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Reference desk problem and block

As some may remember, I have been working recently on the problem of the Misplaced Pages:Reference desk, which as for some time been misused by a few users as a place for general discussion rather than its intended purpose. My first approach was to discuss the use of the reference desk, and appropriate ways of regulating it; these discussions (with some users) were extensive, and resulted in me writing out a personal plan for removing highly inappropriate comments and discussion from the reference desk: User:SCZenz/Reference desk removals. Applying this procedure worked fine until last night, when I removed an entirely off-topic joke discussion. I informed DirkvdM (talk • contribs • count) that I had done this, and he took exception. I spent a long period of time explaning why my actions follow from the spirit of Misplaced Pages policy and the purpose of the reference desk (see User talk:DirkvdM#Reference desk removal), but he repeatedly reverted my edits even after I made it clear that (in my best judgement) his reversions were disruptive. I therefore warned him that he would be blocked if he continued to disrupt the ref desk. He subsequently restored the comments, so I blocked him for 12 hours to prevent further disruption.

Thus I have failed in my original plan to improve the reference desk through discussion; several other admins have tried before me, and run out of patience rather faster than I did. In my best judgement, drawing a line in the sand and saying "some comments can be, and will be, removed to keep the page on topic" was the only remaining approach. When DirkvdM became stubborn on this point, I couldn't see a better option than to block for disruption. However, I have blocked a generally good contributor for restoring that he believes was legitimate content, and my actions should be reviewed. I would appreciate any comments. Thanks, SCZenz 21:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC) (SCZenz (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves))

I think the idea of removing comments by another editor is generally a bad thing, but in the case of the reference desk I would support your actions as it is very easy to get sidetracked with irrelevant things. In order to keep the place in order and useful, the desk must be kept on the point. Each question and topic on the desk should stay within its boundaries else people will not think the desk is actually any use.

In this case, removing DirkvdM's irrelevant and off-topic comment was appropriate and his trying to force it back on, regardless of the purpose of the page was disruptive. It is a case of using your common sense to prevent the page losing focus. -Localzuk 21:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I also concur with the removal and the block. SCZenz made an extraordinary effort to communicate with the user and explain exactly why it wasn't appropriate for the reference desk. As the first place many new Wikipedians go, it is important for it to maintain focus. Dirk claims that we are taking the fun out of Misplaced Pages, but there is no way irrelevent penis jokes on the reference desk make the encyclopedia better and he does not have an inalienble right to post them as his comments seem to indicate. Thank you SCZenz for tackling this tough area with patience and wisdom. pschemp | talk 21:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

LCs retorts

Surprise surprise! 8-( But Dirk saw it as relevant as he (and I) found ithe Q unclear.--Light current 00:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh and BTW, how are the RDs supposed to make WP better? Anyone know?--Light current 01:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Things that should be removed would include death threats and racial slurs. Bad jokes, while they perhaps shouldn't be made in the first place, certainly do not rise to the level of something to be removed, and blocking a user over such an issue is absurd. StuRat 00:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree! 8-)--Light current 00:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

SCZ has written, and is operating by, his own guidelines on which he has failed to obtain consensus for acceptance. He is acting autocratically and is guilty of harrassment. SCZ makes up the rules as he goes along. Is that how WP works?--Light current 00:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

He is using common sense and a interpretation of our existing policies in order to keep an important area of the encyclopedia on task and focussed. Also, the user was blocked for edit warring with an admin - ok, this block should have been done by a seperate admin and the issue discussed in more detail elsewhere first, but the block did what it was supposed to do - stopped the edit war.

Remember, wikipedia is not a discussion forum - jokes do not come within the purpose of the site. The reference desk is one of the first points of contact for many users of this site and as such should be kept focussed - if it is not, then the site may lose some credibility due to what is in essence silly banter.

I think this is an issue that needs further discussion, maybe on the talk page of SCZenz's proposed guideline page?-Localzuk 00:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Hang on! Thats not a proposed Guideline! Its not been presented as such. Its been presenteted as SCZs Law!. I proposed guidelines weeks ago! SCZ said my guidelines were uneccessary and common sense would do!. So why has he suddenly changed his mind?--Light current 00:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

What happened is that I wrote out my common-sense conclusions for the benefit of people who wanted to know what I was doing and why. My page is nothing but an explanation of how existing Misplaced Pages policy (plus a bit of common sense) already covers appropriate use of the reference desk, and what to do about inappropriate use. -- SCZenz 01:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

As I ve said so many times (but you were obviously not listening) Your common sense is NOT necessarily the same as other peoples. Get it yet? So you need to get consensus to ensure that a common sense of common sense is achielved!. Understand it yet?--Light current 01:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Mind WP:CIVIL, theres no reason to shout. semper fi — Moe 00:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Bold text is emphasis. THIS is shouting 8-)--Light current 17:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Samir_(The_Scope)

Guys, it's okay to have fun on the reference desk, as it's okay (and recommended!) to have fun elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, but please keep the conversations close to the topic at hand. A lot of users turn to the reference desk for answers to legitimate questions; it undermines the role of the desk somewhat if they end up with an irrelevant commentary in an attempt to be funny. I wholeheartedly support the intent of SCZenz's actions -- Samir धर्म 03:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I do feel bad that DirkvdM was blocked, though. He helped me immensely on the reference desk a couple of months ago, and I've noticed that he's given some exceptional RD answers to other questions -- Samir धर्म 04:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I feel bad about it too. -- SCZenz 04:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the next time this comes up I might be tempted to file an arbitration request to settle this damn issue once and for all. Do you imagine a real reference library would staff its front desk with children (or child-minded adults) making potty jokes? Thatcher131 04:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I once encountered at a large and famous public library, a pair of reference desk librarians, middle aged ladies, who chortled to each other with off-color remarks about a serious info request. It was pretty disgusting and I have not been back. Edison 14:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That's not a valid comparison. If Misplaced Pages was paying us, we might be willing to put up with a humorless and autocratic environment, but they are not. StuRat 04:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Pay peanuts... Actually I think the RDs get a damn good deal from the RD editors. THe only payment we get is a few jokes (not many of them now)--Light current 15:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

But that's the problem. What we see as a plea for simple decency you see as humorless and autocratic. Do you see a way to address this without handing it off to arbcom? Thatcher131 04:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the solution is to bring such issues up at the Ref Desk talk page, discuss them there, then come up with a consensus for a solution. This is the method which was working, with a few bumps here and there. But, since SCZenz didn't like how we were handling things, they chose to decide, without consensus, both what is appropriate and when an inappropriate comment rises to the level of requiring removal. I don't consider having any one person deciding such things to be appropriate, whether they are an Admin or not. StuRat 05:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. What do you mean by simple decency? Whose standards would you be using? Yours, mine or someone eleses?--Light current 17:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this whole consensus discussion is a red herring. I'm not in favour of removing content from the RD, but IMO it's come to this because people have been so stubborn about defending indefensible contributions. IT'S A WIKI. Every single page belongs to the WikiMedia Foundation, and we release every single character we type to the GFDL. This means articles, talk pages, userpages, and the RD. Users generally have dominion over our userpages out of courtesy, not because we own them. But anyone can edit them. The editing or removal of on-topic talk page contributions is frowned upon because it defeats the purpose of the article talk page, which is to achieve consensus on the content of the article. The RD is not a talk page. Our every contribution is not sacrosanct. We are working towards solutions to individual problems posed as questions by individual posters, and as such, off-topic contributions are subject to removal. They haven't been up to now, but now they are. It doesn't need a change in policy, and it doesn't need consensus. It's as simple as that. IT'S A WIKI. Anchoress 09:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Im very sorry to have to say this, and its not an attack, but I find Anchoresss comment totally neutral and unhelpful in every way! It does not advance the discussion 8-( Really sorry! No offence! 8-( --Light current 00:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe that it is a talk page. Let's look at some of the differences and decide where the Ref Desk falls:

ARTICLE RULES
===================================================
Don't sign posts.
Make any changes you think improves the article.
Rigid format rules (ie, for "References" section).
Length is limited by deleting redundant info.

TALK PAGE
==================================================
Sign all posts.
Only add to the talk page, except for archiving 
 and removing abusive language.
Lax format rules.
Length is limited by archiving.

StuRat 09:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I tend to disagree with arbitration for this; I think this can be handled at the admin level, which is what I've been trying to do. Unless other admins have concerns about my approach, I'm perfectly happy willing to continue removing inappropriate comments and (if necessary, and after due warning) blocking those who restore them. I don't think what I'm doing needs to be endorsed by ArbCom to be valid—but if other admins think having a statement from authority is preferable to my current approach, then I'll go along with that. -- SCZenz 04:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I completely support what you are doing, without arbcom endorsement. I might suggest an intermediate step of banning a problem user from the reference desk for a period of time, under threat of block, so they can edit elsewhere for a while. But if bans are the only way to get the point across that this is the community consensus (or at least admin consensus) then so be it. Thatcher131 04:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Admins deciding unilaterally to block people is not community consensus, and should only be used for severe abuse of the Ref Desk, not for telling a bad joke. StuRat 05:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The block was for the repeated and disruptive restoration of the irrelevant discussion, despite a clear warning. There was no consequence for making the joke except removal with a polite note—as indeed there should not be. -- SCZenz 05:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That was a direct consequence of removing the comment, as no block would have occurred if you hadn't started the revert war then escalated to a block when you were unable to convince the user of your POV. StuRat 05:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

SCzenz 's actions were not unilateral as so far they have been supported by every admin who has commented on the page. Obviously then, there are people who agree with him and he isn't acting in a vacuum. I don't think arbcom is needed here either. Nor does it have to be an admin who removes inappropriate comments. "You're taking the fun out of Misplaced Pages" is an immature argument for leaving irrelevant penis jokes on some of our most public pages. pschemp | talk 05:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It's unilateral in that it was decided before asking for the opinions of others. And, frankly, I bet Admins would support one another against the user community except for extremely blatant and obvious abuses. This isn't exactly surprising, as the question boils down to giving Admins more power and Users less power. As for anybody being able to remove a comment, that would allow the original user to restore the comment if they disagreed. However, when an admin removes your comment and you put it back, you get blocked, this is the issue. Your comment that SCZenz's actions are "supported by every admin who has commented on the page" also contains the hidden assumption that only the opinions of Admins matter, and all comments from the general user community (including regular Ref Desk contributors) can be ignored. StuRat 05:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, his explanation page has been there a while and other people have looked at it and agreed with it. You didn't know that, but it was discussed before action was taken. Therefore the actions was not unilateral. pschemp | talk 07:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The proper place for the discussion was the Ref Desk talk page, where it was discussed, and I don't believe there was any consensus reached that SCZenz should start deleting any comments he didn't like. And, in any case, each individual deletion is still unilateral, unless that specific deletion has been agreed to based on a consensus. For example, we might well all agree that death threats should be removed, but an Admin removing a statement that "bin Laden may be killed soon" would still be unilateral, because we have not agreed that this was a violation of the "no death threats" policy. StuRat 09:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

All opinions are important, but I think we especially value those from people who contribute to the Ref Desk regularly. After all, you guys are the ones actually doing the work of answering the questions. But don't you think some of the less-than-relevant commentary could be toned down a bit, StuRat? It's one of the things that personally turns me off the reference desk also. I see a lot of medical questions that I could answer, but they often devolve into joke-cracking threads that I feel somewhat silly adding to. -- Samir धर्म 07:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do think that irrelevant silliness should be limited. However, this is not the same as saying we should start censoring the contributions of others, and most definitely not the same as saying we should start blocking regular contributors. This type of overreaction is more of a problem than the irrelevant silliness ever was. StuRat 08:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

What you're saying is, if a user adds content to the reference desk that's bad for Misplaced Pages, I have no right to take any action? -- SCZenz 08:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Not unless it's really horrendous, and it wasn't, in this case. Put it this way, which is better, to have that joke removed and Dirk banned, or to leave both alone ? StuRat 09:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Considering just this one incident, it would be better to leave the joke. However, your argument will apply every single time the reference desk is used inappropriately. In the big picture, it's better to draw a line somewhere and insist that the reference desk not be misused. Dirk's decision to disrupt the reference desk to make a point about me being a despot was his own... and the consequences were what I warned they would be. -- SCZenz 09:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

"It takes two to tango". That is, it was your decision to remove the comment, and yours to block him for restoring the rather innocuous comment. These actions seemed to be more about your pride than improving Misplaced Pages. StuRat 09:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Gandalf61 comment

My I add a comment, as a non-admin but long standing Wikipedian and regular RD contributor ? SCZenz is acting on his honest belief that the RDs need to be regulated and cleaned up. He has put some thought into this and has written up the standards to which he thinks RD questions and answers should conform. He has started to enforce these standards by deleting responses, and sometimes whole threads. Unfortunately, he does not have time to patrol the RDs regularly, so his deletions have a sporadic and ad-hoc quality. His actions are also encouraging victimisation of certain RD contributors by others - see recent discussions on the RD talk page. If there is concensus that SCZenz is doing the right thing, then there should be no need for him to patrol the RDs on his own. Please help him set up a process to regulate the RDs properly by applying an agreed set of rules regularly, consistently and fairly. The current vigilante situation is very unsatisfactory. Gandalf61 10:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

After edit conflict:

Samir, note that if the deletion of inappropriate stuff becomes policy any medical questions would be removed, so any answer you gave would also be removed. Be carefull when judging something you haven't felt the full brunt of. For this reason who should decide ref desk policy should be determined by how active they are at the ref desk, not by whether they are an admin. DirkvdM 10:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, the block is a minor issue (actually, I now notice the block has already ended). What's at stake here is the nature of the ref desk, and any discussions about that should take place at the talk page there. About SCZenz's behaviour, may an admin use his powers (in casu blocking me) in a discussion he is one of the original parties in? I thought that was not allowed. On my talk page I've split the issue in four subtopics: what should be allowed on the ref desk, whether that applies to me and LightCurrent, how should any misbehaviour (when that is defined) be dealt with and if SCZenz is allowed to decide that on his own (ignoring the fact that there is still a hefty discussion going on about this at the talk page).

Oh, and since that term was again used here, it was not a penis joke. It was an amusing misunderstanding followed by clarifying info. A joke is something you come up with and I didn't come up with it, it was something amusing that happened to me. But like I explained on my talk page, I wonder if SCZenz has a hidden agenda. He says he wants to remove off topic remarks. But he doesn't do that (consistently). In stead he seems to just remove stuff that doesnt' please him personally, in casu a subject that has to do with a reproductive organ. This is selective zero tolerance. Very dangerous. Rules should be applied systematically, not at someone's whim. And for that there should be rules in the first place. Let's first establish rules for the nature of the ref desk and how to deal with them. I'm rather tempted to start removing all off-topic remarks at the ref desk, to show how disruptive non-selective zero tolerance would be. But I won't be so childish (yet). :)

Btw, SCZenz, do you report all your deletions to all the people in the sub-thread? (And is that at all do-able?) If so, I'm surprised this is the first time you've deleted anything by me, considering I make loads of side-remarks and you claim to have been doing this for a long time already. (So you must have been doing it very selectively then.) DirkvdM 10:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I just checked, and you don't always warn people that you removed their contributions. As would indeed be impossible, even with a bot. And that is rather a major issue here. DirkvdM 11:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding complaints that I'm selective... I'm one person doing my best. We're all volunteers here; articles with no references get improved when someone have time, hoax pages get deleted when people notice them, admins are promoted when bureaucrats get around to it. Doing the right thing is still the right thing, even if it can't be done consistently. I have been removing primarily the most egregious examples of off-topic remarks, not indeed in the hope of getting them all, but rather in the hope of illustrating by example what kinds of discussion is definitely outside the purpose of the reference desk. In the long term, I have no intention of being the official reference desk "censor." I'm trying to draw a line in the sand, in order to help bring things back under control. The reference desk is off course, and helping it come back is a matter of applying existing policies, not arguing about new ones. And the reason other people aren't joining me in doing this is, frankly, that I can handle it myself and they have other things to do.

Regarding my "hidden agenda"... Yes, the fact that it was a juvenile penis joke is an aggrivating factor in my view. Talk about all the sex organs you like if it answers a question, but if new users think they're going to randomly have crude jokes thrown at them when they ask something not related to sex, it will intimidate them and keep them from using the reference desk. That's not okay, and Misplaced Pages not being censored doesn't mean I have to pretend it is. We don't censor content... but we're not talking about content here, now are we? We're talking about a pointless joke.

Ok, that's it for me commenting in this section, unless something else goes wrong. A number of other administrators have reviewed my actions (more than have commented, almost certainly) and I have yet to receive any word from them that I'm taking the wrong approach... so for now, I'll keep at it. You can make pretty speeches here some more if you want, or ask for more general and organized feedback at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment... but as that page says, it's not a step to take lightly. -- SCZenz 17:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Zoes input

As an admin who frequently posts on the Reference Desk, I think the deletions and the block were completely out of line. SCZenz does not own the RD, and it is not his/her responsbility to police it. The Reference Desk is, indeed, a fun place, where there are a lot of jokes, but it is also a serious place where lots of questions get answered. Dirk's comment was hardly over the line, and, in fact, was probably perfectly reasonable. I strongly oppose SCZenz's actions, and would suggest taking it to the RD's Talk pages before repeating them. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

This surprises me. However, without administrative consensus, I will not continue as I have been. I've tried to clarify my actions and the reasons for them on your talk page. -- SCZenz 18:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages talk:Reference desk#The tone of the Reference Desk. SCZenz and I have had a discussion on our Talk pages, and we are looking for further consensus. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz, that you would be selective was a bit too specific, but the point I was making is that unless this is done consistently there is the risk of unfair selectiveness. To avoid this, it would have to be done by a larger group of people. And to avoid people getting too upset about it, it would have to be done by consensus and we're a long way from that. So far you haven't done too much deleting (you're nowhere near deleting all the of-topic remarks), and you've already got LightCurrent, StuRat and me, three of the most active people on the ref desk, on your neck. Step it up and the ref desk will become one big edit war zone. Don't step it up and you're being selective. The deletion at hand here was one that was much less off-topic than a whole lot of other stuff, so why did you delete this specific one? If you keep this up I will be tempted to start a revolt by applying your rules (your rules!) consistently.

You talk about getting the ref desk back on course, but we've both started working on it just over a year ago, and it was the same then as it is now, which is part of the reason I liked it so much.

And for the last time, it wasn't a juvenile penis joke. It wasn't a joke. And the other half was informative. But you have now confessed that that was the (extra) reason for deleting it. And that is what I mean by 'selective'.

As for the opinion of admins, like I said, it's the opinion of people active at the ref desk that counts, irrespective of whether they're admins. People need to know what they are talking about. DirkvdM 19:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The only people here who know about the ref desk are LightCurrent, StuRat, Anchoress, me, and to a lesser extent Gandalf 61, Zoe and you. And between the seven of us, there is not quite a consensus. Actually, most agree with me. DirkvdM 19:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me? Are you saying that people who don't edit the ref desk aren't fit to comment? You are bascially saying Samir and others don't know what they are talking about. If you are going to wield such accusations you may want to do so in the open. Personally I agree totally with SCZenz and just because you Stu and LightCurrent think irrelevent penis jokes are an appropriate thing does not make you correct. pschemp | talk 19:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You obviously haven't been paying attention. We all agree that certain Ref Desk content may be inappropriate. What we disagree with is that an individual Admin has the right to decide unilaterally which content that is, remove it, and block any user who happens to disagree. And yes, we do feel that people who actually contribute to a project should have more say on the rules for how that project is managed than those who never, or only rarely, contribute. This is because it's very easy to come up with strict rules for others, so long as those rules never apply to you. And, if you never contribute to the Ref Desk, then those rules don't apply to you. StuRat 21:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Just like to say, in the spirit of standing up and being counted, that I don't have any problems with penis jokes (relevant or otherwise) on the RDs either. And also to point out the SCZenz's proposed criteria for deletion are far wider than just jokes - his criteria for deletion include "comments that are off-topic, opinion, or argumentative". Gandalf61 21:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

AAAAAARGH!! There was no penis joke! DirkvdM 11:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I hope it doesn't turn into that sort of pissing contest. I regularly work the reference desk, and I happen to agree with the practice of trimming out the really off-topic potty humour. You're welcome to be funny (within reason) if you're also being helpful. Otherwise, do try to remember that the Ref Desk is one place where a lot of new people may get their first exposure to Misplaced Pages, and that filling it with in-jokes and off-colour, off-topic humour is not exactly putting our best foot (or best face) forward.

