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Blocked Ikip for canvassing

{{Resolved}} Blocking admin recused, no consensus that Ikip had violated canvassing rules, Ikip unblocked. --Abd (talk) 15:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Block review

A question

To get things straight, is there now some sort of more expansive standard for involvement that I don't see in WP:UNINVOLVED applied to admins on one side or the other of a wikistance dispute--or more accurately, admins who have been characterized by third parties as being on one side or the other? Because if there is it better be written in policy that has some community consensus and if there isn't we better stop reversing blocks without speaking to the blocking administrator on the basis of this imagined new "recusal" framework.

More to the point, when we find this new raft of administrators who are neutral in every respect on every issue and who also have an interest in wading into these periodic shitstorms, please let me know. Protonk (talk) 18:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

first step is to ask here, not assume there isn't anybody. DGG (talk) 18:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

There is noone who is neutral on every issue but that's not needed anyway. You just need an admin who is neutral on the issue at hand and there are plenty of those. As DGG says, ask here before assuming that there is noone. Regards SoWhy 19:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If I could speak for Protonk, I think his point was that if the standard for being uninvolved comes down to whether the community views you as inclusionist or deletionist, we're in for trouble. Does the community see me as inclusionist or deletionist? I have no idea, nor do I really care. Could you find three editors who see me as deletionist? You bet -- I could probably even give you a list. Could you find three who see me as an inclusionist? Yes, absolutely. But if that means I could never block an editor over misbehavior at AfD, then I doubt you'll find any admin who could.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not being clear. I understand that help can and should be found on the admin boards. I'm just wondering why this apparent new standard for neutrality isn't written in policy anywhere. Protonk (talk) 19:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

(just woke up - need coffee but this important) There is no new standard here. We have a policiy on uninvolved and AMiB is way involved as a common player in the trenches at AfD on the opposing side to Ikip. This is patently obvious. Also it is especially important in greyer areas like the neutral wording of three notes to other uses. Rootology summed it up well above after I went to sleep last night. This is in no way a borderline case. Can you imagine if I blocked a deletionist for incivility? People would (rightly) point out my nonimpartial position. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You're an inclusionist? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 20:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Damn straight. yep. Unless on misinformation, then no. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Cool. Do you send me the membership of the mailing list, then, so I know who I'm too involved to censure?

I generally leave such labeling nonsense to the people who actually care about it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops)

In any event. WP:UNINVOLVED is about keeping administrators from using the tools to gain the upper hand in a dispute, I thought. I'm not actually in dispute with Ikip over anything, except that his conduct is inappropriate. I don't think I could honestly say that I agree with him on all points, or that I intend to go out drinking with him, but no block I could possibly make (save possibly an indefinite one) would ever silence his advocacy for article inclusion, nor would I want it to, nor would I meaningfully benefit from it.

If you genuinely thought that someone was being uncivil, then yeah, block them, be they deletionist, Republican, or Modovian separatist. Now, if you suspect that your evaluation is tainted by your personal feelings, sure, don't act, but administrators are trusted to use their judgement to evaluate a situation dispassionately.

Aren't they? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 20:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

But unfortunately an admin's judgment of being impartial can differ from what other users will see in a situation. As Casliber pointed out, this is probably not anything about deletionists vs. inclusionists but about your contributions which include a track record of debates on the opposite side to ikip. If any deletionist had made the block, I doubt we would have most of this discussion, it's just what happens if someone makes an administrative decision when they previously were in a content dispute with the same user. As a rule, I think admins should avoid taking administrative action against users who they were previously involved in a content discussion, even if they are not involved in the dispute which was reason for the action at hand. It would help avoid such accusations, at least a bit. Regards SoWhy 20:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Um, yeah. AMiB and dispassionate. I certainly wouldn't have thought of that adjective in describing some of your exchanges. OK, you weren't on opposite sides in this particular AfD, but there have been many of these exchanges - I have had them with you myself there. "I don't think I could honestly say that I agree with him on all points" is rather an understatement don't you think? Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

That's nice that you picked on that aside, but you still haven't ascribed to me an ulterior motive that makes sense. Posit that I'm a complete blackguard, willing to do whatever I can to accomplish...something. It can't be to shut Ikip up, because he's going to be back in two days to argue to keep articles, just like before. It can't be to make him less convicted to prevent articles from deletion, because any persecution will only galvanize him. It can't be to strike some greater blow against article inclusion, since a fair few passionate self-declared inclusionists keep Ikip at arm's length. So whatever it is Villainous AMIB is out to do, he's doing it pretty badly by blocking Ikip and coming to ANI for review.

I'm not so much offended by the accusation of bad faith (I'm not so naïve as to expect that in a sufficiently large group that nobody will see evidence of bad faith) so much as I'm offended by the implicit accusation that I'm a villain and I suck at it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 21:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Your words not mine (re 'villain'). You are the one who has had some heated exchanges at AfD and has argued to delete in many. I am pointing out that you shouldn't use admin tools in AfD debates with someone on the opposite side. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The whole uninvolved admin bit is to keep admins from using the tools to gain some sort of advantage. The advantage I gain by blocking Ikip is... - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

...temporarily silencing someone of an opposing viewpoint whom you once proposed User:A Man In Black/Let's tape Ikip up in a box and mail him to the moon. Sincerely, --A Nobody 02:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Silencing him from where? (And that was a joke about the silliness of citing clearly ridiculous proposals and essays. Clearly, "Note to self: Buy more stamps" was part of my plan to silence opposition.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 02:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Wait a second. So I'm trying to silence my opposition, based on a three-month-old, now-closed RFC where Ikip agreed with me? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 01:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Fabric hits the nail on the head. The problem with this nebulous, untwritten standard for involvement is that anyone can declare someone too partisan to render a decision. this isn't as simple as (as AMiB puts it) determining whether or not an admin has given him or herself the upper hand in a dispute with the tools. we are inventing some "meta-dispute" between "inclusionists" and "deletionists" whereby any admin who has expressed an opinion about content in any fashion can be ginned up to be party to this "meta-dispute". After someone has announced that said admin is party to the dispute, who are we to argue with them? AMiB has voted to delete things in the past and has (Gasp!) pulled the trigger and deleted things. But in the absence of some actual meta-dispute (note the lack of scare quotes) we have to be convinced that AMiB is so tainted by his prejudice that he will use the tools inappropriately.

so what is it? Is there some dispute on wikipedia that I am party to, despite not having voted in or closed and AfD for months? Where do I fit on the scale? who am I not allowed to block based on their stance? Because I want to know. apparently it is some community standard, long held, that I'm ignorant of. So clue me in. Protonk (talk) 20:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am convinced AMiBs participation here was wrong and gives the strong appearance of prejudice (regardless of motive). Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll leave aside sundry issues with that declaration and press on my key point. Who may take action? I note that you haven't pressed particularly hard to state that Ikip was on the straight and narrow. Presuming that he wasn't, who is allowed to block? Who is allowed to block and ask for review (as AMiB did here)? Who is allowed to block only after seeking review? Where is all of this written? Protonk (talk) 23:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, my opinion on the action (neutrally worded notes on 3 editor's pages), is that it was in a grey area. I note that alot of deleters will spend more time at AfD than alot of content editors and keepers, but that is a bigger-picture thing. Bakc to process - if I saw an editor which whom I was concerned there might be the perception of me being non-impartial, then I would ask here whether other admins thought it block-worthy. This happens fairly regularly here. If an action is genuinely blockable, other admins will concur and might do it themselves or give me the green light to do so. If it was an absolute no-brainer, eg editor is revelaed to be sock of banned editor, it is not such a big a deal as these grey areas above. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

"I note that alot of deleters will spend more time at AfD than alot of content editors and keepers, but that is a bigger-picture thing."strikes me as unrelated, but ok. Where is this standard for admin action written down? where, if I were just learning how to be an admin, would I look for guidance on the subject? I just want to answer that. Here I'm deliberately avoiding discussing the presumption that a meta-debate constitutes an involvement just as an actual article debate would. I'll concede that for the sake of argument. Protonk (talk) 00:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it's fairly simple. Have you and I been in content and/or policy disputes and/or DR escalations vs each other? If so, you and I have zero business or right using the tools on each other. There's a reason we have a thousand admins. If one of has been naughty, any one of them similarly uninvolved can take action if required. That's my standard, and I think that of most people. rootology (C)(T) 01:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to be rude, but I think it is even simpler. We have a standard for admin involvement at WP:INVOLVED. If no one here can point to some policy suggesting that the standard is much higher then we don't get to act as though it is. I mean, I agree with you that the ideal state is the invervening admin be neutral in all respects. But I'm not going out on a limb when I say that community practice doesn't being to approach this state as we have applied it here. To pick on two people, Stifle and Fut Perf both have clear, announced views on non-free image use. They have been involved in RfCs, content discussions, deletion debates, deletion reviews and so forth. Under this standard you propose, they would be unable to close an image deletion debate or block someone for uploading copyrighted material. How is that workable? what happens when the only people interested in working the trenches have a POV on the subject? Protonk (talk) 01:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there will be borderline cases. This isn't borderline. I admit I'm surprised to see it, for I regard AMIB as one of the most level headed among the strong opponents of Ikip's position--AMIB and I have had useful discussions over the issues involved, on my talk p. and elsewhere. DGG (talk) 00:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that we should dredge up the fact that being a fooist doesn't say anything about behaviour (for example, DGG and Cas are really nice chaps despite the fact I disagree with them sometimes) and being a barist doesn't automatically make you involved. That said, as much as Ikip irritates me, this block was more punitive rather than preventative. As rootology pointed out, he was dormant for two days prior. Sceptre 00:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Personally, my heart is inclusionist and my head is deletionist, so I am always looking for processes that will help editors to create notable articles. As far as I can assess from my lurking, A Man In Black (talk · contribs) seems to have a mission at the "heart" level that's incompatible with modern views of adminship neutrality. His September 2005 RfA was very light touch compared with the ordeal by fire that today's candidates have to endure, and few of his 2005 supporters seem to be active nowadays. I would feel more comfortable if he went through RfA again, perhaps after a tranche of coaching from Casliber if he is willing. - Pointillist (talk) 00:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Pointillist might be on to something. Why not have admins go through the RfA process every couple years (kinda like an election for lack of a better term)...so the RfA isn't a one time only deal. I think that AMIB should go back through RfA and some coaching. - NeutralHomer • Talk • April 27, 2009 @ 00:52

@Neutral, see Misplaced Pages:Perennial_proposals#Reconfirm_administrators. Unless AMiB submits to it, an ANI consensus could not force him to take a reconfirmation RfA just as it couldn't desysop him. All that can/should really be discussed here is the appropriateness of this block and whether it represents a pattern of nonconstructive behavior. If people believe strongly that it does and that action against him is required, then WP:RFAR is the place to go. Trying to push for outcomes that cannot happen here is a waste of time IMO. Oren0 (talk) 00:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

You can't force any admin to do a recall unless there is wide consensus to make recall mandatory for all admins. Good luck on that windwill... rootology (C)(T) 01:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

What Oren0 (talk · contribs) says is technically correct. However, editors' acceptance of admin actions is to some extent voluntary, and for the time being A Man In Black (talk · contribs) is discredited. Bear in mind that current RfA processes ask a lot of searching questions about dispute criteria, neutrality, self-abnegation etc., none of which A Man In Black had to respond to in 2005, so a period of coaching followed by voluntary RfA would help restore his lost credibility. - Pointillist (talk) 01:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Is this what prompted your strange refactoring of an innocuous comment? Protonk (talk) 01:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Uh, discredited is typically = desysopped, or confirmed bad socking, that sort of thing. I'm chalking this up to a momentary lapse and/or error, myself. Shit happens, we're human. rootology (C)(T) 01:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

"Shit Happens" I would normally agree with, but when "shit happens" over and over and over again and it only happens when it is people who disagree with AMIB, it isn't "shit happening" anymore and it is intentional....and something needs to be done. - NeutralHomer • Talk • April 27, 2009 @ 01:49

