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Levine2112

Moved thread over 50k to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Levine2112. Davnel03 18:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

User:hopiakuta

See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/User:hopiakuta —Random832

User:Larry Lurkington and User:Betacommand

• Original thread re-located to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Larry Lurkington. Further comment is welcome at that page.

Subsequent confusion over the relocation archived below.

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

Well, that's one way of hindering a debate you don't want to have! It would be helpful to have more clear edit summaries in future for such moves (eg. indicating the section title of the moved material). DuncanHill (talk) 16:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• It was a compromise between clogging up ANI with a thread that had moved towards "Yes it is/no it isn't" territory, and merely archiving it. You are of course free to continue the conversation on the subpage if you beleive it would be constructive. BLACKKITE 16:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
  • There should not be a compromise between something and "merely archiving it", because archiving an active discussion should not even be under consideration. -Amarkov moo! 16:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
    • It wasn't archived, just moved elsewhere. Does this need to be moved into another sub-page? —Wknight94 (talk) 16:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
      • I admit that moving it to a subpage is better than just slapping on the archive tags, but neither of them should have happened. There was no cause. -16:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
        • The discussion no longer belonged on the main ANI page as it had mainly moved towards a discussion of WP:SPA and WP:SOCK, and no admin action is currently required. BLACKKITE 16:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible spam by Timjowers

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I have to head out right now, so I can't take any action/investigate this further, but could some admins take a look at Timjowers (talk · contribs)? His last edits are all adding a link into about 2 dozen articles. Thanks, Metros (talk) 16:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Note also that many of the links are inappropriately added in "See also" sections. Maralia (talk) 16:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• Blocked for now, feel free to unblock if the user shows that he won't carry on. Guy (Help!) 19:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't a warning have been in order instead of a block 2 1/2 hours after their last edit? --Onorem♠Dil 19:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

No-one asked this user about his edits. No-one told him about WP:SPAM. No-one told him about this discussion. No-one warned him. All his previous edits show good faith, don't have anything to do with the supposed "spam" links, or any other external links. Both of the links he added appear to be to ad-free non-profit pages with information appropriate to the articles in question, and quite within the ambit of WP:EL. While posting the same link to several articles may be spam, there's no evidence it was in this case. JzG: please explain why you did not warn this user, or ask him about the links? Please explain why a block was necessary despite the user being inactive for several hours? Please explain why you blocked an account with other, quite acceptable, edits indefinately? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

External links to votesmart.org are in my opinion reasonably appropriate. It might be a good non-partisan source for data on candidates. guono.com also just might be a useful non-partisan external source with a matrix of public perceptions of positions for the presidential candidates, though it isnt a scientific survey. JzG has been removing both, but I am not sure that is justified. and a block in the situation seem wholly inappropriate. With any additional support, I am willing to unblock & they should be discussed first before further action is taken DGG (talk) 19:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Please unblock him. The vote-smart link is a valid link. I haven't looked at the other one, but a warning should have been issued first. Horologium (talk) 19:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Although the user hasn't requested an unblock—he may, of course, having been bitten (although the account was registered several months ago, the user had just fifteen edits before today, each, notably, constructive and plainly made in good faith), departed—I, too, would support unblocking. Even were the votesmart.org link not almost certainly appropriate per EL, a block in the absence of a prior polite warning/explanation of EL/SPAM seems altogether unwarranted. Joe 03:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• As I said here and on the user's talk page, I have no problem with him being unblocked once he comes back and starts dialogue, but users whose principal contributions are numerous external links to the same website have a long history, in my experience, of being unrepentant spammers, so I did not want to set a block that would simply expire without some kind of admin interaction to ensure the problem is fixed at source. This is not a failure of good faith, it's ensuring that an apparent problem is averted. Guy (Help!) 14:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

None of his previous edits were spam links; in fact, outside of his user page (to which he added three external links), the only external link he had added prior to yesterday was a reference to the IRS for one of his edits. This is not a linkspammer. Horologium (talk) 14:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The sites that he linked too may be useful, but is it necessary for every candidate page? Can they just go to the more general election article? I don't see a reason for this redundancy of having the same links on every candidate's page like this. That's what set off my radar was that he was posting this to dozens of candidate articles. Metros (talk) 15:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This appears to be a classic case of shoot first and ask questions later, but without ever asking any questions. I found the Project Vote Smart website several months ago and have found it to be an invaluable source of information about candidates and current office holders. The Misplaced Pages article for the organization states that "Barry Goldwater, John McCain, former US Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, founded PVS. PVS does not accept financial contributions from lobbyists, governmental organizations, corporations, labor unions or other special interests." One would be rather hardpressed to manufacture a complaint that actually refers to links to Project Vote Smart as "spam", regardless of how many articles have been updated by any individual. I, myself, have added the website as a link and source to nearly all 120 General Assembly and State Senate members in New Jersey (take Upendra J. Chivukula as an entirely arbitrary example). When can I expect my permanent block to start? It disturbs me that there are admins like JzG (including Metros comments above) who will allow their "radar" or "Spidey senses" to allow them to determine that edits are in bad faith without any further investigation or information from the user involved, and that the only answer to the supposed problem is a permanent block. This isn't spam, this is administrative abuse. There is a problem here, and its not with Timjowers. Alansohn (talk) 19:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• I present this set of contribs, and these responses from JzG (Guy), when engaged by Tj, as evidence for unblock. It was a bad block. Mr Which??? 19:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't really see evidence of a bad block in that particular exchange. In fact, Mr. Jowers response here concerns me somewhat. — Satori Son 22:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if the sites are appropriate or useful, it doesn't confer a license to spam Misplaced Pages even when it's true. We are going to see alot of these type of Political positions sites added over the next year, this trend has already begun, for example Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#WhereIstand.com. Spamming is about promoting a site or a site you love (Ie. adding alot of similar or related links), which does not always mean they need to be "commercial" or "spam sites" to be spam. "Relative and informative" sites get spammed excessively on the project all the time. good link/bad link + mass addition = spamming. FWIW. --Hu12 (talk) 20:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, sure, adding useful links from a given site to a wide variety of articles is, indeed, spamming, but it's not the sort of spamming for which we would ever block, since, well, it's constructive. Under your formulation, an editor who adds links to the respective IMDB pages of a large group of films would be engaged in pernicious spamming, notwithstanding that the links would be entirely consistent with EL; a block, then, would devolve simply because a user elected to add in rapid succession links to the gradual adding of which no one would object. In any case, though, even was the user here engaged in spamming, it is clear that he acted in good faith, and it is, frankly, ridiculous that he was blocked with no warning at all; had issues been raised at his talk page, he might well (AGF and all) have stopped adding links until such time as a consensus for their inclusion developed or until the EL/SPAM issues were clarified, and so any putative disruption might have been prevented with much less collateral damage. Joe 21:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Stop making so much sense. What you say is very true, though. Adding links to candidate positions isn't inherently "spam", which has a negative connotation. And it's certainly not blockable, especially when it's combined with the set of contribs I linked above. This was a bad block, it's as simple as that. Mr Which??? 21:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• I have a great idea: why not just ask Alansohn about everything, he'll always tell you I am wrong, and then we can all go away happy. I blocked the guy to stop what looked to me like repeated addition of links to a site which I don't see is authoritative or objective; I googled beforehand and saw several incidents of Tim Jowers promoting the site. I said then and here that I have no objection to anyone unblocking if they think the risk of further spamming of this site is over, I don't think it is based on his response to me, but I don't like political zealots (which his response to me suggests he is). People seem to be making an awfully big deal of this. Guy (Help!) 21:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• I have a better idea. How about not getting snarky, checking Timjowers contribs, and unblocking him yourself. The fact that someone whom you claim opposes "everything" you do "on principle" opposes your block in this case, does not mean that your block was, in fact, good. The evidence doesn't support a block of any length, his angry reaction (that you classified as "right wing zealotry") notwithstanding. Any new user (heck, even old users) would get pissed if they were blocked for no good reason, and without warning to boot. Mr Which??? 21:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
• And furthermore, blocking someone is a big deal, even if you think it's not, as you apparently do from your last line above. That's an awfully cavalier attitude toward one of the most sensitive buttons an admin has at his fingertips. That's one of the more disturbing comments I've seen from an admin lately. Mr Which??? 21:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

What only makes this whole Timjower "spamming" incident all the more disturbing is that a set of three links to Project Vote Smart -- for biography, voting record, and interest group ratings -- are included on the Misplaced Pages articles of every single member of Congress, as far as I can tell. How did they get there, pray tell? It's included on the Template:CongLinks, which builds these links and links to a whole set of other links, including for-profit company websites with (heaven forbid) ads, such as that of The Washington Post. I'm not sure why we allow any administrator the ability to decide arbitrarily what constitutes spam, but this seems to be one of the worst determinations ever. Be warned, that there are over 1,600 links to vote-smart.org, if anyone is really determined to remove this offensive site from Misplaced Pages. Alansohn (talk) 00:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

From what I can see of it, "guono.com" is not a neutral, reliable site. Their explanation of the issues, , is not mainstream. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Legistorm spammer

As an example of the supposed abuse of "spam" that we'll be sseing more of, check out Special:Contributions/Lyoshka, who has had the unmitigated gall to add links to legistorm.com, a site that provides information about salaries paid to congressional staffers. This person seems to have added 505 links to this site so far. Will this user be blocked, as well? Please do so quickly, as there seem to be 30 more congressional articles left to be updated and lots of work to needlessly revert all of these changes. Timjowers seems to have been hit by one of the greatest presumptions of bad faith I've ever seen. Blocking a user should only be done as the last resirt in the most extreme of cases where the block will stop abuse that is currently taking place; that's the principle I seek to uphold. I don't oppose anyone's actions on principle; it's the lack of principles that I object to. Alansohn (talk) 22:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Ugh. A once and final warning was issued earlier today, I'd have blocked. That is spamming, pure and simple, the user has no edits other than adding that link. Guy (Help!) 23:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Plus, an anon who was reverting removal, soft blocked for a while and rolled back. 130+ links remain, if anyone feels motivated Special:Linksearch/*.legistorm.com. Guy (Help!) 00:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Good grief! What's the problem with adding links to salaries of congressmen?!? Were they to a commercial site? A blog? What was the problem with the links?!? Mr Which??? 00:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This is the problem Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Storming_Media_LLC_Spamming. 5 WP:SOCK spam accounts and an IP registered to the owner of the site.--Hu12 (talk) 01:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• So, let me see if I understand your reasoning here. If I, as a user that is not an "SPA" were to have added these 505 links (all to neutral, objective, and informative information), it would have been fine. But because a new user who does only this does it, it's spam? That doesn't make any sense at all. And it makes less sense, if it's also spam if I did it, as there is absolutely nothing wrong with any information at those links. Mr Which??? 01:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Note discussion below. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 21:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Magnonimous/24.36.201.161

• Magnonimous (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 24.36.201.161 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Article

• Coral calcium (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Magnonimous has changed signatures for 24.36.201.161 to his own , so I'm assuming these are the same person. He's a WP:SPA that's been edit-warring in Coral calcium from his earliest edits. While his edits probably qualify for WP:AN/3RR, I thought it would be better to report here since the situation is complicated and involves WP:OWN and WP:FRINGE issues.

I'm an involved editor here. Once it became clear Magnonimous/24.36.201.161 was going to edit-war no matter what I said on the talk page, I've tried to restrict my edits to the talk page other than to tag problems and properly main tags. (Yes, some of the edit-warring is over tags). --Ronz (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Rebuttal Re

Magnonimous

User Ronz has overstepped WP:FANATIC guidelines 2-6 on repeated occasions. I believe Ronz may have used sockpuppetry to disguise some outright deletions of my contributions to the article. My contributions have been undermined repeatedly by outright deletions with questionable reasons. The fact that Ronz keeps coming up with new and creative ways to justify these deletions, leads me to believe that he is more concerned with blocking content that he disagrees with, than maintaining the integrity of the article. I believe I have acted in an overly defensive manner at times. In my defense, I do not currently subscribe to ownership of articles, but I do believe that complete deletion of contributions is not constructive to articles, and I may react accordingly. Magnonimous (talk) 19:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

"I believe Ronz may have used sockpuppetry to disguise some outright deletions of my contributions to the article." Please provide evidence for such, or remove the accusation. I've made no other edits to Coral calcium or Talk:Coral calcium, through another account, an ip, etc, nor have I asked anyone to do so. --Ronz (talk) 19:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have acted in an overly defensive manner at times. In my defense... Sweet Mother Irony, what would humor be without you? JuJube (talk) 23:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to forgoe some diffs here unless asked for, as Magnonimous's tiny contribution history (he only appeared just recently to push his content changes to Coral Calcium), as well as having all his edits confined to the article in question and its talk page, makes it very easy to see what he's been doing. Magnonimous is attempting to add content to Coral calcium on purported health benefits. The primary issue at the moment, in my opinion, is that these studies don't mention coral calcium. Rather, they are about calcium supplements in general. I've explained to him that making his claims about coral calcium constitutes content forking and original synthesis, but he has comitted to push his edits anyway, and doesn't see a problem . He has also professed to be driven by a somewhat unusual conflict of interest . Someguy1221 (talk) 20:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The only question is whether these studies can be applied to coral calcium; and the only difference between all calcium supplements is how much calcium is made available to the body. This amount, or percentage, is called elemental calcium. Example: "If a tablet contains 500 milligrams of calcium carbonate, it contains only 200 milligrams of elemental calcium. This is because only 40% of the calcium compound is elemental calcium". -Calcium Supplement Guidelines, VERONICA A. MULLINS, M.S., R.D. and LINDA HOUTKOOPER, PH.D., R.D.; It's not: What amount of coral calcium provides health benefits?, it's that coral calcium provides health benefits. Magnonimous (talk) 23:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, There is prominent research that suggests that coral calcium is actually better than calcium carbonate for preventing colon cancer. Calcium carbonate was used in the original study. Magnonimous (talk) 00:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

No. Nobody on this noticeboard cares for content disputes. Take it somewhere else. east.718 at 02:24, December 18, 2007

Continued edit-warring

Magnonimous continued to edit-war after commenting to this report, and after calling for a "TRUCE": . --Ronz (talk) 02:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The "TRUCE" applied to me and you only, and stipulated that both points of view be included in the article. Magnonimous (talk) 18:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

"I will agree not to add any more to the article." This clearly implies that I would not add more than I already had. Magnonimous (talk) 18:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Magnonimous, while we do not care about content disputes, we do care about things like WP:3RR. The edit Ronz pointed above brings you a hair's breadth away from the electric fence of that policy. I strongly encourage you not to reinsert this material into this article again unless you can obtain a consensus on Talk: Coral calcium. -- llywrch (talk) 22:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Update

"

1. 02:59, 18 December 2007 (hist) (diff) Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents‎ (→User:Magnonimous/24.36.201.161 - continued edit-warring)
2. 02:52, 18 December 2007 (hist) (diff) Talk:Calcium‎ (→Coral Calcium Merge - Oppose)

"

• User Ronz enlists the help of a respected colleague: User Someguy1221 to help him resolve this edit war in his favor.