On a related note, I think it's a really bad idea to edit war just to ensure that a stupid joke stays on the page. How, and who, does that help? What's the point of making that effort, exactly? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

If nobody does anything to stop this sort of unilateral action by individual Admins, then they will continue with this obnoxious behavior. StuRat 21:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

How about if I say I agree with the action? It's no longer 'unilateral' – and how I hate to see that word dragged out every time someone makes a decision – now. Where does the edit warring over Dirk's foreskin (in answer to a fashion question, for goodness' sake!) fit in on your scale of 'obnoxious' behaviour? How does having that comment on the page make the Reference Desk more useful to anyone? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It's still unilateral in that he didn't ask anyone BEFORE deleting the comment and blocking the user. The most obnoxious part is the block, over what was a very minor issue, if even an issue at all. StuRat 22:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

He did ask someone BEFORE he deleted it. You just didn't know about it. So no, it wasn't unilateral. pschemp | talk 23:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Really ? Who did he ask about the specific item before he deleted it ? Can you provide a link ? StuRat 06:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Not every conversation about this has taken place on Misplaced Pages Stu. The is no link. 07:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Then there is no proof that any such conversation ever existed, is there ? Please sign your posts. StuRat 07:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I take strong exception to the suggestion that only those with substantial RD experience can comment on its purpose and direction. But to assuage that criticism, I'll weigh in. I have previously been a substantial contributor at the Science RD, not so much anymore. Besides all the in-jokes about bay-gulls and such, I have found myself turned off by the rather chauvinist tone, whose most extreme form was seen in the thread (previously discussed here) about how a man could force his girlfriend into a sex act she was not comfortable with. I would estimate that at least a third of the "medical" questions there concern male genitals. Let me be clear that I don't propose censoring the RD. I do propose that all RD contributors consider that people from a wide variety of backgrounds see it, and that they address topics with appropriate maturity. --Ginkgo100 23:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, let's say this applied to you. We will say a new position is created, called Admin_Judge. They don't do anything but criticize the actions of Admins, delete and undo what Admins do, and threaten and/or block Admins. They make up their own rules for how Admins must behave, the Admins themselves no longer have any say. If they "discuss" things with Admins, it's only telling the Admins how it's going to be, they don't actually listen to anything an Admin says, no matter how thoroughly the actions of the Admin_Judges are shown to be bad for Misplaced Pages and a violation of policy. Is this something you would find pleasant ? Would you remain willing to work as an Admin ? StuRat 06:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey thats a damn good idea Stu: an Admin behaviour review committee made up from non Admins only! Why not put it on the PumP?--Light current 06:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you are forgetting that I have been an editor for a long time, and an admin for a very short time. --Ginkgo100 14:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying you haven't yet been an Admin long enough to be corrupted by the power ? StuRat 16:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

As for chauvinistic questions, we now have two feminists as Ref Desk regulars, one sexually liberal and one conservative, so that should provide balance there. I would suspect that most Ref Desk readers are young males, however, as surfing the web in general is mostly a young male thing. So, we would expect to get lots of questions relevant to young males, who would be uncomfortable asking them in an environment that wasn't anonymous. I think it's a good thing to be able to answer questions like "Is it unhealthy if a male doesn't ejaculate regularly". Note that this question might have been asked by a girl, who is being pressured by her b/f into sex using this argument. I have suggested a separate Sexuality Ref Desk, however, to shield the squeamish from such questions and answers. StuRat 06:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree this question is appropriate for the RD, which is why I stated "Let me be clear that I don't propose censoring the RD." Rather, I asked that this type of question be approached in a mature fashion. And very often, they are handled appropriately already. Unfortunately, there are also occasions in which this does not seem to be the case. --Ginkgo100 14:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think it's possible to get 100% compliance with any rule, however. This doesn't mean that we should start deleting comments and blocking users for those few "violations", however, as some Admins want to do. StuRat 14:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem of which would be that one doesn't know what might get deleted unless it's done consistently according to a clear set of rules about which some sort of consensus has been reached. One central problem is that it is difficult to keep track of what is being deleted. The histories of the ref desks are way too long to dig through. If some people start to delete stuff it might seem to others that that is normal behaviour. Including others who don't know or understand the rules (if any). And that will (not 'may' but 'will') result in people deleting stuff they don't like. Coming up with a way to keep tabs on deletions is something that should be done first. We need that at the ref desk anyway, because people probably do it already, considering how much vandalism there is on Misplaced Pages. Encouraging them by giving the wrong example is a very bad idea. DirkvdM 11:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I wonder how one could technically track deletions, though. Perhaps any edit where the result is, say more than 100 bytes shorter than the starting length ? That wouldn't be perfect, but better than no check, I suppose. A "D" could appear in front of such edits in the history, where the "N" for new or "m" for minor edit goes now. We could also allow editors to self identify deletions as they do for minor edits. I wouldn't expect them to do so consistently, though, so the size change check would also be needed. StuRat 12:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Justanother's input

I missed the bulk of this discussion but as a regular on the subject board I want to make my feelings known.

Most importantly: While I appreciate SCZenz' desire to improve wikipedia and his efforts to do so, I strongly oppose arbitrary censorship. I, personally, am more than willing to put up with a *possibly irrelevant* penis joke (though it actually did have some relevance) in order to protect my own right to make comments as I see fit (fit as being relevant to the discussion at hand although perhaps not popular with some wikipedians).

Other than that, I think that many, if not most, of the contributors are experienced wikipedians and are perfectly capable of policing the desk and dealing with disruptive influences. But it important to remember that one reason many of us like to hang out there is the jokes and banter. Only a part of the reason to be sure but part nonetheless. The intellectual stimulation and, often the tangents, have value to us. If they don't then we can ignore them.

Also, I think that article talk page rules are not analoguous and do not apply. The purpose of article talk pages is to develop an article that complies with wikipedia policy; it is important that they honor those policies. The purpose of the reference desk is to either answer a question or steer the questioner toward the answer. The postings there, especially on the misc. desk, will often consist of original research and may not cite their sources. That is entirely appropriate. The Reference Desks are their own beasts and perhaps need additional policy developed. If such policy needs developing it must be developed through the normal review process.

--Justanother 14:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Bishonen's proposal

I note that User:DirkvdM is down to ascribing a "hidden agenda" to SCZenz, and User:StuRat to assuring us that the views of admins are of no account, since admins "would support one another against the user community" anyway. (I don't think he can read ANI much.) Nevertheless I want to register my opinion that this is a matter suitable for handling at this board, and not the kind of thing Thatcher or SCZenz have any need to involve ArbCom in. And I support SCZenz's actions. It goes without saying that the "user community" involved must feel free to request arbitration if they see handling via ANI as inherently unjust. If everything has been said—and having just read the entire thread, I don't see how it could possibly have not been—is it perhaps time for somebody to put one of those snazzy colored frames and stop-talking headings on the thread? Bishonen | talk 03:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

Geogre's view

On the strange wrestling over talk vs. article pages, the reference desk is a project page. Project pages are like AN, AN/I, AfD, RFA, etc., so that explains the mystery of how they can require signatures, allow some wobbling toward chat, and yet be subject to the rules of staying on topic. Ultimately, we're back to the problem of Internet discussion in general: it takes two people to go off topic. If no one answers, applauds, or condemns the silly jokes and chat, if no one tries to answer the troll questions, then it all stops. When, however, two or three people have the same interest in chat and/or play, then their habits can overwhelm the original purpose, and that's when it becomes appropriate for the other folks to show up and 1) urge, 2) cajole, 3) enforce topicality.

The RD pages have always been prone to "christians are stupid i think dont you" questions and "fags is going to hell" questions, as well as "I am taking a trivia test in a bar and I need to know who invented World War II." These questions invite smart aleck responses or adolescent banter. For the most part, the participants have an internal sense of when they're going off the beam, and therefore trolling questions tend to get no answers. However, because everyone is always new at Misplaced Pages, eventually those questions will find their own level, attract offended and amused and bored folks.

I agree with the rest of the site showing up to ask RD to stay on topic, but I think it's bad that we've gotten to the point where it becomes adversarial. Generally, RD has stopped chasing the bouncing balls without adversity when a gentle reminder comes in. Like chatter, belligerance takes two sides and bad timing. I think the intentions of David and SC are both pure. The way forward is for more folks to go to RD and keep an eye on when we start frolicking in the meadow and gently reminding each other that we need to stay on task. If it's fifty voices instead of a campaign, the chances of offense are lower. Geogre 13:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Another late comment

My view is that there is a need to keep the Reference Desk from going off-topic and discussing irrelevant stuff. There should be a set of agreed guidelines put up for review to attain consensus, and then the opprobrium of those that don't like this won't fall on one user. If this feels too much like instruction creep, make it a general set of guidelines covering any 'desk' or 'noticeboard' (eg, WP:AN, WP:HD, WP:RD). I also think that any admins and users regularly involved at the RD should talk to each other to get changes in the culture of 'jokes' and such like stuff. But those admin regulars at the RD should not get involved in blocking to 'control' the RD. Instead, they should post a notice elsewhere (WP:ANI?), asking an uninvolved admin to judge when a block may be required. Carcharoth 16:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Community block for Supreme Cmdr

Supreme Cmdr (talk · contribs) has been blocked five times for revert-warring on Derek Smart. The last block was for ten days, ending 25 November; today Supreme Cmdr is revert-warring on Talk:Derek Smart again. In addition, he seems to be unable to remain civil and avoid personal attacks as any random sample of his contributions will prove. --Ideogram 20:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that Supreme Cmdr is Derek Smart's screenname/forum name, and that this is likely him (if the contributions are pro-derek). Derek smart is also well known, perhaps even notorious in the press, for his incivility and personal attacks against people on his forums; wikipedia shouldn't be a stretch. ⇒ SWATJester Aim _Fire! 21:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I must support a community block for him. I blocked him about a month back for similar behavior and it seems he has no intention of changing. Cowman109 21:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

A thought, what about a month or longer ban from Derek Smart (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) related articles? (→Netscott) 21:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that seems to be the only page the user edits, so a community ban from only the page would have the same effect. Cowman109 21:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

If you were to do that, you'd have to ban him as well from articles about the games he created (Battlecruiser series, et al), because he'd likely take his aggression out there. That's assuming he even obeyed the ban: Smart isn't known for doing that. ⇒ SWATJester Aim _Fire! 21:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

A good idea. I support banning him from all Derek Smart related articles. --InShaneee 21:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I think such a ban would be a good faith gesture rather than an outright Wiki wide ban. I suspect that such an article based banning may not matter in the long run though. (→Netscott) 22:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. ⇒ SWATJester Aim _Fire! 00:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Little note, Derek Smart sues anyone and everyone who disagrees with him in any way. So if he gets blocked, and it really is him, he'll probably throw around some legal threats somewhere. Luigi30 (Taλk) 13:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, there doesn't seem to be any objection to the article ban. Would anyone like to inform him? I'm already quite involved in the situation so it would be best if I didn't myself, of course. Cowman109 05:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. --InShaneee 05:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, you should list specifically the articles from which he's banned. By my accounting, that's Derek Smart, Battlecruiser 3000AD, Universal Combat as well as any redirects (e.g. 3000AD, Universal Combat Special Edition). Also, whether it apply to the associated talk pages. This just to avoid the inevitable "Well, you weren't specific"... - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 22:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Let me see if I get this straight. I get banned based on a consensus by the very same people who got me banned those past times? Not to mention that this was done in a secretive manner and none of the prominent editors of the Derek Smart were even aware of it, let alone get a chance to offer their opinions? Yet another example of what is so very - very - wrong with Wiki. You folks on a power trip think that Wiki is where you can get to display your power over someone. And to those of you who stupidly keep saying that I'm Derek Smart, you should be so lucky to think that he even gives a damn about what a bunch of nobodys are writing on a Wiki. Supreme_Cmdr 18:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well thats Wiki for you. Its the virtual version of a Kangaroo court where if enough dissenters get together and gang up on someone, they can inevitably reach a consensus. I for one do NOT support this ban as it is highly dubious and unwarranted. WarHawkSP 22:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to note that Supreme_Cmdr has just done a revert over on the Derek Smart article. Ehheh 22:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You can do whatever you like, there is no consensus for the ban and I will simply not honor it. Here, let me quote from WP:BAN for those of you who think you can just get together and ban someone.

Users are banned as an end result of the dispute resolution process, in response to serious cases of user misconduct.

Supreme_Cmdr 23:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The choice was either a site-wide block or an article ban. The article ban was chosen as the less-restrictive of the two. If you reject it, your forcing the choice or option A.

This is actually how it's done. ANI is hardly a secret board, it's the usual place for reporting disruptive editors. ---J.S 00:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Supreme Cmdr has been blocked for another 2 weeks for blatantly violating this article ban. I'm beginning to lose my patience with him, as it is clear he will not acknowledge that he is not to edit the articles relating to Derek Smart any further. Perhaps an indefinite block should be considered once more? Cowman109 02:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I respectively note, this 'consensus' was not established by a Request for Comment and in fact is very different from the legitimate consensus established by his last RfC. Addhoc 11:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

True, perhaps more time should be spent on this discussion, but I think it's clear there is already enough evidence that Supreme Cmdr won't stop this year-long edit warring, so even an indefinite block would be appropriate at this time. More people are welcome to comment, but so far the only exception to those agreeing is a user who is currently being looked at for being a potential meatpuppet of Supreme Cmdr. Cowman109 19:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Ancient Land of Bosoni

Ancient Land of Bosoni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (a.k.a. Ancient Bosoni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), a.k.a. Bosoni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) has been causing considerable disruption via:

• repeatedly removing XfD notices
• repeatedly adding non-free images to his user page
• vandalism
• disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point/gaming the system/assuming bad faith by posting reports on Misplaced Pages:Requests for page protection and Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents alleging bad faith on the part of and requesting blocks against users who have nominated his pages for deletion.
• creating non-notable articles (e.g., Gojko Janković, Ranko Ćesić)
• vote campaigning through aggressively cross-posting
• posting comments which other users consider to be incivil and/or personal attacks (see User talk:Ancient Land of Bosoni#Re: Your personal attack)
• creating POV forks of various pages:
  • Image:Slavic languages.jpg→Image:Slavic languages.JPG
  • List of ICTY indictees→List of Serb war criminals
  • Category:People convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia→Category:Serb war criminals)
• misuse of the "minor" edit summary flag, such as when adding non-free images, or when making controversial edits

The user has been warned about the above, in some cases repeatedly. It seems that every time he's warned about a particular disruptive behaviour, he goes on to commit a completely different one. It may be useful to block this user until such time as he confirms that he has read and agreed to abide by Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines, particularly WP:NPOV, WP:NPA, WP:N, WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:SPAM, WP:MINOR, WP:POINT, and WP:COPY. —Psychonaut 21:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The 3rd account listed was blocked indefinately for copyright fraudulence, so that might be grounds for blocking all the rest of them. 68.39.174.238 23:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any prior blocks for any of the accounts. Perhaps you're confusing this user with someone else…? —Psychonaut 00:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You forgot to add high incivility (a near-personal attack against me and User:Duja) on my talk page. --PaxEquilibrium 13:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You're entirely correct, I was thinking of Bosna 101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), see "serial copyright violator" section above. Sorry to everyone for confusing the two. 68.39.174.238 17:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Has this report been considered and declined, or has it been overlooked? If it has been declined, some confirmation would be appreciated. —Psychonaut 14:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

No idea - I filed another report over at the Personal attacks (ALoB attacked me at my talk page) and they directed me to here, saying that it's being resolved over 'ere. --PaxEquilibrium 17:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks, harrassment, baiting and pestering by user:Oden

User Oden (talk · contribs) has been recently involved exclusive in a controversial activity of challenging selected by him users attacking their images. I put aside for now the issue of the interpretation of the WP:FU policy as good people obviously disagree in good faith on the policy interpretation as well as the policy itself. However, even if one chooses to take upon himself such a sensitive task as implementing a policy for the good of Misplaced Pages, such task can only be taken with utmost sensitivity to other editors. With a couple of other editors joining what many perceived as a disruptive crusade in whose process the worst attitudes were displayed, several editors opened a Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Abu_badali against one of such crusaders. Notably, the RfC is not about the policy or implementing an unpopular policy but about the unacceptable attitude and abusive Harassment.

Shortly after, user:Oden posted to the RfC this disgusting attack directed at all the involved editors bringing all sorts of unrelated issues that had no relation to what the RfC was about thus substituting tackling the issue with attacking the opponents. And hour or so ago Admin:Khoikhoi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) who was not involved in the dispute in any way gave Oden a (rather soft IMO) warning reminding of WP:NPA and WP:Harassment policies. Reaction of user:Oden was this barrage of irregular stuff.

When I commented on his response as being lacking the substance, Oden responded by a series of entries where he baits Khoikhoi and brings up another barrage of irrelevant stuff (see also WP:DFTT#Pestering).

Third party input is requested. --Irpen 07:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment:

In a RfC the topic of discussion is the editor who is subject to the RfC, but it is also relevant and sometimes even necessary to discuss the past contributions of the other editors contributing to the RfC.

• WP:NPA states: "Remarks describing an editor's actions and made without involving their personal character should not be construed as personal attacks."

• WP:STALK states: "This does not include reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason."

• Finally, WP:RFC states: "An RfC may bring close scrutiny on all involved editors".

However, I do agree that outside of a RfC such comments would be considered inappropriate, since talk pages in Misplaced Pages are provided in order to discuss improvements in an article (which might be why User:Khoikhoi reacted so strongly as to actually issue a warning).

Final note: User:Irpen's comment on my talk page (at 6:29 UTC) came after I left my first response and second response on User:Khoikhoi's talk page (4:29 UTC and 6:04 UTC). I must be very talented indeed to be able to see into the future!

User:Khoikhoi has as of yet not responded. I will leave a message on his talk page urging him to comment here. --Oden 10:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This "response" illustrates the user well on top of the original diffs above. Please check his "comments" at the RfC linked above and match them with his response (along with this protracted baiting of Khoikhoi who rightfully warned the user). It is easy to tell between trolling and proper discussions. --Irpen 10:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Khoikhoi (who is an admin/sysop) has as of yet not responded. From my first response at 4:29 UTC until now he has made almost 40 edits, so apparently he's online. I have stated on his talk page that his failure to respond stands in sharp contrast to the serious tone in his warning where he threatened me with "blocks with the length being increased each time" (diff). His first signal was that he was to busy to respond (diff), his second that he was too lazy (diff). --Oden 13:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Oden has asked me to provide a comment here. When I saw Oden mention my name in his list of monsters and vandalizers I was quite insulted. I agree with User:Irpen and User:khoikhoi that User:Oden's comments were highly inappropiate. Dionyseus 18:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I really can't see that Odin has done anything out of line here. He mentioned that we'd all been blocked before, and that those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Not a particularly helpful comment, but not a "disgusting attack" either. Note that I was one of the editors mentioned by Odin in his so-called "disgusting attack", and I just can't find any way to be offended. This is really a tempest in a teacup. I guess Odin should doublecheck his comments in such a delicate situation to make sure he won't offend the thin-skinned. But really, Irpen's comments above seem at least as provocative as Odin's. I think all involved should take a deep breath, assume good faith, and get over it. – Quadell 18:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't asked to comment, but I shall. Oden has been contributing to the RfC noted above by Irpen, however his contributions haven't been especially helpful. While most editors involved in the discussion have been obviously frustrated with each other and the debate has been quite heated at times, Oden's comments haven't really been about the RfC at hand so much as about policy. For example, he posted a lengthy screed on the RfC talk page about how the RfC has turned into a policy debate, however pretty much the only comments he's made that aren't an attempt to "call out" Irpen have been repeated posts about policy. I don't know if it's intentional or not but he isn't really doing much except to stoke the flames. TheQuandry 03:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I find his comments on RfC to be offensive and incivil, bordering on trolling (comparing block logs, yeah that gives a true measure... <_<). It violated quite a few basic policies and should imho be dealt with accordingly. -- Grafikm 00:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Response to User:Grafikm_fr's comment:

• WP:NPA (policy) states: "Remarks describing an editor's actions and made without involving their personal character should not be construed as personal attacks."

• WP:STALK (guideline) states: "This does not include reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason."

• Finally, WP:RFC states: "An RfC may bring close scrutiny on all involved editors".

--Oden 07:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Apparently there seems to be some misconception (User:Grafikm_fr, User:Irpen and User:Sebbeng) that an RfC can only bring scrutiny on the editor subject to the RfC. However, I do agree that outside of a RfC such comments would be considered inappropriate, since talk pages in Misplaced Pages are provided in order to discuss improvements the articles.

On a more general note: the entire process of a Request for Comment regarding a user could be regarded as a violation of WP:NPA, WP:STALK, and also quite provocative. The fact that all editors can be subject to scrutiny only serves to ensure fairness in the process.

--Oden 07:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Zoe

This user being an admin was engaged in rewert-warring in Josef Stalin with other users. Seeing he is in minority, he indefblocked all his opponents (including me, who did only one edit), falsefully accusing them in meatpuppetry. He later refused to unblock me until I change my political views and confess my edits to be wrong. Your comments.--Nixer 12:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This does not require any further admin intervention, but I do take issue with Zoe's misuse of the rollback tool. -- tariqabjotu 15:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I for one do not. "Being in the minority" hardly applies when the majority consists of a load of socks. "To a certain extent through heroic figures like Klaus Fuchs, the brilliant activities of the Soviet intelligence service resulted in the early loss of America's monopoly on the destructive atomic bomb." is clearly POV pushing that should be cut. Other edits by Zvesda clearly suggest a virulently pro-Stalin POV. is perhaps the best example. Zoe was entirely correct in reverting, with rollback or no rollback. Allegations of near-3RR on behalf of Zoe are just plain wrong. Admins should be able to do their job without getting whacked over the head by a lynch mob at ANI, especially when dealing with individuals with block logs the length of your arm - quite literally. Moreschi 15:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean admins have special rights to push their POV? And how many sockpuppets do you see there?--Nixer 15:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Zvesda@netscape.net is one, for starters. Indefblocked as such. Moreschi 16:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify - whether the Zvesda account is related to you I do not know, but I assume not - AGF. However, the presence of such socks rather debunks your assertion of a majority agreeing with you. Moreschi 16:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What socks do you speak about?--Nixer 16:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

These edits are so POV they arguably constitute vandalism. Use of rollback tool was fine. JoshuaZ 17:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Edits of user Zoe was simply mass deletion of sourced information, which is much more arguable vandalism.--Nixer 17:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I think Zoe has shown commendable behaviour in preventing Misplaced Pages from being hijacked. --Folantin 18:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Zoe's reverts have been proper and there are strong indications of sockpuppetry usage in this article. Admins are required to use their best judgement in contentious situations, and Zoe's judgement appears sound. Doc Tropics 18:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Once again: where do you see sockpuppets? I see only one sockpuppet of Zvesda user, but he used it after being unjustly blocked (in violation of all rules)--Nixer 19:01, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

That is not true. I blocked the sockpuppet indefinitely for performing the 3RR, and only then did I block Zvesda for 24 hours. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

No evidence that Zoe has abused anything here.--MONGO 18:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What about the fact that our blocking policy states Sysops must not block editors with whom they are currently engaged in a content dispute.? Shouldn't he have simply contacted another admin to take a look?-Localzuk 18:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, taking a look through the history, I cannot see any more obvious sockpuppetry (other than the user mentioned above). The information, whilst it has POV issues, also contained a variety of sources to back up sections. Zoe appears to be removing this information. This seems like a content disupte and as such should follow our dispute resolution process, not unilaterally blocking editors such as Nixor.-Localzuk 19:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Note also that Zoe did not post any message in the talk page where the initial changes by Jacob Peters detally explained.--Nixer 19:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

When engaged in a content dispute, yes, that is the policy. However, Nixer's Block Log is the most extensive testament to disruptive editing that I've ever seen on WP, and his last edit before the block was to restore deleted material that had been posted by a sockpuppet. Under the circumstances, Zoe's actions were totally appropriate, and the block was justified. Doc Tropics 19:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Now I know that admins have right to block me when they want. One more question though: by which sockpuppet was posted that material? Who of the users is sock? Give us the knowledge!--Nixer 19:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Excluding Zoe's recent block, Nixer has been blocked thirty times, for a total time of almost two months. At what point do we say enough is enough? Although I don't think Zoe should have blocked indefinitely a user with which she was having a content dispute, the indefinite block was not exactly a bad idea. -- tariqabjotu 19:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Other blocks were the same. POV-pusher admins feel free to block those who do not agree with them in circumvent any rules.--Nixer 19:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

But my point is that as an involved party in this dispute, Zoe should have gone elsewhere for admin intervention. If admins are able to just block users regardless of their own involvement in a dispute it starts to give them carte blanche to do what they want, and opens up the floodgates for increases in users crying foul of admin actions (which, having looked at this page for several months are common enough anyway). In a case such as this, even though the block may have been justifiable, outside opinions should have been sought.-Localzuk 19:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

How would you justify a block for one edit?--Nixer 19:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

If you have been consistently disruptive and appear unwilling to stop, a block can be legitimate. -- tariqabjotu 20:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you decide that I am distructive from the blocks? For example, once some users added information into article Comparative military ranks of World War II, which was perverted and vandalized by a vandal Roitr. I reverted them to a consensus version which was edited in a temporary page for more than a month by a number of users, explained the situation, but the users continued to add the info. Then I was blocked for a week. Their edits were completely perverted by Roitr and when unblocked I added manually all their info into non-vandalized version (and now I was supported by even those users). This version continues without sufficient changes until now. But nobody asked me to excuse. After such blocks admins feel free to block me whenever they want.--Nixer 20:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Everyone who is classing this as a content dispute must have far better eyesight than I do. All I can see are edits so obviously POV and trollish in nature ("brilliant and heroic" for some spy???I'm not saying I disagree, but most of America would!) that they desperately needed reverting, and blocks for the users involved. My compliments to Tariqabjotu for counting all those blocks: I gave up halfway through. Enough should have been enough a long time ago, and Zoe's indefblock was entirely correct. Moreschi 20:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

And why we should have here American bias?--Nixer 20:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, for crying out loud. Look, to describe somone - uncited - as brilliant and heroic - is awful POV that the only remedy for is cutting. There was no American bias before that edit - I don't think that person was even mentioned. Even if he had been, provided he had been described in a neutral manner that is not American POV and should not be tampered with.