Assume the presence of a belly-button. –Juliancolton |  03:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Ack, regular resysopping would be a massive timesink. Arbcom is the place for review of misuse of admin tools, and I suggest this has been the most underutilised piece in teh admin jigsaw puzzle in recent years. And yes I would recuse from arbitrating on folks I have been in conflict with or semblance of conflict. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I note that you have not responded to Protonk's point earlier. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:17, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Which is that? There is no new standard of neutrality. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Which is that you and root both claim that some standard of neutrality exists which isn't written in INVOLVED. Are we appealing to the spirit of the rules, or an interpretation of the spirit that constrains admin action? Are we appealing to a policy that neither me nor AMiB are aware of? Or, as I suspect, do we have heterogeneous feelings about admin neutrality? Perhaps that heterogeneity makes it hard for us to match our 'feel' for what involvement constitutes and the policy as written. So what is it? Your response makes clear that there isn't a new standard of neutrality, so I should at least know what present policy gives us the inspiration for your interpretation. Protonk (talk) 02:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Casliber, this, and Protonk's most recent response to you before that (above). Would you like me to reword it for you? Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• I tried to close this damn thing way back up there, way above the top edge of my monitor, way above my roof, somewhere in the clouds. I consider Ikip a friend who might sometimes need a little reminder. As to AMIB, okay, suppose he was involved, let's try this inclusionist/deletionist T-shirt on for size, and he saw what he believed was canvassing. What does he do? Remember, canvassing can warp an AfD. I happen to think we should allow canvassing, totally (though not spamming), and then actually follow preponderance of the arguments, with a closing admin perhaps getting a tad irritated at having to wade through useless me-too arguments, which would then naturally stop, but that's not the consensus at the moment. So, given the consensus, canvassing can waste a lot of time, as an AfD gets shut down for damage from canvassing and restarted, just saw that happen a few days ago. It's an emergency, must stop immediately. So he blocks, but, wait, he's involved. Does he unblock? No, he goes to AN and reports what he did, which is exactly what someone with an involvement seeing an emergency should do. He should have immediately disclosed a possible involvement, but, apparently, he didn't think of it that way. He should possibly have recused immediately from opposing unblock, and, in fact, as soon as I commented that he ought to do this, because of the appearance of involvement, if nothing else, he did. AMIB's behavior here was quite proper, and the only error was, I believe, in viewing neutral notices on article Talk pages to be canvassing. And admins get to make mistakes; hopefully, they learn from them. 'Nuff said; where this discussion has raised other issues, they should be sectioned as such and discussed as such, or moved to an appropriate page where some conclusion might be made, or we end up with the bane of Misplaced Pages discussions: endless rant mixed with useful comment that is wasted because it goes nowhere. None of this should be viewed as disagreement with the myriad opinions expressed above. --Abd (talk) 16:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

  This is to me an acceptable summary of what happened. I don't feel that I was involved in some larger meta-dispute with Ikip (I cannot see any personal gain I make by blocking him, and nobody was able to show one to me), but I brought it here in the interest of having greater input on my actions (which turned out to have been in error, due to changes in guidelines). As for recusal, where do I sign up for the "I know better than to wheel war guys, seriously" certification? I wouldn't reblock Ikip (or anyone, for that matter) without clear evidence of a compromised admin account or something. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 02:41, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• Disagreement over narrow (acting to gain an advantage in a specific dispute) versus loose (disagreement on a broad topic or general antipathy) interpretation of WP:UNINVOLVED is not new. If I remember correctly, a narrow violation is actionable, while a loose one may receive a warning. Of course, editors are free to express their opinions in either case. Flatscan (talk) 03:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I have sat out of this argument for several days, in an effort to lessen the peity drama.

I have a definitive answer.

Arbitrators have continued to explain what an "Uninvolved admin" is:

"...an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict."

Under this defintion, A Man In Black is a very involved editor. Although he did not participate in the AFD in question, he has been deeply involved in policy around deletion and Article Rescue Squadron, in which we have had several heated arguments.

A Man In Black continues to disengeniously claim that he is not involved with me. That is false, and I appreciate he retract this incredibly misleading statment. I can provide edit difference of all the arguments we have been involved in together, if necessary. Ikip (talk) 14:18, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I would say this is an ex-parrot. You've not convinced members of ArbCom that your standards of 'uninvolved' are reasonable. — The Hand That Feeds You: 22:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

1) These "standards" ("...an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict.") are not the Ikip's ones: they have been written and subscribed by arbitrators

2) You didn't quote "the arbcom", you just quoted an arbitrator who seems to be saying that the definition given by the arbocm to the term "uninvolved" is "insane".

--Pokipsy76 (talk) 10:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

And obviously not everyone ascribes to Ikip's interpretation of that line. Ikip's way means any admin who has ever acted on a dispute is therefore involved, which includes anyone doing something as simple as blocking based on 3RR or closing a dispute discussion. Also, I never said "the ArbCom," I said "members of ArbCom" and provided an example. Somehow I knew someone would conflate that quote in just such a manner, but if I didn't quote anything I'd be chided for that too. Either way, this discussion isn't actually producing anything at this point. — The Hand That Feeds You: 16:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Notifications at related articles

I started a discussion at WT:Canvassing#AfD notifications at related articles. One may note that I used notifications that I posted as the example. Flatscan (talk) 03:33, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Markacohen disruptive editing and forum shopping

Markacohen is a SPA whose main purpose is to add links to Holocaust denial sites into a range of articles. He claims to be an anti-Nazi and that he only wants to add them to "expose them as pseudo-science" and "shine the light of truths" into dark corners. He has come into conflict with a number of editors, has been blocked once for edit warring, and is now forum-shopping around Misplaced Pages, trying to sell a fairly creative interpretation of events. Methinks he does complain to much. This edit leads me to lay aside WP:AGF and assume that he is indeed a Neo-Nazi in disguise. I'd suggest a last warning or an immediate block. Input from other admins would be appreciated. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I genuinely apologize for the edit warring and personal attacks I made initially, and was blocked for 2 days to think about it - which I did. During those 2 days, I apologized to everyone numerous times, and pledged to work within the system to resolve issues in a civil manner. During those 2 days I began reading the policies and procedures on how to properly overcome disputes. It is my genuine and honest desire to bring resolution to some issues which seem very ambigious, I am genuinely asking for help in these regards.

I am asking in good faith and with genuine honesty:

1. What is the proper way to seek resolution or help over the problem of Dougweller editing, deleting and modifying my discussion posts, which I believe are preventing a civil and neutral discussion of some very sensitive, taboo and controversial subjects?

2. Can someone please help me get accurate understanding of the rules and regulations on linking to hate sites from a hate article? I understand Holocaust Denial is a very sensitive subject, so please tell me how to properly, get resolution over someone deleting a reference link to the Leuchter Report, from the Leuchter Report article.

3. What does this mean, Misplaced Pages is not a collection of links? Whenever I post some external links in a hate article about the very hate article, I had WilliamH delete the links saying Misplaced Pages is not a hate collection of links.

4. What is a SPA?

I am asking in good faith, honesty and with genuine purpose for help in these regards. I do not want to fight, I make no personal attacks, I am criticizing certain behaviors that I believe are making open debate difficult in the discussion area. I know this articles are very sensitive subjects, i'm seeking how to work within the system for resolution, which is why I went to these various places asking for help.

Please help me or tell me, how I can reword my language or questions, so they are not adversarial or causing problems.

I apologize for anyones feelings I hurt, in anything I said. I am genuinely want to be a productive member of wikipedia.

Sincerely, Markacohen (talk) 15:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

An SPA is a single-purpose account. The accusation is that you're here to make some sort of point or prove some sort of truth. (I haven't gotten involved in this to know what's going on, just clarifying the terms.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 15:32, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for helping me out here. I genuinely would like to be here for the long run, not just on controversial areas. I have been reading Misplaced Pages for more years than I can count (love it to death!), and to be part of this project is an honor and a privilege for me. My interest isn't only in Holocaust Denial / Genocide Denial, I have many other interests as well. Although, right now I have gotten into some heated discussion regarding the Holocaust Denial areas and seeking resolution. If the Administrators want, I will voluntarily resign from Misplaced Pages or simply no longer contribute to areas concerning taboo or controversial subjects. It would make me sad beyond belief if I was banned and banished from Misplaced Pages. I am humbly asking to please not kick me out of this community, I genuinely believe I can be a valuable asset here once I learn the rules for resolving issues.

Sincerely, Markacohen (talk) 15:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You've accused me today of stopping links to the Leuchter report without mentioning that I was one of 4 editors reverting you, or that there has been a link to it (albeit not to the hate sites you are trying to add) since the 23rd. You've tried to add similar links to Germar Rudolf and complained on the talk page about me and another editor, despite the fact that your rationale is that people need to read what he wrote, and we already link to what he wrote. So all your links would do is add links to hate sites. You say you want to "make sure the proper and accurate keyword(s) Pseudo Science or Pseudo History" but you seem to do nothing about that. Your links are all to hate sites, it is other people who (since you started this) have added links to debunking sites. You get reverted by 4 other editors and won't accept that there is a consensus against you but go around complaing and asking for someone to help, although during your block you were given the link to dispute resolution.

Full disclosure - Markacohen has complained about me at Witiquette Alert because when after being reverted he added the links to the talk page and I removed the 'http://' bits. Everyone involved knew what the links were. Dougweller (talk) 16:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Didn't we just do this like a week ago? //roux   16:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, Stephan Schulz may be on to something here, but I'll continue to assume good faith for now and wouldn't endorse a sanction at this stage. Markacohen, I strongly advise you to drop this and edit something else entirely. Per WP:RS and for other reasons, we are extremely reluctant to include external links to extremist and similarly problematic websites, except where the sites themselves are the subject of the article. Each such link (like any other article text) needs editorial consensus, and the links you want to insert currently have not. You will be taken much more seriously in any discussion about this issue if you dedicate a few months to making useful contributions to entirely uncontroversial subjects, in order to demonstrate that you are serious about contributing to Misplaced Pages and not a throwaway account with some disruptive agenda.  Sandstein  16:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC) (Note: the preceding comment was added in parallel to those of Dougweller and Roux above, but for some reason there was no edit conflict.  Sandstein  16:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC))

I'd strongly recommend not to assume good faith anymore. What makes me think that "Mark A Cohen" (why would someone "mark a cohen", actually?) is at best a kind of agent provocateur is his claim Leuchter is an "engineer" (), a claim that has been debunked several times in court and elsewhere and is held up only by fellow Holocaust deniers (). Cheers, --RCS (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This issue has been at WP:EAR for the past few days too. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

FYI I closed the thread at WP:WQA to avoid forum shopping. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Is this discussion closed here? or are we still able to discuss things? After watching Mr. Death on google video, there is no doubt in my mind Fred Leuchter is an engineer. You don't have to have a degree in engineering to be an engineer, it is possible to become an engineer through real life experience. I personally abhor Fred Leuchter. I abhor the message of the Leuchter Report. Just because someone is a Holocaust Denier, it does not make them not an engineer. Fred Leuchter being a bad man doesn't take away the fact he is a skilled engineer in execution technology. Please stop with the personal attacks calling me Agent Provocateur and other insulting personal attacks.

Please stop with the personal attacks and stop trying to change the subject about the lack of substance and merit in your arguments. Can we please consolidate this discussion in one area? so I do not have to go all over the place to follow up?

Markacohen (talk) 11:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The diff brought forward by Stephan Schulz and the inclination to refer to Leuchter as an engineer when he isn't one in this context, even by his own written admission lead me to believe that we are not dealing with a good faith contributor. Furthermore, I have not reverted any of Mark Cohen's links on the basis that they are hate sites, but on the basis that Mark keeps adding them so that the reader can "come to their own opinion" - about a matter which is not a matter of opinion.

This is a flagrant violation of WP:FRINGE, and a completely nonsensical position if Mark opposes Holocaust denial as he says he does - yet another reason why I'm inclined to believe that User:Markacohen is a SPA/Holocaust denier trying to proliferate Holocaust denial material. I would endorse an indefinite block. WilliamH (talk) 13:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi WilliamH,

The whole basis of me linking to the Leuchter Report, from the Leuchter Report articles is because if you are going to properly write an article about the Leuchter Report you should link to the original source. I did so on this basis:

Extremist and fringe sources Further information: Misplaced Pages:Verifiability#Questionable sources, Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories, and Misplaced Pages:PSCI

Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged by reliable sources as fringe, pseudo-academic, or extremist may be used as sources of information about those organisations or individuals, especially in articles about those organisations or individuals, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

  1. it is not unduly self-serving;
  2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
  3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
  4. there is no reason to doubt its authenticity;
  5. the article is not based primarily on such sources;

An individual extremist or fringe source may be entirely excluded if there is no independent evidence that it is prominent enough for mention. Fringe and extremist sources must not be used to obscure or describe the mainstream view, nor used to indicate a fringe theory's level of acceptance.