• Someguy1221 Gives good advice including the fact that parts of this article may be a content fork.

• User Magnonimous takes advice to heart, and proposes reintegration of content fork into main calcium article.

• Ronz opposes proposal based on advice of his friend, and then proceeds to retaliate by claiming the edit war continues, in his tireless quest to ban his arch nemesis, who's only crime is to have a differing opinion, and to express it, with sources to back it up.

Magnonimous (talk) 06:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:AGF and stop wasting our time. Thanks --Ronz (talk) 16:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You are attempting to have me blocked. As in a court of law, I am allowed to call your character into question, to weaken your credibility, as it pertains to your objectivity in this matter. Magnonimous (talk) 17:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You are operating under some severe misconceptions here. The administrators' noticeboard isn't a court of law, and "calling someone's character into question" is usually a personal attack, and can be a good way to get yourself blocked. --Carnildo (talk) 04:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Un-semiprotecting

Royalguard11 (talk · contribs) has started systematically unprotecting semiprotected pages without attempts of obtaining consensus about his actions. This includes pages such as obesity, cancer, Judaism, Muslim, Jesus and other predictable targets of vandalism. When I asked whether he'd considered the risk of vandalism, I received the reply that "eight and a half months is excessive. Period." This user has now stopped communicating with me.

I am deeply concerned that important and vandalism-prone content is being exposed to vandalism. JFW | T@lk 00:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

As I've told you already, I'm dealing with the 8.5 month backlog at Special:Protectedpages, mostly because no other admin has taken the initiative to do it. Your also twisting what's happened, because I haven't stopped communicating with you. Your using as many methods you can to make sure that everyone has a bad first impression and therefore side with you. Anyways, yes I consider that 8.5 months is excessive for semiprotection. Every article is unprotected at some time, even Bush gets unprotected once and a while. Why not others? There isn't a policy that says that cancer can be indefinitely semiprotected just because someone says. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 00:32, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way, unless you haven't checked, this is a wiki. Everything is vandal-prone. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 00:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Protection is never meant to be indefinite solution. Take a look at this discussion on meta: m:Protected_pages_considered_harmful ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The meta page does not allow for semiprotection, which is the crux of this dispute. JFW | T@lk 00:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

We are clearly disagreeing on an interpretation of policy, so I would like to ask you to stop until this has been clarified. Is that possible? JFW | T@lk 00:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to be blunt, but I think this is more of a case that you are misunderstanding policy and precedence. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Precedence" actually dictates that indefinite semi-protection be used for articles subjected to continued heavy vandalism, biographies subject to POV-pushing or slanderous material, user pages when requested, and policy pages on a case-by-case basis. I'm disappointed that this administrator didn't seek input before going on a large unprotection spree. east.718 at 00:47, December 18, 2007

Could you explain what I'm misunderstanding here? Or rather, how do I know that it's not Royalguard11 doing the misunderstanding? And where is the precedent you are referring to? JFW | T@lk 00:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'd agree with most of these unprotections, but a few should probably never be unprotected - I've just re-protected Gay after it was hit twice within minutes of the protection being lifted; this one probably isn't worth the effort. I've watchlisted a lot of others, and will keep an eye out. BLACKKITE 00:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

On what grounds, and for how long, would you reinstate semiprotection? Obviously, the majority of the pages unprotected by Royalguard11 will suffer vandalism within the next hour or so. Where are we meant to draw the line, and should these pages have been unprotected to begin with? By semiprotecting we are not exactly closing down editing - we are only delaying for autoconfirmed registered users. JFW | T@lk 00:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• I feel I must chime in here, that mass unprotection is a Bad Idea(tm). Those articles are vandal magnets and consensus has long been reached that indefinite semiprotection was reasonable for those. Quoth the WP:PROT "Indefinite semi-protection may be used for: Articles subject to heavy and continued vandalism, such as the George W. Bush article." — Coren  00:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I am glad that semiprot seems be putting back in place on a case-by-case basis, rather than as a blind mass revert. I haven't checked a list, just yet, but from the chatter it seems like a fair number of these were overdue for unprotection. Possibly not the best method, but I think it was done in good faith, and it's brought attention to the issue. Sooo... on to the issue. If any of these become controversial, we can (and should) discuss them in particular. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure Royalguard11 acted in good faith, but the unprotection of some of these articles shows a lapse in judgment in my honest opinion. In any case I agree with Luna, lets take it case by case for now. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 01:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no doubt this was a good faith move, especially given the foundation issue. But it's also a ill-conceived moved— I would support reexamining all of those semis, but just doing the blanket unprotect was a bit... too bold. — Coren  01:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Batch unprotection is not uncommon. There are several admins who routinely go through Special:Protectedpages to let in a breath of fresh air to those that are locked for too long without expiry. There are some pages that remain protected for years because no one has remembered, or bothered, to get them unprotected. There are some pages which are obvious candidates for permanent semi-protection, and I hope the unprotecting admin applies some common sense, but if any are unprotected and subjected to extreme vandalism then they can always be reprotected. No big deal. -- zzuuzz 01:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't really like batch unprotection... but at the same time, I don't like when admins semi-protect an article and never follow up. Your goal should be finding the right balance of semi-protection and non-protection. Going around and unprotecting articles like Gay and walking away is irresponsible, but so is semi-protecting some obscure article due to a few instances of vandalism, then leaving it semi-protected for 8.5 months. Everyone needs to be more vigilent here... if admins wouldn't make perpetual semi-protections where they really aren't needed, there wouldn't be admins running around doing batch unprotections and walking away. Unprotecting articles like Gay and so on shouldn't be done en masse... anyone wanting to do that should be familiar with the article and its editting patterns and willing to stick around and revert vandalism, and judge when or if semi-protection is needed again. Assuming someone else will do the dirty work is disrespectful of people who deal with unprotected pages, rather than just dash around making them unprotected. --W.marsh 01:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm just following what's been done before here. Before I did it, VOA did a ton of unprotection runs, again because no one else did. A lot of the ones I unprotected had "vandalism" as the reason, and was protected for 8 months. Maybe I'm missing something, but vandalism that happened 8 months ago doesn't matter anymore. If I don't do large unprotection runs, the backlog will just get bigger and bigger as time goes on (as it has for the last 8 months). Sometimes these articles are protected almost indefinitely because no one goes through them ever, and no one bothers to ask for it to be unprotected. That's obviously not what Jimbo nor the WMF have in mind for the "Encyclopedia that anyone can edit", because we have way too many uselessly protected pages right now. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 01:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I would encourage you to try to figure out which ones were bad semi-protections, just in response to relatively minor vandalism, and which ones were on articles with severe vandalism problems. Unfortunately, community consensus is that some articles, like George W. Bush, really have to be perpetually semi-protected... advocates of non-protection have unprotected that article then quickly reprotected it in frustration. You unprotected too many pages, as far as I can tell, for you to be following up on them all to see if vandalism got out of control on any of them. --W.marsh 01:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Then how are all these articles going to be unprotected? Shall I request the unprotection of a thousand articles at WP:RFPP? -Royalguard11(T·R!) 01:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You should indicate you aren't just throwing the article to the wolves, but will be watching it and helping out. Vandalism isn't just magically dealt with... the people who deal with it appreciate a little respect. --W.marsh 01:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way, even after the "excessive" amount I unprotected, the backlog still stands at late April. If I unprotected the first 1000 articles, that only puts us at Oct. 10. There's still 2 months after that. Do you have any better ideas on how to deal with that? -Royalguard11(T·R!) 01:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, everyone needs to be more vigilant... that includes admins who don't set expiration dates (not sure if that feature was around in April though) on semi-protections, and otherwise don't follow up with their semiprotections. If they didn't do that, it's my belief there wouldn't be such backlogs in the first place. But one irresponsible action doesn't justify another... even if it is a big backlog. I could go close every open AFD in a few hours, and justify the dozens of bad closes by saying "How else could we have dealt with the backlog?" --W.marsh 02:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I must have missed the memo. When did AFD become 8 months behind? The difference is, of corse, AFD is always cleared within a week because it's watched. And while looking through the logs for pages, some had been thorough an expired protection, then reprotected without one. There were several admins who just repeatedly didn't set an expiry date. There are some who don't put an expiry date now for no good reason. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 02:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Have you talked to any of these admins? --W.marsh 02:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Two things would help here - first, talk to these admins, as W.marsh says. Second, in the spirit of poka-yoke, is there any way of changing the protection page so it puts an expiry period of 1 month in the field as default, forcing someone to actively select indefinite protection? Neıl ☎ 09:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That second is actually a really good idea. Don't know why it never occurred to me that "Indefinite" should not be the default option for article protection any more than it should be for account blocking. Is this a proper issue for a BugZilla request, or is there a simpler way to edit that interface? — Satori Son 15:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

(deindenting) I don't think there's any point trying to talk to admins. Some even missed the whole point here, so if you want to say something, go ahead, I don't think it'll change anything. I see also that no one has come up with a viable solution for the problem at hand (backlog of pages). The idea about defaulting to 1 month I like, because I'd consider that to be the maximum for any new protection. As zzuuzz said above, articles can be reprotected, it's not a big deal like it's been made out to be here. If someone reverts my unprotection, I won't loose any sleep over it, I promise. Everyone is way too afraid of being accused of "wheel warring". Like Nike says, Just Do It, and stop trying to be politicians. Be bold has been a wiki-principle forever, but no one does it anymore. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 17:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's any point trying to talk to admins. I'm not sure if that's a good approach. By that reasoning, the rest of us ought not talk to you, either, and just undo your actions without comment.... Incidentally, I don't mind the idea of having a default protection period of some intermediate length. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There's no point in talking, the only solution is to undo admin actions with a template message? This kind of behavior on both sides is why we have this problem. As far as I'm considered both sides are being uncommunicative and irresponsible... then wondering why there's a problem. --W.marsh 19:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

... be bold but not reckless. I have no beef with unprotecting most of those articles. I have a big problem with mindlessly unprotecting all articles without so much as a bit of consideration on whether it's a good idea for the specific articles. — Coren  21:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

As nobody seems to object to putting a default protection period of a month rather than the blank "indefinite" period, does anyone have a Bugzilla account and would be willing to request this? I am technically inept and would quite possibly request the wrong thing from the wrong person. Neıl ☎ 09:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ditto; such a request is completely unfamiliar to me. I'm not even sure BugZilla is the right venue; it might just be a matter of someone editing our local en- interface? Again, no idea, but it would be a shame to let this excellent suggestion fall to the wayside. Any suggestions from anyone on how to get this implemented? — Satori Son 13:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I found no Mediawiki page for this. You're welcome to dig through Special:Allmessages, but I'd just report a bug (I'll do it myself later if no-one does, but the bugzilla search isn't working for me right now, and I'd want to check it wouldn't be a duplicate first) —Random832 16:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to give up here. I will stop unprotection runs. But, since you guys want me to stop, you can figure out a way to deal with the problem that we have. Oh, and just keeping them protected for longer isn't an option. We're already violating our principles by having these protected for 8 months. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 17:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Is this a legal threat?

LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Marcellogarcia made this edit recently. Is this acceptable? GlobeGores (talk | contributions) 21:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The article has now been deleted under BLP concerns, and any possible legal threat has been removed with it. Unless the editor repeats the comments (which I haven't looked at) at another venue then we should all just move on. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, reviewing their complete contributions including deleted, it's hard not to conclude that it's a single purpose vandalism-only account. I indef blocked Marcellogarcia. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Marcello is asking for an unblock review and may have clued in. Uninvolved admin review requested. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Their unblock request states, "I agree to add content to a page only in accordance with Misplaced Pages's rules. I understand that my substantive difference regarding the William P. DiSalvatore page was not an excuse to get into a needless war over the site and that wikipedia provides ways to deal with disagreements. This is my first time using wikipedia and I have learned something about how it works from this disagreement. Please take this into consideration."

This new user seems pretty reasonable at this point, and I would support an unblock. — Satori Son 01:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

As the user who brought up this request, I hope I'm allowed to voice a comment here: althought I'm not an administrator, I would support an unblock of Marcellogarcia now that he/she seems to know the rules and promises to abide by them. Feel free to strike, remove, or otherwise indicate that this comment is invalid if it is invalid. GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 07:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There are no restrictions on who can comment on things here, although it might be best to avoid putting things in bold like that, people might think you've mistaken this for a vote. --Tango (talk) 20:51, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I see Nat is handling this and has given them an easy and reasonable option for getting unblocked. Looks resolved to me. — Satori Son 20:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

A second set of eyes

Hey guys, I am having a very minor disagreement at Talk:Charles Peirce about content that has been merged as a result of an AfD. Nothing untoward has occurred, but I would like a second set of eyes on it to make sure that I am not way off base here. Also, I am curious about an editor who gets into a debate about our compliance with the GFDL within 6 minutes of his/her first edit. Thanks Pastordavid (talk) 21:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Did you merge the full content of Prescisive abstraction into Charles Peirce? Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 21:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I placed it (it was a short stub) onto the talk page of the article, for the editors who know more about the subject to merge into the article as appropriate. The original article (Prescisive abstraction‎) was not deleted, but redirected. Pastordavid (talk) 21:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There's a help guideline that governs what you need to do in this case. You can find it at Misplaced Pages:MERGE#Full-content_paste_merger. So, in short, cut-and-paste mergers can be GFDL compliant, as long as you follow that guideline. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 21:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think this new account might be an old friend whose name rhymes with Jon Awbrey. east.718 at 23:24, December 18, 2007

• Cloff! Guy (Help!) 23:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, I thought something might be off about the account, but AGF and all that. Pastordavid (talk) 12:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Alert: Have just reverted this . Looks like someone is back again, as this is his first (major) edit. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 16:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
• User:Kato9Tales has just appeared and reversed my reversion herer . It is clear this is the same user as before. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 17:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Both now blocked. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 18:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The dépeceur of Bergen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

User:The dépeceur of Bergen is accused on the checkuser page of issuing serious threats in french. It does not qualify as a checkuser case and I do not speak french so I am bringing it here. Below is the text of the complain from CAT:RFCU. -JodyB _talk 23:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Supporting evidence: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3ABradipus&diff=177566301&oldid=173777205.

