement will almost certainly prove temporary, the apparent unwillingness to rein in the temper and abandon the egregious personal insults will lead to a block, sooner or later, to protect against further instances. Whereas a word of friendly advice from an independent, non-aggressive admin about collegial discussion (or at least about the undesirability of repeatedly calling co-editors on article talk pages assholes or fucking hypocrites or whatever) might help prevent the drama. I realize your mileage may vary. Anyway, thanks for your time. Writegeist (talk) 21:15, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Problematic editor

Hello, Sandstein. I noticed you declined the unblock request from User:Yeoberry. I think this editor is problematic in more ways than one and would like to point something out separate and apart from the edit warring. Take a look at this article: Covenant Reformed Baptist Church. Check the history, 99% of it was recently created by the editor (take note he also deleted the notability tag here). In it, a Mr. John B. Carpenter figures prominently who "earned a Ph.D. in church history". Compare that information to the edit summaries seen here and here, as well as the fact that the editor reverted and re-inserted something he wrote from a theological journal he wrote in 2001, back into another article here. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 22:16, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks like there might be a bit of COI there. I wonder what the connections to FRI and SPLC are. - MrX 02:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeoberry also created John B. Carpenter which was deleted. Dougweller (talk) 09:01, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

That does look like a conflict of interest. However, editing with a COI is not actually forbidden, so what would you like me to do?  Sandstein  10:15, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree, having a COI in and of itself is not verboten, and a COI editor might still be adding valued content. There is nothing to "do" here per se, but it is worth taking note of and keeping an eye on as the COI is undeclared. If you take a closer look at the insertion of his journal work, he states that John Carpenter turned Foegel's theory on its head. After his work was removed by Rjensen as a "fringe theory", he immediately reverted with the edit summary "an academic source close to the leading proponent who publishes an alternative view in a major journal deserves mention". He also tried to author a BLP about himself. When he removed the notability tag from the article he created about the church he pastors, he did not use an edit summary. If you take a look at the article talk pages from this week, many of the editor's posts involve quickly accusing others of POV-pushing and bias, and he uses edit summaries like "stop POV-pushing", "MrX's POV-pushing", etc. There is nothing to "do" here at present, but I think it's useful for an admin be aware of the undeclared COI in light of the combative behavior. Perhaps after the block expires, we'll see nothing but unbiased collegiate and collaborative contributions? Let's hope so. Thanks, AzureCitizen (talk) 14:01, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I reverted an edit he made referencing a journal article in a minor journal (which he falsely calls a "major journal") that no one seems to have cited anywhere in the last decade. That made it fringe. If he wrote it himself it's double-trouble. Rjensen (talk) 15:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I've replaced the notability tag on the church, deleted some links involving Carpenter which seemed promotional, added some headers to the talk page and started a discussion on its notability. Dougweller (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

You recently gave me notice concerning one of my sources. I have questions.

You recently sent me a note concerning my sources. You told me not to quote voltairenet. Thierry Meyssan is the creator of this site, and he is a world renowned journalist, political scientist, and intellectual. His work is cited in many publications, and he is considered to be a legitimate source on this subject because he was a close personal friend of Claud Covassi. This close association is widely acknowledged, making him a legitimate source for this subject.

The previous version of the Claud Covassi entry was so incredibly biased, and incorrect it cannot be left in its previous condition. It was/is slanderous, and libelous. The previous entry labeled him as a "Spy and Criminal", then went on to make totally baseless accusations that have no references. The Misplaced Pages article stated that Claud was a Major cocaine importer, yet Claud has never been arrested, charged, or convicted of any cocaine crimes. He personally denied any criminal activities. The only official reference to criminal activity was the very unusual filing of charges against him for allegedly selling steroids in Thailand while he taught kick boxing. These charges appeared 10 years after the alleged act, based entirely upon hearsay evidence. Steroids are sold over the counter in Thailand, not requiring a prescription. Most people accept the act that these charges were bogus, and were retribution for Claud's blowing the whistle on Swiss Intelligence agencies for their attempts to frame an innocent man.

Don't let Misplaced Pages become the sanctuary for those who want to slander whistle blowers, and silence those who come forward with government wrong doing. Claud is no dead. Died under very unusual circumstances. The effort to ruin his name is comprehensive. Don't play a part in it by letting that previous entry stand.