I am more than happy to have all those hate documents put on www.Archive.org so that we do not promote all those hate sites, which if this would be the best solution to stop the revert wars and the personal attacks against me. I would rather promote neutral sites, then hate sites. However, if there are no Neutral web sites I think it is reasonable under the guidelines I posted above to link to a hate site from an article about that same very hate. I would infinitely prefer we link to a neutral site than a hate site.

What do we do in situations where, there isn't a neutral site to link to, but only a hate site? Even though its legitimate to link to hate sites if the article is about hate, I don't want to upset you, RCS, DougWeller, jpgordon and anyone else who I consider to be on the Light side of the force if you know what I mean.

WilliamH, I want to work with you, not be adversaries. I don't think you realize we are on the same team, we both hate Holocaust Deniers, Haters, Extremists and Racists. However, i think we should put our sensitive and personal feelings aside and work towards making wikipedia neutral and keep our own political biases out of it. Can we burry the hatchet and work together to make Misplaced Pages an even better place? I forgive you for and anyone else that made personal attacks against me, even if they are sometimes couched.

Lets please try to work together and not fight.

Markacohen (talk) 16:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• More evidence to suggest that we are not dealing with a good faith contributor. WilliamH (talk) 16:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Please stop with the personal attacks.

We finally came to consensus on Leuchter Report and found a way to link to the specific and relevant reference without linking to a hate site. You should be happy we came to Consensus, not turn this into an opportunity to make personal attacks. I am a good faith contributor, I worked within the system and we achieved consensus. Today is a great day!

Markacohen (talk) 17:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but will you PLEASE stop making flat out wrong claims? We did not "finally find a way" - the link has been in the article for 4 days, and this has been pointed out to you over and over again. It's just that you suffer from an incredible case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I say leave the man alone, I don't agree with that Link being in place on the Leucther Report article but well they want it there and I don't really think that all of them are Neo-Nazis so fine they can have their link and this guy Markachoen isn't doing anything worse than anyone else around.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 20:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I always think it's considerate when sockpuppets report themselves at ANI and save us the trouble... -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with William–some things do not add up here, and with the sockpuppetry above, I'd support a block. PeterSymonds (talk) 22:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

What's a sock puppet or sock puppetry? Markacohen (talk) 01:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

See Sock puppet & WP:SOCK. — The Hand That Feeds You: 17:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

someone on my personal page posted I am a sock puppet, im getting tired of the slander and personal attacks against me. What do I need to do to stop the personal attacks against me? And stop the abuse and slanderous finger pointing at me? Markacohen (talk) 11:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, being labelled a "sock" or "sockpuppet" is only a violation of WP:NPA if they fail to submit the SSI/SSP request to back it up. "SSI or STFU". (see User:Bwilkins) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Would you please be so kind as to elaborate on what SSI/SSP request to back it up. "SSI or STFU" means, how the process works, and how long she has to file this report before it becomes a personal attack?

Markacohen (talk) 12:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Note that User:194x144x90x118 has already been blocked as a sockpuppet on the basis of the account's behaviour in relation to Markacohen's. WilliamH (talk) 15:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Can you please explain how the user name User:194x144x90x118 is associated with me? I'd really like an explanation to this false accusation. I have a right to know why and what proof my name is being slandered as a sock puppet. I'm really getting tired of these personal insults. Personal attacks: I've been called Agent Provocateur (RCS), SPA (RCS), Posing as a Jew (RCS), Sock Puppet (FisherQueen), and many other insults couched or overt. I would like this uncivilized behavior to stop.

Markacohen (talk) 17:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered you may have actually blocked a real person? Not a poser or someone trying to pretend to be me or sock puppetting? You're meritless and substanceless and proofless accusation towards the oddly named user may have resulted in banning a legitimate person. Banning a legitimate person who committed no crimes is in my opinion a serious abuse of privilege and people IMHO who abuse their high privileges do not deserve them IMHO. IMHO, we expect the people who are given power in position of authority not to make rash thoughtless and careless decisions. Does this make sense? In other words, where is your proof this guy was sock puppetting? Inquiring minds want to know.

Markacohen (talk) 18:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a checkuser would care to comment? WilliamH (talk) 20:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Reporting as requested. ;-)

Having looked into this, I have not seen any IP evidence that would support Markacohen and 194x144x90x118 being the same person.

James F. (talk) 21:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that James. I wouldn't call 194x144x90x118's behaviour disruptive, although certainly suspicious. WilliamH (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Main page featured article semiprotection

Hey, I need a little help here. Ocee (talk · contribs) has taken it upon himself to semiprotect the past few TFAs, which goes against the currently accepted practice, despite my pleas to stop. Today's TFA, Operation Passage to Freedom, was semiprotected despite barely being touched, and I counted two IP edits that were positive contributions. While his idea is not completely without merit, I don't think that a unilateral decision to semiprotect accurately reflects the will of the community or the spirit of the project. --Bongwarrior (talk) 20:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the semi. The edits in the history do not amount to relentless or extreme vandalism, which is the threshold for a TFA prot, and I've left a note to that effect in the log. I'm not about to go full-on guns blazing, however. If he prots again, I'm not going to sustain a wheelwar. -Jeremy 21:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Bongwarrior. "This page is currently protected, and can be edited only by autoconfirmed users ... that anyone can edit!" –Juliancolton |  21:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If it were true that "anyone can edit", there would be no such thing as an indefinite block. Baseball Bugs carrots 21:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Given the persistence of some sock farms, apparently there isn't any such thing. ;-) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Excellent point. Baseball Bugs carrots 23:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• TFA semi protection is A Bad Thing™, and just because a guideline "hasn't been discussed in a while" doesn't mean it has lost the support of the community. –xeno 01:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protecting the main page featured article is actually Doing the Right Thing™ hehe. I'm not suggesting that the guideline has lost total support from the community, I just don't think there is any sort of mandate not to semi-protect the article. I've gone into some depth on my rationale on my talk page, so feel free to take a peek if you're interested, and I'd be happy to elaborate if anyone would like. ocee 21:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I am on your side, ocee, especially since the TFA's I've contributed to happen to be niche topics that don't garner many eyes to revert vandalism. But doing it as a preventative measure when it's possible good contributions might arise isn't a good idea. Unless people are having trouble keeping down the vandals, we should aim for a lighter touch. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 00:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The thinking on this is, there are so many eyes watching an MPFA while it's up, vandalism gets handled very swiftly, making protection of articles transcluded to the main page seldom if ever needed. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:29, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Again on the current TFA. –Juliancolton |  01:48, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi all, thank you for spending some of your time dropping a line and making your views known about semi-protecting the main page featured article. All the comments are much appreciated. While I do feel that I was acting in the best interests of the project and that there are good reasons to semi-protect the main page featured article, I can definitely see the benefits of leaving it unprotected, and it appears that the majority of the handful of people that have commented here see the English Misplaced Pages benefitting more from leaving the main page featured article unprotected. I hope you'll understand that I was acting in good faith, and while I stand by my rationale for protecting the featured article of the day, I certainly recognise and respect that I'm in the minority on this issue.

With regards to the "wheel warring" hullaballoo below, I spoke with Julian before reverting him and he was fine with it, so no worries on that end. With regards to Clreland's and Deskana's suspicions, I apologise if anything seems amiss, but I do have the best interests of the project in mind. You can see my activity during 2007 here, so while I obviously took some time away from the project, the break was more like from the end of 2007 / beginning of 2008, as opposed to the end of 2006. Again, apologies for any confusion and for my boldish actions, but at least now we know (or I know, at least, it seems as if most of you were already on the bus, hehe) that semi-protecting the main page featured article might not be the best thing to do, at least not without proper discussion first. Cheers ocee 06:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Was this discussion with Julian off-wiki? Since it isn't obvious, you may want to note something like that in your summary next time to avoid confusion. --Onorem♠Dil 12:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

We did indeed discuss the matter off-wiki, though in all fairness, my comment was along the lines of "Go ahead, I'm not going to wheel war over it". –Juliancolton |  22:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

That is not exactly the same as Ocee (talk · contribs)'s assertion above: With regards to the "wheel warring" hullaballoo below, I spoke with Julian before reverting him and he was fine with it. Cirt (talk) 22:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Unprotect the TFA

• Unprotect Now please, unless there is vandalism that cannot be handled through normal means.--Tznkai (talk) 02:17, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Please? Did the entire community just change their mind about TFA protection? If so, I'd like to know.--Tznkai (talk) 03:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is matter of semi protection warring now. Unless there is persistent vandalism it should not be protected. Is Ocee an actual admin on the Misplaced Pages? Their user page does not designate them as such and questions the legitimacy of the actions. JasonHockeyGuy (talk) 04:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I recommend WP:POPUPS - hovering on the redlink shows s/he indeed is an admin and has been editing since 2006 Agathoclea (talk) 04:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with this request. If someone thinks that premature protection is for some reason now necessary on all TFAs, they should start a discussion to see if the community agrees. --Onorem♠Dil 04:10, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree as well. Let's have a discussion instead. Would anyone disagree if I was to remove the semi-editing protection? Icestorm815 • Talk 04:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• After a long period of inactivity an admin returns, chooses unilaterally to ignore the long-standing and well known consensus concerning protection of Today's FA and then wheel wars against said consensus to enforce his opinion. Am I the only one who finds this somewhat suspicious? CIreland (talk) 04:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
  • No. --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 04:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the semi-protection and added a little note to not re-protect. Hopefully this doesn't escalate. Icestorm815 • Talk 04:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Wheel warring by admin Ocee

Unless I am mistaken, it looks like admin Ocee (talk · contribs) is now wheel warring at today's featured article, here: . Different admins may have different views on this, but unless there is extremely strong community-wide consensus for semi-protection of the TFA, there is certainly no justification for wheel warring. Cirt (talk) 04:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I made a request at the talk page of Ocee (talk · contribs) for the admin to undo the last protection . Cirt (talk) 04:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Was, not is.--Tznkai (talk) 04:48, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully Ocee (talk · contribs) nor another admin will add it back... Cirt (talk) 04:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Ocee has committed two sins here in re Kit (assoc. football) - Protting the TFA without there being extreme vandalism, and issuing preemptive protection (which the prot-pol explicitly forbids, TFA or otherwise). I would be wise and not stir the pot any further; the prot is certainly wrong for a TFA and wrong for a standard article. -Jeremy 05:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Routine TFA semi-protection

Even before the wheel-warring incident, Ocee had semi-protected the TFA for six days running, in two cases within an hour of it going live. Much the same edit summary each time.

1. 16:13, 26 April 2009 Ocee (talk | contribs | block) changed protection level for "Operation Passage to Freedom" (expires 00:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)) (expires 00:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)) ‎ (page has been "vandalised" several times since appearing on the main page, and little useful content has been added by the affected users) (hist | change)
2. 00:26, 25 April 2009 Ocee (talk | contribs | block) changed protection level for "Hurricane Ismael" (expires 00:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)) (expires 00:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)) ‎ (page has been "vandalised" several since appearing on the main page, and little useful content has been added by the affected users - see http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Ocee&diff=285933745&oldid=285801103 for further explanation) (hist | change)
3. 00:58, 24 April 2009 Ocee (talk | contribs | block) changed protection level for "Learned Hand" (expires 00:00, 25 April 2009 (UTC)) (expires 00:00, 25 April 2009 (UTC)) ‎ (page has been "vandalised" dozens of times since appearing on the main page, and little useful content has been added by the affected users) (hist | change)
4. 18:47, 23 April 2009 Ocee (talk | contribs | block) changed protection level for "SkyTrain (Vancouver)" (expires 00:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)) (expires 00:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)) ‎ (page has been "vandalised" dozens of times since appearing on the main page, and little useful content has been added by the affected users) (hist | change)
5. 20:54, 22 April 2009 Ocee (talk | contribs | block) changed protection level for "William IV of the United Kingdom" (expires 00:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)) (expires 00:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)) ‎ (page has been "vandalised" dozens of times since appearing on the main page, and little useful content has been added by the affected users) (hist | change)
6. 19:27, 21 April 2009 Ocee (talk | contribs | block) changed protection level for "Alleyway" (expires 01:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)) (expires 00:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)) ‎ (page has been "vandalised" dozens of times since appearing on the main page, and little useful content has been added by the affected users) (hist | change)