I do not know if any of you speaks french, but this text is a death threat directed to me and my family. This is most probably linked to fr:WP:MS, a long term vandalism on WP:fr. Besides vandalising, the vandal steals identities (I had some difficulty getting back the "Bradipus" identity, also here), and posts defamation on WP:fr admins all over internet (here in the serbian WP, a text accusing various admins of serious crimes such as pedophilia!!).

But what brings me here is this text of which I will translate the beginning: "I will cut you into pieces. I was unfairly blocked (not by me, as far as I know), I will do justice myself. I will cut you into pieces and eat your brain and your willie. I will kill all french speaking bourgeois (...). I will take care myself of your two little pieces of trash (that refers to my two children who are mentionned on my user page) that I will drown after crushing them against a wall. We will have your wife raped by hobos. No flemish would want to have that latin bitch (...)".

Death treats againts me and againt my family, this is getting quite serious. And according to what I know, this guy may well live a couple of kilometers away. I would like to get the IP of that guy if possible. Bradipus (talk) 21:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Ask Slakr. He knows French. —BoL @ 23:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It is definitely a death threat. Blocking. — Coren  23:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

... been beaten to it. — Coren  23:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I was able to get it confirmed. -JodyB _talk 23:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Ewww... Very nasty (odd it's in French, though, given the rantiness of the content against Francophones). I see there's a link in there to the nl wiki. Might that be worth investigating by the people over there? Tonywalton  00:51, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Took a look at nl - the user mentioned appears to have been blocked as a sokpop (what a nice word) some time ago. Takes all sorts. Tonywalton  00:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It is fr:Wikipédia:Vandalisme de longue durée/Affaire Lustucri-MS and m:Vandalism reports/BogaertB. -- lucasbfr 01:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Someone should update the meta page (is protected). x42bn6 Talk Mess 04:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I've taken advice from Mike Godwin here and have now answered the above checkuser case to the best of my abilities under the circumstances. I wish there was more I could do here but there isn't. I've revealed as much information as I can legally do and note that there is no useful geo-locating information to be obtained from the underlying IP address. BTW - the message in French actually reads worse than the above translation, IMO. It's disgusting - Alison 04:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I did not want to be accused of exagerating in my translation...thanks for the efforts. Bradipus (talk) 07:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not an exaggeration. ("I impatiently await the day of liberation for Brussels by the forces of public hygiene" - Mon dieu!) Neıl ☎ 13:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

My goodness, a death threat in another language, possibly to intensify the message - block endorsed. Maser 04:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And coupled with a username which is the nickname of one of the bloodiest serial killers in recent Belgian historyFrenchEnglish... Not much positive can be expected of this editor. Fram (talk) 14:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Matthew M. Stein deleting sourced content with POV edit summary at 9/11 conspiracy theories

If an admin could take a look, I would appreciate it. This bit of POV-pushing was his first edit in 9 1/2 months. He followed shortly with a reversion to re-delete the sourced material after I restored it. I dropped a note on his page letting him know this was disruptive, and potentially blockable. Mr Which??? 05:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• He is now attemtping to add original reseach and POV wording to the article here. He's made it clear in his edit summaries that he is not editing in good faith. The sooner he is blocked the better. Mr Which??? 06:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
• Still at it. Would an admin please take care of this? Mr Which??? 06:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
• This belongs on WP:AN/3RR since both sides are now edit warring - including 6 reverts by the user being reported here. Report it there instead. EconomicsGuy (talk) 07:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• With all due respect, why? 3RR takes all day, and gives the user all day to keep edit warring, and, quite often, the user will meanwhile get his version protected and not even get blocked (seen it happen a million times) - not to mention this is a single-purpose account, quite possibly a sock. Why the process-wonkery? Just block him. The Evil Spartan (talk) 07:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• With all due respect because a) both sides are warring rather than asking for protection b) if everyone came to ANI with these things they would fill up the entire page and c) because this is a content dispute. AN/3RR is for people fighting over content issues - ANI is not. The rest of your message is irrelevant to what I was responding to. EconomicsGuy (talk) 07:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• With all due respect, both sides are not "edit warring." One side is protecting the status quo version of the page, while the other is attempting to unilaterally insert POV into the article. We little editors don't have the "protect" button, EG. Our only method of "protecting" an article from such POV-pushing is to remove his changes, and to ask for help here, which I did. Mr Which??? 13:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

MrWhich, it's 5:15AM over here. Nobody's awake except for the Australian Cabal™. EconomicsGuy, AN3 isn't a place for content disputes either; they get ignored here but laughed out of there. And lastly, I've protected the article for a while. east.718 at 10:17, December 19, 2007

• How does Stein get away with pushing his POV crap into the article, and I get subtly warned about 3RR by EconomicsGuy? This is the kind of junk that discourages normal editors from reporting problem users here for admin intervention. This seemed like a pretty straightforward block of a SPA/POV-pushing user to me. Never mind, I guess. Mr Which??? 12:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I will review the contributions. Please be patient. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Stein clearly edit warred and was not seeking NPOV or discussing on talk pages. 31 hour block and long explanation on his talk page. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi once again

The following thread above was archived so I had to start a new one. Please review http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Muntuwandi_and_the_Origin_of_Religion. This user has once again thumbed his nose at the process and recreated the same entry now under the name Evolutionary origins of religion. He has been warned by more than one admin not to do so.PelleSmith (talk) 12:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I would like a neutral admin to look into this rather than me - I don't think Muntuwandi appreciated my warnings of "stop recreating deleted content under different article names", and someone he has not previously interacted with may have better luck with him. The content is, at first glance, good, but it is pretty much identical to the recently deleted Origin of religion, so needs a considered approach. See the above thread as Pelle mentions for context and background. Neıl ☎ 13:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I would very much so appreciate someone looking into this. Thanks.PelleSmith (talk) 17:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Due to my responses earlier to Mutuwandi above, I may not be considered an objective observer, but taking a look into this matter I found something disturbing: he claims two Wikipedians support this article he repeatedly inserts into articlespace, when to look at what both actually wrote, neither do. This is dab's comment to Mutuwandi: "you are right, I need to sit down and devote some time to this. The problem is, as always, not with the validity of the topic itself but with your erratic or idiosyncratic approach. I'll get back to this." (italics mine) Bruceanthro's is far to long to quote in total, but he says much the same thing as dab: the topic merits inclusion in Misplaced Pages, but how Mutuwandi handles it is a problem & gently suggests a couple of ways he believes would be better & not result in these objections. I can only wonder how Mutuwandi would consider they support him.

FWIW, I know just enough about the subject this article treats to know that it is a fertile ground for potential original research problems. Any attempt to cover it would need to be extensively referenced, & would include many diverse and controversial opinions -- & this from the sources any contributor would agree are reliable or expert! Personally, I wouldn't dare touch such an article beyond simple copyediting without extensive preparation, & can only speculate the dread any reasonably qualified but non-expert Wikipedian would have. -- llywrch (talk) 20:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you missed some important part of Dbachmann's comments.

"ok, now we slowly seem to be getting over this paleolithic / out of Africa business, how should we arrange this article, and what should be its scope? At present, the article addresses three topics:

• 1. origin of religion in human evolution (origin of religion)
• 2. the development of new religions in human culture (history of religion)
• 3. the teleological view (revelation)

the three topics are all valid, and all related to notions of "development of religion", but I am not sure they should be discussed on the same page. perhaps we should move this whole thing to origin of religion and refactor it so that the historical part is a summary per WP:SS, and delegate the teleological part to a separate article? thoughts?

These are some of Bruceanthro's comments

Myself, I feel it is a commendable and worthy object for an Misplaced Pages editor to seek to create and/or published archaeological research findings and conclusions regarding religions/evidence of religions found around the world. Perhaps rather than seeing Muntuwandi (talk efforts closed down, an article of the kind he has been initiating should be supported, and supplemented with balanced reporting on full range of speculation and theories in this field including evidence and speculation countering Muntuwandi (talk beliefs (in classic Karl Popper style!) .

As mentioned earlier I would welcome any admin who is neutral, willing to listen to all sides and who will follow wikipedia guidelines to participate in helping to resolve this dispute. Muntuwandi (talk) 22:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

NOTE TO ADMINS: Please see the thread I posted above. This is not a content dispute, this is an issue of refusing to abide by the results of established processes. Muntuwandi was warned by two admins but it seems the warnings aren't going to be backed with any kind of action. I have suggested that he only work on the materials on his user space since the entry was deleted but he doesn't care for this suggestion. He has now even recreated Evolutionary theories on the origin of religion and redirected it to the latest entry. Whatever the outcome is regarding this content his behavior is unaccetable and I thought it was being dealt with until now. Could someone please attend to this. Thanks.PelleSmith (talk) 13:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I think somebody has "issues". Up until now, I had not come across an editor who was so determined to see another article deleted. This article causes no harm, it meets all the standards of WP:RS, WP:NOTE and WP:VERIFY. Because of past disputes this article is heavily referenced, from peer reviewed scientific journals, and contains the works of a number of high profile scholars. There is no one who will be misled, cheated by the contents of this article, in fact most will learn at least one or two things. I am aware that I have been the ogre, in this fiasco, because I have insisted that this article is necessary against what on the surface appears to be a consensus. But if anyone is interested in giving it a closer inspection, one will actually find that other editors have engaged in a gross misapplication of wikipedia's policies and guidelines. They believe the WP:OWN, these articles on religion. I am aware that WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, but this article is much more in line with wikipedia's policies than a lot of other articles. For, example these editors accused me of creating a content fork of Development of religion. Development of religion has only 4 footnotes for the entire article and they are only found in one subsection(in short the article is crap).The article evolutionary origins has over 30 footnotes from highly related articles. None of the citations is titled "Development of religion". Any admin is free to verify this. How they came up with this accusation of content forking is still a mystery to me. The notice board isn't a place for content dispute, however because it is an active place frequented by admins, i believe it is ideal place to make an appeal for dispute resolution. Muntuwandi (talk) 16:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

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

I'm asking for some comments on this user. This user has repeatedly made significant changes to articles without consensus, altering active articles to his preferred version, despite several warnings - these are just a short selection of his repeated changes to active articles, reverting them to his preferred version. He has received countless warnings and notices on his talk page, which he simply ignores and continues. I think a block is in order here, as his repeat reverting an editing without consensus despite warnings is becoming extremely annoying. Qst 13:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Haven't got the time to properly look at this now, but judging by this talk page we may also have a problem with unfair fair use here. Moreschi 18:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I may be one of the few people here who don't know the show, but edits 1 & 3 above seem pretty good edits, and the second one very much the opposite. I think the sequence is he makes a good simplifying edit, gets reverted, then tries to make a point by making things a great deal too complicated, gets reverted with an edit summary "this is the last straw" , and then tries to make a similar good simplifying edit. If this is a sample, it looks like he could improve some of the plot summaries. Some but not all of his most recent edits seem OK also. What's wrong with or  ? DGG (talk) 20:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but he has been asked repeatedly not to do this, I rewrote the plot on Stewie Loves Lois when the article was pretty much dead; he then made minor edits, slowly changing it back to how it used to be, I rewrote it further for when it had its GA nomination, and once again, he repeatedly began reverting to his preferred version. Qst 20:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This user has frequently defied warnings about adding frivolous content, yet he continues to add nonsense to several articles including: and . The number of times he edits his sections and the amount of change is pretty significant, borderline original research. The Family Guy article contains a note for users to explicitly NOT add the section about a feature film series. He defied that note and added it anyways.Milonica (talk) 03:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Immediate action requested regarding email abuse

This morning, I opened up my email to discover a blizzard of short messages saying "F*** you, n****"--all sent by way of the "Email this user" function. All of the emails were sent from accounts that were created very early this morning (North American Eastern Time). I am assuming that these are all socks of an experienced user, as it is very unlikely that a new user would know about the email capability. They are also clearly the person, as the emails all come from the same Yahoo Mail address.

I am asking--no, demanding--that the following users be indefblocked immediately:

• Glorybud44 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Beganbud (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Maildeath (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

If necessary, I'll forward samples to any admin who needs proof of this ... just one email from each ID, before anyone gets spooked. Clearly someone is in need of a permanent Wikibreak. Blueboy96 14:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Done, e-mail blocked. Although of course it will be difficult to stop them from continuing through other throwaway accounts if they really want to. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Could try WP:CHECKUSER to try and block the underlying ip. Woody (talk) 14:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/IP check#Email personal attacks. Woody (talk) 14:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Please don't demand. :) However, based on a CU check as reported here the three accounts you've reported operate from a common IP and I have blocked it for a week with account creation disabled. Please advise of any further issues or concerns. I think Kim's on to something interesting if it can be elaborated and turned into a developable thing. Maybe not once per day but certainly not unlimited. ++Lar: t/c 03:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

My apologies, Lar ... I was just hot enough to melt the snow in the Northeast when I saw 400+ emails from this troll clogging my Inbox. Thank God I have Yahoo Mail ... Blueboy96 12:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, this might be useful to report to devs, as it's a spamming loophole. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Kim, are you thinking of putting a limit on its use? For example, allowing each person to use this feature only once per recipient in a given period of time? (The recipient usually has an email address for the sender, so if the recipient wants to talk about something off-wiki they can reply, which gives the sender the recipient's email address, & neither needs to use this again.) Or do you have a better solution Kim? -- llywrch (talk) 21:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Concerns for User:Bluetim1

Here. Special:DeletedContributions/Bluetim1 may have clues as to identity. Dlohcierekim 14:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

"Worthless People" and expression of anger User:Bluetim1 and on my talk. Special:Contributions/Bluetim1. Dlohcierekim 14:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not therapy. There is not direct threat at all. I consider this matter to be a non-issue. - Jehochman 14:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the Resolved tag as I believe that this IS an issue. Is it possible for someone who can access the IP address of the user in question to forward details to the local law enforcemetn so that a check can be made - as has been done in previous cases? DuncanHill (talk) 14:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Too right! Misplaced Pages is not therapy, but it might be nice if a checkuser could identify him and send out the appropriate help. Do I need to post there, or can we get this done from here? Dlohcierekim 14:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