In fact the article was very biased. But I did not revert to support the "brilliant" wording. In fact I reverted the deletion of the material I've added.--Nixer 20:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and your blocks. I don't think you can claim that in each instance of the 30 you were dove-pure innocent, specially when they all seem to say the same thing - 3RR violation. After 30 blocks - no, I don't trust you. Does anyone? Moreschi 20:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Now any admin feels free to block me.--Nixer 20:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: This was not a content dispute. Nixer has clearly violated policy, and it was perfectly justified for Zoe to block for those violations. I agree with others that an indef block is long overdue. I would suggest we begin discussion of a possible community ban for this editor; it would certainly seem justified, just on the evidence of his Block Log alone. Doc Tropics 20:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Which policy did I violate? And if it is violation then why not to block other users who also reverted to the same version (Humbabba, Mista-X, Jacob Peters)?--Nixer 20:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify - I would enthusiastically support a Community ban, something that should have happened a long time ago. Moreschi 20:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Are there identified puppet accounts? Tom Harrison 20:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me that a ban is appropiate, but it was not appropiate for User:Zoe to administer it because it was a content dispute she was involved in, she should have asked another administrator to do it. Dionyseus 20:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

That "content dispute" thing at Stalin's page was ridiculous. Its like haveing a "content dispute" with neo-nazis on Hitler page. Just one perfect example of Nixer's propaganda from deportations part: During World War II, the Soviet government conducted a series of deportations. Treasonous collaboration with the invading Germans and anti-Soviet rebellion were the reasons for these deportations., isnt it nice wording, especially considering the fact that first deportations were conducted before barbarossa at the time then USSR and Germany were big friends.--Staberinde 20:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It was not me who inserted this. Though the sentence seems right.--Nixer 21:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The more I look at this, the more I sense something odd going on. User:Jacob Peters and User:Zvesda have eerily similar contributions. Secondly, both accounts have already been blocked for revert/edit/move warring. Deja vu, anyone? Here Zvesda pops up pretty much out of the blue to support Jacob Peter's version in the move wars, which is just a little odd. Zvesda, as we know, has definitely used sockpuppetry. User:Humbabba has an equally suspicious contributions list. I would suggest CheckUser on all of these accounts. Moreschi 20:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I would support the checkuser.--Nixer 21:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way I have to point out that we still have one question we did not answered yet. As said Staberinde, he views defenters of the USSR to be similar to defenders of Nazi Germany. If to accept this point of view, then in fact all those who defend the USSR are disruptors and vandals. But would this be NPOV?--Nixer 21:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Nixer, putting words in my mouth is not effective strategy, if you didnt understood what i meant i suggest to read my comment again.--Staberinde 21:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

While I believe that Zoe should have asked a non-involved admin to review the case 'just to be on the safe side', it is rather obvious he did the 'right thing' by blocking clearly disruptive users.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well. Nice little kerfuffle here while I was out Christmas shopping. Nixer had reverted the ridiculous Soviet propaganda that Zvesda had inserted three time. I warned Zvesda about a three revert warning, and he immediately created User:Karl Fuchs, whcih I immediately warned was going to count as a violation of the 3RR if it was used to attempt to revert the article. Instead, Nixer did the revert. I was planning on blocking Nixer for 24 hours for violating 3RR, but once I saw his block log, I figured that 24 hours would mean nothing to someone who's blocked all the time, and so I initiated an indefeinte block. Remember, please, that indefinite is not permanent. If Nixer had agreed not to re-insert the vandalism, I would have immediately unblocked, but instead he decided to whine. I see that Nixer has been inappropriately unblocked -- a 3RR violation is a 3RR violation, whether performed by one person or by a group of people, and all are to be blocked if they are involved in the violation. I had nothing to do with any sort of conent argument over this article, all I was trying to do was to get rid of Zvesda's silly additions (see the addition to Gulag that he also added, which I also reverted). I told him not to add his personal opinions into articles, and he immediately did it again. I warned him not to 3RR, and he did it with his sock puppet, which I have also indef blocked, and I blocked Zvesda for 24 hours. I have now re-blocked Nixer for 10 hours, which is probably about the length of time his block should have continued. Although why this should have to be discussed, I cannot fathom. Wheel warring over blocks is never appropriate, especially without discussion. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

a 3RR violation is a 3RR violation, whether performed by one person or by a group of people, and all are to be blocked if they are involved in the violation. - What? I am confused - I thought WP:3RR stated an editor must not perform more than three reversions, in whole or in part, on a single Misplaced Pages page within a 24 hour period. and Using sock puppets (multiple accounts owned by a single user) to avoid this limit is a violation of WP:SOCK, but the policy does not apply to groups.? Doesn't this directly contradict that? Just so we are clear on this. Yes, Nixer's actions seem to have been inappropriate, but 3RR doesn't apply across groups - unless you can show that Nixer is the same person as those other editors. (I would support a checkuser in this case).-Localzuk 01:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

So, in other words, if a certain trolling organization, or Wikipediawatch, or some web forum decided they didn't like a Misplaced Pages action, all they have to do is to coordinate an attack on an article so that each member only performs three reverts, and we can't do anything about it, even if it's pure nonsense? User:Zoe|(talk) 21:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

No, that is not my point. You stated that they were blocked for 3RR - and shouldn't be. It is a bit of an assumtion of bad faith to state that they are all part of the same group with no evidence (especially in this case where Nixer is shown to be a seperate editor, and was adding sourced information into the article).

With your attack analogy, if it is pure nonsense, and the users are obviously meatpuppets/sockpuppets then they can be blocked for vandalism (they don't have to have the full 4 warnings), or the page can be protected/semi-protected.

My point here, all along, has been that 1) You had a conflict of interest on the article (which I seem to be in the minority in believing) and 2) your label of the block as a violation of 3RR was incorrect. I am not trying to be persistent, just trying to make sure that you don't think you can block different people for reversions under the 3RR, and to make sure that you don't think it is acceptable to block people you are in a dispute with (it still looks like a dispute to me, as the user was adding information that was sourced so isn't simple vandalism or simple pov pushing).-Localzuk 16:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

So a user comes along and adds "George W. Bush" is the biggest war criminal in history" to the Bush article. And I remove it, and warn them not to add their personal opinions to Misplaced Pages articles. And they add it again, and I remove it again. And they add it again, and I remove it again and warn them of 3RR. And they add it again. I can't block them or remove the edit because "I am involved in the dispute"? User:Zoe|(talk) 18:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

While it's true that admins should never block in content disputes, I sometimes see a worrying tendency to call something a content dispute in order to challenge a block. (I remember that in the case of Mel Etitis, too. He became involved in something as an administrator, the user continued the disruptive behaviour, Mel blocked, and hey presto, a thread was started on one of the noticeboards about his "abuse" of blocking powers.) I've looked at the history of the Stalin article. Zoe's last edit before 2 December was a rollback of vandalism in August. How does that make her "involved"? I'm particularly concerned that Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington put in the block log that it was a "ridiculous block" and that the blocking admin "was involved in editing dispute". Block log entries need to be worded very carefully, as errors cannot be corrected later. AnnH ♫ 18:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I strongly concur with AnnH's assesment; the charge of "content dispute" is simply a red herring to distract from Nixer's ongoing habits of disruption. Doc Tropics 18:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

In response to this - Zoe had been removing the posts of 'Zvesda' - but Nixer disagreed with this, obviously thinking that some of the information was acceptable. This is a content dispute - another editor, seperate to the revert war between Zoe and Zvesda had made it obvious (by means of a revert) that they don't think it should be removed. How is this anything but a content dispute? I just can't see how it isn't one. And it seems a couple of other editors (2 admins) agree with me too.-Localzuk 19:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Why can't you understand what I am saying? Adding 'George W. Bush is the biggest war criminal in history' to the article on Bush is a violation of WP:BLP and would be simple vandalism too. Revert warring over it would not be necessary - they are being a vandal. In this case, the user was adding information that was partly sourced. Please try and see what I am saying - we have policies governing blocks and I do not see how you can say that what you were reverting was vandalism or that Nixer was breaching 3RR. Yes, there were problems with it, but lots of edits are a mixed bag of good and bad things.-Localzuk 18:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

CheckUser

Her's the CheckUser result, without wading into the middle of the discussion. Nixer is probably not Zvesda, Zvesda@netscape.net, Jacob Peters, Victor Serge, or Klaus Fuchs. However, I can say fairly certanly that all of those accounts are the same person. Dmcdevit·t 09:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks, DMC. I have permablocked all the sockpuppets and gave Jacob 1 week block for his sockpuppeting and block avoidance (on top of his 48h for Holodomor move and edit war). Alex Bakharev 09:59, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Is User:Humbabba linked to any of those accounts? Best, Moreschi 09:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Also how about User:Mikhail Frunze, User:68.126.6.70, User:68.126.240.181, User:68.123.224.156, User:68.123.227.112, User:69.111.8.1? Alex Bakharev 10:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Humbabba looks distinct and Mikhail is too old to check. I can't really make any comment regarding the IPs since I'm not comfortable giving out personally identifiable information yet. If you suspect an IP is being used for block evasion, I'll look at it. Dmcdevit·t 23:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Non-consensus page moves

Administrator intervention is requested to stop a few users who are engaging in non-consensus page moves of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of television episode articles. There has been a dispute at Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (television) for a few weeks now. The page is marked as disputed, attempts at discussion have been ongoing , and the issue is now moving on to mediation. However, a few users, evidently frustrated with the slowness of the process, are declaring premature "consensus" and engaging in large quantities of page moves . I understand that anything that is moved can eventually be moved back, but we're talking a couple thousand pages here, plus redirects, plus many of these pages are at names which have already been the result of elaborate consensus-building discussions by various WikiProjects, so I think it would be better if we had a complete freeze on these kinds of naming changes for now. The situation has been exacerbated by extreme uncivility and uncooperative behavior: "respond to this crap" , "bad faith delay tactics" "proposing a poll is uncivil and disruptive" . Can I please get a neutral admin to pop in to Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television) and Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for mediation/Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television) and simply say, "Stop with the moves, take it to WP:DR, don't move anything else until it's been worked out"? --Elonka 07:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Several admins have commented on the situation, but each time Elonka has deemed them "non neutral" because they disagreed with her. -- Ned Scott 09:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Even if the poll were re-run and found in Elonka's favor, it would still require exceptions to be established at various places - either a Wikiproject or at an individual page. In fact, it would just require WP:RM to be run for pages which don't meet the current guideline - which is already advisable. The page moves would still be appropriate for ones that have not established exceptions - which is most all of them. —Wknight94 (talk) 13:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

As a note, both Ned Scott and Wknight94 are active parties in this dispute, so don't really count as neutral opinions.

For a recent example of how this group of editors is steamrollering through various sections of Misplaced Pages, I point to Talk:List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) episodes#Disambiguation, where an earlier naming convention has been attacked, with multiple controversial page moves being pushed through without discussion. The "normal" TMNT editors had earlier this year already gone through several iterations of article naming, finally deciding on a consistent system in February 2006. Then, a couple days ago, as overflow from the dispute at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television), an editor from the dispute, in a violation of WP:POINT, jumped in to the TMNT category and started moving articles around, giving only about 24 hours notice that they were going to start , and then when no objections immediately surfaced, they proceeded. When the situation was noticed and objections were raised, the talk page has turned into a battleground, as other editors from the NC discussion have poured in. And the pages can't be moved back, because they're editing the redirects to "lock" them. Please, this group of editors is working its way through multiple sections of Misplaced Pages, making a kangaroo court consensus, and moving many hundreds of articles. We need for these moves to stop, so that normal WP:DR procedures can be followed. --Elonka 00:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

And again we have all tried to explain to Elonka that there is no problem. There was no previous consensus, just some guy went and named a bunch of articles that were a little out of line with WP:NC-TV. No big deal. We moved them, there are redirects all in place, no double redirects, and no rational reason whatsoever to use an article titling method that doesn't fit with WP:NC-TV and WP:D. In all honestly, the only issue here is the users who are making it an issue. -- Ned Scott 02:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Elonka's sentence, The "normal" TMNT editors had earlier this year already gone through several iterations of article naming, finally deciding on a consistent system in February 2006 boils down to one editor who misplaced one note stating his sole preference. No evidence of either "TMNT editors" or "several iterations" has been given by Elonka. Just one guy with one iteration all by himself 9 months ago. This is the type of misrepresentation we've been dealing with for a month at WP:NC-TV. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Elonka is asking for someone to say "take it to WP:DR" — however, dispute resolution is underway. An RfM has been filed, but is currently stalled after the RfM page itself was locked because of an edit war largely perpetrated by Elonka. (Incidentally, I believe that the RfM dispute is settled, and if a neutral party would like to unprotect the RfM page it would be greatly appreciated — the admins hoping to participate in the mediation have been asked not to unlock the page ourselves.)

What Elonka calls a "kangaroo court consensus" is the result of extensive discussion at WT:TV-NC. Elonka feels that due to some irregularities in an earlier straw poll, no consensus has been reached on the guideline; she is calling for a second poll. However, subsequent to that poll a supermajority of participating editors expressed support for the existing guideline, and the discussion following the poll showed a strong supermajority supporting the principle "disambiguate only when necessary". Most editors on the page consider this a consensus, but Elonka vocally disputes this.

Incidentally, at least five admins have examined and/or participated in the discussion at WT:TV-NC, and all five have agreed that a consensus exists for the current guideline. For the record these five admins are myself, Chuq, Steve Block, Radiant! and wknight94(along with many other comments on the subject). Any other participation in the discussion is, of course, welcome. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem here is all users need to calm down, take two steps back and take a deep breath, all this moving helps nothing; Especially if mediation is to be successful, I advise that it stops until consensus can be achieved. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually "all this moving" is just the result of following a policy, making the naming of wikipedia pages more consistent and in line with WP:D, WP:NAME and WP:TV-NAME. On the other hand, I don't know what insisting that consensus doesn't exist when it clearly does, insisting that an active guideline should not be followed, and trying to change a guideline without consensus via revert warring helps. It's just disruptive. And it should be noted, the guideline is no longer marked as "disputed" (it never should have been in the first place as there wasn't consensus for that addition) and it looks like this issue is not going to mediation. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This thread is now being continued in the below section Requesting block for non-consensus page moves, where I would point out that ^demon (talk · contribs) has posted for MedCom, confirming that these moves do not have consensus, and that engaging in further moves is endangering a mediation. --Elonka 20:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Pisgat Ze'ev

Can anyone review the conduct there? I think ILike2BeAnonymous (talk · contribs) in paricular deserves a blocks, since s/he's the one repeatedly upsetting the status quo. Thank you. - crz crztalk 13:58, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I would add that he has been reverting 5 separate editors on this article since June 2, 2006, rejecting an earlier consensus, but has yet to make even one comment on the article Talk: page. The account itself edits fairly intermittently, and seems to be editing this month mostly for the purpose of reverting that article. I'd support a block of anywhere between 1 week and 1 month, but I leave the exact length up to you. Jayjg 16:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

As the editor being discussed here, I'd just like to say that I represent that remark that "the account ... seems to be editing this month mostly for the purpose of reverting that article". I direct your attention to my list of edits in November, the last full month; you can decide for yourself whether I devoted most of my attention to reverting Pisgat Ze'ev or not. +ILike2BeAnonymous 20:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. Consistently with my Self-imposed Block Probation, I am imposing a five day block on ILike2BeAnonymous (talk · contribs) for s/his conduct on Pisgat Ze'ev. Please direct further communication to my talk page. - crz crztalk 23:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

From an admittedly brief look over this, it does look like a block could be justified. Am I the only one thinking five days might be a bit strong? If a shorter block is enough to "get the message across" and change their behavior, leading to dispute resolution and more reasonable behavior, good; if not, it would seem easy enough to re-block. Any takers? Luna Santin 03:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking 72 hours... Daniel.Bryant 03:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think 5 days is fine. Jayjg suggested up to a month. Feel free to shorten it w/o discussion if you feel it's warranted. - crz crztalk 03:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree 5 days is entirely appropriate. If anything its lenient. This user has been edit warring over months, repeatedly reverting back to his same WP:POV edit without any attempt to reach a consensus on the talk page. If this had happened on a couple of occasions, then a 5 day block would be too much, but a sustained, long-term edit war is a serious matter and we need to send a strong message. This is unacceptable behavior that seriously damages the fundamental processes of Misplaced Pages. I have already declined the user's unblock request. Gwernol 03:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll let this one sit, unless fresh opinions or evidence come up to the contrary. Luna Santin 04:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

There was no earlier consensus on this page. I strongly object to the block for reasons I have now set out on the talk page. Either both sides in this edit war should be blocked or neither. Palmiro | Talk 22:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Further note: pursuant to my raising the question on his talk page, Crzrussian told me that "I blocked the one who was stirring trouble, the one who was reverted by multiple editors." Since the current spate of edit warring started the user who has been blocked has made 15 reverts and been reverted by two other users (one of them Amoruso). User:Amoruso has made 13 reverts and has also been reverted by two other users (one, obviously, being the blocked user). Clearly Amoruso deserves a block too, though arguably only thirteen fifteenths as long as ILike2BeAnonymous's. Or of course, neither could be blocked. But sauce for the goose = sauce for the gander. Palmiro | Talk 23:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

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

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Spanish Gibraltarians

The article has gone thru 2 Afds so far. Although i am not accusing Mackensen of acting in bad faith when closing the 2nd Afd, i am just questionning here the validity of the argument presented as a summary of the closure. Presenting the article for the deletion review once more would be viewed as a WP:POINT or as if i am acting in bad faith. Is there someone who can review this and comment about it? Cheers -- Szvest Ω 16:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe the place you are looking for is deletion review. Sandstein 19:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

... or if you just disagree with the closing comment, not with the AfD outcome, you could discuss it with the closing admin on their talk page. I'm not sure what you expect us to do here. Sandstein 19:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, first I've heard of it. I find it useful to explain my reasoning when closing complex deletion discussions. By all means if he has a beef he'd do better to talk to me, or take it to deletion review. Mackensen (talk) 14:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Since you talk about "beef" i just find your comment so beefy Mackensen. I haven't though you'd consider it personal especially that i remained objective. I explained above why i posted it here and your comment is an example of uncivility from an ex-arbitrator! -- Szvest Ω 14:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Mackenson's comment is here is hardly uncivil, it sounds like you are the one taking this personally. And yes, he is an "ex-arbitrator" and that was a cute but failed attempt to make those words an insult somehow. Nice try though. Next you can tell us how horrible his behaviour is because he's an admin. pschemp | talk 14:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

"Hardly uncivil" is a POV as it is the way i considered it. Have you had something related to the comment i had made above about the Afd closure or are you here to defend people? -- Szvest Ω 15:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed I am an ex-arbitrator, and I wake everyday grateful that I chose to resign! Mackensen (talk) 15:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The thing I dont understand is why the article, which had been undeleted after a votation, was then deleted by Mackensen without a clear consensus to do so (9 votes to keep out of 19). Is this not against wikipedia rules? --Burgas00 17:01, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Decision policy At the end of the discussion, if a rough consensus for deletion has been reached, the page will be removed per Misplaced Pages:Deletion process; otherwise the page remains.

Where is this rough consensus?? I seriously feel that the page should be undeleted since Mackensen has blatantly flouted wikipedia policy.

--Burgas00 17:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahem. I think the forum you're looking for is deletion review. I saw no consensus to keep--none that was based on policy, at any rate. Mackensen (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Read the policy guidelines. A consensus is needed to delete not to keep. Its simple enough.--Burgas00 18:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• There's nothing in your statement that invalidates the close. Mackensen (talk) 18:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I dont understand your reasoning, Mackensen. It is against wiki rules to delete an article without a rough consensus to delete. You have done so. In what way does my statement NOT invalidate your behaviour?--Burgas00 18:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Bowser Koopa

A few things look odd at this category, Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Bowser Koopa. I really feel like the creators of the category are, in fact, sockpuppets of Bowser Koopa (talk · contribs). The Showster (talk · contribs) and You're The Man Now Dog (talk · contribs) were both registered 6 minutes apart, within 10 minutes of the registration of Bowser, King of the Koopas (talk · contribs) a Bowser Koopa sockpuppet. Anyone else seeing this? Metros232 16:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about those two users being socks of Bowser Koopa (though the way it was written makes it seem likely), but that category had to go. -- Steel 16:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The page was recreated, I deleted it and warned The Showster not to create it again. Metros232 05:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Dispute on WP:V

There is a dispute on WP:V, over the difference between these two versions. In particular, the debate appears to be about exactly how many "content policies" Misplaced Pages has, and whether it's important to cite this number on WP:V. If I understand correctly, one party asserts that there are exactly three content policies (WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV) and that this number must be listed, and the other party asserts that there are several more content policies (such as WP:NOT and WP:GFDL) and that the number '3' is either incorrect or irrelevant. Some other people, such as myself, fail to see why this is such a big deal either way, but since WP:V is an important page it would be nice if some outsiders chimed in, on the talk page. (Radiant) 18:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like another example for Misplaced Pages:Lamest edit wars. The two editors should be given a heavy dose of perspective, and perhaps sent to an article that needs improvement so they can use their powers for good and not evil. --Jayron32 05:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Chempep's inappropriate username

Chempep (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s username is inappropriate because every edit he makes will insert linkspam for http://www.chempep.com into the edit history of pages. My report concerning this user on WP:AIV was removed with an explanation of "Husond has handled" -- however, while User:Chempep might not engage in further creation of spam pages, there's no reason to allow him to employ his username for the purpose of linkspam. John254 20:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what there is to do, beyond what is done:

• He's been reverted.
• If he repeats his spamming, he'll be reverted and blocked.
• The existence of his talk page affords so little spam benefit that we needn't worry about it. And a bit of deleted spam isn't a good enough reason to delete a user talk page.
• We're not going to take up a bureaucrat's scarce time changing the username of a user with three surviving edits.