What is going on here? Hesperian 01:25, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Ocee's belief in this matter was that the TFA did not deserve any special treatment as far as protection was concerned. In the Operation Passage to Freedom article, at least (the other five I did not examine) there was indeed vandalism, but nothing above and beyond what a TFA generally gets. In fact, I'll be bold and say that that article suffered *less* than the normal amount of vandalism for a TFA. -Jeremy 02:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• He has already committed to stopping, so there's no need to prolong this any further. –xeno 02:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Fake GA Reviews

New editor End of yarn just registered for an account, and passed Quark as a good article, without seeming to give it any real review from his passing "summary" and his incorrect method of trying to pass it. He's also claimed to be reviewing Prevailing winds. See Special:Contributions/End_of_yarn. I reverted these and left him a note explaining why, AGFing that he was just a new user who didn't understand the GA process. He reverted this as "trolling" sending up some red-flags in my mind. Any one else want to keep an eye on him? Have there been any sock issues at GA of late? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 21:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

What???? I read that article like 10 times and is there any sane editor here who wouldn't pass it? I don't really see the problem here. I saw the reversal as a bit hostile in my mind. End of yarn (talk) 21:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, any sane editor would refrain from passing it as is. It fails the GA criteria. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 21:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

... FAILS the GA criteria? End of yarn's review might not have been a real review, but there's no need to make up things about the state of the quark article. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 00:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not. It has some unsourced parts and some MoS issues. Could easily pass with a little clean up, but in its exact state at the time he passed it, it was not GA quality. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

All sections are extremely well-referenced and it's MoS compliant. Don't throw generic oppositions because you've placed your foot in your mouth. The article more than meets the GA criteria, this is an FA quality or very near-FA quality article. If you have specific comments to make, voice them at talk:quark. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I have not placed my foot in my mouth, nor it is FA quality. There are several statements that have no references, probably just misplaced. There is no reason at all to attack me, or to take things so personally. It needs minor fixes, nothing major. You don't have to go all defensive over that. Very few articles sent to GAN are absolutely perfect for passing right then and there. Gesh. I don't see you attacking the person who made a very length post on the article talk page noting minor fixes needed. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

This is not a matter of being defensive or offensive, this is a matter of you depicting the article as something it is not, and this, to me, raises a ref flag about what you're saying about End of yarn. All statements are referenced, the article is MoS compliant, and Markus Poessel's comments are mostly about possible style issues, ways to phrases things etc. Two things stand out as needing correction (so indeed, it should not be a GA yet, but not because of referencing or of MoS compliance), but you could not have picked those up unless you already knew something about quarks and group theory and read the article in details, which, judging from your background and the timing of your edits, is not the case.

I've said my piece about your argument against End of Yarn's edits. I don't care much about what happens to him/her, but let's not hang him/her on fallacious grounds. I'm now unwatching this page, those who want to say something about the quark article are invited to discuss on talk:quark. I can be reached on my talk page for anything else. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 02:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Note: will decline to leave an AN/I notice since he found this within minutes of me posting it anyway. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 21:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Even though WP:GAN states that Articles can be nominated by anyone, and reviewed by any registered user who has not contributed significantly to the article, I smell something fishy, as well. MuZemike 21:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Or ducky. Baseball Bugs carrots 23:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The recently-indef'd sock farmer ItsLassieTime (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) admitted to being a GA junkie and some wondered if that user had used fake support win some GA's, but I don't think that angle was investigated - nor does that case necessarily have anything to do with this case. Baseball Bugs carrots 23:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Meh, doesn't sound or look like a duck, quite yet. Keep in mind the articles ILT was working on. Jumping from 1950s/1960s television shows to a high level of physics is not quite convincing of skull-duckery. No one has heard a single peep, either; that is, claiming to be an 80-year-old from a retirement home or a "socker mom" trying to protect her daughter. MuZemike 04:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

While ILT did intimate that there are socks remaining in the drawer (there was a reference to a "fictitious Harvard student", for instance) and EoY's original talkpage has a certain faint quackiness to it I don't think we're ordering the orange sauce just yet. Bear in mind also that the IP ILT habitually used was blocked for 6 months, as well (and still is blocked, expiring on 8th October 2009). Tonywalton  15:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Question: Was there a review page? I can't find one. Diderot's dreams (talk) 17:16, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Nope, he just threw a short comment on the talk page then updated the GA template. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:31, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, then there was no review and the article cannot be passed without it. Maybe this is just a new form of vandalism (vandals are getting more creative these days) and needs admin attention. On the other hand, several hours passed between EndofYarn taking the review at GAN and passing the article, so that is not inconsistent with going over the article multiple times, as claimed. But there must be a written review done. Period. And if anyone disagrees with it they can challenge the review at Good Article Reassessment.

Maybe the best way to proceed is for EndofYarn to post a review, explaining how the article meets each of the GA criteria. If they really applied the criteria this shouldn't take long. We could proceed from there.

I see one shortcoming to the article had at the time of the debated review. This edit, made subsequent to the article being passed for GA, changed the term 'mass' to 'rest mass' which means the article had at least one problem with factual accuracy at the time it was approved. Diderot's dreams (talk) 19:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

This user hostilely reverted every single one of my edits and called my legitimate effort to review this article fake. It is in my opinion that this thread is here because the user is mad that they were called a troll.

Now, if no one has anything else to say I would like to give this article a "real" review End of yarn (talk) 22:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

"Every one of your edits"? You had made all of eight edits, nor were they all reverted. Your passing articles as GA without giving them a proper assessment was reverted, as is appropriate. A new editor suddenly passing GA articles would throw up red flags with ANY experienced GA reviewer and I'm sure if I hadn't reverted, someone else would have. You have no visible experience here, yet are suddenly passing random articles in a topic that is one of the most difficult to evaluate and has its own special criteria is cause for concern. I left you a note, assuming in good faith, that you meant well, yet you responded in a hostile fashion, causing me to wonder if my assumption of good faith was wrong and thus seek outside opinions. You are the only one responding in a hostile here, and I can't help but wonder why? And why a new editors first actions would be to start doing good article reviews, or how you even know about them, as few new users are aware of that area. I could care less if you call me a troll, though it was uncivil. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 22:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I like to WP:AGF for a split second here Collectonian, as much as I understand your overall concern ... maybe Yarn was previously someone else who exercised their right to vanish and has returned. After all, in ALL of Misplaced Pages, we're not judged by the number of our edits, but the quality of a few of them. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

RTV is not a right to "start fresh". So if he did exercise RTV, he would be violating it: "Vanished users have no right to silently return under a new identity." -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 23:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, then maybe they have an alternate account...that's not sockpuppetry according to the rules. Maybe they're a PhD in English and Journalism who has been reading GA's in Misplaced Pages for 4 years, and finally decided that they felt like reviewing them, so they created a userid. Then again, you may be right, they may be disruptive. We just don't know, do we, so we need to WP:AGF,and not judge based merely on # of edits. (talk→ BWilkins ←track)

I am no one's "sockpuppet". As you said, I have been reading Misplaced Pages articles for a while, I noticed the FA/GA icons and I felt like reviewing them. End of yarn (talk) 23:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Update: An extensive list of comments and suggestions for improvement have been listed on the article's talk page by an uninvolved editor, and the article was subsequently removed from nomination by the nominator. Diderot's dreams (talk) 22:48, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Totally baffled...

• archived to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Jack Merridew-A Nobody — by Jack Merridew 07:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• ...um, not that I want to reopen this can of worms or anything, but is it really appropriate for the user who's the subject of the complaint to be the one to archive it? rdfox 76 (talk) 14:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion was already closed. It would've archived on its own anyway, so it doesn't seem a big deal in this case. — The Hand That Feeds You: 17:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Abuse

Re Edit War Shami Chakrabati I have no recollection of making the post about being a social worker. When I examined the origin of this it appears that the post was made by someone else using my wikipedia name on 19 April 2009 at 14:47 but signing it with my name at 08:19 I have aroused some controversy with my views on the BNP talk page amongst an explicitly racist sub section of the wiki community and I assume that this is a result of that, particularly as 86.143.99.30 (talk) has no proper identifier. This is particularly heinous abuse and what can I do about it?----Streona (talk) 16:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The offending edit is this one, and it was done by 86.143.99.97 (talk · contribs) --Enric Naval (talk) 19:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I now find that my user page has been edited by someone impersonating me who has deleted my being an anti fascist and anti racist to say that I am ignorant and for some reason that "King Kong ain't got shit on me". I do not object to reasoned debate. I can cope even with the kind of low rent hysterical abuse that characterises these kind of people- by which I mean self-admitted racists and BNP supporters who are almost always anonymous- but I object to being impersonated. The offender is 87.114.2.30 Can the be blocked ? Although they will undobtedly sock puppet again on false IP as ever.--Streona (talk) 09:11, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've requested page protection for the Shami Chakrabarti, but it looks like Streona's account has been compromised (contributions here) so semi-pp wouldn't stop it.Chris (talk) 09:46, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The "King Kong" bit is from a sketch on Robot Chicken. Sounds like some kid with too much time on their hands. — The Hand That Feeds You: 12:44, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Logging of active sanctions

Currently, this is the system for logging active sanctions.

The individual editing restrictions here and general sanction schemes on areas here are on separate pages to account for whether a sanction is on an editor or an area. Each page has two sections: one assigned to sanctions imposed by the community (either here or WP:AN or another community venue), and another assigned to sanctions imposed by ArbCom at a decision or via motion.

ArbCom decided that it was going to merge these pages, and put them under Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Active Sanctions. However, putting it here would (imo) create all sorts of confusion and headaches (eg; in terms of restrictions superseding one another, there being no central log of active sanctions, etc.) I also think that given sanction discussions from the community and sanction discussions from arbcom, already occur in different venues, we need to have a central log of the final outcomes. This concern could be satisfied if everything was merged to Misplaced Pages:Active sanctions. But on the issue of merging, an arbitrator has suggested that because the community has not raised any concerns, the merge should be made. I don't believe many members of the community are aware of this proposal to begin with, so I've brought it here for input by the users who help the community impose sanctions where necessary or oppose them where they are not. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposals on logging active sanctions

Please indicate preferences.

(1) A merge is NOT necessary/preferred by the community; this is fine as it is. This system centralises arb and community sanctions, but has separate pages to distinguish between whether the sanction is on an editor or an area of the encyclopedia.

(2) A merge IS necessary/preferred by the community; everything should be merged to Misplaced Pages:Active sanctions. This proposed system centralises arb and community sanctions, but does not have separate pages to distinguish between whether the sanction is on an editor or an area of the encyclopedia.

(3) A merge IS necessary/preferred by the community; community sanctions should be merged to Misplaced Pages:Active Sanctions, while ArbCom sanctions should be merged to Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Active Sanctions. This proposed system does not centralise arb and community sanctions, and does not have separate pages to distinguish between whether the sanction is on an editor or an area of the encyclopedia.