But, there is no threat apparent. Let's not create drama for the sake of drama. Encouraging people to file reports that waste law enforcement resources is not a joke! Perhaps I am missing something. Can you point to the diff that contains an actual threat? - Jehochman 14:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as a nurse, I see enough to say we need to try to identify this person and have the cops do a welfare check. Speaking form Misplaced Pages:Potentially suicidal users, there is enough to contact the authorities and have them do a welfare check. We are not shrinks and could not assess over the internet if we were. Ergo, the best, safest choice is to try to identify and get local authorities to check. Dlohcierekim 14:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Also per Misplaced Pages:Potentially suicidal users, it is not a waste of time. Dlohcierekim 14:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk of suicide is often a threat of suicide even if the threat is not directly articulated. In my experience, the police would much rather investigate and find no real problem, than not receive a report and run the risk of having to tell a family that their loved one is dead, and that someone knew there might be a problem and chose to do nothing. To make a good-faith report of concern to the police is never a waste of their resources, instead it is giving them the information they need in order to do their job properly. DuncanHill (talk) 14:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Diff? I don't see talk of suicide. - Jehochman 14:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The VERY FIRST diff at the start of the thread - the addition of the comment "solves everything" to the talk page of Suicide. DuncanHill (talk) 14:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Suicide talk page here, as I already posted. State of mind as evident in his comments to my talk page and and his uesr page. State of mind in the deleted article Worthless People.(Links as per my original, heading refactored by someone else, post.} Dlohcierekim 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That's trolling, perhaps, but not a threat. I will say it again, Misplaced Pages is not therapy. Don't try to get inside other peoples' heads. Bringing this to ANI is risks WP:BEANS. - Jehochman 15:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You are not qualified to to say it is not a suicidal ideation. Having the cops come to the house and consider an involuntary commitment is the last thing any one wants. It will not encourage anyone to post such remarks to have someone send out the cops and check. That is why the policy says to post here. Dlohcierekim 15:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• It looks like a simple venting of frustration to me rather than an actual serious threat. I wouldn't consider a ambiguous statement made 10 hours ago to be something that is really actionable at this point. More likely than not, any attempt at this point to get authorities to contact this person will only exacerbate the situation.--Isotope23 15:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the guy is just frustrated because he really wants Misplaced Pages to have an article about his favorite science teacher. Last time I checked, Misplaced Pages:Notability says we don't have articles about non-notable people. It isn't worth it for us to send law enforcement out to his house. There's no credible evidence that he's threatening anything against himself. --Elkman 16:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I know that "otherstuff exists" isn't regarded as a valid reason for keeping an article, but Misplaced Pages has thousands of articles about non-notable people - but women who flash their tits for money, or guys who wrote some obscure video-game are apparently the sort of people a lot of editors want to see here. DuncanHill (talk) 16:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but we're not in a position to judge whether somethings credible or not. We're not mind readers, it's always worth it to send law enforcement on check welfare calls. It's part of their job and it's what they do. I'm always surprised when I read people's comments when they try and judge whether someones serious or not. I'll tell you one thing, they (LE) always take this stuff seriously. Always. And we should too. It's not "therapy" having someone do a welfare check...RxS (talk) 16:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no threat at all. If you look at the diff, there is no statement whatsoever like "I am going to do X". Please people, let's stop being trolled and get back to work. - Jehochman 16:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Worth pointing out that if law enforcement authorities conclude that there is no threat and do not act, it then becomes their decision rather than ours, and I'd much rather they decide than myself. That being said, there is a high chance it is simply trolling. Orderinchaos 19:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Expressing unhappiness is not a threat to commit suicide. Proceeding with matters like this is nonsense. W are not here to do welfare checks, or to screen our posters for mental illness. DGG (talk) 20:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed we are not here to do welfare checks - but the police are happy to do them, it is, after all, part of their job. DuncanHill (talk) 22:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

re the 'lets stop being trolled' comments (& keeping in mind what duncan just pointed out): following WP:SUICIDE & passing it on to relevant lea without attempting to second guess users mindstates is the least 'troll-feeding' option. as it is by having this discussion every time this comes up (a few times in the last fortnight) we are effectively giving potential trolls far more attention than we would by simply following a procedure which, btw, was wholeheartedly endorsed by jimbo & many long standing eds/admins in one of those recent discussions.  ⇒ bsnowball  08:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Seung-Hui Cho

Probably vandalism, but this comment was posted on the talk page: "I MUST SAY THIS DUDE IS LIKE A ROLE MODEL TO ME.. IM PLANNING ON DOING A SIMILAIR MASSACCRE IN MY SCHOOL ITS GONNA BE AWSOME!!!" see diff: --Strothra (talk) 17:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Hm, he just posted that it was a joke, . --Strothra (talk) 17:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Still worthy of advice that this, even as a joke, is unacceptable on Misplaced Pages. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 17:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree. --Strothra (talk) 17:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Report to WMF if possible? —BoL @ 03:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Too much, I doubt the Foundation would be bothered. A stern warning from an Admin should be enough. It would be very different indeed if the comment had not been retracted, however. That would have merited LEA involvement. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 14:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Article becoming image gallery

User:Nikkul insists on putting an image in Poverty in India article taken by him with a caption Low income homes in rural. In doing so

• The article is becoming an image gallery
• The image is cleary irrelevant there.

Despite my repeated deletions, he is adding the image again and again. Someone please investigete the matter. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Nikkul also put this image in Poverty article. The image is also irrelevant there. He is specifically insisting of putting this image photographed by himself. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 18:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

As long as the image is properly licenced, and not obviously vandalism, then the matter of its inclusion in a particular article is a content dispute. As such WP:DR, rather than WP:ANI, is the correct venue at which you raise your concerns. In particular, with the exception of over-use of fair-use material, articles becoming image galleries (or not) isn't specifically an admin matter. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - doesn't seem to be a problem, as the image is properly licenced, and image seems appropriate to article. Orderinchaos 19:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The image may be licensed, but the problem is that the image is not appropriate there. This image is very misleading to the subject of the article. The homes shown in the image doesn,t illustrate the subject of the article. The homes may belong to those who are not affluent, this is not explicitly illustrative of poverty in India. Poverty in India is much more dire than this image. The article has three images which exactly illustrate poverty. This image is completely irrelevant and is being input with POV to disparge the subject of the article. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 19:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

However, this is not the place to discuss it. I cannot find any sign of you trying to discuss with User:Nikkul regarding those images, one of the first steps in dispute resolution. This "case" is a content dispute which needs to be solved by dispute resolution, and this page is not part of it. x42bn6 Talk Mess 19:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Oldspammer

Oldspammer (talk · contribs)

I'm going on holiday in 16 hours, so don't expect much response from me. However, this user - who Ive had dealings with in the past - seems absolutely incapable of WP:NPOV, and WP:UNDUE. He's an altmed type, and not very civil about it either. For instance, in response to one person pointing out that he's citing studies that deal with dental treatments as evidence for blood treatments, he says:

An Alzheimer's patient might believe your argument that electroporation of the blood (BE) is completely unrelated to electroporation of other fluids because they have lost the abilities for judgement, reasoning, and higher level thinking.

He also claims that altmed is being repressed, and inevitably is promising and useful:

"Alternative medicine is any promising medicine that has not been adopted by and is not used by mainstream medicine, or has been shunned or suppressed by big pharma for political and trust (as in anti-trust monopoly) reasons."

And why is there no evidence of their usefulness?

Other examples of debunking involve drug trials where 1/100th to 1/16th of the effective dosage is used in the drug to be debunked. Even then the submitted results were tampered with so that no positive effects were tabulated, nor found their way in the observation summaries. Their conclusions were forgone: drug to be debunked is ineffective against disease. How surprising?

Other blood treatments have probably been conducted in a similar shoddy fashion to elicite the desired outcomes for the people funding the scientific studies.

...That's right, there's a conspiracy of fraud against them all.

These examples are pretty typical of him; frankly, I don't think he's able to write in an NPOV manner. I'm not sure what should be done, but surely something. Adam Cuerden 19:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

What should be done with him? Let him talk. We don't block people for making bad arguments. What he said does not amount to libel. DGG (talk) 20:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If it was just talk, yes, but he also is a major force for the creation of bad and biased articles on fringe subjects. Adam Cuerden 20:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The most immediate issue appears to be disruption at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Blood electrification (2nd nomination). - Jehochman 20:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

We dealt with that fine--an ed. moved the excessive comments to a talk page. I see he is not the only one saying keep at that AfD. DGG (talk) 21:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If it was just that AfD, fine, but it's not. It's just that it was a convenient nucleus to set out some of the problems. Adam Cuerden 21:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If I may, as someone who's interacted with Oldspammer in the past... His focus is on very specific topics: "blood electrification" and Robert Beck, an entrepreneur associated with same. He's had real difficulty with basic policies like WP:V, WP:NOR, etc. I've tried to help here, but these issues are coupled with a readiness on Oldspammer's part to assign anyone who disagrees with him or cites policy to the vast conspiracy to suppress the truth about blood electrification. Recently, canvassing has been an issue as well (, , , <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User:Lupin/navpop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&dontcountme=s">8062&diff=prev&oldid=177656588, etc) - though Oldspammer has denied that these posts constitute canvassing, and continued posting to a highly selected audience, albeit in less inflammatory terms (, ).

The question of what to do is interesting. I agree with DGG that we don't block people for making bad arguments. Prolonged editing contrary to policy is a bit tricky. In this case, Oldspammer's edits are limited to a small series of articles. I think the best approach is to continue working with him and deal with these articles as we would any other - apply notability criteria, WP:V, WP:NOR, etc. I think the more editors work on these articles, the better, since my experience has been that Oldspammer is either not understanding basic Misplaced Pages policy or is unwilling to follow it. But a block would be somewhat harsh, based on what I've seen so far. A few more paranoid attacks on other editors as members of a pharma-FDA conspiracy, or more blatant canvassing, might change my mind. MastCell 21:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Other highlights include constant reference to a Big Pharma-FDA conspiracy (), fact-tagging another editor's AfD comments: , and this canvassing gem, which I'd missed earlier: . Again, I'm not arguing for a block, necessarily, but the problem goes well beyond a few bad arguments at AfD. MastCell 21:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you think mentorship would help him? Adam Cuerden 23:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Nah. He's a man with a mission, and mentoring won't change that. I don't think a block is necessary. As long as they don't cross over into tendentiousness, contrary editors serve a purpose in motivating other to make sure that our sources are top-notch and so on. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Have a great holiday, Adam. When you get back you will find that Misplaced Pages is still here and there will still be things that need fixing. These things may or may not involve particular altmed editors and articles attracting same, but that is true if you didn't have a break. :~) Happy Christmas. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks! And see you when I'm back! Adam Cuerden 23:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Abusive identification of Legistorm.com as "spam"

Continuing his crusade of administrative abuse, User:JzG has add legistorm.com to the MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (see this edit). As discussed earlier, this is a neutral, non-partisan site that provides objective and relevant information regarding Congressional staff salaries. Above and beyond the general benefit of providing this information fro all congressmen, an example of where this is particularly relevant was a citation used at the Jerry Lewis (politician) article, documenting the fact that the representative's wife is employed at $120,00 per annum as his chief of staff. This reference was removed by JzG, with an excuse in the edit summary noting that he was "removing per discussion on ANI and elsewhere". The problem is that there has been no consensus reached that Legistorm.com is spam, nor has there been any support here for JzG's bizarre position. It seems that JzG, having been caught with his pants down in an abusive block of User:Timjowers, has decided to compound the abuse by declaring the site spam, preventing any reference to the site in any context. Above and beyond removing the listing from MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist, it is high time that JzG is stripped of any and all administrative powers. Alansohn (talk) 20:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• I suggest proposing the removal of the site from the blacklist at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed_removals. User:Zscout370 21:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
• I can't find any relevant ANI discussion or even a consensus on the blacklisting of the link. After viewing the site, I can't find any reason that the site should be banned, given that it does do a heck of a job at providing politician salaries. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Here is all I can find: . It's used as such in the CongLinks template, such as this example. And there has been no discussion or even feature removal at the template, indicated here. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • It would have been blacklisted for spamming, obviously. It was blacklisted per here, here, and here. Sean William @ 21:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Looking above and here, five accounts and an IP registered to the site have spammed the link. I support the blacklisting. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 21:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
• One problem with the site is lots of ads. Adding a link to hundreds of congresscritter's articles helps to funnel eyeballs and therefore ad revenue to the site. Linking to a noncommercial source for the same information is preferred under external links policy. Thatcher131 21:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That sounds right (although google adsense is hardly "lots of ads"), but is there a non-commercial site? A quick look finds me no replacement. Unless there's an alternative available, I think the site should be removed from the blacklist and be linked on its own merits.

As for the retributive attitude, I understand the need to deter spammers, but I'm going to confess some ignorance. When I think of "spam," I think of a minor site getting undue placement for its own benefit. These links, although they were spammed, look meritorious and have been adopted by non-COI users. I think it would be bizarre to blacklist meritorious sites; it would give bad faith spammers the ability to block links to sites they don't want. I think this kind of gaming would occur in political topics. Cool Hand Luke 22:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I don;t think the links, as added, were meritorious or editorially appropriate. It's as if you put a list of salarys of Microsoft executives in Bill Gates' article. See my comments below. Thatcher131 22:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

No. Gates is not a public servant; it's a strange comparison. Even JzG saw merit to the information stating, "If that is public information it'll be available form a site that does not eomploy spammers." Isolated sources do sometimes report on staff expenditures, but this has the combined annual data in one place, along with their financial disclosures, which are useful primary documents. The Washington Post links have more ads than this, quite honestly. Cool Hand Luke 22:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There are two separate issues here: 1) is it appropriate for an editor, who may be associated with a website, to add hundreds of links to the site; and 2) does the legistorm.com website, which provides neutral and objective details re congressional staff salaries qualify as spam, such that it should not be included as a link under any and all circumstances. You might find support that case 1 qualifies as spam (though I would heartily disagree). As for case 2, there has been no discussion, let alone any valid justification offered, as to why the site should be included on a blacklist so that neutral third party editors could add it as a link or reference. It is case 2 that is the subject for discussion here. I am more than willing to leave issues of JzG's administrative abuses to be dealt with separately. Alansohn (talk) 22:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no attempt to provide any context here, such as "representative Smith has the largest and highest paid staff, despite being a junior member" or some such. Remembering that this is supposed to be Rep. Smith's biography, a bare link to a site with information on his staff salaries seems tangential at best. If Rep. Smith has had problems with his staff, or his staff has in some other way come to public notice, perhaps. As nothing more than a link, without context in the article, and on a tangential topic, it is unquestionably spam. It may or may not deserve to be on the blacklist; I expect that if Rep. Smith or Sen. Jones' staff suddenly get embroiled in a scandal, their salary information will be covered by other sources without the spam problem. Thatcher131 22:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Would you put information about Microsoft executive salaries in Bill Gates? Is there an article on Congressional Staff Members that discusses salary? This would be a good place for the link, or as a source. Thatcher131 22:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That is a faulty analogy. I also wouldn't link to how Bill Gates voted, what his campaign contributions were, or how various interest groups rated him either (all of these are currently on all/most congresspeople). Neither those or staff salary information makes since in the context of a CEO of a private company. However, they all DO make sense when we are talking about a public, elected official. Each of these are currently used. The following two of them also from sites that feature ads as well (more prominant than those on legistorm), and have not be blocked.