Ironically you've aided his spam campaign by repeating his username on this page several times, together with the link to the site - there's no link to the site anywhere else on Misplaced Pages, I think. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Users with inappropriate usernames are normally blocked indefinitely. If we don't block him, then any further edits will insert linkspam into the histories of the articles he edits. We can't then decide to change his username, because an involuntary username change violates the GFDL by not attributing his edits. I'm well aware of the irony of this post affording this user further publicity; however, the posting on WP:ANI wouldn't have been necessary if this user had been indefinitely blocked for having an inappropriate username when he was first reported on WP:AIV. I see no reason not to enforce Misplaced Pages:Username#Inappropriate_usernames against this user. John254 22:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, the indefinite blocking of users with inappropriate usernames is a standard practice, described in Template:UsernameBlocked. John254 23:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• As noted, it violates the section of WP:U dealing with "Usernames of or closely resembling the names of companies, groups, or include the URL of a particular website", and as such should be blocked. If he'd like to change it to something meeting policy, that'd be fine, but either way it shouldn't stay as it is. -Hit bull, win steak 19:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Possible sock of User:Cute 1 4 u

I think that Cute 1 4 u has made another sock, User:PumpkinPie. The reason I say this is because User:Pumpkin Pie (notice the space), who is a sock of C14u, welcomed User:PumpkinPie. PumpkinPie also only has on word on her main page, and that is the word "testing". I am reviving this because this discussion was lost in archive 150, and there was only one person that responded, saying that the last edit PumpkinPie made was in July. I can't remember what else that person said, I think it was that we didn't need to worry about it since the last edit was way back in July. I think we still need to block PumpkinPie if it is a sock. If it's not, then sorry for any trouble I may have caused - The RSJ 02:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, PumpkinPie is basically an abandoned account, and even if it was a sock, there would be no way to determine whether or not it was a sock through checkuser as the account is way too old. We can't even compare edits at this point.—Řÿūłóñģ (竜龍) 02:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. The RSJ 22:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism by classmates with my first and last name

Just about every day, I revert vandalism on Misplaced Pages in my school library. Now, unfortunately, two of my classmates have seen me doing it, and have started vandalizing Misplaced Pages.

The problem is, they keep putting my first and last name in articles (see 1 2 3 for ones I definitely know about).

What I know is that they create accounts through the IP User_talk:208.108.145.4 and then vandalize Misplaced Pages with them, sometimes putting my name in articles.

I dont want to violate WP:LEGAL here (just trying to keep myself from getting banned), but could someone please delete those revisions and possibly block the IP for one month with account creation disabled to get them bored with vandalism?

I appreciate any help here. Thanks! Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 03:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If you go to WP:RFO, you can request an oversight to permanently remove the edits. As for the user being dealt with, I (not an admin) don't know how Misplaced Pages would deal with a school IP inserting personal information. // I c e d K o l a 03:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Technically, its not the school IP, its accounts made by the IP. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 03:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You really ought to be taking this to your school authorities too. Hesperian 03:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If I do so, they'll block the site, perhaps permanently. I dont want that to happen! Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 14:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I have prevented account creation for your school's IP address and extended the block (which was going to expire on December 9) until December 23. -- tariqabjotu 04:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, its started up again through User:Onikudaki and User:LucyJenkin2. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 13:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

HELP! My talk page is being vandalized by them. I've requested semi-protection, but HELP NEEDED NOW!!!! Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 13:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Also, User:208.108.145.3 (and possibly User:208.108.145.11 could be used) are also being used to create those accounts. Theres a current block on there that expires on December 13th, but account creation wasn't disabled. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 14:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Not to be pushy, but is anything going to happen to User:208.108.145.3? If its blocked, I'm betting all my troubles with the vandals will end. Originally posted by 24.50.211.226 02:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC), who was Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 02:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC) logged out.

Ban evasion and vandalism by Eowbotm

Note: This incident was automatically archived without resolution. I am reposting exactly as it appears in the archives. It's a pretty straightforward case and I would appreciate any feedback/remedies you guys can offer.

I thought about taking this to WP:SSP, but decided to try posting here first. Blocked user Eowbotm (talk · contribs) appears to be evading his block with the use of accounts Eowbotm1 (talk · contribs), Eowbotm2 (talk · contribs), Eowbotm3 (talk · contribs), and Eowbotm4 (talk · contribs). All of these accounts have committed vandalism:

Vandalism, POV, and other reverted shenanigans (a lot of which is very subtle)

• Eowbotm1
• Eowbotm2
• Eowbotm3
• Eowbotm4 (I just now re-added this, is properly cited and should not have been removed)

Evidence incidcating that they're the same accounts (besides the names)

• And an edit indicating that Eowbotm3 is Eowbotm2.
• And edits by Eowbotm3 and Eowbotm1 to Eowbotm, suggesting a link.
• An edit by Eowbotm1 to Eowbotm4, in case more evidence is needed.

I've also found that this user cleared vandalism warnings off his talk pages for Eowbotm1 and Eowbotm4. And just did so again with Eowbotm1 (a day later).

Can we get these sockpuppets of a blocked user who has consistently vandalized on his socks blocked as well? And perhaps an IP ban or something to keep him from doing this again? Thanks in advance. —Lantoka 18:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Seconded by me, as one of his victims Mgoodyear 19:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Try WP:SSP? -Amarkov _edits 03:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Can't socks of indefinitely banned users just be banned by an admin though? WP:SSP takes 10 days. =/ —Lantoka 03:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I can at least say that WP:SSP isn't necessary for vandalism-only accounts, and if those aren't sockpuppets, they're impersonators, which also violates Misplaced Pages policy(not sure which, however).--Vercalos 04:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Blocked all. People may want to review Eowbotm1 (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log), the other three are unequivocal vandalism-only socks. Guy (Help!) 13:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

  Thank you very much JzG. —Lantoka 15:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You've won the battle, but you havent won the war...get down on your knees and take what's coming to you...eowbotmwashere 14:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

And another sock of Eowbotm's gets banned. ^^ —Lantoka 22:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Village pump (news) disruptor is back again

Was using anon IPs, but is now using newly created, single purpose accounts, with objectionable attack-based account names. Consider this dif . You have to hand it to this guy for his perserverence. Perhaps, however, he needs a new hobby. --Jayron32 06:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• The linked user appears to be blocked now. - Mgm| 10:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
• I thhink it is way past time to take this to the foundation.--MONGO 11:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Range-block had been placed on the IP ranges. (no edits from the IP, but account creation allowed) The ISP has been contacted repeatedly regarding this, but no reply yet. If I don't hear back from them today. The next step is Range-block with account creation not allowed. Of course, this may (regretfully) affect other customers on that ISP. Until the ISP chooses to respond, this may be necessary. I can get the foundation to attempt a contact to the ISP. Unfortunately, we aren't federal disinformation agents as has been accused and can't wield our magical powers and secret technology. --Aude (talk) 13:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Geh, this noxious dude was also responsible for creating the Misplaced Pages:Clowns to further his trollery. 68.39.174.238 19:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Still On Duty. Just stormed again. Could you please go on w/ your suggestion Aude? -- Szvest Ω 20:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Greier

Greier was blocked recently for a week for edit warring. This block was his fourteenth distinct block for edit warring and incivility. He was given a one month block after his eighth back in May, and since then has received multiple blocks of a week or more, but shows absolutely no inclination to modify his unacceptable behavior. Atypically, the blocks don't seem to have been escalating in any order, and so he's now racked up an atrocious block log with no end in sight. He should have been banned log ago, in my opinion, and I have extended his current block to indefinite, expecting that no one will object, and the community's patience is (well beyond) exhausted. This is up for review. Dmcdevit·t 11:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Endorse block. Repeated infringement of 3RR shows that he has no intention of abiding by the rules. --Srikeit 11:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Reviewed and also support this indef block. --FloNight 11:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Support indef block.--MONGO 11:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Support block for one year with 1RR probabtionary period to follow.—Doug Bell  11:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Long overdue. --Ghirla 11:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I have seen this guy toeing the 3RR line more than often; and he has been gaming the system in the past. Endorse block. — Nearly Headless Nick 12:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Unambiguous case, he can maybe ask to come back when he's accepted that edit-warring is wrong. Guy (Help!) 13:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Really see no problem with that one. 14 blocks is edging into the ridiculous. Viridae 13:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

While he's had a veritable crapload of blocks, not one has lasted longer than 2 weeks. I don't really have a problem with an indefinite block, but I'd have given a 3 month (or 6 month) block, to give him time to think about his behaviour, and why it is not acceptable. If that doesn't work, then block him indefinitely. Proto::► 15:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The reason he's not had longer blocks is because of the excessive leniency with which he has been treated (and I share considerable responsability in this). Few editors have shown more contempt of the rules of wikipedia, and behaved with more uncivility; for this I fully endorse the indef. block.--Aldux 21:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator, but looking at his history, I have to agree, it was long overdue.. Maybe there should be a set 'template' on how users should be blocked. start with 24 hours, then 48 hours then a week, then a month, and at that point, the user goes up for review to see if he's improved in attitude and edits(of course this is somewhat subjective), or if he should be blocked indefinately, in which case he could always apologize.--Vercalos 22:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Now I know where all those missing socks went

There are socks popping up all over the place regarding the great "federal officials using Misplaced Pages as propoganda" conspiracy. Here's some to keep track of, although they seem to be shedding their socks quickly:

• GenericClownTaunt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• ScaredOfClowns (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• NotScaredOfClowns…NoSirNotMe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• RespectableWikiEditor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• EvenMoreRespectableWikiEditor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• MyFavoriteMutiny (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

More to come I'm sure. Just a heads up. —Doug Bell  20:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed you missed a couple ;) Glen 20:58, December 4, 2006 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. Someone who knows the underlying IP should just give it a hard block, even if only for a day. -Patstuart 20:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Has a checkuser/IP check been run at RFCU? I would scan the page or archives myself, but I wouldn't even know what name to look under. (For more socks, check the history of MONGO's question page for the ArbCom election.) Newyorkbrad 20:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

He's on a dynamic IP. The ISP has been notified and when myself and my accomplices of A.P.E. track him down, he's going to get a free ride rendered to his new home.--MONGO 20:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest a range-block (including on account creation) until the ISP chooses to reply, and this followed up on. It's unacceptable that pages such as Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Candidate statements/Questions for MONGO need to be semi-protected. --Aude (talk) 20:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Blocked, please review

Per this and previous discussion

• WP:ANI#Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_.28news.29_disruptor_is_back_again
• WP:ANI#Numerous_anon_sockpuppets_who_edited_the_page_Wikipedia:Village_pump_.28news.29
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive150#Block_review_requested
• Misplaced Pages:Abuse reports/60.30.x.x and 70.8.x.x range
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Cplot

I have temporarily blocked these IP ranges, including account creation.

These are my first range blocks. Please review they are done correctly. Though these ranges were previously blocked a few days ago and are the same ones now. This situation has been going on for almost two weeks now. --Aude (talk) 20:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me..if it stops for 48 hours, then we know. Hopefully enough users that may be using that range will complain to the ISP and they will do something about the problem.--MONGO 21:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Can we get a list of all the accounts created on the blocked IPs in the last day? Might make it easier to find any other socks. —Doug Bell  21:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've been adding these names to Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Cplot as I can trace them down. Some of his previous IP addresses are on the page as well. I'd still love to see a Checkuser on Cplot just to confirm that he was in this same range. --StuffOfInterest 21:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It is linked above and confirmed. My wonder is why the posts mentions the ban of Zen-master...pattern certainly fits the storyline.--MONGO 21:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, great. Thanks. I'm going to add a link from the sockpuppet page just to help any future bumbling admin like myself. Actually, wait, make that a bumbling federal agent. --StuffOfInterest 21:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Be careful...you might also be accused of being a secret agent.--MONGO 21:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Either they switched to a new IP range, or the blocks didn't hold--MONGO 22:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

HitTheRoad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is another unblocked puppet.--Tbeatty 05:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Another one: SoColdTonight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) MER-C 09:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

King Shadzar and his court of sockpuppets

Can somebody do something about King Shadzar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and his sockpuppets? He's been vandalizing the Naruto and Naruto Uzumaki articles, adding complete nonsense and creating new socks each time his new accounts are blocked. Is an IP block at all possible? NeoChaosX (he shoots, he scores!) 20:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

He's now vandalizing as The Master Of Mario (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Can somebody please deal with this user? NeoChaosX (he shoots, he scores!) 20:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I blocked his accounts before and I'll continue blocking if he comes back. I semi-protected Naruto yesterday and I just semi-protected Naruto Uzumaki. If you guys see this guy again, report to AIV or message me on my talk page and I'll deal with it asap. Nishkid64 21:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of pictures clearly under fair use

The user Chowbok is removing a large number of images of political leaders under a faulty legal premise (that portraits of state government officials cannot be shown non-commercially on the Misplaced Pages). This user isn't a vandal, but these actions are causing considerable harm to the integrity of Misplaced Pages. Can anything be done? --JesseBHolmes 21:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Fair use is not the same thing as the U.S. legal doctrine. If there are images being tagged for deletion that do not fail Misplaced Pages:Fair use criteria (usually numbers one and ten are the problem), you can tag those images for further review. Jkelly 21:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears the benevolent dictator agrees with what Chowbok is doing. From my viewpoint it is tough love...--Isotope23 21:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree with Our Glorious Leader that Chowbok does a lot of necessary work; I'm just saying that he's removing a good number of images under a faulty legal interpretation. How can this issue be addressed generally, rather than on an image-by-image basis (which would be very hard, Chowbok is quite prolific). --JesseBHolmes 22:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The first step is to get over the idea of a "faulty legal interpretation" -- you will only frustrate yourself and others if your interest is in opining upon U.S. copyright doctrine. If you want to argue for liberalising Misplaced Pages:Fair use criteria, the place to do so is at Misplaced Pages talk:Fair use. If you think that Chowbok is incorrectly applying WP:FUC, that's probably best discussed at User talk:Chowbok or at the RfC. Jkelly 22:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

nuke this

Could a friendly neighbourhood Admin nuke this - I tagged it, but a mixture of identifiable persons and locations plus god know what future additions means it should be taken out sooner rather than later. --Charlesknight 22:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleted. --Coredesat 22:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Author promoting book in refs/ext.links?

User:DASonnenfeld (contribs) has been linking his own book, available for $77.50 or $25.95, in references & external links sections in, so far, more than a dozen articles in one day. Or perhaps (good faith?) someone else has assumed the author's name for this mission. Either way, I'm aware of no wikipolicy approving this practice. Athaenara ✉ 01:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I can't stand this self-promotion spam. The editor did not much else but spam various articles, so I, not an administrator, reverted them, and posted a spam warning on his page. And administrator should feel free to do something if it warrants it, but this is actually a farely common occurence on Misplaced Pages, nothing special--Sonnenfeld may just not know the rule. KP Botany 01:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Fast work there, KP—good job. –Æ. 01:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Main page protection policy

yes, yes, I know it's policy, so there's no reason to request semi-protection, but what is happening to Down syndrome on the main page isn't good for anyone. Sandy (Talk) 01:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

In exceptional cases, people have rarely had problems with semi-protection. And with 5 vandals in a minute? Something reealy needs to be done. -Amarkov _edits 01:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Not quite that bad, but still bad. Please protect it admins? I'll give you a smiley face! :) -Amarkov _edits 01:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It's apparently been vandalized about 50 times in 80 minutes. I've semi-protected for now... I will unprotect soon per the status quo. --W.marsh 01:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Sandy (Talk) 01:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

A template on the page has apparently been vandalized... help needed ASAP. --W.marsh 01:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

a lot of the vandalism seems to be the work of one user, albeit working from different Ips- notice the oversized signature in all the vandalisms. Borisblue 01:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This is as bad as I've seen - can we get a longer protection period, in spite of the policy, considering the offense that may be created? Sandy (Talk) 01:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I am going to unprotect in about 10 minutes... I've found that for whatever reason a brief protection is surprisingly effective at calming down the vandals, plus some have been blocked now. But if it continues... we'll just see what happens. For whatever it's worth, some discussion is ongoing at Misplaced Pages talk:Don't protect Main Page featured articles. --W.marsh 01:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

>.< Can someone protect the templates on the page? Today's FA concerns shouldn't apply there. -Amarkov _edits 01:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't figure out what template keeps getting vandalized... if anyone knows I will full protect it and block whoever's been vandalizing it, if possible. --W.marsh 01:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

{{featured article}}, I think. -Amarkov _edits 01:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It was {{Infobox Disease}}; W.marsh has protected it. Melchoir 01:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

A lot of the vandalism is the work of the same vandal operating from a dynamic IP from Reston, Virginia. If we block that guy on sight the problem should be averted. Just check the WHOIS of the vandal IPs when this goes back onlineBorisblue 01:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The attacks are coming from public proxies; try Googling 66.184.56.98 or 85.25.139.149. Apparently we need to do a better job of blocking them. Melchoir 01:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone unprotectd already - fun. Sandy (Talk) 01:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Gah. This is the first article on my watchlist that's been on the mainpage. I'm glad to know this isn't normal. God, people really suck sometimes. But when you unprotect, rest assured, there's folks on the case. I'm ready to revert this article for hours. One of the things that keeps happening is that so much vandalism happens in a brief period, that the reverts end up keeping some there. I was thinking about copying a good page into my clipboard and then just pasting into any vandalous version that comes up. Is that kosher?Dina 01:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Now it's been protected again (not by me). Hopefully we can discuss rather than wheel war this time. --W.marsh 01:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Something is happening at Template talk:OMIM Sandy (Talk) 01:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Somehow this page (AN/I) has a template that's been vandalized similar to OMIM...? --W.marsh 01:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't tell what happened at OMIM, but it's part of the disease infobox, and it popped up on my watchlist as vandalized. Sandy (Talk) 01:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Definitely need to protect the templates trandscluded on the down syndrome page. Borisblue 01:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The {{ICD10}}, {{ICD9}}, and {{ICDO}} templates have been semi-protected (this first was vandalized severely). I'm okay with leaving the main article unprotected if others feel the vandalism is manageable. -- tariqabjotu 02:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone might as well get PMID as well, before "they" find it. Sandy (Talk) 02:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Some of the culprits have been blocked, a remedy with a lot less collateral damage than sprotection. Let's see if the blocking and warning worksBorisblue 02:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Before someone thinks I'm going overboard, see what happened to {{ICD10}}. It went undiscovered for a couple minutes because it took awhile to discover the template that had the severe vandalism. I can't imagine much collateral damage from (temporarily) semi-protecting templates that shouldn't really need editing anyway. -- tariqabjotu 02:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, no probs there- new users should stay away from these templates. Anyway, the blocking and warning seems to have worked- the vandalism in the main page article seems to have stopped. Borisblue 02:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Template vandalizing isn't new and it can be effective. When Bulbasaur was up on the Main Page, someone vandalized the {{pokenum}} template with a picture of the male reproductive organ. Quite effective. Hbdragon88 06:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair use of image violations by User:Wikimania2

User is repeatedly performing this reversion in the Kobe Bryant article. The original picture is free; the one the user insists upon putting in is copyrighted. User originally claimed that copyright work is fair use because the using the picture generates no profit. User has been explicitly referred to Misplaced Pages:Image_use_policy#Fair_use_considerations and explictly told to note that fair use requires there to be no free alternative to the copyrighted work. (In this case, obviously there is a free alternative, so fair use cannot apply.) User ignores this and continues to put in the copyrighted image, offering no justification beyond putting "refer to Misplaced Pages:Copyrights" in their edit summaries. It has been explained to the user that under the above mentioned fair use polilcy, Misplaced Pages:Copyrights actually contradicts, not supports, the user's position. The user has offered no response, either on user talk pages or the article discussion page to further justify the user's position. Further reversion of the user's edit by myself will just be a continuation of an edit war since the user seems interested neither in explaining their position, nor in backing down, and would further put me in violation of WP:3RR. So perhaps it's a situation best handled by an admin. Mwelch 02:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Mwelch, your position is absolutely right, and well handled so far, too. I have rolled back Wikimania2, and deleted the image as not free use per your observation that we already have a free alternative. Post here if further action is needed. Hesperian 03:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the assistance. Please know that it is very much appreciated! I'll advise if there is anything further. Mwelch 03:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Light current

Light current (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log) :There's been some disagreement over at the reference desk- see Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Disrupting_the_reference_desk_to_make_a_point. My personal opinion here is that Light current is either completely clueless or is intentionally trolling, and I've given him a stern finger-wag. However, my supply of AGF is probably running out with this guy so I wonder if anyone else has opinions. Friday (talk) 03:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