• Support 1, then abstain on 2 as second choice. Oppose 3. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support 1, oppose 2 and 3. Very important to distinguish community-based sanctions from arbitration sanctions, since arbitration sanctions necessarily supercede community sanctions. Durova 16:17, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support 1. Keep everything separate. Navigating a page this long could be problematic and create more headaches. Synergy 16:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Can you please move this discussion to the village pump or one of the arbitration pages? This is a decision for the "community", yes, not the "administrator community". Thanks, Skomorokh 18:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a central venue for where users impose sanctions, and it's administrators who enforce these sanctions; they (or users reviewing if a sanction needs to be enforced) are the ones that need to be able to check if the sanction exists within a few clicks upon a complaint being filed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Wikireader41

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

These are edits by a highly anti pakistani and islamophobic editor with a obvious pov he has so far escaped punishment mainly due to admins of indian heritage actively supporting his racist attacks i appeal to non hindu and non indian admins to block him 86.151.123.149 (talk) 18:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC) Apart from kashmir he has now engaged in attacking British Pakistanis by adding contentious comments about terrorism and disability i responded by adding info about british indians which irked him and he soon ran to nishkid a indian admin who manipulated the sentence of mine and toned it down to make it less evident while wikireader is free to attack and deface and when i revert his pov pushing the article is protected indefinately by the one and only nishkid please consider demoting him or atleast reverting wikireader41 edits in british pakistanis 86.151.123.149 (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC) Comments by ban-evading user struck. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Uh... where to begin. Some of the diffs above are fixing typos and formatting, but some would raise eyebrows at Wikiquette Alerts if posted there. All in all, this is hardly an emergency requiring admin intervention, particularly since Nishkid64 has issed a final warning to... wikireader41 - hardly the sign of a biased admin. Meanwhile, the above IP has been blocked for abusing multiple accounts. Show's over, I think. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 18:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

this post is by a banned wikivandal Nangparbat who has a long history of attacking and provoking editors with any kind of connection to India and vandalizing India and Pakistan related articles. he has repeatedly been in conflict with multiple editors and administrators and has been banned from wikipedia for more than 6 months but refuses to stop vandalizing. please ignore his rants.Wikireader41 (talk) 19:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Editor opened similar complaint in WP:WQA, which I have closed as NWQA due to "Opened at WP:ANI afterwards, and since complainant doesn't think warnings will help, that is the proper forum" (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:55, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

History of Jennifer Fitzgerald

For some reason, my account is credited with creating this article; I did not, and my edits built upon a version of the article created by others. Can someone fix this GFDL violation? I don't want to take credit for another's work, however problematic. Thanks, Skomorokh 18:46, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Restored the history. See User talk:Icestorm815#Jennifer Fitzgerald. –xeno 18:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Muchas gracias, xeno. Skomorokh 18:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It may be worthwhile to initiate a discussion somewhere on how to handle sitautions like this. You clearly build your 4/20 stub version on the previous content, yes? So the history is required for proper GFDL attribution, but the concern is that the history still contains much of the potentially WP:BLP-violating material. –xeno

This does seem to be a bit of a dilemma. One option would be to do a mass oversighting. It retains the GDFL attribution but removes the BLP concerns. However I'd much rather prefer something less drastic if possible. Any other possible ideas? Icestorm815 • Talk 00:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

perhaps make a revision with the edit summary "see Talk:JF/GFDL for contribution history of article prior to this revision", then delete everything prior? –xeno 01:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Multiplyperfect

Can somebody take a close look at the contributions of Multiplyperfect (talk · contribs) and possibly take action in light of Obama article probation. There aren't many so it shouldn't be too hard, but the user has been given warnings and still continues. Thanks, Grsz 19:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, he knows he's on his last chance. If another admin feels that he's gone too far, I will support any reasonable sanction. Note that this is essentially an SPA so a block and ban would be roughly synonymous. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 19:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed in this case the editor has been warned a number of times. I do wonder, however, if experienced editors should be more careful when dealing with new SPAs who exhibit troll-like behavior. The potential is high that accounts like this are just socks, or editors here just to pull our leg. But assuming good faith, it may well be a young or inexperienced editor who simply has a fascination for negative Obama trivia and wants to explore that here on Misplaced Pages. If you have a fascination however unhealthy with antique steam engines or species of extinct insects, and you add a whole bunch of little snippets about that to the encyclopedia, you're welcomed and gently guided to the appropriate style guidelines, content policies, and behavior rules. An editor whose fascination happens to be conservative politics gets much rougher treatment. My fear is that these people may be well meaning, just misguided. Calling them trolls on the talk page, cursing at them, taunting, insulting, etc., may well be a self-fulfilling accusation because it may sour them on the project and fuel any paranoia they may have about Misplaced Pages being a censorship cabal. Just a thought. We'll probably deal with this question in more depth in the arbcom hearing. Meanwhile, can I ask for some courtesy and decorum even when dealing with trouble? Wikidemon (talk) 20:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

An editor who posts "little snippets" about antique steam engines that are factually incorrect or intended to "pull our leg" would be dealt with in exactly the same way, and rightfully so. Nothing to do with politics or "decorum", everything to do with maintaining the accuracy and reliability of the reference resource we're supposedly building here. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 20:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

That's the ideal for sure. But (1) we can't presume bad faith - my concern regards the possibility that some are misguided newbies, not intentionally misbehaving, and (2) even in the worst case scenario, it does more harm than good to harangue trolls on an article talk page. Wikidemon (talk) 20:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I'd expect a good faith newbie to react in some way to policy/guideline links and explanations being posted on their user talk page. In this case, the user just seems to keep on going. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 20:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

User is clearly not here to contribute constructively. Time to show them the door. Mike R (talk) 20:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The user has been adequately warned, and indeed SheffieldSteel bent over backwards to explain the situation. I think we are easily at the point where the next talk page note along the lines of this one will mean an indef block and I would certainly implement that myself. I don't think we need to stress about this because it will be over one way or another shortly, though I do want to echo the gist of what Wikidemon said above about assuming good faith on these articles, hard as that may be at times. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

This guy is wasting our time, either he's incapable of "getting it" or simply doesn't want to. The articles are on probation, so it would not be a problem to tell him to find a different set of articles to actually *edit*, you know as he's clearly a good faith contributor (can I get one order of rolling eyes over here?) and that's better than an outright block. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I suppose all of you are right, but I must say that I'll be sorry to see him go: I find his regular curt demands for inclusion of this or that (not always comprehensible) evidence of alleged failure by Obama (together with his statements that without such inclusion the article depicts Obama as a "Superman") a fairly reliable source of unintended amusement. I regret that at least once (when I suggested that he might enjoy Wonkette instead of Misplaced Pages), I didn't entirely avoid expressing this; I'll try harder in the future. Quite how he managed to generate this fucking reaction mystifies me, but I infer that others actually take him seriously. Anyway, if there is a topic ban, I predict that his enthusiasm for toppling the false god that is Obama, combined with his Olympian disregard for the qualms of others, will bring him back as another username -- whereupon he'll be easy to spot, thanks not only to his obsessions but also to his distinctively unidiomatic English. Hoary (talk) 23:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

His antics might be amusing to some, but for most editors his activity wastes time and frustrates efforts to improve Barack Obama. I'd suggest he was an SPA, but his comments are so indecipherable that I'm not even sure what his agenda might be. Thus far, he has been no use to the project whatsoever. Any administrator thinking of banning or blocking may wish to consider checking 166.135.220.223 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), which may or may not have been used by the same editor. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Requesting block of User:Drittes Reich 1940, deletion of userpage

Drittes Reich 1940: That is, Third Reich 1940. Some highlights from the user's userpage:

• "This user is proud to be a Nazi"
• "This user thinks British people are the main cause of problems in the world" (accompanied by the Nazi-era Reichsadler)
• "This user is strongly in favor of dropping a nuclear bomb over Britain to get rid of vicious trouble makers" (accompanied by File:Nagasakibomb.jpg)

--Rrburke 21:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a sock of User:NeMiStIeRs. Blocked by User:John Carter before I could do so. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 21:46, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure about that? User:NeMiStIeRs is a user in good standing, with no blocks in his block history, and no history of blatant incivility or inappropriate edits. Horologium (talk) 12:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It was a softblock. You should reblock if you are sure of this. I've deleted the UP. –xeno 21:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The subject didn't take kindly to being blocked, and added some obscenities to my user page twice, showing true subtlety by signing himself as Drittes Reich 1940. I blocked the IP indefinitely. I may have been hasty, please feel free to modify as desired. John Carter (talk) 22:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've set an expiry (1mo). –xeno 22:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Block looks good. Cirt (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppet?

In answer to Horologium's question above, I am not sure who this might be a sockpuppet of, but looking at the contributions it cannot be a new user (their first edit created a template). Looking at their contribs yesterday, the revert to File:Fallahi.JPG stood out (reverts by very new accounts are often worth looking at) and the history of that file led me to think that the puppetmaster might be NeMiStIeRs. Perhaps it's someone else; perhaps DR1940 is a joe job. Being unfamiliar with the histories of the articles and editors involved, I don't know. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 13:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sockpuppet, but I would suggest that the sockmaster is user:Shir-e-Iran, as the template created by Drittes Reich 1940 was a copy and paste edit of a template recently created by Shir (note the internal template names are the same in both templates, with Dritte's V-D-E links going to Shir's template). Dritte's edits seem to be continuing the series of edits of Iranian military leaders started by Shir-e-Iran, and continued by his sock user:Artesh-e-Iran. In addition, the IP address's which placed the taunting comment on Dritte's userpage, and committed the userpage vandalism on John Carters user page, both geolocate to Tehran, and fall into the same ranges as several of Shir's IP socks. Recently closed SPI is here. Wuhwuzdat (talk) 20:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Just did a little further research, and found another possibly related IP 59.93.192.35, geolocation is off, but today's edits sure fit the pattern. Wuhwuzdat (talk) 20:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Signed Userpage vandalism from the smelly sockmaster in question here , posted 5 minutes after my first posting in this topic, geolocation = Tehran. Wuhwuzdat (talk) 20:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Re-opened the SPI on this user, with the new accounts listed. Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Shir-e-Iran Wuhwuzdat (talk) 21:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

More edit-warring by Badagnani

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

Same old story as documented in his RfC/U, the many 3RR reports on him, and most recently, Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive532#User:Badagnani.

This time he reverts 17 edits made by three editors (myself, Quiddity, and Gwalla) , then reverts Quiddity's attempt to restore the material: .

His contribution to the talk page between these two edits, and only recent comment even vaguely relevant to his reverts, is one about working together: --Ronz (talk) 21:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've been involved in several disputes with Badagnani. I'm currently involved in one now with him, on Talk:Buddha's delight. But the way I approach the issue with him, is much different than how others do it. I use the discussion page and wait a bit. My experience tells me that Badagnani has only the best intentions for Misplaced Pages, but his method is somewhat eccentric. It seems that he expects other editors to understand and agree with his POV without much fuss, as if we were all inside his head along with him. This perspective often leads to edit wars because frustration levels rise on both sides. I think if we all calmly use the talk page with Badagnani, things will work themselves out and everyone will be happy. I would like Badagnani to make an effort to put himself in the minds of others for once, and in this example, I would like to see him try to understand where Ronz is coming from. Far too often, Badagnani puts us in his head, and that isn't reasonable. Viriditas (talk) 09:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

From what I've seen he just repeats his point of view, and reverts any changes against as "massive blanking", or has his MO changed? Verbal chat 10:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

That is certainly one way of looking at it, but there are multiple perspectives on it. I'm coming from a different POV. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that Misplaced Pages has many different personalities, and it takes a certain kind of person to use this site for any period of time. Some people have strengths in one area, and serious weakness in another. Badagnani does a great deal of good work here, but when it comes to dealing with anyone who disagrees with him, he has problems. As others have mentioned in previous/ongoing discussions, Badagnani needs a mentor. I've found that he is open to reason, but it takes some effort to get there, and some editors find it easier to edit war. Simply saying that "he repeats his POV and reverts any changes" could apply to many editors here. Looking at my discussion with him on Talk:Buddha's delight, I think Badagnani makes some really good points, but the chasm between the way he goes about doing things and general policy and guidelines is very wide. All I'm saying is let's at least try to bridge that gap with more discussion. After some discussion, Badagnani does get around to compromising, but we all need to work towards that goal together. Viriditas (talk) 10:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've been at Talk:Buddha's delight too, and see nothing different: the usual false accusations of stalking, and Badagnani revert-warring to keep completely unsourced material on grounds of appeal to personal status - "An enormous amount of research went into the writing of this article (by a WP veteran)". Why should the rest of us have to compromise to humour an editor who is at odds with a long list of content/conduct policies, guidelines and conventions, and is producing a trail of substandard material and bad interactions alongside whatever good? It's not merely about style of handling disagreements; he appears not to understand stuff such as the importance of WP:V, and how we don't write articles by personal compilation of primary sources. 86.148.152.232 (talk) 13:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Looking at the page history of the article in question, List of gamelan ensembles in the United States, I see 153 peaceful edits (many by Badagnani) from inception on 29/01/2006 to 25/03/2009, that is roughly 50 per year. There have been over 150 edits to the page since Ronz's first edit on 24/02/2009 (50 in the last 2 days), not to mention 2 afds and much heat on the talk page and several user talk pages. It seems to me that Ronz, having manifestly and deliberately stirred up an edit-war on and about this page, is now complaining about it. A simple solution would be for Ronz to remove the page from his watchlist and police the other million or so list pages, many of which are far worse than this one. There is List of symphony orchestras in the United States, for instance. Or is just Eastern lists that need attention (cf List of Chinese music ensembles in the United States, afd'd and deleted by Ronz et al)? Occuli (talk) 12:20, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If it's comments like these are the best support that Badagnani gets for his tendentiousness, then he most definitely needs a block. Arguments that assume bad faith and intentional disruption are of no help. --Ronz (talk) 17:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Badagnani again. I warned him at Talk:Nokdumuk last Sunday not to further edit war with editors, but that does not work obviously. At that time, he may have breached or been close to 3RR violation to several articles as wiki-stalking his another opponent. My suggestion is just to report Badagnani to WP:AN3. No need for further him indulging in endless edit warring. Even before Ronz and Badagnani battle, Badagnani has been always edit warring with multiple editors for his nonsensical insistence and made bogus accusations like "blanking". If I would've reported his 3RR violations, his blocks (more than 4 blocks perhaps?) would have been piled on. Enough is enough. Mentorship? Who's gonna take the hard job? One admin failed it already. I guess Viriditas will do the honor.--Caspian blue 13:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I hate to say this, but if the user is blatantly ignoring and disregarding the RFC against him and continuing to engage in the activity that has led to the RFC in the first place, then, as has been done in the past with other users, a block may be necessary and probably an indef one until the user decides to address the RFC. MuZemike 16:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, IMO, the RFC was started as a vendetta against Badagnani, and some of the editors participating there (both in the creation of the RFC and as commentators) were hounding Badagnani to the point of following his contribution list and reverting all of his edits in retaliation. To me at least, the RFC was made in bad faith, although some of the concerns there are of course, legitimate. It's akin to catching flies with honey, and this RFC is dripping with vinegar. Viriditas (talk) 02:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Block threats from Admin User:OhNoitsJamie