The bad actions from some users/ip's apparently associated with the legistorm domain justifies blocking (after the warnings I assume took place) those users and/or ip #'s from editing -- it does NOT justify blocking an a site that offers useful, relevant information that is not offered anywhere else online (that any of us have found). kenj0418 (talk) 22:51, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Claire McCaskill's voting record maintained by The Washington Post (huge ads) Claire McCaskill's issue positions and quotes at On The Issues (dancing and/or blinking banners)

• Jesus wept. See the start of the thread? User:Alansohn. As far as he's concerned the definition of an abusive action is: I did it. He has been nurturing a grudge against me for pointing out that he used misleading edit summaries in a content dispute. I blacklisted the site because it was being spammed, it's a perfectly standard action, thois is an AdSense spam site which was being heavily linked by single purpose accounts - the canonical definition of link spamming. It was linked on the noticeboards and the spam project. What's really bizarre here is that it was Alansohn who originally complained about the legistorm spammer! Which admins will Alansohn permit to deal with his reports of spamming, so we can avoid being accusded of admin abuse for dealing with a problem that he identifies? Guy (Help!) 22:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Wait a minute. Before everyone gets out the pitchforks and torches, lets look at the spam report earlier today (well before the blacklisting) on the WikiProject Spam talk page. Another admin, Hu12, went through all the edits of multiple single purpose accounts (and a Storming Media IP) and found two of these SPAs had added 656 links with no other edits.

That's incredibly abusive spamming -- probably the worst case reported in a month or two. Guy absolutely was justified. He just got confused and referred back to the WP:ANI page and not the WT:WPSPAM page. --A. B. 22:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The bad actions by some legistorm related people (I'll take it on your word that it happened) does not justify removing a legitimate, informative website by blocking the entire domain in the spam blocklist. This is a ridiculous overreaction. I have requested that this domain be removed from the blacklist. MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed_removals kenj0418 (talk) 23:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a complete inability by JzG (and his apologists) to distinguish between actions and content, combined with an utter refusal to pursue consensus on this issue. While one could argue (weakly) that the addition of links by those assoicated with an external site could constitute spam, no one -- not even JzG at his most disruptive -- has argued that the site itself is spam, and that no third party editors should be able to add links to the site under any circumstances. You admins can decide amongst yourselves if the editors associated with site and adding links are spammers. I'm not, and I am one of many editors who want to link to the site. Either give a legitimate policy reason why the site should be blocked as spam under any and all situations or remove the link from the MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. Alansohn (talk) 23:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• It's a wiki, and what is done can be undone. There is no question that the addition of 600+ links, to an ad-supported site, with no other editorial content or purpose, is spam. Putting the site on the black list is the most effective way to deal with it. If a regular (i.e. multi-interest, not connected with the site) editor wants to selectively add the link where appropriate (say, to an article about a congressperson who has a staff scandal) he can ask that it be removed from the list, either temporarily or permanently. But there is nothing wrong with the initial blacklisting at the time. Thatcher131 23:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• So if I added it, it'd be okay? Either the links are okay or they aren't. The account that adds them shouldn't matter. Timjowers e-mailed me today. Fortunately, I don't think he's gone for good. So, at least Guy didn't manage to chase off a potential contributor. Mr Which??? 00:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• I get the impression a huge number of SPAs (sockpuppets?) were adding a huge number of links in a very small amount of time. Why wouldn't that attract some stiff attention? I don't think I've seen a declaration that "we won't link to this site, ever," more like "WAAAAAAGH WE'RE DROWNING IN LINKS STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT." Now that things have hopefully calmed down a bit, it's easier to discuss the merit (or lack thereof) to linking. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I would say that if you as an editor felt that this site was a reliable source in an editorially appropriate context, then you should be able to do that. However, adding 600+ links in the absence of any editorial context was spamming. These are bios about the members, not their staffs. If the article includes discussion of the staff so that it is relevant to talk about their salaries or financial disclosure forms, then this site might be a good reference to cite. The distinction is perhaps too subtle for some, but I think (in general but definitely in this specific case) that adding relevant sources to the body of the article as determined by the needs of the article is good editing, but adding the same external link to 600+ articles is spamming, even if the site would be acceptable as a reference under other circumstances. I guess that means that I think the site should be taken off the blacklist, but that the prior editors who made 600+ links were spamming, and the addition to the blacklist was in good faith. Thatcher131 00:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Justifiable Blacklisting, supported by evidence, more evidence and facts. Misplaced Pages is NOT a "repository of links" or a "vehicle for advertising". External links policy on Advertising and conflicts of interest states You should avoid linking to a website that you own, maintain or represent, even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked. This blacklisting is a clear result of WP:SPA (WP:SOCK) accounts and a WP:COI IP ('Storming Media LLC) being employed for the sole purpose to Spam Legistorm.com and to self-promote. see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Storming_Media_LLC_Spamming. Storming Media LLC has clearly illustrated a situation where a single company is using Misplaced Pages to promote for their own interests (Adsense pub-5159231827098763).--Hu12 (talk) 00:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Again, all you have accomplished with this supposed "evidence" might support the fact that those individuals associated with the site who are adding links may justifiably be considered spam. There has been no discussion or justification provided by the administrator who blacklisted the site as to why this was done or what we're being protected from. Nothing in this laundry list of links justifies falsely labeling the site and its contents as spam. I -- and many other editors -- have indicated that there are valid reasons to include the site in articles, both in references and as external links. Rather than asking "Mother, may I" for each and every article that would benefit from a link to the site, the entry must be removed from MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. Leaving it on the blacklist is disruptive in the most WP:POINTy way possible. Hell, if ads are the real issue, let's get rid of all those links on Congressional articles to The Washington Post and The New York Times. Alansohn (talk) 00:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Then go to MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed_removals. Thatcher131 00:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Alansohn, Additions are logged. The administrator who blacklisted the site did properly log the entry apropriatly, so that future users can easily find the reason. We had this discussion on the CongLinks template's talk page, You were aware of the posibility of blacklisting, and act supprised that it has occured. --Hu12 (talk) 01:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Hu12,t he policy say one should avoid editing with COI, not that it is prohibited. The reason for this is that many good articles (and many good links are originally contributed by people with COI (and then have to be discussed by other editors). What would have been really good is if the outfit had come out with the proposal to link the material there, and let people consider it objectively. I hope we would have decided to use it, for it is truly excellent material that cannot be matched by any other single site, is non-partisanb, and very useful; to supplement our articles. They support themselves by ads, yes, but they do do to a good purpose. Our own purpose is to write an encyclopedia. We have the COI and SPAM policies because most material from such sources does not help accomplish this, and instead contributes to onesidedness, lack of NPOV, and bias rather than enlightenment for the user. When something comes along otherwise, we should use it. They did it wrong, but to we want to punish them for it, or to provide information in an encyclopedia. I care about results. I care about providing NPOV information. DGG (talk) 01:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I hear what your saying DGG, and was well put. Perhaps Whitelisting on a "case by case" basis is best for Misplaced Pages at this point. Whitelisting should be implemented where it can be demonstrated as a valid source, in an appropriate context.--Hu12 (talk) 01:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• The fact that there are two people who believe that there might be a conflict of interest here does not constitute a discussion nor does it create a consensus. No one appointed you or JzG as the authority to determine the appropriateness of this site, and I couldn't give a crap that you can't figure out why anyone would want to link to the site. You have no authority to unilaterally impose a whitelist, and consensus seems clear that this site provides relevant, useful information, that there is no objectionable content that is forbidden by Misplaced Pages policy and that there is no alternative source for this information that would satisfy your arbitrary demands. I'm not surprised that someone would have the gall to propose a possible blacklist; I'm just stupefied that anyone would have the chutzpah to follow through with it. The fact that someone can point to their own gobbledygook in a log doesn't constitute a "justification", it merely provides an excuse. Now that the damage has been done, and it's clear that this is no legitimate purpose to this abusive permanent block, it's time to fix yet one more mistake and remove legistorm.com from MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist. You can even feel free to a log entry explaining the screwup. Alansohn (talk) 05:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

No matter what you think of how it was handled, clearly there was blatant and massive linkspamming by someone with a significant conflict of interest. And as I read through this thread and the previous four discussions, I do see that there was consensus for the initial blacklisting of the site based on that inappropriate behavior.

So let's please try and stick to the current issue, which is whether or not it is now appropriate to un-blacklist the site, as might well be the case. Personally, I am not at all convinced that legistorm.com meets the requirements of a reliable source, but I can see times where it would be appropriate as an external link. Are there any strong objections to now removing it and monitoring its addition to articles? — Satori Son 13:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I object. They spammed their website using five user accounts and an IP. And their website is full of ads. If/when it gets unblacklisted, whats to stop them from doing it again? And what about the advertising on there? I'm thinking that Wikipedian clicking on link = money for them. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 15:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. Now that I think about it, this is probably not the best venue for this particular discussion anyway. For those interested, this matter is currently being debated at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#legistorm.com. Thanks. — Satori Son 15:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You can "object" all you want. The WaPost and the NYTimes have ads all over them, and they're not black-listed. If the only problem is that SPAs are adding them, then let Alansohn put them back in. The information found at the site is neutral and helpful. Blacklisting them is not helpful to the project, which is what we're all about, right? Mr Which??? 15:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Guy thread

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Let's try and keep things on topic, please. "I don't like Guy" comments moved here. Thatcher131 22:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Beyond the resolution of the blacklisting issue (which is, one might argue, better dealt with at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist), I don't know that there's much that this thread can accomplish. I have long been of the opinion that the net effect on the project of JzG's being an admin, and perhaps being an editor, is negative, and I have long been inclined to believe that that view is shared by the majority of the community, although on each occasion of Guy's leaving the project many editors described him as an exceptional admin and encouraged him to return. In any case, though, even as the community has the absolute right to confer the tools on any editor at its discretion, it does not, at present, bizarrely, have the right to remove the tools, and I don't see any behavior—or, really, pattern of behavior, since most of his controversial actions seem to garner at least some support from the community, such that they're not all, I suppose, plainly contrary to consensus and policy— here that would result in the ArbCom's desysopping Guy, and I do not believe that any further input from the community on this issue or on the broader issue of "administrative abuse" will produce any positive results. Joe 21:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• I completely concur with everything you wrote above. And since I don't see the community of admins having the stomach to really sanction him for what he does, I've decided that until or unless he makes another block as bad as the one on User:Timjowers, I will not address him again. He has blanked several threads on his talkpage, by various editors (one that included multiple posts from several editors in that thread alone) who attempted to question his actions. Those aren't the actions of an admin open to changing his behavior, and I'm not experienced enough (a la Giano) to be able to truly agitate for change with the Arbcom. Mr Which??? 22:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a problem with the apparent lack of willingness on the part of admins at large to confront an admin who is managing to seriously piss off a number of good editors through his unwillingness to listen to the community, his (what appear to me to be) misleading comments, his hypocrisy in complaining about behaviour in others which he engages in himself, and his refusal to admit that he ever makes mistakes. DuncanHill (talk) 22:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If there is serious enough conduct, please file the RFC as that will be the first step to resolving this issue. Going straight to ArbCom would probably result in a rejection. spryde | talk 22:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Before choosing to lynch Guy over this spam blacklisting, I suggest you review the evidence at:

• Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Spam#Storming Media LLC Spamming

I think the data on this massive spamming campaign speaks for itself. --A. B. 22:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Just stop with the "lynch Guy over this spam blacklisting" hysteria. Those who have a problem with Guy have made it clear that the problem with Guy runs much deeper than that. Much deeper. Mr Which??? 23:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Then take it to RFC. There's no actions here for an admin to take. Metros (talk) 23:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering when Metros would turn up. DuncanHill (talk) 23:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I've made it crystal clear what I'd like to see an admin do. It's very informal. I don't want an effin' RfC. I want someone who Guy won't "hang up on" at his talkpage to discuss his pattern of behavior with him. Mr Which??? 23:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Request review of User:JzG's block of User:Timjowers

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Referred to RfC if desired

I am formally requesting review of this block. It was placed on a sub-100 edit user, User:Timjowers after he placed links in several different presidential candidates’ articles. It was placed with no warning, and no attempt to engage in a productive, educational dialogue with Timjowers. The block has no expiry, making it even worse. He indef-ed a new user with no warning, and no attempt to engage in productive dialogue pre-block. JzG has steadfastly refused to unblock, though he claims he has no problem with another admin unblocking Timjowers.

Here is the response from the blocking admin, after User:Timjowers responded, with some justifiable anger, to the block. Note the blocking admin’s bite-y “You have precisely two enforceable rights here: the right to fork and the right to leave.”