There was a situation before at one of the content policies that appeared to involve trolling from Light current. The warning was a good idea. SlimVirgin 04:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Good luck. See his block log. A warning was proper though. Considering the numerous ones he's had in the past, I wouldn't mess about if he continues however. pschemp | talk 04:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Light current doesn't really strike me as bad, but he sometimes acts in a juvenile manner. Dragons flight 04:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur. He either does not have, or does not use, good judgement about what to say. At a certain point, however, even if we assume the best of intentions, something has to be done. -- SCZenz 04:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know I have responded to all current criticisms and taken corrective action (including deletions). If there are any other outstanding issues, please let me know. 8-)--Light current 05:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Light current, be aware that it is common for people to be banned from places they disrupt. I hope you have decided to stop the nonsense. Guy (Help!) 09:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have responded to all the issues raised. If you raise a specific issue that has not already been dealt with I will respond.--Light current 14:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Friday, you asked for opinions, so here is mine. I don't see how Light current is being disruptive. You unilaterally deleted a non-offensive question about HRT from the Science RD; Light current re-instated the question; and then Light current and StuRat discussed the issue with you on StuRat's talk page. For you to say that Light current is "completely clueless or is intentionally trolling" is unjustified, and very close to a personal attack. Gandalf61 17:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Friday is biased in this matter, and should recuse himself from any actions, as he indicated he would do: "But, I'll admit I'm personally irritated at him too, so if action needs to be taken I'd prefer someone else do it" . That was a good idea, it's too bad he didn't do as he said, and leave this matter to other, calmer heads. StuRat 02:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Did you check his contributions? Particular gems include making a masturbation joke in response to a RD question. He's been quite unresponsive to complaints on his talk page. Well, unresponsive is not the right word- he responds, as a chattering child might respond. But thus far he's failed to modify his behavior. Friday (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am familiar with Light current's contributions. Do you have a link for the masturbation joke ? If you are thinking of the "popping your collar" remark, I found that quite funny in context, but I don't believe it was one of Light current's answers. Gandalf61 17:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/button_sig.png

How do you know it was related to masturbation? THat interpretation is purely in your mind!--Light current 23:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head. Here's another recent off-topic sexual remark that someone complained about here. See also the numerous complaints on his talk page about his RD activities. He seems to honestly believe in his right to use the RD as a chat board. I'm not opposed to a certain amount of that, but here's a user who's been getting and ignoring complaints for some time. He's exhausted my patience, but I don't know if he's exhausted the entire community's patience yet. Note that mostly his remarks aren't that bad in isolation- you have to look at the overall pattern of disruptive behavior to see the problem here. He seems to enjoy being a pest- if there are little or no useful contributions to offset this, the answer looks obvious to me. But, I'll admit I'm personally irritated at him too, so if action needs to be taken I'd prefer someone else do it. Friday (talk) 17:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

He has not been "ignoring complaints", he has discused them, and, where appropriate (and given the opportunity to do so), he has reverted his edits. StuRat 03:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

So you can't remember what you meant by the "masturbation joke". Is it possible you are conflating the activities of several RD users, and attributing them all to Light current ? As for the "photography" example, Light current's remark was challenged on the RD talk page, and Light current says he would have amended it, but we will never know if he would have, because you didn't give him a chance - you deleted his response 7 minutes after it was raised on the talk page. That does begin to look like stalking behaviour to me. You say that Light current irritates you - my opinion is that this irritation has led to you no longer being objective about his behaviour. Gandalf61 19:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I remember it fine, and the diff is here. Why are you objecting to me quickly deleting irrelevant (and possibly, slightly offensive) content? Doing it slower doesn't mean it gets done better. Yes, I've been reviewing his contributions- so have others. This is so we can remove the more juvenile and off-topic remarks he makes, since he's demonstrated no judgment of his own. I guess one man's "stalking" is another's "damage control". However I intent to continue to remove rude, irrelevant, and/or unhelpful comments from pages as I see fit. This is neither a playground, a chat board, nor a forum for free speech. Friday (talk) 20:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have posted to Light current's talk page before, mostly over the same sort of problems. See archived threads here and here for examples. One comment in particular was very illuminating: "When you have as many edits as I have, esp on Rd, then you can tell me what to do. Until then, I advise you to keep your counsel. 8-)" (28 October 2006) - despite the smiley, this either displays the wrong attitude, or a worrying lack of judgement over the right time and place to make jokes. This lack of judgment is evident at the Reference Desk as well. There also seems to be a pattern of behaviour along the lines of pushing the boundaries and defying authority up to a certain point, and then claiming innocence, and saying that he has "responded to all queries". Overall, the attitude and behaviour is often (but not always) juvenile and immature. Ultimately, I would say stern warnings (when needed) from uninvolved parties may be the only way to get the message through, along with some mentoring. Of course, the behaviour may improve over time as the user gains experience in life and Misplaced Pages. And it would be unfair to single out Light current. There are others that exhibit the same sort of behaviour. Possibly showing these sort of users other areas of Misplaced Pages they could contribute to would work well, as then they really will encounter people who will tell them exactly what they think of silly behaviour. Carcharoth 17:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree that there are other problem editors with the same sort of behavior. LC seems to be buddies with some of them. But, we have to start somewhere. Agree that warnings are reasonable but they have thus far been ineffective. Whether the "innocent child" routine is genuine or not I don't particularly care- the disruption is the same either way. He also made some reference to his edit count to me, as though he believes this justifies his behavior. Anyway, he's characterized my telling him his behavior needs to change as "stalking", which I guess translates into "leave me alone and let me do what I want." A block might help him understand that his behavior really is a problem, but it's hard to point to a single edit that clearly warrants such action. Friday (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

What about an WP:RFC for user conduct? If enough people agree with what they think the problem is, the message might get through. Carcharoth 18:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth: User_talk:Light_current#RFC. He says he understands that many people think his editing is frequently inappropriate. Time will tell I suppose. Friday (talk) 21:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried to reason with him about a month ago (archived at User talk:Light current/archive7#comment at RD/science with a related thread starting at Misplaced Pages talk:Reference desk/Archive 13#Joking on RD with no apparent improvement on his part. This is where the "When you have as many edits as I have, esp on Rd, then you can tell me what to do. Until then, I advise you to keep your counsel." quote came from. When it became clear to him that I'm an admin he backed off (somewhat), but has been pushing the edge ever since. I fear RFC may be the only recourse. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked this editor for 1 week. See my explanation at User_talk:Light_current#Enough. As always, I invite others to review and adjust as they see fit. Friday (talk) 23:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Good decision. SlimVirgin 00:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears harsh at first glance, but I understand the logic. When a user clearly alludes to masturbation and then tries to convince people that it's all in their own heads, that's trolling. LC often seems bent on arguing that nobody can prove what he's talking about, and that the judgement and common sense of others may be faulty, so there's nothing anybody can do; I've talked to him before about the fallacies of this approach, but I guess the lesson didn't sink in. Unfortunately, I'm not sure a long block will make him behave better—but I also have no idea what else to do. -- SCZenz 02:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Not convinced it will help either, but it will make the trolling go away temporarily. Or, at any rate it'll confine it to his own page where he can talk to himself all day long as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for the feedback, glad I wasn't completely unreasonable here. Friday (talk) 02:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but a week seems a little harsh to me. Light current has shown that he can talk the talk (ie. he says he understands what is wrong and will try better in the future), but I would say judge his actions during a probationary period. Unblock or reduce the block length, and make clear that disruptive behaviour during the probationary period of a week will result in the block being reimposed. ie. Make clearer to him what sort of behaviour he needs to avoid, and then watch for a week to see that he does avoid that sort of behaviour. Again, mentoring is really what is needed ere, with someone to politely tap the shoulder and say "ahem, do you really think that is suitable?" Carcharoth 03:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, both nonsexual jokes and the serious discussion of sexual topics, such as masturbation, are allowed on the Ref Desk, but there do appear to be significant objections to sexual jokes. That's fine, but the editor should then be asked to remove the post and given a reasonable opportunity to do so. Instead, Friday removed it himself, depriving User:light current of the opportunity to do so, then used this post later as a justification for blocking this editor for a week. Note that User:light current did not restore the comment, and shows every sign of being reasonable in this matter. Furthermore, Friday's actions regarding the Ref Desk have been needlessly rude, as he himself admits: and disruptive recently, including his suggestion that the Ref Desk be deleted entirely. StuRat 03:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Very good point, it's not nearly as serious as if you had asked him and he had refused- friday did it himself and then blamed him. LC posted it in the first place of course but he should have a chance.. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Froth (talk • contribs) 20:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

As an addendum to all this, I am serious that users who use Misplaced Pages as a chat room or discussion place, should be encouraged to take that behaviour to genuine discussion forums. Lord knows there are enough IRC chatrooms and bulletin boards out there, and Usenet as well. Carcharoth 03:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support block. I like User:Light current and I think he enjoys editing here. But he has to realize that his reference desk behaviour is crossing that murky line from making funny comments to being disruptive. If he shows a willingness to tone down his RD commentary on his talk page, I'd be in favour of unblocking -- Samir धर्म 04:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support block. This guy has been trolling, and the block will reduce disruption. Hopefully it will only be needed once. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 05:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• I'm a non-admin, but I support the block. Comments like this are not acceptable, especially in light of given question. Were this isolated, it would not be a problem, but he was warned, and continues to lawyer around with things like "you can't prove I meant that". I'm also worried by comments like "I've responded to any specific issues", which seem to be his way of saying, "I'm only going to respond to past questions, and not necessarily fix my behavior in the future." Friday had every right to remove offensive comments on sight; we don't just let ugly comments sit on the board, just so a user has the chance to go back and remove them later to prove his genuineness. Patstuart 06:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• I support. This guy is disruptive, and incivil. Viewing his comments on AN/I should tell you that in an instant. I probably won't remember to recheck this so if you have a comment on my comment, leave a message on my user talk. ⇒ SWATJester Aim _Fire! 08:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose this block. User:Friday has admitted he is biased in this matter, and the "punishment" here is way out of line with the "crime": "But, I'll admit I'm personally irritated at him too, so if action needs to be taken I'd prefer someone else do it" . StuRat 09:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• I am a non-admin, and I oppose this block. Light current's reaction to criticism of his RD posts has been persistent but polite. I have seen no evidence that he has broken WP guidelines or policy. He has not been disruptive. Friday has over-reacted, and has allowed his feelings of irritation to override his judgement. He has abused his admin powers to pursue a personal disagreement with Light current. He has escalated from his initial AN/I post to a week long block in less than 24 hours. If Friday thought a block was necessary, he should have proposed this course of action, given Light current a chance to defend himself, obtained concensus on the term of the block and asked an uninvolved admin to enact it. Gandalf61 09:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Gandalf61. StuRat 11:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• So what you're saying is that it's OK for a user to post out-of-context comments about masturbation, camera voyeurism, and other inappropriate subjects, and then, when confronted, not to be penitent, but to lawyer, refuse to admit fault, to argue, and to obfuscate ("you don't know that's what I meant"). I'm sorry, posting nonsense like that, then pretending you did nothing wrong, after repeatedly being asked to stop is totally unacceptable. I'm sorry, he should know better than that. And, I know you're frustrated with Friday, but the fact is, that is an ongoing problem; this is far from the first time this user has been a problem in such areas. Patstuart 10:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• An Admin should be neutral, but User:Friday appears to "have it in for" User:light current, resulting in his imposing a week long block for what is, at best, a minor problem. It appears as though User:Friday was looking for any excuse to impose a block. User:light current has been willing to remove any of his posts which are found to be inappropriate, if given the chance. User:Friday, however, has not given him that chance. StuRat 11:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In what areas? The ref desk? I don't recall having ever seen you there.

• The ref desk is going to die this way. A one week block?! I sometimes wonder what LC is talking about, but I don't find him disruptive at all. I still don't get what he is being blocked for. It's all about one single remark that he himself agreed to remove (had he been given a chance) and when Friday is asked for another example he restates the same one. Other examples given are from his own talk page. His own talk page! Is that a reason for a block? A one week block? Much more disruptive is factually wrong information, because that looks like a useful answer. That is not the case here. This is about a silly remark. If this sort of deletionist behaviour continues at the ref desk and those who protest it are blocked (in stead of the other way around) the ref desk will become dull, many useful editors will leave (there are too few already as it is) and the ref desk will die. I have already noticed this happening, as I predicted it would. And it's going to get worse. This censorship has to stop. No need to block me. I've done that myself. After thousands of edits over the last year I have decided to stop contributing to the ref desk. And this is probably my last contribution to this page too. It's all too childish for me to waste time on. If people get blocked for a week for something like this, I'm out of here. To those who say 'good riddance' (there will be those): I didn't get two of my three barnstars for my work at the ref desk for nothing. DirkvdM 13:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• You are going to block yourself? From this it looks like SCZenz blocked you, not yourself. This is not censorship. The reference desk needs to be kept on topic and focused. The more 'playful' and 'stream of consciousness' it becomes, the less useful it is. As I've said above, there are plenty of other places to joke around at, but WP:RD is not one of them. FWIW, I too think the 1-week ban is too harsh, and I also think Friday needs to provide a clearer reason, and Friday should have left it to an uninvolved admin to impose a block, if needed. Carcharoth 13:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• That block has ended. He is saying he will not participate in the Ref Desk in the future, even though allowed to do so, because of his disgust at the level of hostility aimed at certain Ref Desk contributors from certain Admins, such as User:Friday and User:SCZenz. StuRat 14:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yup. You beat me to it once again. Btw, this is a nice example of how some people don't understand certain types of humour. Which is no reason to delete it. One note to what you said: I don't care if it's admins who do it. Any deletions (by others) at the ref desk are baaaaaad because there are about a thousand edtis per day there, which makes it impossible to keep track of deletions. If that issue is somehow resolved, notify me. I might return. DirkvdM 15:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose one week block: Support 12/24-hour block: I did not see any warnings on User talk:Light current so I was going to oppose any block pending adequate warning, but then I discovered that LC has prematurely archived the warning and lots of relevant discussion on this topic with this edit. I find that disingenuous and it speaks to the need for administrative disincentive for inappropriate behavior (dare I say disruptive? don't mean to dis anyone). I have myself found some of LC's post to the forum frivilous and I personally have decided to ignore any questions posted by him. That is based on what I saw as "crying wolf", i.e. asking questions that he really had no desire to have answered, just for fun. I hinted at such in this edit. I considered that LC was disrespectful to the fact that I had gone to the effort of giving him a legitimate answer to what I thought was a legitimate question. As I myself just consider LC overly playful I did not see fit to warn him otherwise. That Friday sees his behaviour as more serious is a matter for those two to sort out but to the degree that LC ignored the warning then he can have the block but one week is WAY excessive; 12 or 24 hours is better. --Justanother 13:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Note: SCZenz even removed (not 'archived') a warning template I placed on his talk page. When I asked other admins about this, the answer was that one can do whatever one likes at ones own talk page. Even though this was a bit more than just 'disingeneous'. DirkvdM 15:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that calling SCZenz' attempts to improve the desk according to his own understanding of purpose and policy; calling those efforts "vandalism" is baiting and he was justified to remove it. "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." I also think that admins that "don't like the reference desk" should give it a wide berth. I am not judging anyone there, I am simply making a comment. I further hope that LightCurrent (and others) can come to understand that the banter and off-topic junk on the Desks is an enjoyable aside to the real work of answering questions and is never to be started or encouraged as an end-in-itself. I hope that LC gets something out of all this effort and remains on the Desk. --Justanother 16:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose one week block. I feel very strongly about this, as an RD regular. I think sometimes LC is over the top, but he's shown suitable contrition in response to the recent discussions. I regularly do RC patrol and report vandals. I see persistent, malicious blankers and offensive posters receive blocks much shorter than 1 week. And they are non penitent. Shorten this please. --Dweller 14:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose block. Even if one accepted that Light current needed blocking, a one-week block is inappropriately harsh. Yesterday a spammer who created two articles spamming a website, who deleted spam tags from them, recreated the delteed articles twice after admin deletion, listed the article on the req for page protection page to try to protect it from *me* and the deleting admins, forged my signature, and then lied about it, requested a review of the block, got one, blanked the user page and requested another one, got the same--a week's blocking.

Furthermore, even if one accepted that Light current needed blocking, the action for which he was blocked was under active & general discussion and it was premature to do so prior to some conclusion of that discussion, especially in the absence of clear, uncontradicted and unambiguous guidelines about the behavior for which he's been blocked.

So I would appeal to Friday to rethink the week block and lift it, undoing the self-action, and parole Light current to time served. -THB 15:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Opposeblock as clearly excessive. This is an unwarranted abuse of admin powers by user:Friday, who has previously proposed eliminating the reference desk: "I'm probably going against years of established practice here, but I fail to see how the reference desk adds encyclopedic value. It's a time-waster- why don't we just ditch the whole thing? Friday (talk) 18:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)" It is very hard to assume good faith when an admin proposes eliminating the reference desk then applies grossly excessive penalties to frequent contributors. Edison 15:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed, Friday should recuse himself from all matters related the Ref Desk, as his extreme bias against the Ref Desk negatively affects his judgment in such matters. StuRat 15:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Just a few remarks and I'll probably bow out of this. As for warnings, there were months of warnings prior to this from different people. Light current has been blocked for trolling before. This was blatantly obvious trolling yet he kept up his "innocent and clueless" routine. He's just looking for a reaction out of people- check out his attempts to engage in conversation after the block, acting like he doesn't know what he did wrong. I did start the discussion here well before blocking, and so far there seems to be admin consensus for the block. So, I'm not personally inclined to change it, however my standard offer still stands: if any admin disagrees with this and wants to change it, I invite them to do so. I don't "own" my blocks any more than we own our edits. I realize a week seems harsh here, but he was very obviously trolling and this has been an ongoing problem, apparently for quite a long while. I acknowledge this is a tricky situation- hardly any of Light current's edits, taking in isolation, seem remotely blockable. This is why I sought input from others before and after the block. Also, please- let's not let this turn into a perceived "admins versus reference desk" fight- I blocked one particular editor- discussion of other editors who are also problems are not relevant to this situation. If anyone cares to notice, after some initial disgust at the sorry state of the reference desk and me questioning whether it adds any value to the project, I've decided it IS valuable, so I've jumped in and started trying to help answer questions. I thank all the people who do useful work at the reference desk, or in any other part of the project. Friday (talk) 15:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You say let's not let this turn into a perceived "admins versus reference desk" fight, after having said "there seems to be admin consensus for the block", thus implying that you ignore the opinions and consensus of non-Admins, and in particular Ref Desk contributors. Can't you see how ignoring the opinions of non-Admins causes just the type of problem you claim you want to avoid ? If you want everyone to work together, then you need to respect the opinions of everyone, not just Admins. StuRat 15:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Attention! I'm going rogue and starting a wheel war!

Er, by which I mean that I'm lifting the block on Light current. Per THB, I'm paroling him. I don't think that the block was undeserved, but I do think that LC has acknowledged () that some of his comments were inappropriate for the forum in which he made them and that his judgement has not been up to snuff on occasion.

I think that leaving the block in place will shed more heat than light, as the mounting evidence here would suggest. LC is often a useful and productive contributor to the Ref Desk, and – providing he can restrain his occasional impulse towards off-colour humour and borderline newbie-biting – it would be a shame to lose that. I fear that we may have rushed into a block just when LC was starting to 'get' that the weight of opinion did not support his behaviour. I think it appropriate to give him a shot at reform. Note that I do not use the word 'parole' lightly, and I do expect that LC will make every reasonable effort to temper his remarks. His block will be restored (by me or by someone else) if he doesn't avail himself of this opportunity.

Note also that I expect other parties (both to this specific incident and those involved in the broader Ref Desk discussions) to refrain from sniping, kicking LC or others while down, taunting, gloating, oh-so-'clever' remarks, or anything else that might be taken as a lapse in civility. I'll be all over any sort of 'I-told-you-so', namecalling, 'You-don't-have-a-right-to-talk-about-Ref-Desk-because-you're-not-there-as-much-as-I-am-so-sod-off', or other petty ugliness like stink on cheese. We're at the Reference Desk. We're supposed to be there to help our fellow human beings, and we're doing it because we're nice, friendly, helpful people. Is everyone clear on that? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades, thank you for opening the door to lift his block. It would have been better had Friday done it, but Friday did leave the door unlocked and let it be known that it was unlocked, so that's a good thing. -THB 15:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse block on general principle. This seemed like a reasonable judgement call by the admin, and it isn't a horribly extended or indefinite block, so we shouldn't be second-guessing it. - Crockspot 15:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• It is hard to assume good faith when Friday applies an exceptionally long bloc for a minor offense on the part of a frequent contributor to Reference desk after Friday has said "I'm very serious. I stay away from the reference desk but have dropped in a few times lately due to reports of problems there. I was rather shocked at what I saw. I suppose we must let each editor contribute in their own way, but I've not seen a bigger time-waster here than the RD. This is an encyclopedia- the goals of the project go no further. When I buy a copy of Brittanica, I've bought an encyclopedia. I don't expect that this includes a guy who will come to my house, hold my hand, and read it to me. Is it reasonable to expect a reference desk? Not in my opinion. We're an encyclopedia, not a forum, and not a place to get other people to do your research for you. Friday (talk) 20:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)" Edison 16:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Please note that my request to be utterly civil and courteous and to try to put this behind us wasn't actually solely for the pleasure of hearing myself type. It would be appreciated if you stopped quoting that remark on talk pages and noticeboards in an attempt to push Friday out of this discussion. If you look upward about six comments, you'll see that Friday has reconsidered his opinion on the Ref Desk, and is actually endeavouring to be a helpful participant there. In the same comment, he also explains that the block was not for a single incident, but for a pattern of behaviour — which we all hope and expect has now been remediated – from an editor who has received many warnings about his conduct. I will also note that Friday has expressed support for my approach to handling this block, and that he seems to be a pretty reasonable guy. I expect that he would have done exactly what I did had I sent him a polite message—I was just impatient at the bickering here. It is not appropriate to kick Light current while he's down, nor is it appropriate to try to lynch Friday while he's being reasonable and accomodating. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the idea is that if an admin is only starting to understand a project as radically unique as the RD, maybe he shouldn't be allowed to assert his admin powers there. Which I don't necessarily agree with by the way --froth 20:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, can I assert my opinion into this one? I don't know if it's valuable here, but it looks like there's a long history of Light Current managing to find a way to get blocked, then unblocked. And the one time he wasn't unblocked was by Pschemp, and he's still bitter about that. In other words, perhaps we need to make it clear that infinite patience doesn't exist, and constantly walking the oline between appropriate and inappropriate, then acting like "poor persecuted me" when he called on it, won't be tolerated forever. That being said, he is a long-time contributer. I dunno: it's "yes, we love you at Misplaced Pages, no, you can't make masturbation and porn jokes out of context at ref desk after being warned for it." Patstuart 17:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm confident that enough people have seen this pattern of behavior to ensure that it won't be allowed to continue unchecked. (can't keep my big mouth shut, sorry). Friday (talk) 17:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Why are we so soft on a user who continues in a pattern of pushing the line? LC's actions appear childish and are frustrating when they happen again and again. i see this block as a cumulative effect of LC's own actions. Friday was right to block in such a situation, although, possibly a week was too long, but I do not know enough of this users background to judge. Regardless of the length of block, if these actions continue then the blocks should become progressively more severe. LC's claims of innocense, given the masturbation link posted by Friday above, are laughable. Go to usenet for toilet humour. David D. (Talk) 17:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong oppose block. Friday has a clear conflict of interest- see their back-and-forth in the latest archive of the RD talk. Other than that I would have said that he deserved it anyway (after due process, not this one day AN/I fiasco) but lately he really has been quite good about responding to criticisms and having an open mind about his behavior. Also, I'd like to say that I appreciate that friday is starting to understand the point of the RD. Admittedly it seems overblown and unnecessary at first glance but there really is a huge demand for it and light current is overall a positive contributor. I'd hate to lose him over this --froth 20:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Repeat offender on image copyvios