Please note User_talk:Mbhiii#WP:POINT posted by Admin User:OhNoitsJamie. I edited 5 articles he had recently. Each one of my edits (Monsanto-Rottweiler) was for good cause. He didn't like it and threatens to block me. This is the second time I've brought him to the attention of other Admins. The first was over his repeated, inappropriate blocking on March 19-20th. Please, straighten him out, again. Thanks, MBHiii (talk) 22:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Mbhiii. Looie496 (talk) 22:10, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that your edits were "good cause"; you replaced unsourced material without citing a source, merely expressing most optimistically that "someone can find a source". Please see WP:BURDEN on that one. The congruence of articles tends me towards a certain opinion, and that is that you should WP:DISENGAGE and edit some different articles, and citing sources. I can't disagree with his message on your Talk page, but another admin should apply the block. Only time will tell if, when, and who that will be. Rodhullandemu 22:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I have reviewed both Mbhiii's recent edits and Ohnoitsjamie's recent edits - I agree with Jamie that Mbhiii is editing disruptively at the moment. I have warned Mbhiii that further disruption will result in a block. Also notifying Jamie about this thread... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't even recall your first "report" about me...I don't see any edits from your account on March 19-20th relating to an ANI report. It's clear that your recent reverts were "retaliatory" edits because I'd declined your sixth or seventh unblock request. OhNoitsJamie 22:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Question. Is this user contributing such benefit through her constructive edits that it outweighs the amount of disruption she's causing? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Which user are you referring to? I only ask because you specifically used "she" (which I am not, but commonly assumed to be). OhNoitsJamie 23:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to User:Mbhiii; I have a habit of just assuming that everyone is female until I learn otherwise. In my opinion, the benefit provided to the encylopedia by User:Ohnoitsjamie does indeed outweigh the amount of annoyance he causes. :) -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Whew, glad to hear that. I'll do my best to keep the scales tipped in that direction. ;)OhNoitsJamie 02:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing quite like a ringing vote of confidence from your peers. :) Baseball Bugs carrots 10:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Astonishing. Last month's complaint was this, and now I'm "acting confrontationally and abusively" towards him? I'm neither impolite, like a recent edit-war opponent I had, nor overbearing and threatening like ONIJ. Recently, I checked about 20 of ONIJ edits and made these 5 myself:

Monsanto - add introductory sentence "Monsanto is widely accused of unethical business practices." to ==Criticism== so as not to just go into a list of particulars.

Mr. Lif - add back promotional refs that contain content of value to those interested in Mr. Lif. (Promotional purpose should not trump relevant content. Right?)

Pornographic film - revert blanking of a German ref. (Don't need to read German to get useful info from its references. Right?)

Connecticut - revert blanking of ===Disability Resources=== and its contact info.

Rottweiler - reinsert "Some insurance companies feel that the dogs should not be kept as pets."(w/ fact template) in ==History==

What's so wrong with these that he has, with your agreement, the right to block me for it? My overarching concern is to expand WP and make as immediately useful as possible, at every opportunity. -MBHiii (talk) 18:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I stand by all of those edits, which were

• unsourced opinions (Monsanto, Rottweiler),
• unnecessary commercial links (in the case of Mr Lif, artists typically host free mp3 downloads on their own site; we don't need to link to every mirror)
• unnecessary non-en link (there are plenty of English links and books about pornography; a German one doesn't add anything new
• unnecessary general info (the user who added the disability info to Connecticut was starting to spam all state pages with this info. As I and another editor noted, we already link to each state's official .gov site, which has that info. Misplaced Pages is not a web directory.

As my block warning clearly stated, I'm not about to play games with obvious WP:POINT edits (in this case, retaliatory reverts immediately following an unblock denial of your IP). Furthermore, I'm clearly not the only user who's is running out of patience with your frequent disruptive editing. OhNoitsJamie 18:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Monsanto - a summary of what's to follow is not unsourced.
• Rottweiler - a commonly expressed opinion that's easily sourced won't remain unsourced for long; why not encourage it?
• Mr. Lif - allowing someone to put a relevant link doesn't create a "need to link to every mirror."
• One can expect a "filmography of historical porn films" to be pretty rare.
• Conn - WP:NOTDIR "mention of major ... promotions or historically significant programme lists ... may be acceptable."

-MBHiii (talk) 19:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I've already wasted enough time responding to your frivolous allegations. I'm not wasting any more. OhNoitsJamie 20:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikihounding

The content issues here are becoming somewhat of a red herring. The key issue is that User:Mbhiii, after other conflicts, clearly followed User:Ohnoitsjamie around to articles Jamie was doing cleanup work on, and reverted changes Jamie made.

This is a clear and obvious violation of WP:WIKIHOUNDING - following an editor you disagree with around and bothering them on pages you have not previously participated in. Mbhiii clearly went to five articles he had never participated in ( Monsanto, Mr. Lif, Pornographic film, Connecticut, and Rottweiler ) over the course of 30 min on April 28th, directly and immediately following Jamie's edits, and reverted each of them.

The exception to Wikihounding is if an editors' contributions are damaging the encyclopedia by vandalism or the like - In this case, that clearly is not true. These are ordinary content disputes. Happening to bump heads with other editors over content disputes is one thing. Following the same editor to five different articles, over 30 min, which you have never edited before, is Wikihounding, and not ok.

Mbhii - Your dispute over the propriety of the individual edits is not relevant. The issue is that you followed Ohnoitsjamie, to five articles.

That sort of behavior is rude, against Misplaced Pages etiquette, and disruptive. If this is done again it will lead to a block. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I will support a minimum block of 1 week if it happens again; it's grossly unacceptable behaviour - please don't let it happen again Mbhii. I suggest you voluntary avoid any unnecessary interaction with Ohnoitsjamie. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Edokter edit-warring, gaming the system, incivility

Edokter (talk · contribs) is growing somewhat prickly in the Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica) article. This is much the same sort of argument that was brought to light a few weeks ago, and the arguments are essentially the same. After it was decided that opinions as to inclusion or exclusion of certain info in the article, most of us decided to participate in mediation to get a neutral voice into the discussion, and help solve the issue. I am not going to go into it, as its a content issue.

After Edokter decided to participate in the mediation, he expressed his opinion (along with the rest of us). However, his opinions, which included singling me out for specific personal attacks, started again, increasing in intensity until it boiled over a little while ago. Despite the fact that mediation and discussion is ongoing in article talk, Edokter suddenly and unilaterally decided that discussion over and has repeatedly added the same information into the article, complete with veiled threats in the edit summaries of these additions. Again, I am not discussing the content of these edits, but it bears mentioning in addition to seeking to end-run the mediation without anything approximating a consensus, the information he is adding doesn't match the citations.

This has happened a few times before, and at least once before in this article that I am aware of. I am unsure how to proceed, as Edokter's tone in the discussion has gone from unpleasant to hostile. If he doesn't want to mediate, he shouldn't sign up for it.

Lastly, I am reporting this here because Edokter has a history of blocking those editors with whom he disagrees with in article discussion. I'd prefer to not be subjected to that again. - Arcayne () 23:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• Page has been protected for 1 week. I don't have a comment on the behavioral issues. Would you mind posting a few diffs which exemplify the behavior (I've read the two you linked)? Also, have you informed him of this thread? Protonk (talk) 23:10, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I did, moments after posting here. - Arcayne () 06:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, figured I would ask. Protonk (talk) 07:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

History of blocking? Incivility? Really... Put the evidence on the table or shut up! Let's see what is happening here. Arcayne has an opinion, and needs 1,208,465 posts to meake his position clear, even though is is going completely against consensus. Yet he keeps beating the dead horse and declares all other opinions 'against policy'... at least his interpretation of it.

This is a content dispute, and the mediator hasn't chimed in yet, yet Arcayne removes the infomrmation anyway. Pot, meet kettle. Arcayne, you need to stop it. I invite all available administrators to go to Talk:Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica), see the entire discussion, then finally see the complete and utter nonsense that Arcayne has been poisoning the talk page with. And deal with it this time! Seriously folks, had I been an uninvolved party, I would have blocked Arcayne indeed. I want closure now. — Edokter • Talk • 23:29, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Dude, you blocked me over a content dispute you were actively involved in with me less than 6 months ago, and were universally lambasted. Are you saying you do not recall? Have you already forgotten that this exact same uncivil, attacking behavior less than 3 weeks ago fueled the last ANI complaint? In the very same article. Did you forget that you threw a tantrum over edits not going your way and sent the article for AfD? And this is just your interaction with me.

This complaint is not over a content dispute. I am interacting with others who disagree, and yet they haven't decided to get muddy, yet you have. Twice in this article alone. This is behavior I have seen in you in at least three different articles, and not just directed at me. I am no angel, but I've been polite, professional and civil here. You haven't.

You decided you were done discussing, and said so. After you made your third revert, adding information that was specifically the subject of the mediation. Since the mediator - as you said - hasn't chimed in, you were fully aware that the edits were disruptive. We block editors for that sort of crap, Edokter. That you are an admin and doing this is disturbing. That you have to be told this repeatedly is more so. - Arcayne () 06:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

And my basic complaint is you beating a dead horse. You are unable to concede. You are acting against consensus. Looking at the talk page, you take up 80%, simply because you refuse to acknowledge other viewpoints and try to force the issue, using remarks like "you as an admin should know", mis-applying policies and utilizing edit-warring and system-gaming to force the issue. No, Arcayne, this is indeed purely a behaviour issue, and it is your behaviour that is being discussed. You have a history (and a block log to show for it) of disruptive editing and tirteless discussions against consensus, and this one is no different. — Edokter • Talk • 10:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

And, as has been pointed out before, there is no consensus for that which you seek to add. This is why we sought a mediation. And I wouldn't be too quick to point to my block log; you added to it in an abuse of your tools and were chastised here for it, and calls for your de-sysopping were set aside with the explicit caveats that if there was a reccurrence of this behavior, removing the mop might have to be discussed. You've clearly shown that you are willing to use your admin tools to seek an upper hand in a discussion (evidenced by the proposed article ban below). The difference between an editor and an admin is that if an editor has a problem with another user, they have to come here and explain the problem to others, who decide what to do. An admin can simply block/ban the editor they are angry at. Block logs cannot be scrubbed of bad blocks, so an admin needs to exercise better restraint than you have in this matter. That is why I keep pointing out that "you are an admin, and should know this". You should know, and clearly do not.

Part of the problem is that the mediator initiated discussion in article talk as opposed to a page set up for the mediation. That, and the fact that the mediator hasn't weighed in for a number of days might mean that the mediator is inexperienced. Admin eyes might be helpful, both as a calmative as well as acting as de facto mediators to the issue. The more the merrier.

I have not contributed to the article discussion, as I am waiting for the mediator to weigh in. My reverting of material added by Edokter was an attempt to stem an end-run of the mediation. Since reporting here, I have not offered any discussion- Arcayne () 17:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Article ban for Arcayne

You are hereby banned from Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica). Any edit you make will immediately be reverted. This ban will not be lifted until another admin has fully reviewed your behaviour on that article and posted his assesment here; Or you step back from the dead horse and concede to consensus, apologize to all involved and get on with your life.