Don't allow Misplaced Pages to be relegated to the dust bin of irrelevance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.20.145.82 (talk) 11:52, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Thierry Meyssan's article indicates that he is known mainly for propagating fringe theories, such as 9/11 conspiracy theories, which does not make him more reliable in my book. His site "voltairenet" is a blog which per our policy WP:SPS we may not use as a source. If he was a friend of the subject, then that makes him particularly unsuited as a source, because reliable sources should not be closely related to the subject. We must instead base our articles, such as Claude Covassi, on what reliable published sources write (see WP:V), even if you think that they got it wrong.  Sandstein  20:18, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Clarification request: Discretionary sanctions appeals procedure

The request is archived; however, an arbitrator is planning on offering an arbitrator motion "very shortly".

For the Arbitration Committee,
- Penwhale | 14:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I came late to the party. I too am interested in procedures for DS notification and logging of notification. Please tickle my talk page if there's open discussion you know about. You can find my discussions of the issue following the links in my comments in this thread. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

General sanctions clean up

Hi, could you take a look at User:Timotheus Canens/GS draft and leave comments on the talk page? Thanks a lot. T. Canens (talk) 09:27, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi

I just came here to say I think you're doing a good job and trying the best under difficult circumstances. I have seen and commented on the SMcCandlish/Fyunck thing at AE. I don't think either should be sanctioned as the trouble in this case (I can't know all cases) stems from differing interpretations of your close: "Consensus is that the answer to the question posed in the title of this RfC is "no". Additionally, a great majority of participants express a preference for retaining diacritics in the title of articles, either generally or as applied to tennis players in particular". I personally think that was a clear and accurate close and understand it to cover leads as well as titles. But evidently Fyunck sincerely believes it allows his leads, hence drama like the WP:BOLLOCKS diff. If there are really bad eggs here, then a clearer case for sanction will inevitably occur sooner rather than later, but in the meantime, some clarification on how your close relates to those leads (clarification either way) would pour oil on the water. This is only a tentative suggestion, good luck with however you progress this. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of confidence. But I don't see the connection between the RfC and the AE request. The former is about how to render the names of tennis players in Misplaced Pages, and it may well be that there are disagreements about how to apply the outcome, but if so, they are content disagreements and consequently irrelevant to AE. The arbitration process, and by extension AE, is about conduct, in this case, a battleground-like approach to resolving MOS disagreements that results in personal attacks and abuses of process. These are the problems that AE is concerned with, no matter whether the underlying content disagreemaents concern diacritics in tennis player names, the Arab-Israeli conflict, or something else altogether. As to your suggestion concerning clarification of the RfC result, I can try if somebody asks me, but in general I believe that the closer of an RfC has no particular authority in content disagreements (and in view of my activity at AE I'd rather not involve myself in content issues altogether).  Sandstein  16:14, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:INVOLVED

Sandstein, it occurs to me that you should not be reviewing the appeal of Brandmeister's sanction as an uninvolved editor. As you were one of the admins who supported the sanction in the initial AE case you would be involved with regards to an appeal of said sanction.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:53, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a valid argument, but I'm not sure whether you're right. I understand how one might think so. But technically? WP:INVOLVED describes the concept of involvement as "current or past conflicts ... and disputes on topics", which does not apply to me in relation to Brandmeister. Additionally, I reviewed the original request against Brandmeister in my administrative capacity. Per WP:INVOLVED, "ne important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits which do not speak to bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters, at length if necessary." So according to the wording of the policy I'm uninvolved in the sense of that policy.

Now, as a practical matter, should administrators who have expressed a view on a sanction (rather than imposed it themselves) recuse themselves from later discussion about that sanction? In theory, to prevent the appearance of bias, the answer should probably be yes. But the number of admins participating at AE is normally so low that, if they all recused themselves from commenting on appeals where they previously expressed an opinion about the sanction, the result may well be that there will not be enough uninvolved contributors in order for the qualified consensus needed to overturn a sanction to emerge from the discussion, and as a result most appeals to AE will be doomed to failure. If they don't recuse, they may well form a new opinion about the original sanction, as I did in the case you refer to, or they may conclude that the reason for the original sanction no longer applies, e.g. because the appellant has credibly promised not to repeat whatever misconduct he was sanctioned for. In addition, it is probably preferable for sanctions to be supported by a rough agreement of admins active at AE, because this will make it more likely that the sanction is not completely out of bounds. We should therefore not encourage admins not to comment on sanctions proposed by their colleagues just in case they may need to review an appeal later.

For these reasons, on balance, I consider that it's probably preferable for me to comment on appeals of sanctions I've previously commented about as an administrator, while however making it clear that I did so, so that whoever closes the appeal thread may still take this into consideration and, if they consider it appropriate, not take my view into account when assessing consensus. However, the question remains a valid one. I'm asking AGK (talk · contribs), the arbitrator who I understand is working on proposals to clarify AE appeals procedure, to take the question into consideration and perhaps offer a solution in his proposals.  Sandstein  22:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)