Native Boy (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) has (again) re-uploaded some of the same images (and mis-tagged them as being {{GFDL-self}}) that were deleted last month. Image:Aerial okc.jpg is clearly a copyrighted image with a watermark that points back to the owner . The user in question has uploaded this particular image to wikipedia at least three times now. Multiple image copyvio warnings have been left for the user by OrphanBot, Meegs, and myself. --Kralizec! (talk) 04:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This is the third time around for most of these uploads. I've taken the rest of their images, all of which are suspect, to PUI and left them another message. No further action is needed right now. ×Meegs 09:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Intervention regarding Sweetest Day Images debate

For those familiar, this is more Miracleimpulse (talk · contribs) stuff. About a week ago I nominated a bunch of his low quality images that were used (or tried to be used) in the Sweetest Day article: nomination 1 and nomination 2. The main issue here is that these are low quality, grainy, skewed photos taken of a newspaper article from a webcam or something. They also are orphans. Anyway, Miracleimpulse has turned the debate into more of his POV-pushing (see deleted The Sweetest Day Hoax) rhetoric. Consensus is clearly against him. I guess I'd just like to have an administrator enter the discussion to try to get it back on track to be about the images, adn not the larger debate. Thanks. Not a dog 04:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Having just perused Miracleimpulse's contribution history, the user's edits are certainly prolific, persistent, and highly focused topically. Is this a textbook case of a single purpose account in action? --Kralizec! (talk) 05:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Having no other edits outside of the various deletion discussions of the articles he's involved with, as well as POV pushing at two other semi-related pages, I believe I brought it up earlier, but Miracleimpulse is definitely an SPA.—Řÿūłóñģ (竜龍) 07:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Given the editor's continued hostility (disrupting an IFD is just icing on the cake) and POV pushing, I would be willing to certify a user conduct RFC or give a statement in an ArbCom case if needed. Some form of action (perhaps the community or topic ban proposed earlier) needs to be taken given his persistence, and his status as a single-purpose account is absolutely unquestionable given his unwillingness to contribute to any other subjects in the encyclopedia. --Coredesat 08:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. This needs to stop, immediately, though.—Řÿūłóñģ (竜龍) 08:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

We need to do something about it. He has been doing this persistently, it's very disruptive to the IFD. I wouldn't mind helping out in any RFC, Mediation or AC case. Will keep track on his contributions too. Terence Ong 08:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Those interested can see Talk:American Greetings for more background relevant to this situation. Newyorkbrad 08:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I like how he calls registered users anonymous in trying to get his way.—Řÿūłóñģ (竜龍) 08:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

We being called anonymous users??!!! It's quite lame though to call us anonymous users, we have accounts and stuff. Definitely not the other meaning of anonymous i.e. Anonymity. Terence Ong 08:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, is this a personal attack or is it just too late for me to be up?—Řÿūłóñģ (竜龍) 09:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• This is certainly a bizarre one alright. In the end, if MI were able to cite reliable sources for his "hoax" thesis then he might have a leg to stand on, but I don't recall any such, and this is not the first time I've looked at this article. The images are certainly of pretty poor quality. Guy (Help!) 09:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The whole problem from the beginning has been that there are not reliable sources that absolutely verify this contention of a hoax. It's conjecture and Original research based on the primary sources that User:Miracleimpulse has found. WP:AGF, but User:Miracleimpulse would appear to have an axe to grind with American Greetings and Hallmark Cards, and apparently Sweetest Day which he attributes to them (on a side note, it's been insinuated that I and or others are the person User:Miracleimpulse has been arguing with on that message board). He basically edits just those 3 articles. I've never really been involved in an ArbCom or user RfC before, has this gotten to the point where it would be considered for one of those?--Isotope23 13:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Hoax or not, POV or not, sourced or not, these images stink, and that's what the IFD is supposed to be about. MI can argue that they provide source material to back up his claims, and that can be debated elsewhere. But uploading such crappy images isn't the way to provide citations, and I can't seem to get that through to him. Not a dog 14:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Just so everyone knows, I've blocked Miracleimpulse for a week while this discussion concludes. Regardless of what is decided here, I think we can all agree that his current behavior needs to stop now. --InShaneee 15:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I am considering an RfC or ArbCom, but I'm going to hold off pending User:Miracleimpulse's return to see if this continues (and because it is pretty unfair to initiate any proceedings while he is unable to respond to defend himself).--Isotope23 16:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I think his history shows pretty well that he will continue, and I will support any action against him (I recommend ArbCom). --InShaneee 17:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, WP:AGF but I hold little hope he's going to come back substantially reformed.--Isotope23 19:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

And there reason to be concerned he migth even try to evade the block, since he has a history of using multiple account in other forums related to this passion of his (see User talk:Miracleimpulse#Multiple accounts?) Not a dog 20:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Either username or vanity...

But Johnnybriggs (talk • contribs) is editing Johnny Briggs (cricketer) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs).
152.91.9.144 05:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not vanity, well, unless he's a revenant. Maybe that should be added to his article. Jecowa 05:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

*face palm* How embarrasing for me. - 152.91.9.144 06:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

They can edit their own articles, must be a Famous Wikipedian. Hopefully not an impostor. Terence Ong 08:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You might have missed the revenant comment. Johnny Briggs died in the early 1900s according to the article, so it's ehm, probably an impostor. --Jeff 10:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Celebrity usernames are only blocked for living or recently deceased celebrities. As such, this one's probably OK. Just a fan. -Hit bull, win steak 18:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User:HitTheRoad

This user is making some strange changes to sock notices. Please see . --BigDT 05:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

That's funny. -Amarkov _edits 05:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Not really... he's been past the point of anything even resembling humour for about 3 days now. I've reverted all the WP:POINT violating edits, personal attacks, etc. Amazingly enough, he has 2 or 3 minor edits that weren't vandalism. --tjstrf talk 06:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Funny...as in unbelievable, or funny that your fellow editors are being personally attacked?--MONGO 10:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate username

See User:VANDALBOT007 Jams Boond. (Apologies if already taken care of). Regards, Asterion 07:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Glen blocked him. You can post these on WP:AIV in the future. --Coredesat 07:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Please Delete the link to my six-year-old resume

Hello,

In the discussion/vote about the possible deletion of the entry about me (http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tony_Pierce_%28second_nomination%29), the user timecop has chosen to link to a six-year-old resume of mine that has nothing to do with the debate at hand.

Also he's wrong at his slander towards me on two points.

He claims that I hadn't held a job for more than one year, when, if you look at the resume is clearly untrue (it's just a poorly written resume written by a friend of mine).

The debate is whether or not me or my blogging is notable. Something that I didn't start doing until 8/2001. Therefore how is a resume that ends in 2000 of any importance?

Further he claims that I am the "self-proclaimed blogfather." Although it's true that some call me that, including whoever wrote that line in my Misplaced Pages entry, I've always said that that term belongs with Glenn Reynolds, who has been also blogging since 2001, and whose politics I totally disagree with, but who has spawned more new bloggers than probably anyone. Any search of my 5 year old blog can back me up that I've never claimed to be the blogfather (http://tinyurl .com/yjaypw).

I am a big fan of Misplaced Pages. I think that large groups of intelligent people discussing things rationally are better than individuals. I think that you guys should stick to whatever you guys have done to get to this point. Obviously I disagree with those who have agendas against bloggers going out and trying to delete Wiki entries about bloggers, not just because I am one, but because it goes against one of Misplaced Pages's fundamental principals of only editing things that you are neutral toward (http://en.wikipedia.org/WP:NPOV), which timecop and some others are clearly the furthest thing from neutral.

Not sure what you can do about that, or if you guys still feel strongly toward that fundamental, but if you can, will you please delete the link to my olde resume if it isn't too much of a bother.

It happens on this entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tony_Pierce_%28second_nomination%29) and he wrote it on 06:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

thanks, Tony Pierce 08:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Link removed, left message on your IP talkpage.--MONGO 08:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

changes on my userpage

user:Kronecker keeps changing the language setting on my userpage from 3 to 2. I dont think thats consistent with an alleged IQ of 135. Could somebody please tell him to stop?--Tresckow 14:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• I've left him a message asking him to stop... and might I add that incivility about someone's IQ while reporting something on the administrator noticeboard probably isn't the best idea. If he keeps editing your page, try reporting it here.--Isotope23 14:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

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

Problems with User:Iantresman and Wolf Effect

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience says that Ian is on probation for science articles. Reliable sources are important for many of the articles we edit. Yet I'll note this edit to Wolf Effect had Ian including sources from a variety of unreliable sources, none of whom were basic researchers in the field. This included a science writer (not a scientist): Jeff Kanipe, a self-employed crystal technician C. F. Gallo, and employees of Xerox Corp. How are these reliable sources for basic research into quasar redshifts? They don't study the material. Ian knows this, but he continues his tactics anyway, in violation of his probation. I ask that he be banned from editting Wolf Effect. --ScienceApologist 13:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You probably want WP:ANA (the ArbCom enforcement noticeboard) rather than WP:ANI. --ais523 13:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --ScienceApologist 13:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

List of Arab scientists and scholars

Dear Admins, I am sorry if this is the wrong place to post, I don't know where else. This list was created on 4 April 2006 . To avoid sensitvites regarding ethnicities, the following disclamier was inserted; taken from List of Iranian scientists and scholars and List_of_Russians#Scientists. The Disclamir is:

This is a list of scientists and scholars associated with the Arab World and Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus) that lived from antiquity up until the beginning of the modern age. In some cases, their exact ancestry in unclear. They may have emigrated or immigrated, and thus may appear in other "Lists of...", but nevertheless their names and work are linked to the words "Arab", and "Arabic".

This happened with the guidence of two neutral admins: User:Alex_Bakharev and User:InShaneee. Now, 8 months later, a newcomer, User:Beit_Or, simply deleted the disclaimer . This triggered a new ugly ethnicity war and the whole article started collapsing.

My apeal on you: is to put back the disclaimer and warn those who try to remove it.

Thank You, Jidan 14:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Khoikhoi has already raised the issue of Jidan's behavior above. This posting indicates that Jidan keeps edit warring and defying consensus. Beit Or 14:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see also Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Shamir1 for a clear case of RFCU abuse by Jidan. Beit Or 14:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The disclaimer seems to be an important explanation for the list itself, so I've replaced it and commented on the takpage. Doc Tropics 17:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Putting the edit warring aside, i concur w/ Doc. -- Szvest Ω 18:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Breaching of my privacy

User:-jkb- repeatedly breaches my privacy by revealing of my real name: , . I warned him many times: and User talk:-jkb-. I ask for his blocking. -- Zacheus 15:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Um... Is there any particular reason you disguised your edits as "fixing a link" or some such? -Amarkov _edits 15:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If you look at you find that before my fix it pointed to nowhere. -- Zacheus 15:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You created an account that was the same as your real name and someone has realized that the same person operates both accounts? It seems you let the cat out of the bag, not -jkb- Shell 15:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I exercised m:Right to Vanish. Revealing of my real name after I dropped it is breaching my privacy. -- Zacheus 16:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

See pls here. As i do not have so much time as some sock puppets (I have to go on with the Czech Wikisource which is my primary goal, not this), I am preparing a brief report on the user V.Z. and his sockpuppets, but it will take some time. In the mean time: he (all his accounts) has no right to vanish, as he did not left Wikipedie, in the contrary, he is attacking other users again. Thx, -jkb- 16:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Right to Vanish is used for bad chosen accounts, not for people only. I wish to continue contributing to Misplaced Pages, but not under my real name which you use only to harass me, although I asked you to stop it. Many times, but to no avail. -- Zacheus 16:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

jkb, as Zacheus says, the right to vanish is used for poorly chosen accounts (amongst other things). Do not post personally identifiable information on the site - regardless of how right you think you are - it can lead to blocks. Zacheus, this sort of thing should be reported to WP:OVERSIGHT.

Shell, does the right to vanish not apply here? Regardless of the user's actions, they have a right not to have their personal information posted on the site.-Localzuk 16:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, I did not know that. -- Zacheus 07:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

When the personal information is relevant as an earlier account name of said person, that's questionable. -Amarkov _edits 16:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind, Right to Vanish applies only is you wish to leave the project. Otherwise, contributions under your old username may indeed be relevant and worth referencing. --InShaneee 17:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Consulting the Right to Vanish page, "he Misplaced Pages projects will delete personal contributors at their request, provided it is not needed for administrative purposes." If this person has abandoned his previous account, then he cannot be accused of sockpuppetry, and thus, there is no administrative reason to include his personal information (including the previous account), if Zacheus is a person notable to merit an encyclopedia article, then this situation is also moot. It is up to -jkb- to either make a case for sockpuppetry involving that previous account with his personal name, or that the person merits an encyclopedia article. Until such time as he is making this case, there is no real need to include that username in any talk page, or article. --Puellanivis 17:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Please keep cool. @ Localzik: poorly coosen name - this is a joke, I guess. The user was an admin-bureaucrat on the czech wikipedia for two years, so I do not think he is that poor to judge what name he choose. And the accounts are notable, as there are dozens of attacks on meta pages, here and on czech wikipedia. The user announced, he wants to stay here (), so I must assume, he will harrase here again as he did after some other annoucements of leaving. And ad Puellanivis: I it is noit up to me. I already showed where this user manipulated the community. The user mus show, that he will not. See e.g. his lies about my - as he says - deleted pages on the Czech wiki (here and some 5 next ones). Thx and follow this sock puppet better, it is your domain not mine, I have to do in mine. PLEASE. -jkb- 18:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Point taken. @-jkb-: your position appears well justified, I will not argue with that. Personal attacks are inappropriate, and expressing that he has done personal attacks before, and continues to do so under a new name is appropriate, even if that previous name is his full name. As an admin-bureaucrat, I certainly think it clear that he should have had sufficient knowledge to judge the quality of his name before he chose it. @Zacheus: Sorry, but it looks like the cat is out of the bag, you should have known what you were doing picking your real name to begin with. Envoking a pseudonym in order to evade people whom you have harassed, and continue to harass after envoking a right to vanish can easily be claimed as sock puppetry. Your Right to Vanish only applies if you lay low, drawing attention to yourself after changing your name and then claiming a violation of privacy due to the mentioning of your previous name is readily apparent as your fault, and I don't see any reason for giving you any remedy at all. --Puellanivis 19:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

How was your current account first connected to your old account? If you are the one that said that account was you, then you waived your right to vanish. If he found out through some off-site means, then you might have a case against him, it would depend on the exact circumstances. --Tango 20:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have the impression one part of the situation isn't properly understood by some people here. The identity between the two accounts as such is not at issue. This user did two things in order to gain anonymity: (1) he gave up his old account and started up a new one, Zacheus (talk · contribs); (2) in parallel, he had his old real-name account renamed to an anonymous abbreviation V. Z. (talk · contribs). All he seems to be asking now is that when people have to refer to this old account, they use its current, anonymous handle rather than the old real-name one. This request seems reasonable, as it doesn't prevent anybody of talking about the old account and its contributions. Also, Misplaced Pages:Harassment explicitly says that proliferation of real-name information should be avoided also in cases "of editors who have requested a change in username, but whose old signatures can still be found in archives". Since under the current circumstances there's no factual need for anybody to refer to the old account under its old handle, I don't see why we shouldn't follow his request. Unless a refusal to do so were merely in retaliation for whatever disruptive he did earlier, but that really ought not to be the case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Appropriately stated, and I have to agree that someone should be enabled to leave an account behind and start a new one without being claimed as a sockpuppet. But using a cloak of newly aquired anonymity to evade detection and continue harassment, should not be considered appropriate. But again, how was it determined that the two accounts were related? If Zacheus owned his previous contributions, then unfortunately, he has owned them, and those where his signature remained as his full name. There is a lot of difficulty dealing with this matter, as it's a big grey area where it has to be determined where the allowance of personal information that has already been released is appropriate or not. But if Zacheus owned his previous posts, then he linked himself to his old account, which had contained his full name, whether the account was changed to an anonymous initials or not.

This is why the Right to Vanish can be so tricky, because you have to literally vanish completely, or you will end up exposing yourself. I have the same problem in real life after a legal name change, I continue to be confronted with my old name all over my company, because the computer systems are insistant on maintaining a record of my previous name, which then shows up everywhere. While I entirely empathize with Zacheus and his inability to shed his previous identity, that contained his real name, I cannot see how blocking someone outright for exposing the previous name is justified. I can only imagine that counselling be sought for the person using the full name, and try and reach an agreement that he would refer afterwards to use only their initials, in order to protect the other person's personal name. After having an admin relate that such a disclosure is not necessary for administrative purposes, then continued pushing of his real name would warrant a block. But without notifying -jkb- that such action is inappropriate, it seems unjustified to block him, since he is dealing with prevously disclosed public information. --Puellanivis 21:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Future Perfect has this one correct, and I find -jkb-'s actions to be borderline harassment. Since all the contribs by User:Vxxxx Zxxxx have been reattributed to User:V. Z., there is no administrative or technical reason to keep the old name around. Pointing out that User:Zacheus formerly operated User:V. Z. is appropriate, and if a case can be made that V. Z./Zacheus has edited disruptively, then go ahead and make it. But there is no reason to refer to the individual's real name at this point and it begins to become harassment. Thatcher131 22:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I just went deeply through the various pages of discussion on -jkb- and Zacheus's talk pages. There is a lot going on there, and it would seem that this was an argument on the cs: wikipedia, which has now spilled into en:, both sides claiming that the other is in the wrong, both having disclosed each other's personal information, and both claiming that it's not their job to do the admin's work of tracking down sockpuppets, etc. They both say that the history is well established in the cs: wikispace, and while I don't argue that it is, there is no reason to expect English wikipedians to be able to access that information easily. I see below someone is asking for a translation of Zacheus's user page, and I think that is appropriate. Having a trustworthy cs: sysop looped in for a neutral point of view that can follow issues on the cs: side of things may be a good idea. But over all, it looks like this is one big mess of a feud, and we don't have the capacity to easily enforce any issues here on en: unless it's in English. --Puellanivis 22:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The way I see it, Zacheus released the personal information himself and after changing accounts linked himself to the old account. Because of that, we have no obligation to try and keep his personal information hidden. However, it would be nice to do so simply as an act of kindness, as it doesn't do any harm to use initials when referring to the old account. If -jkb- has a good reason to use the full name, he is entitled to, however it appears he's actually doing so simply to annoy Zacheus (I'm not going to even try and decide if Zacheus deserves it or not, I don't really care), which is not allowed under WP:HARASS. So, to summarise, there is no privacy violation here, but there might well be some harassment going on (possibly both ways). --Tango 23:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

From my perspective at checkuser, where this first came up last week, Zacheus was never trying to hide the fact that the renamed account User:V. Z. used to be his real name and belongs to him. For example, he has used the Zacheus account to change his old signatures. Since his actions are obvious to even a cursory check of his contribs , I think the main point here is to keep his real name off of google searches and so forth. In that context, I can't see any reason to continue using his real name except to keep the drama going. Thatcher131 23:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

While he has never tried to hide the rename, he seems to have a practical misunderstanding of the ability to perform a Right to Vanish. I agree that avoiding his full name would be on good standing to avoid this whole issue, but Zacheus has made repeated edits to archived public information. After a sysop or someone corrects his edit, he then decries them as violating his Right to Vanish (after returning the archived information to the original state.) Zacheus would have us perform a massive system wide %s/User Name/U. N./g on every page, and remove his mistake of using his full real name in the first place. Rather than detract prying eyes from his relation to V. Z., he has made a concerted effort to bring those prying eyes to the issue, and would like to see the entire RtV policy rewritten to be a requirement, rather than a best-effort. The RtV policy page on metapedia says in fact itself that no one can really guarentee the RtV exists at all, it's simply asking for a best-effort from people to follow it. As such, people should avoid using the previous name in new content, and Zacheus should avoid damaging archived pages. Both should stop harassing each other, and just let the issue die. As such Zacheus has very few edits that are anything but a campaign against -jkd- and -jkd- has vew edits that are anything but a compaign against the other. If either insists on continuing this behavior, either should be banned temporarily, whether they are underlyingly justified or not. Neither is working towards a solution. --Puellanivis 00:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree about your interpretation of Right to Vanish. I think if he wants to change archives (merely to change his name Vxxxx Zxxxx to V. Z., that is fine. Of course, it leaves a trail a mile wide to his current name, but it would have the effect of making his name difficult to find on a casual google search. I helped him change the checkuser case archive with his name on it, and I don't particular care if he changes other archives, as long as he is only doing the name change. He should not be changing pages in other user's space, but I would also prefer that jkb not use his full name. He was kicked off the cs Misplaced Pages under his full name, but he has not done anything here to hide from or avoid so there is no reason to use his full name here.

On your other point I agree wholeheartedly. I have obtained a partial translation of his user page and he is replying, in Czech, to other users on cs with whom he can no longer converse since he is banned there. If Zacheus wants his right to vanish to be respected, he should stop importing drama from cs. Thatcher131 03:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort to protect his privacy, but is there any reason we don't simply ban this troll as well? Zacheus clearly has no intention to contribute anything useful to the encyclopedia. Since his banning from cs, he's continued to troll here and on Meta, continuing uncivil language, wasting our time, and done nothing useful. And we already know he's a troll (banned by the cs arbcom). Any objections to blocking him? Dmcdevit·t 03:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess I'm wishy-washy on it. On the one hand, if he stopped using his user page to carry on the drama from cs, I'd be willing to leave him alone to see if he will become a good contributor. His prior account V. Z. (talk · contribs) has over 700 mainspace edits, which is not a lot, but not chicken feed either. On the other hand, part of his arb case involved rather serious allegations of privacy violations on his part, and he hasn't done anything since he arrived here except carry on the cs drama. I certainly wouldn't stick my neck out to unban him if someone else banned him. Thatcher131 04:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

My response here: User talk:-jkb-, -jkb- 16:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Admin plays detective...what next?