To ohter admins; The lack of response is disappointing, and it is forcing me to seek other people's involvement. I will not accept any blanket unbanning if that person has not evaluated Arcayne's behaviour first. It is time to remove the only force that has prevented this article from inproving (it could have been featured by now). — Edokter • Talk • 10:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

"Hereby"? Good lord, Edokter, you are evidently an involved party here. This "article ban" is quite obviously null and void, unless there should be a consensus by uninvolved admins first. Trying to push this through on your own whim is itself serious admin misconduct. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Then tell me... what do I have to do to get another admin to evaluate the situation? I have to take some action to get others involved. I cannot do this by myself. The silence by other admins is quite shocking too... So I simply have no choice. — Edokter • Talk • 11:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

go and ask one on their talk page?  rdunnPLIB  11:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Tell me... What sort of fool do you have to be to do precisely what the other party said you might, and use your sysop privileges in a dispute in which you are the other party? How many hours has it been since Arcayne first posted? How many days since mediation was first started? Do you know something about the encyclopedia having an input cut-off date in the next month or so? Are you not prepared to allow othere sysops to review the situation and agree what actions should be taken? What are you thinking in demanding that no admin may "reverse" your unilateral and partisan ban without conducting the review that you were too impatient to wait for before acting? Without looking into any part of the content dispute, I should say that you have justified Arcaynes original comment here beyond question - you are demonstrably unable to separate your editing and your adminning. I think, at the very least, you should strike through your first two paragraphs in this section, and wait until your fellow contributors have had time to review and comment on the situation. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I am the fool that has been trapped in one of Arcayne's carefully set up traps. His sole intention is to get me to loose it and then yell "See? I'm right!" This issue has been brought to ANI many time, either by me or Arcayne. Each time met by a deafening silence. I HAVE to force the issue because up until now, not a singe admin has taken any steps toward even evaluating the issue. So any comment here that start with "Well, I haven't looked at the situation yet, but..." is also automatically null and void. And as soon as I strike my ban, it will only be a signal to other admins that "things have died down again, move along..." Well, not this time. The ONLY way to resolve this is for another admin to actively investigate the situation and post a review. Seriously, I have been left here to dry, and I can simply not imagine any other way to have another neutral admin involved. Justified or not, this has been ignored long enough. Thsink what you will. You are welcome to reverse the ban, but I demand that an uninvolved admin look into the whole situation. I am really disappointed at the lack of interest by other admins to even try and resolve this. — Edokter • Talk • 13:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I've been following the above dispute, but haven't commented recently since I thought the mediator had matters in hand. The ban declaration above should be struck out; it has no community support and its impropriety is quite clear after the most trivial reading of WP:UNINVOLVED. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 13:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I hereby propose that Arcayne be banned from Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica) for a period of six months. The reason is that he is the sole disruptive force on that article. He refuses to concede to consensus, blocking any improvement to the article by way of edit-warring and generally continuing to beat the dead horse, which include requesting mediation for the sole purpose of dragging the issue. I surely hope for a lot of comments, because any lack thereof will default to no opposition. — Edokter • Talk • 15:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, I oppose such a ban. There actually isn't a consensus for the information currently being debated, and I am most certainly not the only one who is opting for the point of view which created a deadlock. That deadlock created the need for the mediation. Since then, the four users - two on one side of the issue and two on the other - have spent inordinate amounts of time rehashing the same issue, and no one is budging. At that point, I suggested repeatedly that we all stop talking and wait for the mediator to weigh in. That seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

I am certainly not seeking to be disruptive, though if disagreeing with Edokter on inclusion matters equals disruptive, then both myself and another user are guilty of that. Three different users have argued against that which Edokter wishes to add (to whit, some names of robots), which, in a group of four would seem to constitute a consensus of sorts. Another matter is also being mediated, which Edokter has largely avoided discussing.

I think that the larger part of the problem appears to be a more specific issue with Edokter towards myself - I certainly don't seek him out (why would I want to?). We share many of the same topic interests (Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) but little in the way of editing style. I like discussion. Edokter has shown he doesn't, preferring quick action and fait accompli. Both are valid styles, though the first takes longer to find an enduring consensus, and the latter creates a lot more dramahz before getting to a consensus.- Arcayne () 17:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone should interpret a lack of response as tacit support for a ban proposal. A better interpretation, I think, would be apathy and/or conflict fatigue. For what it's worth, I don't think a ban is the right solution. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 18:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

This is absurd. Edokter, the best path for you would not be to immediately confirm Arcayne's allegations by announcing a unilaterial topic ban. why don't you just step away from this dispute? Also, for what it is worth, I oppose the topic ban. Again, no comment on the merit of the allegations made, but I don't think that you should be proposing one and I certainly don't want silence confused for consent in this case. Protonk (talk) 18:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Review of article talkpage and mediation

I hope I never have to regret the 15 minutes of my life reviewing the article talkpage... From my review of the pages, it appears that Arcayne is insisting upon a stringent interpretation of WP:OR on two matters, over which there has been an edit war. Edoktor and another editor are arguing on a looser interpretation of WP:OR, or WP:RS as applied to this matter. I see no resolution to this content dispute. I note that mediation has been initiated, and that again there appears to be no resolution. I have asked the mediator ErikTheBikeMan to respond here regarding how he views the present situation regarding the mediation - has it stalled/concluded.
In awaiting for the mediators response, I would comment that my conclusions is that Arcayne's actions are in good faith and in keeping with his interpretation of Misplaced Pages's policies - and that he should not be banned from the article (pending ETBM's response, at the least). I am more concerned with Edokter's actions, although I believe them also to be in good faith as regards the content dispute. I see processes in place for the resolution of the content dispute, yet they deciding to act before that case is resolved or noted as stalled. I also see increasing belligerence between the parties, but until the comment linked to by Arcayne in his initial comment regarding this matter no indication that the dispute was not going to be resolved in an appropriate manner.
Unless there are examples of Edokter mixing editing disputes with improper sysop actions as regards other editors, I do not see that there needs to be a RfC or RfAR on Edoktor's retaining the bit - it is understood that there is a history between the two editors which should not detract from the rest of their contributions to the encylopedia.
Lastly, if any other admin or editor wants to review the matter and post their views then please do - the more opinions the more sound will be any conclusion. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, the core of the probelm is left out, namely that of consensus, no matter how narrow. It there are two editors who are in favor of inclusion, and one against, it should be clear what should happen. Arcayne has a history of ignoring consensus in his firm belief that his interpretation of policy supersedes any consensus. That is what we shoulld be focussing on. More comments welcome. — Edokter • Talk • 20:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

One person saying the sky is blue is not negated by two others who think it is grey/green - nor, such is WP, the other way round; WP is not a !vote or a democracy, but a project built around references and policy. I am willing to wait for the mediator to comment upon the state of that process before considering how to progress the dispute. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If and when the mediator will actually mediate, I am most interested to hear what he has to say. This is a matter on interpretation of policy, both having merits, in which case the one that leads to improving the article should be adopted. I believe Arcayne's interpretation is not valid. — Edokter • Talk • 21:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Eye of the Lion

Eye of the Lion (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User's primary purpose seems to be attacking other editors. He also vandalized the AIV page, deleting this posting before an admin could evaluate it. I put it back there. Posting it here also, for whoever sees it first. Baseball Bugs carrots 23:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Blocked indef for disruptive editing, but if anyone thinks that this is too harsh and sees signs of a potential productive editor emerging, feel free to reduce or remove the block. Bencherlite 23:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Given his comments post-block, I entirely agree. Rodhullandemu 00:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Unlike the user who was the subject of Lion's attacks, I hardly ever get threats of violence. Maybe my crocodile farm is the deterrent. Baseball Bugs carrots 00:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I could threaten you with a lead pipe if you like. Or would you consider that patronizing? HalfShadow 15:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Block User:CommonsDelinker - negative non-obvious bot powered contributions detrimental to the project.

Can someone block this stupid thing? This edit was entirely counter-productive. Sure it removed the link to the deleted image on commons but spectacularly failed to notice there was a previous perfectly good image used before leaving the article with no image, and no redlink to the deleted image to alert a HUMAN editor to the problem so they could check the article history. The only reason it was picked up was I had visited the article recently and knew there was a perfectly good freely licensed image there at that point and went digging to see where it had gone.

This is a net NEGATIVE to the project - we shouldn't tolerate edits that degrade the encyclopedia from a bot account that doesn't conform to our naming conventions on bots, isn't mantained on the english wikipedia by anyone and requires running off to commons if there's a problem. Block immediately and permanently. Exxolon (talk) 00:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose and disagree with the evaluation. The deleted image is in copyvio, so the bot is doing its job properly. --Caspian blue 00:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • No it's NOT. It's making it harder to correct problems where a freely licensed image is replaced by a copyvio. That's then correctly deleted as one but this thing then deletes all references to the change to it so you end up with NO image and NO clue that there was ever one there. Exxolon (talk) 00:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
    • That's your thought and why don't you calm down? Bot is bot.--Caspian blue 00:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

An edit that fixes broken syntax is "entirely counter-productive"? The inability of a bot to detect the existence of a suitable alternative image is a "spectacular failure"? A broken page is a better notification of an image problem than an informative edit summary? Hesperian 01:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Damn straight. Check - this is the version of the page the bot left - no image, no indication there ever was any image, no clues, no nothing. The redlink is better left unremoved - this can alert a HUMAN editor to a problem, they can then check the history and fix the issue. Exxolon (talk) 01:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Exxolon, I can understand your frustration, but I don't think there's much alternative. I don't even want to think about writing a bot that would search the history of an article looking for the last time there was a valid image. At the same time, we can't very well have red link images scattered about. Get mad at the person who put the bad image on the article in the first place, and get mad that not enough people are watching the article and familiar enough with it to know that images are available. Wknight94 01:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with those above who find that this particular bot is doing nothing wrong. However, we have a bot that goes and "rescues" citations from previous versions of a page. How about either making a new bot, or adjusting this bot, to drop a note on the talk page if there was a commons or other still-available image removed from the page and reflected in its history, prior to the more recent copyvio removal? bd2412 T 01:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Redlinks to files are never helpful, as files typically have either cryptic or highly specific names which don't help anything. I see this as a case where the system worked. The bot made an edit removing a bad image link. You, a watchful editor, added a good image in place of its absence. —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 01:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I've thought about it the first few times people asked for OrphanBot and ImageRemovalBot to restore old images, and there are just too many cases where it's the wrong thing to do (say, an album cover used as the lead image of a biography, or a generic image name where the original has been replaced by something else). It's better to have no image than to have the bot accidentally insert the wrong image. --Carnildo (talk) 22:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Note: this bot also produces some broken syntax on en-wiki. Recent example: . Gimmetrow 01:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm going to ask a template guy, but I think that syntax breaking is the fault of the template not failing gracefully when no image is present. Protonk (talk) 01:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I was looking into it, and I think it may be a bug in ParserFunctions. There is simply no reason why that if clause should be invoked when the logo argument is blank. Hesperian 01:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
      • The problem is that the field contains the character U+200e, the left-to-right mark. Presumably it was inserted by someone's copy-paste when they inserted the image filename. The bot should be able to easily detect that the field after image removal consists only of that character and handle the situation, but to date the operator has not done so. Anomie⚔ 01:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
        • Anomie is correct as to the cause of that specific bug. The bot operator was informed months ago. Gimmetrow 01:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
        • Ah. Ok. Protonk (talk) 02:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Exxolon, I can understand your frustration.... Not me; I have no idea what you're carrying on about. Judging by your edit summary in response to that bot edit, I'd say you need to go have a lie down. Hesperian 01:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• The bot removes deleted images. Often, however, an image that gets deleted replaced another image, and the bot doesn't restore that other image. The effect of the bot, in many cases, is to hide the removal of good images from articles. I think that's what Exxolon is frustrated about. Gimmetrow 01:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe that this version after the bot edit is preferable to this version before. As a bot operator and member of the Bot Approvals Group, I do not believe that a bot can reliably determine whether an acceptable image was recently replaced with a version that was deleted from Commons. I'll go on record saying I'd approve this bot if it were up for approval today to do just what Exxolon is complaining about. On the other hand, the unrelated bug Gimmetrow mentions is legitimate, if relatively minor. – Quadell 01:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think the unrelated bug is legitimate. Templates should be able to handle empty parameters robustly. Strangely, both the implementation of this template and its documentation suggests that it can handle empty parameters. I think Gimmetrow may have found a ParserFunctions bug. Hesperian 01:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not an empty parameter. There is an invisible unicode character (see above) in the field. Gimmetrow 01:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

So to sum up, for those following along at home: Exxolon's original complaint (removing redlinks) is not valid. Gimmetrow's secondary complaint (failing to remove invisible characters when removing images) is valid. It's a subtle bug, and no one holds it against the bot-op that he didn't catch it. However, he's been unresponsive in fixing it once it was brought to his attention, and that's a problem. – Quadell 02:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