I would like an uninvolved admin to take a look at Timjower’s contributions to the project thus far, and unblock him straightaway. For further discussion of this block, see JzG’s talkpage, as well as the “spam” thread about Timjowers above. Mr Which??? 23:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

JzG unblocked him about 20 minutes ago. No comment on any further review you were hoping for...just thought I'd mention it. --Onorem♠Dil 00:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. When I constructed the above request, the block was still active. I will strike through the request to unblock portion, but I think such a review of the actions taken in this case might be instructive. Regards, Mr Which??? 00:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• As JzG has now chosen to blank the relevant portion of his talkpage, here is a link to an old page containing the entire discussion, where several editors attempted to reason with him about the block over the last day or so. Mr Which??? 00:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Why is this here? The complainant is already participating in a thread on the same subject at WP:AN. Guy (Help!) 00:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Could you link to that thread please Guy? I have been unable to find it. DuncanHill (talk) 00:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not there. He's probably talking about the "spam" thread above. But this is a thread intended to focus not on Jowers, but on the block itself. Two different--though related--issues in my mind. Mr Which??? 00:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Now that JzG has unblocked the user, you still request that we conduct a "review of the actions taken in this case"? After that, what administrative action do you think would be warranted? This is an administrators' noticeboard, after all, not the Misplaced Pages complaints department. — Satori Son 01:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, but it does say at the top of the page " If you want to make an open informal complaint about misuse of administrative powers, you can do so here.". -- Ned Scott 01:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree with the above statements, seems to be a complaint.--Hu12 (talk) 02:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Are you kidding? I made it clear, I was simply wanting a few admins to take a look at his actions. That Hu12 (a fellow anti-"spam" admin) closed and archived this with an edit summary of "no merit" is beyond unreasonable. I am requesting that it be reopened for an informal review of JzG's actions in this case. Mr Which??? 02:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I would say that Guy could have handled it in a number of different ways. Discussion. COI noticeboard. Editing. Blocking, and without discussion or warning, was probably the worst of the options. But it has been undone and dealt with now. I think that is the best you are going to get. Carcharoth (talk) 02:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks. I basically was just wanting to know that it wasn't just me as a lowly editor that thought the block was a bad decision. Let's hope he didn't chase off this editor for good with both the block and his snarkiness after the block. Mr Which??? 02:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, MrWhich, you asked for a review of the block. A review was performed and closed. What more do you expect to happen, that has caused you to reopen this section? Corvus cornix_talk 22:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Wrong. An admin archived the thread before many people had a chance to discuss the issue. I agreed to the archiving, simply because it appeared that no admins had the stomach to deal with JzG's actions. That tide seems to be turning somewhat. Mr Which??? 22:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

So what do you want us to do? Don't tell us to just look at JzG's actions; we did that many times already. Those who demand change should give suggestions on what and how to change, and not leave other people guessing about their intentions. —Kurykh 22:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I would like for someone with the juice to actually talk to the guy (who he won't feel as comfortable simply reverting threads from) to discuss the pattern of behavior that JzG has evidenced throughout his tenure as an admin, including his bad block of Timjowers referenced above (and his responses to disputes of that block, both here and at the talkpage). I don't have that "juice." Mr Which??? 22:51, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

People make bad blocks over the course of their admin tenure. A few bad blocks that are reversed does not an abusive admin make. —Kurykh 22:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Guy has a history of blanking attempts to talk to him, with edit summaries such as "not interested". He aslo, in my experience, has a history of failing to read threads properly before forming his unalterable opinion. He might be more receptive if an admin had the guts to point out his disruptive behaviour, as it is fairly obvious from his behaviour that he is not prepared to listen to non-admins. DuncanHill (talk) 22:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Quite simply Guy is a nuisance and a menace and as an Admin serves no useful purpose. He needs to be de-sysoped, God knows how with that attitude he was ever promoted in the first instance. The problem is, is there anyone around with the guts to do it? - I doubt it. Giano (talk) 23:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

"Innocent editor"? Please see the domain registration info for guono.com, the site he was adding all those links to. It's registered to "TimmyInternet Jowers". I would not have followed as strict a course as Guy did -- I would have started with a very mild warning -- but Timjowers was adding a number of links to his own website. --A. B. 23:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm afraid nothing alters the fact that Guy's attitude as an admin is wrong and harmful. He services as an admin need to be dispensed with. Giano (talk) 23:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, this is turning into an edit war on this page as people archive and de-archive this discussion. Some 3RR warnings need to start being issued. Corvus cornix_talk 23:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The thread would appear to have been prematurely archived, as discussion is continuing (including edits made to the archived thread by the editor who originally archived it). DuncanHill (talk) 23:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is still no explanation as to what the various anti-Guy editors would have admins do. Corvus cornix_talk 23:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is - we would like some admins to explain to Guy the problems he is causing - I believe I am right in saying that this has already been said above. DuncanHill (talk) 23:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I also object to the epithet "anti-Guy editors" - I am not "anti-Guy", I am anti disruptive behaviour by an admin, and the apparent refusal of admins to attempt to resolve it. DuncanHill (talk) 23:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

What's ironic is the editor that called us "anti-Guy editors" (a clear personal attack), dropped a personal attack notice on my page for questioning the archive. Mr Which??? 00:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It's only turning into an "edit war" because of the abuse of the archive function by Metros. Mr Which??? 23:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This really is a pointless discussion. Admins can block, delete and protect. None of these functions is appropriate even if there was a consensus that Guy was abusing his position, since there is long precedent and practice that editorial abuse is dealt with by blocking one's ability to edit, but admin abuse is dealt with by removing the tools. Only Arbcom can do that. Therefore, discussions like this, no matter who started them and who the focus is, can accomplish very little in relation to the amount of drama and ill feelings they promote. If you intend to file an RFC or Arbitration case, feel free to advertise that fact here. If not, then nothing further can be achieved by perpetuating this discussion. Thatcher131 00:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

An RfC seems like a more organized forum to collect and air grievances of this nature, while hopefully assessing community consensus on the matter. Imperfect, yes, but hopefully better than a posse on AN/I. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

So you are saying that there is no point trying to get Guy to engage in discussion of his behaviour? Or to expect admins to try to deal with disruptive behaviour? DuncanHill (talk) 00:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe Thatcher is suggesting that an RfC would be a better mechanism to achieve both of those ends. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

"Posse" implies some degree of organization, what happened here is that people see a problem being discussed and join in - not a posse. DuncanHill (talk) 00:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't the meaning I had in mind -- was thinking more of the vigilante aspect -- but point taken. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Calling people vigilantes is no improvement. DuncanHill (talk) 00:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Care to focus on, I dunno, the matter at hand? – Luna Santin (talk) 00:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok - Guy's behaviour is disruptive, uncivil, hypocritical, and damaging to the communtiy and the Misplaced Pages generally. The failure of other admins to attempt to engage Guy in discussion with a view to helping him contribute more positively undermines confidence in all admins, and the way in which discussion of the issue is curtailed by premature archiving of threads (this is NOT the first time, as I am sure you are aware) creates more stress and drama than it prevents. I am reluctant to start an RfC, both because I do have better things to do with my time than track down diffs of Guy's behaviour and the effects it has, and because when I have seen Guy's actions, a few predictable admins seem to leap to his defence by a) criticising or mischaracterising those raising the issue, or b) sideling discussions into tangential issues. DuncanHill (talk) 00:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

If only there were some forum where you could back up accusations of admin abuse with concrete evidence like diffs and community support. Like an RfC or something. I'm not trying to be condescending, really I'm not, but you've just specifically said you're not going to take the one avenue most likely to produce results, and that doesn't make sense to me. If you're really of the opinion Guy is ignoring complaints, make the sort of complaint he can't easily ignore. You've said you're unhappy with prior forays on AN/I (I think?), that's probably in part because discussions on AN/I rarely ever lead to desysoppings -- RfC->ArbCom is a more standard escalation, in that regard. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• • Saying I am reluctant to do something is not specifically saying I will not do it - please read carefully. DuncanHill (talk) 00:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Okay? Either an RfC is filed or it isn't. It seems to me that you and Which are getting distracted by unimportant word semantics, and that's blunting your momentum. I mean, I'm sorry that I offended you, that was my mistake. If you want to address allegations of admin abuse, focusing immediately on a poor choice of words I made without really thinking about it isn't getting you any closer to your goal... and it makes it difficult to talk to you, if I have to spend five times as long carefully considering the various ways you might interpret every word I throw out. We're not making law, here, we're talking. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
• Re-focusing, then, after your personal attack calling us all a "posse" and "vigilantes": I started the first thread as an attempt to get a few admins (who Guy wouldn't feel as comfortable just reverting their comments) to attempt to engage him in discussion. That's not too much to ask, and kind of the point of AN/I, I thought. Mr Which??? 00:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• That might depend; is your goal to get analysis of a single admin action? AN/I can work well for that. But an entire admin career? RfC is probably better suited. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, no. IT's more about his attitude, and his playing fast and loose with some of the tools (especially the block button). Having a few respected admins discuss his behavior and actions was what I considered an initial step, before an RfC. Mr Which??? 00:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Ah, I see. Well, if it keeps coming up, and you're not satisfied with his responses, I'd still recommend escalating -- it may not settle matters entirely to your liking, but hopefully getting some proper closure on things will help? – Luna Santin (talk) 00:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• If JzG still believes they have the trust and confidence of the community then why don't they put themselves up for an RfA reconfirmation similar to Walton One. They'd be no need for them to resign beforehand but if the RfA goes against them, then desysopping would be automatic. A lot quicker than an Arbcom and it gives the whole community the chance to express their views and get a quick result. At present it seems admins are easy to create but hard to uncreate, hardly conducive to harmony I'd say.RMHED (talk) 00:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Is he in the admin recall category? If so, then your advice would have been taken already. If not, then your advice is moot. Admins are not politicians subject to constant popularity contests. And we are veering off topic. Again. —Kurykh 00:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I do not think it is accurate to describe a suggested solution as "veering off topic", and it is not a question of popularity, it is one of competence. DuncanHill (talk) 00:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

While I appreciate Mr Which's attempt to badger the admin community into trying to work with User:JzG and improve his actions, this is really a waste of a lot of community goodwill. The community would be better served by allowing User:JzG to actually retire as he has threatened to do, and pick up the admin work he feels he's the only one doing. less drama all the way around. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 00:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk about bad faith and personal attacks... Mr Which??? 00:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

As folks in this thread have been told multiple times already - AN/I is not the place for this discussion, period. If you feel the issue needs addressing by the community, then file an RfC or an RfAr. If you can't do that, then it must not be that important to you. There is nothing that can be done here based on your review, except what you have already tried to do (engage him in discussion). So, move along. Avruch 00:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest opening an RfC on JzG. There's plenty of material to support one (I know where to find plenty without even having to search for it), and I could be one of the certifiers (two are required), because I've tried and failed previously to persuade him to correct his behavior. If anyone else wants to start an RfC, let me know and we can work together to collect all the evidence and get it drafted. Cla68 (talk) 00:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• So, I blocked someone for adding links to a site of which he is the owner. Terrible, the project will crumble Real Soon Now. And I blacklisted a site for no grounds at all, other than hundreds of links being added by single purpose accounts, which is not in the least bit spamming. Much. Given that I appear to be the very spawn of Satan, at least according to my loyal crew of grudge-bearers, can't people find better examples of supposed abuse than these? About the only genuinely helpful or productive thing anyone's said to me lately is "go and write some articles". Which was good advice, so I took it. Guy (Help!) 00:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Guy, do you honestly believe that you are benefiting Misplaced Pages in your rôle as an admin? Or maybe you could be more productive by dropping the tools and going back to writing? DuncanHill (talk) 01:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
  • It's just this kind of snarky attitude that I'm talking about. Mr Which??? 01:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I mean, "loyal crew of grudge bearers"?!? Care to support that accusation in my case, JzG? Before the Durova affair, I didn't know who you were. Mr Which??? 01:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Guy acts grouchy like this sometimes. It doesn't excuse his admin actions, but it does explain (in my eyes) his talk page attitude. It's not so much a snarky attitude as a rather jaded one. Learning when you need time off to recharge the batteries is nice if you can recognise it in yourself, but not everyone can (I generally can't). Carcharoth (talk) 01:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Suggested you do some writing? That was Irpen, wasn't it? Nice articles, BTW. Commented at your talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 01:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
    • For the record, this comment by Irpen was blanked as well, though now Guy calls it "the only genuinely helpful or productive thing anyone's said to me lately." Mr Which??? 01:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

As suggested by others, please take this somewhere else. I don't see any new arguments being made by now and this particular noticeboard is really a poor venue for an ongoing, extensive debate such as this. If Guy's critics were out to criticize him and possibly embarrass him, they've done so by now. If they were out to de-admin him or otherwise smite him, well it's not going to happen here on WP:ANI. If the goal was to deal with the legistorm spam or Timjowers' block, well that's either been done or is being discussed elsewhere. If Guy's critics wanted to get his attention, well clearly he's been reading this since he's made several replies. If the goal was to make Guy grovel, well, it's certainly not going to happen any time soon based on an objective assessment of Guy's comments on things.

This board is largely for short-term incidents that need immediate administrator assistance and attention. If this topic needs further discussion, I'd like to ask that Guy's critics take to his talk page or to an RfC. it's time to open WP:ANI to other traffic. --A. B. 01:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

When taken to Guy's talk page, the comments are promptly deleted. I have diffs to prove this if you need them. He can't just delete comments he doesn't like here. Mr Which??? 01:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the complainants should wonder why no action has been taken on their request, that is, assuming any action is necessary (hint hint). Multiple admins have commented...in the same fashion. Now no one is saying that JzG didn't do something wrong. But the complainants should take a step back before further commenting on whether their quest for JzG's pound of flesh is worthwhile and appropriate. —Kurykh 01:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Your comments add nothing to the discussion, in my view. I don't want a "pound of flesh" from him. I want uninvolved (read: not you) to discuss his behavior pattern with him, and for this behavior pattern to change. That's it. If he refuses, as he is doing, then perhaps an RfC is the only option. Mr Which??? 01:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Likewise your constant expressions of ire add nothing to Misplaced Pages. If you want to open an RfC, open one already and save us all this drama here. I certainly won't stop you. Perhaps you should stop trying to discredit any comment you don't like and blindly charging forward and actually try to follow some advice that we have given you here. Of course, you are free to continue down your path of JzG criticism, but favorable solutions not guaranteed. —Kurykh 01:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Oh, BS. If you look back through here, about the only time my "ire" really got up was when Merkos just archived it without allowing discussion. I've said from the beginning that what I wanted were for some uninvolved admins to talk over JzG's problematic behavior with him, and for his behavior to change. I'm not looking for "advice" here at all, so there's no need to give me any. I'm looking for a few admins to communicate with JzG about his problematic behavior. Mr Which??? 01:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
      • I know you're not here looking for advice. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't take them either. You're here to find admins who will do what you ask, and not finding any, you are here complaining? Does the obvious reason of "because they don't see your point as valid" escape you? But perhaps you will disregard my comments because they don't conform with what you want to hear, so I guess I'm wasting my time on this thread. —Kurykh 01:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
        • One sees remarkably few admins actually speaking up for Guy's behaviour - rather one sees narrow defences of certain aspects of it, or ridiculing of editors who complain. DuncanHill (talk) 02:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
          • And one also sees when the complainants have been judiciously rebuffed, they will repeat the same thing again and again until they get their way. How constructive for the encyclopedia. —Kurykh 02:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
        • Very true, DH. Carch told me last evening (when I opened my "Review" thread) that his response was probably the best I could hope for. He was certainly right. There do not seem to be any admins willing to actually discuss these issues with JzG on his talkpage, which was all I was asking for. How that becomes a "pound of flesh", I have no idea. Mr Which??? 02:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Kurykh's comment was well said. You may want to consider the "conspiring with the Forces of Darkness" allegation, seems he's posibly the very spawn of Satan.. lol--Hu12 (talk) 01:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Let me ask you, Kurykh: if a relatively new admin like myself had done what Guy did, and said what he said, what would have been the response? DGG (talk) 01:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The response certainly would not create this drama here. I'm sorry for not directly answering, but the question seems to have omitted the aspect of prior history, which is in play here. The complainants are trying to use JzG's history as "proof" of their allegations, something that would have been absent for a relatively new admin. —Kurykh 01:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