Ever want to sleuth down one of the long term vandals? Well a couple of people think I've succeeded. My summaries of the matter are at User_talk:Durova#Editor_X_.2F_Joan_of_Arc andTalk:Joan_of_Arc#Return_of_Wikipedia:Long_term_abuse.23Joan_of_Arc_vandal.3F, which I daresay make interesting reading especially if you put on a pair of dark sunglasses and play The Pink Panther theme. If my evidence holds up to scrutiny, this guy has been disrupting Misplaced Pages's Catholicism, homosexuality, and crossdressing articles for 26 months without getting caught (December 8 will be his anniversary).

Trouble is, because he's been so slippery, I probably can't get a checkuser on this sock drawer. Doc Tropics suggested an RfC. I'd like to find out whether I'm right and if I'm on the mark I'd like to seek a community ban. So all of you Sherlock Holmes types, come on over and bring your magnifying glass. This one might boggle your eyes. Durova 15:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

That took a while to read! You have amassed a bevy of suggestive evidence; statistically, Editor X could have won the lottery before being two people from the same town with the same in-depth knowledge and yet rather bizarre theories, unless of course, he has converts. In either case, the behavior is incredibly disruptive not just because of the behavior itself, but the subtly with which it undermines the article. The editor has already been almost completely unresponsive to discussion and attempts to reform their behavior including being dishonest when cornered - since it doesn't appear meaningful contact can be made, I'd support the idea of a community ban. Shell 16:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Blimey. That was a patient and thorough piece of work! I suspect that support for a ban based on this will be pretty much unanimous, but one could always take it to ArbCom in case of doubt. Gold star, either way. Guy (Help!) 16:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I can try and help you get a checkuser through but if he's on AOL it won't do any good. If you assemble a list of accounts with recent edits (<1 month) and a brief statement, go ahead and file it. I expect once more people read this they will support a ban without technical confirmation (which can only go back a few weeks in any case). Thatcher131 16:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I've invited one of these accounts to agree to a checkuser. How exactly does the AOL wrinkle crease this seam - would they be limited to confirming whether or not this person hails from Reston, Virginia? That could be enough in light of the other evidence. I'm not the least bit averse to naming him at AOL's abuse department and requesting they revoke his service. That would take considerably less effort than I've already spent undoing his damage. Durova 17:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If he's using AOL then I'm not sure how you can even be sure of his geographic location, since I think all US AOL addresses show up as Reston VA. Unless this editor made a specific slip-up which I am reluctant to discuss publically, the only thing checkuser could reveal is that each of the suspected accounts has edited from AOL. Since thousands of editors use AOL, this would not provide any confirmation that the accounts were operated by the same person. A check may still be productive if this person was careless in a certain way, or he may be using multiple ISPs where it would be easier to track him. Thatcher131 17:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I see. To the best of my knowledge he's been a loyal AOL customer. They host his website - and as extraordinary as this is for an AOL homepage, of the 3 million-odd Google returns for a "Joan of Arc" search he's consistently numero uno. So regardless of his actual residence location I'm pretty sure AOL's abuse department could pinpoint him and I don't think he wants his service interrupted. What worries me more is his disruption on other topics, which appears to have been continuous - the homosexuality pages especially. I'm getting set to roll up my sleeves and dig into that evidence now that people take this matter seriously - he's clever but not too clever. Durova 17:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The only thing checkuser can do then is, for any user name he has used in the last month or so, give you the IP address as of the time of its edits. This would probably not be released to you but could be forwarded to AOL's abuse department, so they could attempt to determine if the wikipedia vandal is the same person whose web site they host. I don't know what it would take to convince AOL to take action, though. Thatcher131 17:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Durova: All AOL users show up from Reston, Virginia. But the most important thing to keep in mind is that the IP address for AOL users is never linked to a specific account but instead is based on the page (URL) being viewed or edited -- see Misplaced Pages's information on this. It's very odd but that's how AOL IPs work for reasons known only to their engineers.

The upshot is that an IP check won't do any good and neither will reporting a set of IPs to AOL. They're likely to just ignore you because you won't be reporting a single and discrete user given that all users are on the same range of IPs. You will instead be telling them that some of the many millions of AOL subscribers happen to get those IPs while editing certain articles, which is not going to come as a surprise to them.

You can never be sure whether an AOL vandal is one person or a whole host of users who end up editing under the same IPs. Other websites such as BBs have the same problem. EReference 17:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the dissection of AOL's innards. Since I actually do have this vandal's real-life name, would AOL's abuse department take notice? Durova 18:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, aren't you assuming that the IPs are linked to that real name? They wouldn't necessarily be linked to a given individual, or even a single individual. And since anyone can claim to be anyone else on here, a name is not proof of identity. AOL cannot suspend someone's paid account based merely on an allegation. This comes up repeatedly on many websites since there's no way to tell who anyone really is on the internet. EReference 19:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Durova, with all due respect for your detective work, I'm a tad uncomfortable with you referring to the guy as a "vandal" and "long-term abuser". Did he ever get blocked? He's not currently banned under any of his accounts, is he? From your description I take it that his main accounts were used subsequently, not in parallel for blatant illegitimate sockpuppetry, or were they? I mean, I have no doubt he may be a disruptive POV-pusher, but has he done anything actually "illegal" in Misplaced Pages terms besides POV-pushing? And what would we expect his ISP to do about that, at this stage? Let's ban him if he's as disruptive as you say, and then we'll see - any new reincarnations of his will probably be easy enough to spot, once people are alerted. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

So far as I know he's flown underneath nearly every radar except mine. In his earliest months Fire Star tried to offer him some guidance. He was still trying to behave like a regular Wikipedian back then. One quick answer about sockpuppetry is User_talk:Durova/Archive_5#Wikistalking (with several instances of blanking vandalism thrown in). User:Durova/Complex vandalism at Joan of Arc demonstrates that he violates WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:VANITY, WP:RS, WP:OWN, and WP:POINT. Possibly WP:COI also. The damage he caused at Joan of Arc has been incredibly pervasive and subtle - not just garden variety POV pushing but degrading footnotes, inserting inaccurate statements into previously cited material, and fraudulent citations. He even vanity published and faked the appearance of a legitimate scholarly journal in order to bypass site standards and cite himself. Note that the author name on the pseudojournal is the same as the name he self-identified on the original account, and that the IP inserted it while coyly avoiding use of the author's name at Misplaced Pages. Due to the high profile of the Joan of Arc article I acutally had to dig through several thousand edits to undo the harm that he caused - expending weeks of my time. If you need more evidence than I've already supplied at User:Durova/Complex vandalism at Joan of Arc then say so and I'll dig up other examples and more diffs. The peculiar POV he pushes and the amount of scholarly background it reflects identify him as unique - how likely is it that two different people would strain the evidence to draw identical conclusions about a 1929 scholarly work available only in French? And describe their views with the same syntactical structure and leap into edit wars? I know how serious this allegation is and I wouldn't raise it unless I had researched this with extreme care. Durova 19:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I remember looking at the constributions of Center-for-Medieval-Studies (talk · contribs) after he edited some pages on the Dukes of Burgundy. He was accused at the time of being identical AWilliamson (talk · contribs) (see diff of him removing those from his talk page). IMO, this falls under the "users who aggressively and repeatedly violate fundamental policies" portion of the blocking policy, WP:OR in particular. Faking up a vanity journal to insert your point of view is absolutely the sort of behavior for which you should be run out of Misplaced Pages on a rail — it's a direct attack on our credibility. I haven't been involved in any disputes with Center-for-Medieval-Studies, and haven't been involved in the Joan of Arc article, so I feel I qualify as an uninvolved endorser of a ban. Choess 22:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I've got to give a nod to Switisweti. During my first weeks as an editor he clued me in to some of this activity. That guy had an awful time because he'd been trying to watch Williamson for a year but lacked the academic expertise to challenge him in detail. Plus there was another disruptive editor at the article who pursued an entirely different agenda. Switi and I wound up holding conversations at my user talk page in German in order to dodge them (I didn't realize that was un-Wikipedian at the time). Switi finally quit the project a year ago and I can't say I blame him, but I hope he rejoins us someday. Durova 03:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I would also support a ban.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 17:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Durova has done an exceptional job of gathering and presenting evidence which, if accurate (and it appears to be), would certainly warrant a community ban for long-term systematic abuse. I had thought that ANI might not be able to respond to such a convoluted case, but between D's excellent summary, and the dedication of the editors who have posted here, I realize that I underestimated Wikipedians in general. Sometimes I'm actually quite happy to be wrong : ) Doc Tropics 18:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I would also support a community ban (disclaimer: I've been involved in a dispute with the editor in question). I'd be more comfortable if there were technical confirmation, but for the reasons explained above it seems unlikely that WP:RFCU will do any good--another reason to dislike AOL. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Cross posting the following from my user talk page: if any doubt remains, have a look at some diffs from Voln's talk page. This says "Archiving" in the edit note and an exceptionally small archive was created. The types of complaints and the topics covered bear an eerie similarity to AWilliamson, particularly The Bible and homosexuality and Homosexuality and Christianity; talk page blanking and misleading edit summaries are also trademark Williamson tactics. He also performed a similar blanking that included the removal of a final block warning while marking the edit as minor. Durova 20:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, the evidence you have collected is damning. I also have no problem in supporting a community ban.--Aldux 21:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Burn at the stake - erm, I mean I would also support banning this disruptive and time-consuming user. KillerChihuahua 22:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

So far this is unanimous. Think the responses are enough to call a consensus? Much as I'd like to do the honors myself, since I am an involved editor it would be more appropriate for someone else to perform the ban. Then we could set up the suspected sockpuppets category. Who's got an itchy indef block finger today? Durova 23:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Support permaban. Sneaky hoaxers are scrouge of Misplaced Pages. Still I fear that somebody would have to monitor the related articles and block the puppets. Alex Bakharev 01:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

A check of some of the allegations turns up the following.

• The most serious allegations revolved around the claim that the editor (or someone suspected of being the editor) was using a fanciful academic publication ("Primary Sources and Context Concerning Joan of Arc's Male Clothing" within the "Joan of Arc Primary Sources Series") and a fanciful nonprofit organization ("Academy (Association) for Joan of Arc Studies") to dishonestly include his own original research in Misplaced Pages. But a quick search finds the following entry at a government site which lists this organization as a registered nonprofit in good standing: search result
• And a search at Google Books finds the allegedly "bogus" book in print: http://books.google.com/books?ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Academy+%22Joan+of+Arc+Studies%22&as_brr=0
• A search at Google Scholar finds the "Joan of Arc Primary Sources Series" although only one item is currently indexed. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Joan+of+Arc%22+%22Primary+Sources+Series%22

The most serious allegations are therefore clearly mistaken and some of the other allegations were based on an erroneous understanding of the manner in which AOL IPs are assigned. The rest were I believe mostly or entirely related to allegations of POV-pushing or suspected sockpuppetry, which are more subjective. If people want to vote for a ban anyway then that's the decision. EReference 06:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

501c3 tax status is fairly easy to get and doesn't amount to validation of the content; I daresay some of these people were acting in good faith. I traded e-mails with Virginia Frohlick some years ago and she seemed very friendly, although she was much too quick to give credence to my assertions. She is, however, an amateur enthusiast who maintains a website and the only Google Scholars entry for her is another publication from the same organization. Likewise, the only Google Scholars return for Robert Wirth that does not appear to be incidental - there seems to be a medical doctor by the same name - is one of this organization's publications (although this drew my interest briefly) For Margaret Walsh, the other claimed reviewer, there is a Margaret Walsh who is a preofessor of American economic and social history. Some of these names also turn up random returns in the hard sciences, dentistry, and medicine so I doubt these are the same person. It's been three months since I wrote the original summary and it doesn't particularly surprise me that this group has produced a hard copy edition of Williamson's study, but I see no reason to conclude that this nonprofit is anything other than the pet project of four people who have no formal expertise in their field. I could create a 501c3 organization with three friends, throw up a website, and print out a few copies of my pet theories - but that wouldn't make me an encyclopedic source. I'll post more on Williamson himself in a few moments. Durova 14:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

User:76.16.70.153

This user has been engaged in trolling, but due to the nature of such users I would rather not issue a block myself. Among issues was where he called another editor mentally unstable, various things in an AfD he's involved in (namely: accusing myself and another editor of reasoning in an unjust emotional manner, accusing myself of emotionally corrupting the other user, accusing the other user of blind acceptance of my argument, etc.), talk page nonsense , and so on. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This editor's comments and insinuations on User talk:Consumed Crustacean (see recent page history) are totally unacceptable and warrant a block. Newyorkbrad 16:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You're not wrong. I've given him 24 hours to cool off. Guy (Help!) 16:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Arguably lenient if it's a static IP, but it's a first block, so we'll see. I might have used different wording in the block log summary, though. :) Newyorkbrad 17:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Also of note, his user account is User:Tcdoom , which has a bit of a history of this . We'll just have to see what he does off of the block. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Brdennis

Account is a single purpose account for the purpose of promoting thier site The ULC Monastery. See thier contrib list http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/Brdennis 131.10.254.61 17:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Delete posting of minor user's personal information?

At one "Kristi" posted a phone number, vague location (and we reveal the IP address) and a birthdate. I deleted it from the talk page, however, given the concerns addressed in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy/Proposed decision, which concludes "Users who appear to be children editing in good faith who disclose identifying personal information may be appropriately counseled. Deletion and oversight may be used in appropriate cases to remove the information." should this be deleted from the edit history and the user cautioned?--Prosfilaes 17:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The fact that rather highly publicised case just closed minutes ago is a complete coincidence. Teenagers are interested in Petrarch all the time. That talk page is clearly the ideal place to post declarations of love. I would never, ever suggest this was a troll baiting us. But, even in all assumptions of good faith, let's caution the user just a bit. AnonEMouse 17:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

True enough, however user was an anon. Removed this using oversight. Thanks for the heads up. Fred Bauder 17:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

When I clicked on the diff provided by Prosafiles, I got an "Error" message, which I instantly realized had been produced by Fred's "oversighting" of the information in question. It's always good when the system works. However, when I read the Error message, which looks like a generic message covering several possible reasons why the diff is unavailable, one of the things it says is: "Revisions that contain personal information disclosed without permission may have been permanently removed." Without permission. Whose permission? One would think, the subject of the information. However, here anonymous "Kristi" posted what purports to be information about herself, so presumably she had her own permission. Maybe the message should be made just a bit more generic, maybe by replacing "disclosed without permission" with "that has been inappropriately disclosed." In that way it would cover all information that has been disclosed inappropriately (with that word being partly defined in the recent ArbComm case, with further development possibly to follow), not just information that is inappropriate because it is "disclosed without permission." (I do realize that things like Error messages may be written by a very small number of people who may or may not regularly read pages like this, so if there is a more appropriate place to mention this, someone please let me know.) 6SJ7 19:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Whose permission? I'd say the answer is her parents' or legal guardians'. —ptk✰fgs 20:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, unless I missed something along the way, there is no requirement for minors to have parental permission to edit Misplaced Pages, although any responsible adult would discourage a person from publishing a personal telephone number here. I think 6SJ7 has a point, though, because I had had the same passing thought a few days ago. A more generic message would be useful. Risker 21:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that's the generic message when one tries to look at an oversighted edit. It "may" be that a revision that disclosed personal information without permission has been removed, or it may be that information was removed for another valid reason. There is no need to be overly specific with regard to the oversight explanation. Newyorkbrad 21:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

NewYorkBrad, having now looked at Misplaced Pages:Oversight, I think you are correct. That page lists three situations in which Oversight is authorized to be used, and the sentence I quoted from the error message seems to be based directly on the first of those. However, the sentence from the ArbComm decision quoted above, regarding when Oversight may be used, seems to go beyond the language on Misplaced Pages:Oversight. The language on Misplaced Pages:Oversight addresses information posted without "permission", while the ArbComm says that personal information may also be Oversighted if it has been posted inappropriately by the subject of the information. (That's my paraphrase.) I am not sure where to address such a request for clarification... on the Oversight talk page? 6SJ7 17:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This user has it all

I want to report User:Brandon Sheley also posts with User talk:70.184.226.137 for a couple of things:

• Vandalism on article TCP Wrapper.
• Vandalism on article Search engine optimization.
• Vandalism on article List of web directories.
• Vandalism on article Dual-layer recording.
• Continued vandalism on VBulletin. Even ended up with me getting the page protected, and him getting banned because he broke WP:3RR. He also avoided his ban by continuing his vandalism.
• Vandalism on my user page.
• He is highly uncivil towards everyone, prone to using personal attacks and can't seem to follow Misplaced Pages policy in any regard. See Talk:VBulletin for examples.
• He is also a suspected sock of User:Motivez.

I have tried to level with him, I have tried to meet him half way by saying that he can open up a straw poll to get his website linked, but then I checked his edit history and found that he has been placing his links on other articles, as well as vandalizing others. Hope you guys can figure something out, because I don't want to continue this. Havok (T/C/e/c) 17:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

He has been blocked once(24hrs) for disruptive editing.. But most of his edits seem to be spam or vanity.--Vercalos 21:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

m:Talk:Spam_blacklist may be a last resort here. Guy (Help!) 22:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User:I luv JH forever

This user (I luv JH forever (talk · contribs)) Has only edited her? Talk and User pages. I asked them if they were planning on actually participating in the encyclopedia, and they deleted my question and continued with the chatter on their Talk page. I'd like to suggest they start actually participating in the encyclopedia or they'll be blocked and their Talk and User pages deleted and protected. Any objections? User:Zoe|(talk) 22:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Social networkers are delete on sight, IMO. Best to nip it in the bud before they get too settled in. Friday (talk) 22:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

So this actually violates policy? Huh.. All I really noticed was a bunch of incoherent chatter.--Vercalos 22:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Policy? All we need in this case is "Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia". I'm sure some policy page somewhere says this, for those that like the written down version of policy. Friday (talk) 22:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Gonna have to s-protect her talk page too, since that's all she's editing, and she's able to edit it, even if she's blocked.

Just as a note, it seems I've noticed more and more of these lately, many appearing to be from teenagers or younger. I saw one comment that their school had blocked chat sites so they were using Misplaced Pages. Fan-1967 22:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:User page is only a guideline, not a policy, but under Misplaced Pages:User page#What can I not have on my user page?, it specifically says, A weblog relating your non-Misplaced Pages activities, Extensive discussion not related to Misplaced Pages User:Zoe|(talk) 22:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The goggles do nothing! I support a blank, block and protect. Melchoir 22:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Now that I attempt to read the incoherent ramblings, it looks to me like two or more people talking to each other, which would make it a group account, and that does violate policy. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, WP:NOT covers this (and is policy too) - 'Misplaced Pages is not a blog, webspace provider, or social networking site' and 'Personal web pages. Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration.'. I'd say block and maybe contact the school to ask them to say something to the kids?-Localzuk 22:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User name

The user Irish guy is a vandal account created a few months ago with a name identical to mine. Can this editor be blocked to avoid anyone thinking I am responsible for his edits? IrishGuy 22:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

They haven't made any edits since July, and it does seem like a likely name somebody could come up with without any evil motives. If they continue to edit, then we can deal with it, but I don't see a problem right now. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Talk:The Charter School

There are some extremely unpleasant arguments (including swearing) going on here. Unfortunately it is difficult to work out who is leaving the comments as most are IP address. Can an admin have a look? Thanks. Regan123 22:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Working on it. Giving warnings out....--Vercalos 22:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've warned all the IP addresses that actually made personal attacks(which, ironically enough, turns out to be all of them), and warned poorcharterboy for incivility, due to sarcasm.--Vercalos 22:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks. Regan123 22:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

There were only four or five, just a whole lot of edits.--Vercalos 22:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User:TJ Spyke

This user has on many occassions: done personal attacks, assumed bad faith and reverted pages (repeatedly) without consent of other editors. He tends to "control" pages, and reverts to his personal opinion. He rarely discusses in talk pages about major changes and/or reverts. He also seems to enforce his own polices on some pages: which include WWE Armageddon and WWE New Year's Revolution as recent examples. He has been caught violating 3RR in the past, and has came close to doing it other times as well. Other people can't seem to edit pages he likes, otherwise it's automatically reverted due to his opinion only. Some recent problems with him are a matter of a simple match order of an upcoming event. The order doesn't have to be in a certain order, but he seems to think it must be an exact copy of the match order listed on an official site of the event. There is no Pro Wrestling project policy on this, so it's his own policy that he believes everyone must follow... otherwise he reverts. Talk page discussions have started about this, and settled nothing because he won't budge on the matter. One person's opinion shouldn't be dominating articles. RobJ1981 22:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Read the message at the top of this page. You might want to read Misplaced Pages:Resolving disputes and perhaps start an RfC instead. Grandmasterka 03:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I was asked by an admin here to post about him: User_talk:RobJ1981#Re:TJ_Spyke. Reasoning with TJ doesn't do anything. Look at talk pages for good examples of that. A recent example of TJ assuming bad faith:Wikipedia_talk:Sock_puppetry#What_if_two_people_use_the_same_computer. He claims someone has a vendetta against him. That's not needed one bit. RFC is an option I suppose. RobJ1981 19:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Another page to note: Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/TJ Spyke. The case for when TJ was checked for sock puppets (and revealed it was 3 accounts on the same computer), all of which were used to violated 3RR to at least one page. RobJ1981 20:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to echo GMKA here: this is a RFC-type situation. -Hit bull, win steak 20:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism on the Windows Live Mail Page

I'm a new wikipedian and I would like to report an act of vandalism on the Windows Live Mail page. I don't know how to report this but if this is read, please take the neccessary sction. Thank you.