He asked you a specific question. You did not answer. For the record, the answer is, several admins would have engaged you on your talkpage, and let you know what was wrong with your actions, and how you could improve. That's all I've wanted to see happen from the beginning. (I'm going to go work on the actual encyclopedia for a bit before bed now.) Mr Which??? 02:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

No one told you to answer for me, and no one was asking you to judge my answer. Your interjection was extremely rude. DGG can evaluate my answer himself, and I can elaborate when requested. —Kurykh 02:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And I can comment whenever, and wherever, and for whatever purposes I would like, without your permission. DGG can also evaluate my answer himself, and I'm free to elaborate on your nonresponse if I wish to do so. And there was nothing "rude" in my initial response to DGG. I simply pointed out that you had not answered his question, which you yourself admitted. Mr Which??? 02:21, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Your comment is a good example of the classic "this is a free country" reply. Enough with such boring and pointless rhetoric that only serves to make the encyclopedia look foolish. —Kurykh 02:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Your comment is a good example of the classic "I'm an admin, so I'm inherently smarter than you" reply. "Boring and pointless rhetoric"? Do you ever respond to the substance of a post? You called my initial reply to DGG "rude." It was not. I corrected that notion, reminding you that you aren't empowered to tell me when and where I can post. Arbcom could, but not you. And you respond with another non sequitur. Mr Which??? 02:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Since when was I asserting my admin status? I was calling your reply in my stead "rude," so there goes your straw man. I did not say that you weren't allowed to answer; after all, we can't stop you. I am, however, allowed to rebuke you for it. But let's get back to the current issue of JzG, shall we? —Kurykh 02:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And thanks for admitting you were trying to put words in my mouth. What an ingenious way of trying to convince people of your point. —Kurykh 02:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• I did nothing of the sort. I answered DGG's question, after you gave a non-answer, and admitted that you hadn't directly answered his question. Mr Which??? 02:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Take it outdoors, lads. Raymond Arritt (talk) 02:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Weasel123

User has been blocked by Icairns (talk · contribs) for 31 hours. GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 22:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This user is continuously creating user-talk pages with a message stating they have been blocked indefinitely by User:Chrislk02. He has blanked his user page several times. Could all the fake messages he created please be deleted? He has vandalized my userpage too. Thanks, GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 22:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Report him to WP:AIV as well if it hasn't already been done. He also got my page as well, and I was a bit confused to put it mildly. Wildthing61476 (talk) 22:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

He's been blocked for 31 hours by Icairns (talk · contribs), and it appears his contribs have been reverted already. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I also note his second-ever edit was to install Twinkle. Can he be trusted with it? --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 22:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is there no minimum edit limit on TW like there is for AWB?. Surely since they are as far as i know used for the same things, similar enforcements should be in place.--Jac16888 (talk) 22:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean VandalProof, Jac1688. AutoWikiBrowser is, as far as I know, used primarily for cleanup and/or markup fixes in the mainspace. VandalProof has a editcount limit of 250 (non-vandal, mainspace) edits. GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 22:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

AWB has an edit limit too, you need 500 mainspace, and be approved by an admin, see WP:AWB.--Jac16888 (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Rodhullandemu. Another user, User:Le Funtime Frankie, who has been indefblocked as a sockpuppet of Daddy Kindsoul, had installed TW and was using it to the last 20 or so edits admin Yamla had made (using 'vandalism rollback'). In fact, as far as I know, he still has the Twinkle script in his monobook.js. However, Weasel123 never actually did use TW when he edited. GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 22:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There's ongoing discussion about TWINKLE use over on WP:AN right now; maybe the policy stuff should be directed over that way? Tony Fox (arf!) 22:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Have pointed out this thread over there; I'm thinking that perhaps this discussion would be better on its own page because it clearly has deeper significance than just one or two users. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 23:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Rock Soldier

User has been repeatedly rude, impolite and uncivil on numerous occasions. Recent examples (Some are in the edit summary): , and the restoration of a personal attack after I removed it . I didn't want to argue so I just took it straight here. He makes good edits but he is prone to losing his temper and allowing profanity to enter during his dialogue with other editors. What to do? (I've warned him a couple of times using templates) Scarian 22:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

User:AeronPrometheus

This user is re-adding prod templates after I remove them. --NE2 22:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The discussion is currently here - from AeronPrometheus's comments, I think there is possibly some confusion between proposing deletion and listing at AfD. Addhoc (talk) 23:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Was this really an ANI grade problem? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't think so. In other news, AeronPrometheus reported NE2 to WP:AIV, which obviously led to the report being rejected. Addhoc (talk) 23:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I've taken similar issues here in the past, and sometimes asked if this was an appropriate place with a positive response. Where else would I take it? It was quickly approaching 3RR, and I don't know if removing prods is an acceptable "excuse" for breaking 3RR. --NE2 00:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It looked like it was posted here before there was enough time for them to reply on their talk page and discuss there, though they seem to have missed that for a bit during the reverting.

If they'd refused to talk or kept doing obstinate things for longer then sure, here's fine. But this seems like it was still in an early stage. I figure this is where we come if AGF and patience failed, or in case of serious urgent emergency... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree with George, and notified the user. A bit premature. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

NE2 ignored repeated invitations to discuss the matter as adults. I looked up the proper procedure for this particular issue and reported is as advised by the help pages. Removal of a proposal without any reason given and refusal to discuss matter properly after being given repeated chances to was classified as vandalism so I treated it as such. My infraction, as it is being viewed, was brought to light by other members and I have agreed to back off. However NE2 seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to make this an issue that wouldn't have existed had he too followed the rules. Thank you to the other member of Misplaced Pages involved for being supportive and informative. AeronPrometheus (talk) 07:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You must recover

I've just seen two different pages vandalized by several unrelated IPs, a new user, and a sleeper account with the text "You must recover." Has Colbert organized a new assault on Misplaced Pages or something? This just doesn't make sense to me. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

What pages? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Masahiro Sakurai and Super Smash Bros. Brawl so far (the former is helping create the latter, so maybe not unrelated?). Someguy1221 (talk) 23:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Fairly small number of distinct IPs related, it appears, i'm semiprotecting pages for a week and blocking the IPs for a week. If more show up let us know here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I suspect this is a vandal reference to yesterday's Smash Bros. DOJO!! update, where a "Team Healer" item was revealed. Colbert hasn't been running new material for a while. -Jéské 08:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin

Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I'm interested in hearing from administrators in relation to this user, who has been editing tendentiously on Satanic Ritual Abuse and Recovered Memory Therapy for some time. The user has consistently failed to AGF in relation to editors that do not share his POV. He has accused others of being sockpuppets, lying and falsifying information.

Particularly concerning is his pattern of stalking and harrassing another editor, Abuse truth. I've asked that he cease this pattern of behaviour but it has continued. He has followed Abuse truth from one article to another ("I followed Abuse truth's trail of inappropriate spam here from his disreuptive edits on other articles") whilst blocking dozens of Abuse truth's edits without seeking consensus or establishing a any basis for the constant reverts. When challenged by Abuse truth, he admits that he is reverting AT's changes on 'suspicion' that AT is lying about his sources ("I have no idea whether you're accurate when quoting hard-copy"). He has also accused me of being Abuse Truth's sockpuppet .

Recently, he deleted info posted by Abuse truth stating "I don't believe AT understands the concept of truth". He has also claimed that Abuse truth cannot speak English and later claimed that Abuse truth is lying about his competency in English .

Rubin takes a particular interest in articles relating to child sexual abuse, and his POV on these matters is clear. As his userpage states, he believes that the False Memory Syndrome Foundation is "scientific, unbiased, and in support of children" . It is clear that Rubin seeks to entrench this POV within the articles that he edits, and he has a particularly elastic approach to assessing credibility. In two instances where a source that supports his POV has been demonstrated as unreliable (for instance, by the substantiation of that sources link to a pro-paedophile organisation or the False Memory Syndrome Foundation) he claims that a "severely biased" source is not "necessarily unreliable", whilst elsewhere, he deleted information from a newspaper article on the basis that the newspaper itself was somehow "discredited" , and he supported an attempt to remove a reference to a book by a tenured professor on the basis of the political orientation of the book's publication house.

It looks to me as though Rubin meets all the criteria for wiki-stalking and tendentious editing. A number of editors have expressed concern about his conduct on RMT and SRA but he has yet to modify his approach to the articles, or cease his attacks on Abuse Truth. Any advice or assistance would be welcomed. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 00:21, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, User:Abuse truth is a fairly provocative editor who makes a habit of pushing his POV as far as he can get away with. He is not deliberately disruptive, but many of his contributions are prejudicial, lack sources, or are sourced to (say) the "Leadership Council on Mental Health, Justice, and the Media", a small and fairly controversial group of therapists who work in the area that used to be called "Multiple-personality disorder", or to Feminista!, the online "Journal of feminist art, literature, social commentary and philosophy." To say nothing of his rather "aggressive" username (with concomitant double entendre). Reviewing his contribution logs, and reverting or discussing where appropriate, would not necessarily be out of line. <eleland/talkedits> 00:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

this topic has, not surprisingly, a long history of this sort of behaviour on all sides. As neither believes the opponents are acting in GF in the RW, what can be expected? I know I could not edit there on a neutral way, so I don't try to. DGG (talk) 01:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, it is not appropriate for you, or Rubin, to regularly review an editors contribution logs and revert dozens of changes en masse. Rubin has achnowledged that he undertakes this activity on suspicion that AT is lying or misrepresenting offline sources, but he has yet to actually demonstrate that this is the case.

AT is an inexperienced editor, and your confrontational approach to AT, and Rubin's pattern of harrasment, constitutes a failure of either of you to AGF and work collaboratively with him so that he's more effective in the future. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 01:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd like also like to draw admin attention to the two complaints have been made recently about Arthur Rubin's conduct on the RMT and SRA pages here and . --Biaothanatoi (talk) 01:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

As a courtesy, you should have left a message on Arthur's page about this report on WP:AN/I. It is quite novel for inexperience to be used to excuse poor editing by a new editor (adding unsourced material, removing sourced material) and to condemn the inevitable remedies from experienced editors/administrators as harrassment and wikistalking. You yourself have recently had your own contretemps with Arthur over WP:BLP. Mathsci (talk) 09:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Abuse truth is a single purpose account, my first assumption was that they were an anonymous user to "Abuse the Truth". Their single purpose is to alter every article on child abuse, repressed memories, and articles on people who supported the concept that the day care abuse hysteria of the 1980s was a panic. AT has has been smearing the author of a book, Paul Eberle, and removing text that references the book, and heavily editing the Elizabeth Loftus article to discredit her. AT's tactics are to use fringe material and overwhelm the article with tendentious text. Most of the sources he has been using have been coming from a website called "Stop Mind Control and Abuse". Although AT denies using the site, they have cut and pasted a typo from the site. The Associated Press articles they have been using only exist at that website and the text was verbatim, including typos. Thats why Arthur Rubin has been suspicious of sources used by AT. AT denied using this website but four references used in an article only exist at that site, and a typo was cut and paste from the site. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Todd Marshall

This AfD is so old, it is getting moldy. To merge this may take several mops. Bearian (talk) 00:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

This AfD isn't even an AfD anymore; it's a merge discussion. —Kurykh 00:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Would probably be best to just redirect all the articles to the list for the time being. BLACKKITE 01:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Indiejade, 76.230.237.117 and COI

This user (and her anonymous associate; let's be generous and assume she'd forgotten to log in) have been hitting open source, open-source software and free and open source software with an extlink to her site for the last week. A sample counterargument for leaving these links in from her talk page:

Are you writing your tirades from Internet Explorer in a Microsoft Operating System?

Anyway, yeah, it's not vandalism, but it is obvious COI and it's beginning to get annoying. Talk isn't getting anywhere. Chris Cunningham (talk) 01:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I find the best way to stop this type of nonsense is to blacklist the website. That will put an end to the whole tirade. Consider a report at Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard as well. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I realized that WP:COIN isn't appropriate. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Report of Repeat Offender- Deleting Portions of Article

User ElkenaJ4 is a repeat offender of deleting portions of Venetian_Princess article on a daily basis to start edit warring. I have already posted a warning to this user in talk, and he/she ignored it and continued to vandalize the article. To prevent this user from further abusing of wikipedia articles, I would like to request that this user be blocked.

"Journalist23 (talk) 03:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)"

Keeps simply deleting the text after a few days. Denied at WP:AIV, but I decided to leave a message on the talk page asking why; let's wait and see. Basic content dispute otherwise. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

External links added by Filtv (talk · contribs)

Filtv (talk · contribs) has added links to a Freefoto site in four articles today - for example, please see this edit to Aerial photography. I don't know whether the external links are kosher or not, so I'd like someone to review them and advise the user if there is a problem. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 03:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Must be his own personal site. I've dropped a warning for him. We don't need his link on every article that meets a certain criterion. Cheers--Hu12 (talk) 03:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

According to the Freefoto website, these are free photos — all released under CC-3.0 ({{cc-by-sa-3.0}}). — ERcheck (talk) 03:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Oops. Missed on item, it is cc-by-sa-nc-3.0. So the "non-commercial" makes it non-viable, so to speak, for Misplaced Pages. Well, I certainly can see how the contributor could, in good faith, be making this addition of images and the link. I don't think there was any real spam intent. The editor just needs guidance in the details of licensing of images for Misplaced Pages. — ERcheck (talk) 05:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Polbot

User:Quadell decided to expand the function of User:Polbot without getting permission to do so, without posting any notice on the bot's user page describing the fuction and without monitoring the edits to see if they were being done correctly. This is totally unacceptable behavior. The added function which was the addition and editing of FUR's has very little in common with its other approved functions. An administrator has blocked the bot. Many of it edits have been reverted as vandalism. This kind of behavior should never be tollerated. Bot operators have a greater responsibiliy to comply with Misplaced Pages guidelines and need to be held to task when they so blantly violate them and even more so when the operator is also an administrator with over three years as an administrator. Dbiel 03:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

There's a discussion forming at User talk:Quadell but I informed him of this discussion. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

True, but that discussion is basicly a discussion of the problem with the bot, this is more of an abuse of power issue; of not think that expanding a bot's function needs approval, of not monotoring a bot when it is given greater functionality. Of forgetting that as an administrator you need to take even greater care not to blantly break the rules and damage pages in the process. Dbiel 04:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I was not impressed at the wholesale reverting of the bot's edits without any check to see if the changes were valid -- isn't that what the bot was accused of doing itself?--uɐɔlnʌɟoʞǝɹɐs 04:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that the wholesale reverting was not the best approach, especially in light of the fact that much of the material added is of a usable nature, but since that is being done by another agressive editor, I was simply commenting that it was being done. Dbiel 04:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Wholesale reverting is a common approach when a bot makes a large number of possibly broken edits; on its own it isn't problematic. If the bot is fixed, it can make the same positive edits again. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:41, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem was that the bot was adding things that it shouldn't have been guessign at without human intelligence. I don't see what other way there is to fix the problem, except for humans to individually go through the thousands of edits it made and check them all over again, which, to be honest, won't be happening any time soon. In any case, it wasn't reverted wholesale, or at least no one finished all the reverting yet, as there are still literally thousands of Polbot's edits that are the current revision, starting with all its contributions on December 17 continuously until it was blocked a couple days later. Dmcdevit·t 13:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