Taking this one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Revert war on a question page

There's a revert war in progress at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Candidate statements/Questions for Paul August over whether a question posed by Cyde (talk) should remain, or whether it is too inflammatory. Personally, I figure all bets are off with these things and that it's up to candidate whether he answers the question or not. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately), Paul August (talk) is away until the 7th of this month. I bring this here for commentary on the broad question of whether admins, or anybody, should remove questions from these pages when the wishes of the candidate are unknown. I have no strong view beyond desiring an end to the revert war and the engendering of some good will here and there. Mackensen (talk) 00:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Its over.Geni 00:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It's over for the moment because I've given up in the face of your twice reverting and twice undoing the protection I put in place in an effort to stop the revert war. You have no right to undo another admins' actions without prior discussion. If you disagreed with my protection, you should have discussed it with me, or on this page, but you seem to feel you're above that. I wouldn't mind so much if you were acting to keep trolling off the page, but wheel warring in order to restore trolling? SlimVirgin 01:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Um... You can't just call a question trolling, without any sort of agreement, and then protect the page to prevent the "trolling question" from being added. -Amarkov _edits 01:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course I can. I consider the question to be a veiled personal attack intended to keep the Giano/Geogre/Kelly Martin situation going, with no purpose other than to cause trouble. Others were reverting it, Cyde kept restoring it, and so I removed it and protected. It was a perfectly justifiable admin action. If Geni disagreed, all he had to do was drop me a note or post here. He should not have taken it upon himself to unprotect and restore the question — twice. SlimVirgin 01:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Assuming for the sake of argument that your logic there makes sense, which I'm not sure it does, you were most certainly involved in the revert war, meaning that you are not allowed to protect. -Amarkov _edits 01:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been involved in editing that page before, or in any of the election questions about this issue. I removed the question, asked Cyde not to restore it, and protected. This was a perfectly legitimate series of admin actions. Anyone who disagreed only had to discuss it with me; I'm always open to undoing my own admin actions if people put forward a good argument. What I don't like is for others to assume they know better without any kind of discussion. Geni has a habit of doing that. SlimVirgin 01:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The log disagrees. You removed it once, and asked him not to restore it. He did. You then reverted his restoration and protected the page so it would not be re-added. You can not use protection to enforce your preferred version of a page. -Amarkov _edits 01:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Amarkov, this will be my last comment about this, but I must object to your allegation that I mixed up the editor/admin roles. It was clear from the start that I was taking admin action, because I warned Cyde that he was behaving disruptively and risked a block. There's no need for people to arrive on pages waving a giant "I'm here as an admin" tag. SlimVirgin 02:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

For the sake of all of our sanity, if Paul August has half the even temper and calm judgment that well over a hundred voters have expressed that they think he does, he can decide what to do with his own question page when he returns and whether it is worth answering or removing. (Sadly, it is by no means the most snide statement surrounding the elections that I have seen thus far.) I would think that it would be far less disruptive than warring over it, and it may well be informative to see how candidates handle such questions; it's not as though arbitrators don't get them in the course of their terms. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 01:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Complete agreement with Mindspillage/Kat. For the record, SlimVirgin wasn't the first to remove Cyde's question (in a slightly different format) - Giano and Ghirlandajo removed slightly earlier versions. I was barely brave enough to warn each (with great trepidation, since they're experienced contributors) ... but I am not foolhardy enough to get in a singlehanded wheel war with the legendary SlimVirgin. AnonEMouse 13:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

High School Musical 2 - under attack

There seems to be a lot of vandalism on High School Musical 2, I have reverted back quite a bit, but I can't figure out what's real and what's fake, it seems to be a number of users who need immediate blocking. --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 02:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe the page should be protected? RobJ1981 02:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That may not solve it, the last piece of vandalism was by a registered user who seems to be mostly adding valid info, but inserted some obscenities and has a so-so history. Another was a registed user who is vandal only, but not enough to take him to AIV. A lot of IP addresses but some edits are ok and some are clearly vandalism, and a lot of reverts and changes that may be correct, or hoaxes. Even though I reverted back quite a bit, there still may be problems in the article. It would help to have someone who knows the subject. --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 02:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I fully protected it. None of the participants adding the disputed info were admins, as far as I know. Sort it out on the talk page. Grandmasterka 03:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, removing all that questionable stuff was good --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 03:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Attack/hoax page requiring immediate deletion

Could someone please speedy Tyler divelbiss, close the Afd, and deal with the author. Note that per Google, there is a real person by that name. Newyorkbrad 03:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Done within one minute, either coincidentally or quickly, thanks Guinnog. Newyorkbrad 03:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

86.143.123.152

The edits from this IP , 2 of them were vandals. I reverted the edit on Westlife's article but would like someone to look into the other 3 for actions.

--Cahk 06:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Both others rolled back. Patstuart 07:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Block of a user I'm involved in.

There has been an anon editing from a semi-dynamic IP on the Beit Hanoun November 2006 incident who has been repeatedly warned for making personal attacks and engaging in major civility violations. his latest personal attacks and I've therefore decided to block the anon for 24 hours. Since I am involved on the page I have submitted the block here for review. JoshuaZ 06:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The block was appropriate. Patstuart 07:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Continued reinsertion without sourcing

An IP, 74.134.242.248 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), has continually inserted the same unsourced sentence to Daily Illini (see the history or his contribs for the edit warring). despite explanation and warnings on his/her talk page and repeated directions to explanation at Talk:Daily_Illini#November_controversy_and_alleged_email. The IP has violated the spirit (though not the letter) of 3rr. Please block it.--Kchase T 07:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC) Oh yeah, and did I mention rank incivility? No? That, too.--Kchase T 07:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've commented on the user's talk page; it appears the user is edit warring against the talk page consensus, and not waiting for a reliable source to come out. Perhaps this could be considered a last warning? Anybody, feel free to add to my comments, or block as you see fit. Use appears to have been warned a lot before; perhaps a block is warranted. -Patstuart 07:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've warned the editor a couple of times, but he appears to be disregarding any attempts at reason. He's posted the university chancellor's phone number (presumably the office number) and told us to verify the assertion by calling. I don't know if he'll come around, but no sign of it yet. -Will Beback · † · 08:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

further out of wikipedia contact

Ok, I reported on this once before . If you want to read the completed consensus on it, it's here: (last diff I found on the topic). Well, the guy is back and still sending me emails to join social/dating/contact networks by email. I'm getting sick of this. Can something be done about this? I've told him twice to stop.⇒ SWATJester Aim _Fire! 07:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't really see this as a matter for action on Misplaced Pages. Morwen - Talk 10:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It is hard to see how it isn't. The person in question is using the Misplaced Pages email function to spam. Swat, have you tried simply listing the person's email address in a spam filter? JoshuaZ 13:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This is not my reading of the note, particularly the previous report. It seems they have obtained this person's address, and are spamming them privately or are feeding their email address into dating sites as an "invite your friend" type feature. Morwen - Talk 15:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• This is a very interesting case. May I ask how often you are getting these emails? In your previous post you said 3 in a month, which doesn't sound like much. Also consider that the offender might not even be aware of what he's doing: sometimes social-network sites have people upload the address book from their email client, which can include everyone they've ever sent mail to. You might be one of hundreds or even thousands, who knows. It's also (sadly) possible that the user may have been the victim of a virus or trojan which harvested your address and is now being used for spam. Obviously it's upsetting you if you're posting here about it, so I'm trying to think of a good solution. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I got another one today, this one asks me for my birthday. The one yesterday asked me for my address. I've gotten 5 in the past month or so. And no, he's not been infected with a trojan because he's adding in a personalized message "Hello this is mohammed salim khan from dherai swat, pakistan", which fits in with he user pages. Morwen: I think it is a wikipedia problem, because he is using the email function on wikipedia to gain my response and then using it for unwanted personal contact. That's a huge potential loophole for phishers/scammers, to email editors here with a seemingly valid question, and then use the responding addresses and spam them. ⇒ SWATJester Aim _Fire! 18:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Personal attack block review: Kumarnator

I've blocked Kumarnator (talk · contribs) for 48 hours for making this remark. I'm putting the block for review. Also, this user has previously been blocked for personal attacks on the same user (who was blocked himself).

I'm putting the block on review. Feel free to unblock if necessary (but given the racist comments, I hardly expect that to happen.) Thanks. --Ragib 08:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support block. Viridae 08:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support block. - Aksi_great (talk) 09:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support block, but it is more lenient than I would have been. Sorry if I'm not supposed to respond to this.--Vercalos 09:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Non-admins are welcome to join in the discussions on the admin noticeboards. Viridae 10:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support block. And yes I agree. It probably should've been for a week since he had just gotten off a 24 hour block for physical threats...and that one should've been 48. :) We have a very low tolerance for both overt racism and threats. --Woohookitty 11:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Well, feel free to extend the block. Thanks. --Ragib 11:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support block as non-admin, and IMO, it should be a week. {{SUBST:User:Nwwaew/Signature}} 13:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• I am an Arab myself and i really am not sensitive to comments like that. However, i am at the same time a wikipedian and i am wondering if users like this would be able to enhance this encyclopaedia ever! I fully support the block but i'd be harsh if it is repeated next time. -- Szvest Ω 13:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Fresh batch of usernames

User: Magicmidgetfaggot seems a fairly evident delete, and taking into account his contributions, I'd say that User: FindWarCriminals is over the line too. yandman 09:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Crap...I may have violated 3RR :(

Was on RC patrol and encountered a questionable edit of Paltalk by Uae0707 (talk · contribs). Here's what happened:

1) I saw this edit and reverted (I think the reversion of this content is OK, as it's pretty much an obvious POV rant). 2) The user re-added it a few minutes later. I reverted and gave a {{content2}} warning. 3) Same thing again: . I reverted. 4) Then the user added a toned down version of his previous additions: . I didn't look closely at it, and thought the user was just readding the same material, since it seemed so similar, so I reverted and gave the user a content3 warning. :( 5) The user readded it, and I then saw that the obvious POV was gone.

Anyway, do what you must :(.

As far as the content goes, I still think the material the user added does not belong in the article, but I feel some other editor should probably look into it, rather than me. Gzkn 11:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Blocks are not punitive, if it was a good faith mistake there is no reason why you would be blocked. I can also understand you reverting that content, very highly unsourced. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 11:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the spirit of WP:3RR allows this. The initial edits being reverted were sufficiently bad that they fall within the scope of sections 3.6 (vandalism) and 3.7 (libel). Morwen - Talk 12:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what type of edits you were reverting. If you've stopped now and promise to stop, then nobody will block you for 3RR. --Deskana talk 12:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(Do you want a bet?) Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 13:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Try using some common sense and figuring out that I don't speak for every single administrator on this website. --Deskana talk 13:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Beg pardon, but that's his point. It only takes one. Mackensen (talk) 13:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. Such things need to be taken on a case-by-case basis, but the general rule is to unblock if they promise to stop. There may be exceptions of course, though I can't think of any. --Deskana talk 13:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Well that's heartening...thanks! Gzkn 12:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandal was also duly warned but carried on, I have blocked him so the risk of further reversions should be small. Guy (Help!) 13:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

BTW, WP:3RR has instructions on this: if you self-revert after a 3RR violation, then, in fact, you've reconciled. But, as it stands, it was 3RR, so I'm going to have to block you for 12 hours. Ha, gotcha; just a joke (trying to bug Fys; I'm not even an admin anyway). Patstuart 16:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

A WP:POINT/WP:SOCK case

A bunch of socks, IP 80.218.7.212, IP 194.230.146.2, IP 84.73.254.103 and later under User:Uifan, has been edit warring originally on Universal Image Format for weeks now. He/she has been removing the {{advert}} tag which was put by User:Revragnarok. Many other established editors like User:Delldot and User:Jesup were reverting back to Revragnarok version. I had semi-protected the article on November 14th, 2006. The IP's commented on the talk page a few times but the message was always " 'HOW can MicroSoft be a GLOBAL Player?' - please choose Micro or GLOBAL!" and then created a section under the title of discussions with deafly wikipedians is totally stupid!. I had to semi-protect the article yesterday leaving a note at the talk page inviting the IP to engage in a serious discussion and try to reach a concensus. I received only silly arguments and nothing serious. I informed him/her that he/she is in the breach of a few wiki policies and i am still being patient. Now, he/she was found tagging a few articles (i.e. NTFS, Microsoft, Global Television Network) with the advert tag. This is w/o any doubt a breach of WP:POINT.

Could you please help on how to deal w/ this case as it is difficult to execute a range block in this case. Cheers -- Szvest Ω 13:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

after triggering you explicitly to RevRagnarok's NONsense & STUPID arguments with one word Bullshit i must determine you do NOT see RevRagnarok's Bullshit and my given answers... therefore: FiRST interprete RevRagnarok's Bullshit seriously AND then talk with me... 80.218.7.212 15:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You are the one who should discuss the matter w/ editors at the article. I got nothing to do w/ the content as i am not involved in the article. My jugdment is that Rev gave his reasons why he tagged the article and you haven't yet countered his arguments. Instead you have been reverting non-stop using the socks i mentioned above. In conclusion, you should have been blocked by now as per the non-respect of the Sockpuppetry. I explained this to you and waited your counter-arguments. I haven't received any so far. I didn't want to block you as i've been thinking you are a newbie and not a vandal. However, disrupting Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point (tagging other articles) using the socks is warranting a block. So, once for all, please use your registered account above and discuss your issues using better arguments to win your case. -- Szvest Ω 15:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Could this have anything to-do with this? Agathoclea 16:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Another sock in the wall. I should say that it a kind of User:Durova's Sherlock Holmes' work above. Nice spot Agathoclea.

So User:Nobuddy who is an IT Manager according to his userpage (created on December 5, 2006) is a would be sock of the above ones. -- Szvest Ω 17:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

User: BooyakaDell, sock of user:JB196?

User:JB196 was banned in September for edit warring over tags and creating conflicts on numerous pages that have to do with professional wrestling. He continued to vandalized pages as an anonymous user to the point that some articles had to be semi-protected several times over. User:BooyakaDell registered in Mid-November, and has virtually the same modus operandi, editwarring over tags and adding PROD's to wrestling articles he thinks are not notable (not a valid reason for PROD'ing on several articles). Due to length of time between original user being banned, and this possible sockpuppet account being created, checkuser was not an option, although there is still a suspected sockpuppet account page. Any suggestions? Thanks! SirFozzie 14:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore seems to be a target of concerted vandalism; semi may be appropriate. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

yes, admins, please get ASAP. We'll have to revert to an early version anyway bc of thick vandalism. -Patstuart 15:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Got it. El_C 15:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Extra-long article project

Hi, I recently started a new project the: WP:Extra-Long Article Committee; if interested please join. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 13:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Disruption block review

I would like to get a review of my 48 hour block of SndrAndrss (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This user has a history of not wanting to answer messages left as the user's talk page (or he is just not understanding that messages there are directed to him), even though this has been pointed out to him on several occations (see his talk page). This, and him several times adding parameters to Template:Infobox Football club (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), which is a template that has had its current layout for a pretty long time, and where consensus several times have opposed the addition of new parameters, led me to leave him a final warning two days ago. He today re-added parameters once again, and I blocked him for 48 hours with the summary disruption, see User talk:SndrAndrss where I in turn added {{block}} and the reason You have been blocked from editing for violating Misplaced Pages policy by disrupting Misplaced Pages, failing to discuss changes with other users, failing to follow consensus, and failing to answer messages left at your talk page. Please review the block, and feel free to unblock if you believe it was unfair, but in case you do, please also give a suggestion on how to handle this type of user (mostly good edits, but unable to collaborate when edits are not so good). – Elisson • T • C • 15:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This seems not unreasonable to me. The user has persisted in ignoring repeated attempts to communicate. I can't see a single talk page edit in the history (there may be one or two). As a collaborative project, Misplaced Pages relies on people discussing stuff. Obviously an edit history filled with typo fixes and no talk page issues wouldn't be a cause for concern, but to see so many attempts to engaged, and no response. Blocking may be the only way to get their attention. Morwen - Talk 16:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I reviewed the talkpage and skimmed the Contrib History. The block seems justified (especially after a clear warning), and I'm not sure how else to get the attention of someone who consistently refuses to respond to (or even acknowledge) various comments, requests, and warnings. Doc Tropics 16:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Unreal, user has been around for many many months, with 6000 contributions, and but for 3 confused contributions to own talk page, all talk page contributions are, in fact, page moves. Patstuart 16:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree. -- Szvest Ω 16:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. He has a total of seven user talk contributions, three Misplaced Pages talk contributions and two mainspace talk contributions (aside from page moves). He has not once used an edit summary (not counting automatic summaries). I don't really know what to do if he continues with that behaviour after the block expires. – Elisson • T • C • 17:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If he continues avoiding communication it would be his own issue but if he keeps edit warring w/o communicating or explaining his edits than another block would be the solution. -- Szvest Ω 17:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Concur. An editor who refuses to communicate is limiting their own options, and ours. Doc Tropics 18:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Moby Dick

• Moby_Dick (talk · contribs)
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Moby Dick (clarification)
• Special:Contributions/Moby_Dick
• commons:Special:Contributions/Moby_Dick

I'd like to have a second opinion on this. Is the recent edit of Moby Dick a violation of the arbcom remedies (also mind the clarification). This was his first edit since November 13 2006.

On November 12-13 he was same time active on commons and he wasn't uploading images. Instead his focus seemed to be me. Aside from that he wasn't active at all since august neither here on en.wiki or on commons.wiki.

--Cat out 18:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Requesting block for non-consensus page moves

I am requesting that Yaksha (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) be blocked for engaging in hundreds of non-consensus page moves. There has been no attempt to go through WP:RM, and requests on Yaksha's talkpage to cease the moves have been to no avail. Edit summaries claim that the moves are in accordance with WP:TV-NC; however that guideline is clearly in dispute, as is evidenced by Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television), which Yaksha has supposedly "agreed" to , but such agreement has not seemed to stop continued bad faith actions. Immediate admin intervention is requested, to prevent further disruption of hundreds more pages. --Elonka 19:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with blocking anyone or stopping any page moves. Josiah Rowe (talk · contribs) is another admin who has been involved in the discussion at WT:NC-TV and has also supported page moves. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Both Josiah Rowe and Wknight94 are actively involved in the dispute, as can be seen at the Mediation page, and as such are not in any position to be making decisions about blocks. Further, as admins, both of you should be speaking up to stop non-consensus moves, rather than encouraging unilateral action by what is clearly a secondary user account. --Elonka 19:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

"Non-consensus moves" is a blatant mischaracterization that you've repeatedly made with no evidence to support it. Actively involved or not, I can make a recommendation. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, could you spicify which policy was violated by Yaksha? It is not the first time that we see you forum shopping for blocks on this page, therefore each of your complaints should be scrutinized more than carefully. If you dispute Yaksha's actions, why don't you pursue standart dispute resolution procedures? This page is not part of the DR process, you know. --Ghirla 19:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Per WP:RM, controversial moves need to be formally requested and debated. There has been no such attempt for the articles that Yaksha is moving -- not even so much as a courtesy note at the series page. As for WP:DR, both MedCom and MedCab are in-process, but Yaksha is proceeding with the moves anyway. I would also point out that the series page had a clear notice at the top of the page showing how episodes were to be named, which, though it had been there for many months, Yaksha removed without any attempt at discussion. . This is clearly a disruptive user who is acting without consensus, and needs to be stopped. --Elonka 19:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

As I have seen how much damage such unilateral moves can do, I strongly support Elonka - if the users ignores warnings and discussions, and disrupts wiki with moves, blocks are in order.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I must strongly support Elonkas position, there has been a lot of patience towards these unilateral moves and a lot of requests for them to stop. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I support these moves and strongly oppose any block. WP:RM says that moves may be simply moved by an editor if they are not controversial - I don't consider them controversial, since the moves follow WP:D, WP:NAME and consensus agreement at WP:TV-NAME I feel they do have consensus support. In the cases where a RM was used, there have been comments asking why it was needed. I consider one or two editors making a blanket declaration that a potential move of any TV article would be controversial to be a disruptive attempt to slow consensus action by making it as cumbersome as possible. On a similar RM that is going on now, MatthewFenton even went so far as to suggest that each page move should have a seperate RM with a separate discussion (even though there's currently a clear consensus to pass the move). I find it incredibly bad faith on Elonka's part to complain about unilateral page moves and then within minutes, start doing edits and page moves on those very same pages (with a "per ANI" edit summary, even though no admin here has given her permission to move pages back). And neither medcom nor medcab are in progress - medcom was attempted but multiple users, including myself, declined because of Elonka's continued evidence of bad faith. Elonka tried starting a medcab case, but I doubt it will go anywhere either for the same reasons. I don't see potential mediation as a reason to ignore wikipedia guidelines (particularly when, in the absence of WP:TV-NAME, the moves are still supported by WP:D and WP:NAME), if anything I see Elonka's "attempts" at mediation as an excuse to try to get a de-facto "injunction" and try and stop consensus moves. As were her attempts to unilaterally declare WP:TV-NAME "in dispute", even revert warring in an attempt to ad a "disputed" tag. --Milo H Minderbinder 20:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement from the MedCom

These page moves have been made unilaterally and without established consensus from all parties involved. This is disruptive to a potential mediation case. However, I cannot endorse a block or lack thereof due to our committee's commitment to remaining neutral in disputes. I do beg Yaksha to please cease her actions until consensus has been reached, and allow the pages to be moved back to where they were for the time being.

On behalf of the Mediation Committee, ^demon 19:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

For further reference, please see #Non-consensus page moves. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Pooter-the-clown (talk · contribs)

• A probable sock puppet of Lieutenant Dol Grenn (talk · contribs), only more aggressive than the previous one, constantly removing warnings from his talk page as "vandalism" and engaging in edit wars in various articles, including Balrog (Street Fighter) (where he tries to sneak in unverifiable information, namely height and weight, previously removed from the page precisely because of edit wars started by him). Danny Lilithborne 19:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I have noted this behavior as well. Would appreciate some oversight from other admins. Kukini 19:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Note: Pooter deleted this section approx 2 minutes after its creation. Doc Tropics 19:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

My superficial reading is both have an obsession with tall men and an odd syntax to their comments on talk pages, so unless we want to do a full RFCU I'm thinking its a sock as well. Certainly the block on Pooter for removing this section here is valid, as he stated on Kukini's talk page that 'hes a wikipedian and knows wikipedia's rules'. Syrthiss 20:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

209.250.182.2xx

I've been noticing three IPs vandalizing the candy cane article. They are:

• 209.250.182.217
• 209.250.182.226
• 209.250.182.233

Please block them, I'm about to use the {{test4}}. Nihiltres 19:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

rangeblocked 209.250.182.0/24 for 24 hours. Thatcher131 20:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Catholic school in Ontario. Charming. Thatcher131 20:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

There's a revert war going on between anonymous editors at Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley which includes allegations that a libel proceeding has been started against Misplaced Pages. --Craig Stuntz 20:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Special:Log/newusers flood

This and this, among a few others. No idea what's it all about, but have a lookout on the newuser log in the following days. A CheckUser might want to have a look and identify the underlying IP, so we can react quickly in the future. Миша13 20:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Block enforcement requested

88.154.26.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is a sockpuppet of Roitr (talk · contribs) (see Misplaced Pages:Long term abuse/Roitr) and is repeatedly adding incorrect information to Military ranks of the Soviet Union (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Can an admin block and/or semiprotect please? Thanks! Demiurge 20:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

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