DerHexer and I have reverted a couple of thousands of the bot's edits, but we stopped since we encountered the overlapping of the article backlink. DerHexer said he'll work a solution today. Snowolf 14:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Some bots and bot operators are given more latitude than others. As far as this incident goes, the bot was blocked, its edits reverted, and Quadell has committed to open up a discussion for approval of the new task. I don't think there's anything more to address. ˉˉ╦╩ 04:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Very true, but when that latitude is abused, turning a bot loose and not monitoring it, it needs to at least be noted as a serious violation and acknowleged as such, not called a simple mistake. If an administor is not held accountable for his actions, then there is absolutely no grounds on which one can hold an ordinary user accountable for his. The minimum that should be expected is the acknowledgement that is was a serious break in protocol and judgement and the committment that it will not happen again. Without that, some of that extra latitude needs to be withdrawn. Dbiel 04:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, come on. I'm sure it was a mistake. Maybe he just forgot to get the permission or something. I just don't think this AN/I post is hugely necessary, given the fact that he's a long-time editor and admin who likely just made a mistake. No reason to grill him over it. Maser 04:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Not getting approval is one thing which could be looked to as a simple mistake. But turning a bot loose with new functionality and not monitoring it, that is another totally unacceptable action, not a simple mistake. Dbiel 04:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

People who believe in the "flawless administrator" will never, ever find him or her. Administrators are trusted editors who have access to an extra set of tools to assist in maintenance work on Misplaced Pages, and they are also human. Therefore, even the most respectable administrator is liable to human misjudgement, such as mistakes and the occasional bad judgement call. Maser 04:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not expect to ever find a "falwless administrator". But I do expect that when one make as SERIOUS mistake that he would acknowledge such and commit to not doing it again. So far the only acknowledgement has been for not getting approval. The greater mistake was turning it loose and not monitoring it. Dbiel 04:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I think Polbot is/was doing a good service and after Quadell gets the correct permission, I hope Polbot can continue to add fair-use rationales to images in need of them. If anything, it would cut down on work for deleting them, mass postings on talk pages and the "hundred or so" discussions on BC Bot a week.

Having a bot that adds F-URs is a damned good idea. Quadell made a mistake not getting permission, no biggie. We all screw up. But let's give Polbot and Quadell a second chance. What it is doing is a good idea. - NeutralHomer 06:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
(full disclosure: The above user is not an admin, but an editor voicing an opinion.)

Based on this, is it now OK to block bots that you see making mistakes while they tag images at speed or delete images at speed (without having a human reviewing the process)? Those bots or scripts have at least as many errors as Polbot was generating, if not more. Equally, can a bot run be reverted in its entirety if you find a few mistakes? I think that would justify reverting all the edits ever made by... No, I won't go there. Carcharoth (talk) 08:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

My view is that reversion of removal of content should always be reviewed by a human (you need to look at what you are re-adding). But reversion of addition of content is generally OK, as long as the removal doesn't make something less OK in terms of copyright, sources and rationales. Carcharoth (talk) 08:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• It should also be noted that User:Quadell/Report on backlinks is a useful report that Polbot is producing. That should be discussed at the botrequest and that should be no problem. Carcharoth (talk) 10:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you're overstating your case here, Dbiel. I didn't think to get approval to run this bot, and I have apologized for that in multiple places. But you claim "The greater mistake was turning it loose and not monitoring it." Isn't that just a negatively-biased was of saying "running a bot"? – Quadell 13:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

This is the attitude that bothers me. The idea that it is OK to assign a bot new functionality and turn it loose, allowing it to make countless edits without checking to see if it is working correctly and calling that simply "running a bot" and "overstating your case". That is just plain wrong and also, totally a violation of Wikipidia policy. As far as not getting approval, that issue has been handled and apologized for. The failure to monitor your bot is another issue, which if I am understanding what you have written, you are saying that it is not your responsability to make certian it is working correctly before turning it loose. Unproven bots should NEVER be left to run unattended. Dbiel 14:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I've never said that, and I don't see how you read that into what I've said. – Quadell 16:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

To me the issue seems resolved. The unapproved task has stopped, Quadell has apologized several times, it's the first time (AFAIK) that such an issue happens with Polbot. I've also unblocked the bot. Snowolf 13:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Snowolf, the issue appears to be resolved. FWIW, I hope the bot gets approval, because it would be very useful. Addhoc (talk) 14:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: A BRFA has been opened for the task, see Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Polbot 7. Regards, Snowolf 15:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm being harassed by my old account

When I first started editing wikipedia, I used the username User:Senang Hati but requested a rename after policies were pointed out to me. The rename was performed by User:Nichalp (17:10, 13 April 2007) , whom I've just notified of this incident. The account seems to have been resurrected to troll me concerning some of my more recent edits about the notability of things like tv episodes and characters as well as Dungeons and Dragons articles. I have commented extensively on the current arbitration case: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters mostly on the workshop page.

The new incarnation of User:Senang Hati is tagging articles that I originally created such as Senang Hati Foundation with clean-up tags and has now nominated it for deletion Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Senang Hati Foundation. I would appreciate folks looking into this. Thanks, Jack Merridew 05:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

addendum: The same pattern is repeating on Smile Foundation of Bali; Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Smile Foundation of Bali. --Jack Merridew 05:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

All fixed. East718 had already blocked your impersonator, and I've reverted and protected your former talk and user pages to point to your new ones. — Coren  06:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm wondering what should happen to the two AfDs that were started:

• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Senang Hati Foundation
• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Smile Foundation of Bali

--Jack Merridew 06:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm especially concerned because with the redirect to my current user name these appear to have been initiated by me. --Jack Merridew 06:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

No need to worry, I've speedily closed them as bad faith noms (and reverted the mess of templates on the articles themselves). — Coren  06:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

He's back as Special:Contributions/71.212.42.88 - and I reverted him. --Jack Merridew 09:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Confirmed. See User talk:71.108.64.236. The Evil Spartan (talk) 09:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)`

Now at: Special:Contributions/88.112.61.33 --Jack Merridew 10:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Finland... --Jack Merridew 10:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And at Special:Contributions/90.9.220.148 --Jack Merridew 10:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that 90... is in France, so he's brought in friends. I suggest that Senang Hati Foundation and Smile Foundation of Bali be protected for a day or two. --Jack Merridew 10:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

See also Special:Contributions/87.65.176.152 (Belgium). This is probably being discussed on some off wiki-forum - 4chan? to bring on an assault of vandals. This has frequently happened to my user page; see the page history for tons of reverts of vandalism. I believe this is tit-for-tat for clean-up tagging of D&D stuff rather than tv Episode and Character stuff. --Jack Merridew 10:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And Special:Contributions/82.27.237.61 (UK) --Jack Merridew 10:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And Special:Contributions/24.205.138.236 (St. Louis) --Jack Merridew 10:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Yup, 4chan; see --Jack Merridew 10:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

s-Protecting the pages for a month. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

s-protected User talk:Jack Merridew for a short time as your talk page is being hit as well. — ERcheck (talk) 12:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• We should probably get a 'crat to forcibly rename the old account, the users blatantly used it because Jack changed names. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  I'm really surprised that this was even doable. I expected the old name to still somehow be 'taken'. If this happened once, it must have happened before... and should be prevented in the future. nb: Special:Contributions/Senang_Hati are edits that I did not make yet the user and talk pages point at me. --Jack Merridew 12:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm fairly sure it's not doable any more - it's happened before and I think that account creation is blocked for renamed users post a certain date. I could be wrong however. I'll have a word with a 'crat. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  If it's possible I would like the impersonator's edits disassociated from my name. I don't, however, see quite how that might work. --Jack Merridew 13:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  It was still doable recently - I had to recreate and protect my old account when I renamed. BLACKKITE 13:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  You could move the account to something like User:Senang Hati (usurped) then create the account again in your name. Would need a crat to agree though. Woody (talk) 14:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What you would want to do is have a 'crat rename the impersonator's account from Senang Hati to Senang Hati impersonator or Hati impersonator vandal or something similar. (The 'crat should chooose a name that makes clear that the impersonator isn't the original person, and isn't related to the Senang Hati Foundation.)

As soon as the account is renamed, Jack Merridew (or a 'crat, or someone else responsible) can recreate the Senang Hati account to ensure that another obnoxious individual doesn't snag it. Presto—the nasty edits are no longer associated with Jack or the Senang Hati account. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, that's what I said. The WP:BN would be the best place for it. Woody (talk) 15:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

User: Knataka

This user has persistently spammed and vandalized articles in Misplaced Pages. This user has also received warnings regarding these (http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Knataka&oldid=178845574), as well as a warning by an administrator for edit warring (http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AKnataka&diff=178887030&oldid=178845574). In addition to this, this user may need to be monitored, as there is a strong possibility of sharing of accounts or sock-puppetry as suggested by the administrator here - http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Hu12&diff=prev&oldid=179128524. There is no doubt that one of this user's sockpuppets/accounts/IPs include 76.212.8.87, and it is very possible that there are others as the user continually suggests on the user's talk page. I request the user (and sockpuppets etc.) be blocked to prevent any further disruptive edits. I also request that this user be monitored thereafter so to ensure there is no other suspicious activity thereafter. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

UK v Britain

75.70.133.186 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has some kind of a vendetta against the name United Kingdom. He's going around articles changing it to Britain, which is a disambiguation page and not to be linked to. One of his first edits was to erroneously alter the name of a book cited in a footnote. He ignored a note on his talk page asking him politely to stop linking to dab pages. He has made over thirty edits to Timeline of World War II, none of them helpful, including removing relevant information regarding the UN. No single edit is clear-cut vandalism, but the entire corpus, taken as a whole, seems to indicate some kind of agenda against Misplaced Pages policies. He has almost no edits that are not of this character. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 09:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the IP vandal hasn't edited since yesterday, so hopefully this is a dead issue now. Please file a new report if the behavior starts up again. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 14:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Time and date of his last edit: 02:24, 20 December 2007, twelve hours before you posted this comment. Seems a little soon, to me, to assume that he's stopped. Anyway, he's gotten one very mild comment and one severe warning, so if you think I should, I'll wait and see if it starts up again. And do you consider this vandalism? I think it could be argued that it's good faith, but misguided.--Steven J. Anderson (talk) 15:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

LOLMAX (talk · contribs)

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

Is it possible to get some more eyes on User talk:LOLMAX? Ever since people have been putting vandalism warnings on his page, he's been blanking them (, , , ) despite the fact that he's either not read them or is blatantly disregarding them (, ). -Jéské 16:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

If he vandalizes after a final warning, it doesn't matter if the warning is present on the page or not. It is inappropriate to keep re-adding them after they have been removed, and I have re-blanked the page. I have noted this user on WP:AIV though, so that if they vandalize again it is known they had a final warning —Random832 16:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any vandalism since the LOL edit. How is this blatantly disregarding the warnings? And anyway, editors look at the talk page history to determine appropriate warning level or reports, right? Gimmetrow 16:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

How is this not just a pure vandal account? Reported to AIV. Look at his main space edits. Blanking, adding the word flatulence, adding his own name to articles since December 3rd. Lawrence Cohen 16:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And he's blocked. Lawrence Cohen 16:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Obeoboy again

Per my previous report here, Oboeboy (talk · contribs) has come back off his previous block and has simply started adding the anti-death penalty petition to talk:Capital punishment again. Could someone try and explain things to him. Thanks. David Underdown (talk) 17:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked him for a second time. He sees nothing wrong with this despite the explanation to him which is as clear as it's going to get. Since I believe he'll just keep doing it, I've blocked him for 48 hours to prevent him from doing it again for a bit. Metros (talk) 18:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ferrylodge

Ferrylodge (talk · contribs) is editing once again. Taking a look at this user's block log, it appears that he was banned on 2007-09-21 by community consensus, block implemented by FeloniousMonk (talk · contribs). Ferrylodge was unblocked on 2007-10-08 by Y (talk · contribs) with the following note: "To appeal community ban to ArbCom. Edits to any page other than ArbCom pages and relevant user talk pages will result in an immediate re-blocking." Ferrylodge is now definitely editing outside of the ArbCom pages. I cannot find a reference to his ban being overturned but it may well have been. Anyone know what is going on? If his ban really was overturned by ArbCom, perhaps could someone issue a one second block to make note of this in his block log? --Yamla (talk) 17:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ferrylodge#Ferrylodge to be unblocked.-Andrew c  17:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I just found that as well. I'll add a brief note to this user's block log. --Yamla (talk) 17:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the note, Yamla.Ferrylodge (talk) 17:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Lurkers

Moved to Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy). --Solumeiras 18:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Golbez and VartanM

I would like to request an impartial investigation into User:Golbez claimed mediation activity at Nagorno-Karabakh. He recently violated neutrality by singling out the contributors of one ethnicity and offending them: 1)

• "Maybe the Azeris should learn how to calm down and not sound like raving maniacs - stop treating Nagorno-Karabakh like it killed your damn puppy"
• "To say that the Azeris are far less helpful than the Armenians doesn't mean I support the Armenians - it just means they express their positions a lot better"

I think after such statements against contributors based on their background, User:Golbez has exhausted all his chances to be a mediator and needs to formally apologize for singling people out based on their background. 2) He also uses uncivil language and assumes bad faith in his "mediation" efforts:

• - "This isn't about origins or accusations or comparisons to the Nazis or any of this bullshit"
• -

"Go bitch at their talk page, I'm tired of you all. 3) Targets me as contributor:

• -

"my first executive decision is to ignore Atabek

• -

"I would dearly love to see the Azeri position presented - by someone other than Atabek, who has shown to be entirely illogical" After the last note, he generalized about all Azeri contributors as mentioned above, and I don't see how he could be mediating this article further. My report is specifically about this mediation case, I find User:Golbez as a valuable Wikipedian otherwise.

Also, while attempting to mediate, User:Golbez continuously engages three Azeri contributors at Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh, while User:VartanM, who posted this note at User_talk:Golbez is pretty much editing and pushing POV on the main page without any restriction or discussion. User:VartanM further posts notes attacking me and assuming bad faith . Atabek (talk) 18:41, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

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