...and per BD2412's comment, someone may want to request a bot that would attempt to rescue good images that were replaced by bad images. Wknight94 02:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Why doesn't this bot just leave a note on the article talk page to mention what it did? And, preferably, why the image was deleted? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 04:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• It could leave a note, I guess. Ask the bot operator on his talk page if he is willing to write and get approval for that change. As for why the image was deleted, who knows? It was commons, so I guess the history there would show a deletion decision or discussion. Protonk (talk) 07:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It's probably a Bad Idea to have this account flagged as a bot. I agree that its work is generally necessary and improves the immediate appearance of articles, but it would be beneficial if we could actually see easily what it's doing and when it needs to be 'followed-up' on. This would address the legitimate complaint that it can constitute a subtle removal of images. Happy‑melon 09:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone have strong objections to me archiving this section? Protonk (talk) 07:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Before you do so, would you run an ad for m:Free Image Search Tool and WikiProject Check Misplaced Pages's Template with Unicode control characters report? -- User:Docu 09:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I have contacted the bot operator at Commons:User talk:Siebrand#CommonsDelinker problems on the English Misplaced Pages. – Quadell

• This matter is why we have Village pump. Archiving is better to save everyone's time.--Caspian blue 13:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Block request for User:Erniebelmonte

Requesting a block of Erniebelmonte for repeatedly recreating deleted pages with copyvio. ~Pesco 02:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

User had already been warned not to do that repeatedly, was given a final warning, and then 15 min later went and did it again. I have indef blocked. If they come back and agree to abide by our copyright policy, and indicate that they understand it properly, I have no objection to any admin unblocking however. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Given that his first edit was the creation of another copyvio article (Becky Dixon, just deleted after I tagged it), as well as this cute edit, I'd recommend that an admin think twice about unblocking. Someone may want to take a look at the categories he created, too; there may be nothing wrong with them per se, but he's been adding them to some articles where the text doesn't support the categorization. Deor (talk) 02:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

User:TruthIIPower

TruthIIPower (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
The user, whose first edit was a month ago, appears to be on a crusade of some kind, specifically to take ownership of abortion-related articles to remove any hint of what he considers to be "bias". That in itself may not be a bad thing, but his constant insults leveled at anyone he disagrees with are getting a tad irritating. It's also been implied that he's a sock but no one has investigated that so far. Baseball Bugs carrots 04:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I should probably mention that this dishonest and insulting summary comes from a guy who's been adding bias to abortion articles so that they support his personal views. I've been working to keep articles in compliance with the neutrality requirement. If that's an "incident", then I'm glad to be guilty. As for incivility, I freely admit that I have been subject to plenty of it. Wouldn't it be great if you came into this with clean hands? TruthIIPower (talk) 04:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I have not actually made any edits to the article in question (Religion and abortion), and if I've ever edited another abortion article, it must have been a long time ago. Baseball Bugs carrots 04:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

See also WP:WQA#TruthIIPower and WP:WQA#TruthIIPower 2. Looie496 (talk) 04:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)Washes hands extra long to make sure they're clean and free of infectious diseases. Was just reading those wikiquette alerts. It's not a good sign when two different WQAs get filed within an editor's first month, and to see this diff after the second WQA had been open for three days is an indication that TruthIIPower isn't catching on. Nor is it edifying to read TruthIIPower's presupposition regarding third party responses to this thread:

To be frank, only if they're stupid and hasty. If they actually read carefully and think about what they're reading, it should be obvious that any apparent aggression on my part is a response to blatant abuse. TruthIIPower (talk) 04:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well what I happen to see at User talk:TruthIIPower is Philosopher, Andrew c, GTBacchus, and Tznkai (all administrators) and several other experienced users politely explaining policies and site standards, and receiving hostile and dismissive replies. Toward the latter part of the talk page a couple of posters are beginning to lose patience. If anything is unusual here, it is that an user who has been involved in three formal dispute resolution requests in such a short time (here's the third) has not yet received a single formal block warning. Strongly recommend TruthIIPower review a relevant policy and bear in mind that Usenet standards of interaction are not welcome here. A preference for hot button religion and politics articles necessitates more tact at this website no matter what viewpoint one happens to have; ideally one's personal stance on a subject should not even be detectable. Our site mission is to inform the public, not to sway its views. Whether right or wrong on the merits of a subject, editors whose interactions are consistently combative tend to get ejected from the discussion. Please take this to heart. Durova 05:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Just noticed the link. It is, oddly enough, entirely accurate to call it ritual cannibalism. According to Catholicism, they are in some way eating the flesh of Jesus. If it is a breach of civility to state this fact, I suggest you ban me forever. TruthIIPower (talk) 06:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Accuracy and courtesy are separate concepts. I devoured portions of a dead animal corpse this evening for dinner, but polite society prefers to call it steak. ;) Durova 06:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If I were to bring up this ritual cannibalism thing for no good reason, then perhaps it would be out of place and therefore discourteous. However, I brought it up when it was entirely relevant, since the issue at hand was whether we can call a wafer a wafer. I'm sorry, but there's just no incivility in that quote, no matter how deeply you search for it. TruthIIPower (talk) 06:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(OD)Saying that Transubstantiation is equal to canibalism, and demanding that everyone else acknowledge your analogy as the truth is a bit much to ask for without discussion. I'd suggest you find a reliable source stating that before trying to add it. T2P, you seem bound and determined to make it impossible to side with you, even for people who would agree with you on the issues. Dayewalker (talk) 06:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If you google "transubstantiation cannibalism", you get 12,000 links. Among those links would be http://en.wikipedia.org/Transubstantiation, which brings up the topic and does not dismiss it as absurd. Clearly, this is not original research on my part, and if it's so horribly offensive then perhaps you need to immediately censor Transubstantiation. I repeat; there is no incivity in the statement I made. I know I'm supposed to admit to my sins and act contrite so you can forgive me and leave me alone, but I have an unhealthy amount of integrity, so this is not an option. 06:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TruthIIPower (talk • contribs)

Hmm, and do you see anything odd about the context of these conflicts? TruthIIPower (talk) 05:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we all do. Dayewalker (talk) 05:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Somehow, I'm not sure that we're talking about the same thing. TruthIIPower (talk) 05:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll drop a hint with a leading question: How do I treat people who treat me reasonably? How do I treat people who outright insult me? How do you account for the difference? Partial credit given, but only if you show your work. TruthIIPower (talk) 06:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If you expect others to welcome your presence and relish the opportunity of collaborating with you, you might do well to make the prospect seem more inviting. I see and appreciate the fact you've made a number of good edits, but I also encourage you to bear in mind that at its core, Misplaced Pages is and will always be a cooperative endeavor. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Per Luna Santin. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Before you take the 'Universe vs me' stance, try to think if your own behaviour is not the root to this 'insult' problem you mention. To me (as an independent observer who has had nothing to do with editing the related articles or even in this discussion so far) it seems as if you are taking every comment addressed to you as an 'insult' and then respond aggressively. You have acted in this manner to even Durova, who has just tried to make things clear. Making sarcastic and heated comments is not going to help you and will not make anyone turn to your views. Chamal 06:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I proposed a topic ban to the user, which was rejected. No comment yet on the rest of this thread. Protonk (talk) 08:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

This should be no surprise. It was a highly unreasonable offer. If you want to fix things, fix things. I suggest you start by restoring neutrality on Religion and abortion, then permanently blocking Schrandit. Anything else is just playing games. TruthIIPower (talk) 08:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

How about I propose a topic ban of the user? If he wants to play soapbox, that's fine, just go somewhere else. Whatever points he has, he sure doesn't care if he's effective about them. Why do I see MPOV as the problem? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

That proposal has been rejected, so you'd be wasting your time. I will not accept a topic ban. You can kill me but you can't silence me. TruthIIPower (talk) 09:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes we can. 1 month for the second paragraph in this edit. yandman 09:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, not really. I keep a link to the good and gentle folk at WR on my userpage to remind me that there is always a place less useful than AN/I. No real harm in mentioning it on his user talk page in itself. Protonk (talk) 10:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

He was alluding to simply enacting a topic ban without your consent, rather than asking you to abide by one. Protonk (talk) 09:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Amidst all the brouhaha, TP created this little article: I wonder what that was about? Baseball Bugs carrots 10:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's evidence that a topicban wouldn't completely stop him. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 11:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The indef-block should slow him down, though. Baseball Bugs carrots 14:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Sanction proposals - Probation

Even through a block, Spotfixer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (sockmaster of TruthIIPower (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) seems to repeatedly demonstrate that little will change. I propose the following sanctions be enacted by the community:

1) Spotfixer is subject to an editing restriction (probation). Should he make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be disruptive, he may be banned from any affected page or set of pages. The ban will take effect once a notice has been posted on his talk page by the administrator and logged at User:TruthIIPower/Community_sanction.

2) Spotfixer is limited to one revert per week per page. This includes page moves.

3) Spotfixer is limited to editing with a single account.

4) Spotfixer is banned from editing Misplaced Pages.

NOTE: Editors under probation are expected to be especially mindful of both content policies including (but not limited to) BLP & NPOV, and interaction policies including (but not limited to) CIVIL, NPA, 3RR, EDITWAR and POINT. If sanction 4 passes, everything else becomes moot. Please indicate whether you support/oppose each sanction. Eg; "Support 1 and 3 only", "Support All - prefer sanction 4 over 1 2 and 3", "Oppose all", etc. The rationale for #3 is to explicitly prohibit evading these sanctions under other accounts - something that certain tendentious editors have somehow argued as being non-explicit in the past. Hopefully, that sort of gaming of the system will as a result, no longer be an issue. Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)slightly modified

• Support All. Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support 1, 2, and 3. His editing at Charles L. Copeland, for example, seems perfectly fine, and he seems to be able to handle himself on other topics in a calm manner. A topic ban may be more productive, but sanction 1 should encourage him to voluntarily consider one. Moot though considering User:Yandman's one-month block. Close and move on? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 11:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to revert the ban if there is consensus to give him another chance (and if he agrees to the conditions). I'm not involved in the editorial dispute, I just didn't like what I saw coming out of his keyboard. yandman 11:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

This is just as a measure of what he is restricted to, if and when he returns to editing. The status of the block will not change, unless #4 passes whereby its duration will be extended or made indef. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Can we add 5) TruthIIPower will ensure all edits, edit summaries, discussions and interactions with Misplaced Pages editors follow WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, or else he may be banned from any affected page or set of pages. The ban will take effect once a notice has been posted on his talk page by the administrator and logged at User:TruthIIPower/Community_sanction.

(yes, the above could be lumped into "disruption", but incivility was the genesis of the original 2 WQA events, so I believe it needs separate mention) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It's very much covered; editors under probation are expected to be especially mindful of both content policies including BLP & NPOV, and interaction policies including CIVIL, NPA, 3RR, EDITWAR and POINT. I'm reluctant to codify this because then there'd be wikilawyering over previous probations not specifying this exhaustive list - but nevertheless, it's in the note section now. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:TURNIP

Let's cut to the chase: Spotfixer gained a month's good faith by starting a new account that concealed a substantial block log. Per WP:TURNIP there's no need to structure complex probations for an editor who shows no willingness to accept them. The standard solution here is to let the month's block play out, then if problems resume initiate either a topic ban or a siteban, depending on whether this editor is collegial and productive anywhere outside the hot button issues. Let's not waste too much energy over this; we have other things to do. Durova 18:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't even know we had WP:TURNIP, but it seems like a good idea. This shows us Spotfixer isn't interested in getting along with anyone else. Sadly, even people who may agree with him can't support him. Dayewalker (talk) 18:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

That's true (though I too didn't know it existed as WP:TURNIP). Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Guess it's a moot point, as Protonk just indeffed Spotfixer. Subtract the drama. Dayewalker (talk) 20:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah; that saves us a lot of time - only time I think we would need to bother reviewing is during unblock request. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The Turnip article helps get to the root of the matter. Baseball Bugs carrots 23:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Blocked as sockpuppet

Luna Santin has confirmed that TruthIIPower (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a sockpuppet of Spotfixer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The only sanction we can offer is to ban the sockmaster account...though I assume that's moot for now? Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Schrandit kept referring to TP as "Spot", so he had him pegged fairly quickly. Seems like he could have helped shorten this process by raising suspicions more directly, although maybe he did behind the scenes. Baseball Bugs carrots 13:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

My praise goes out to everyone who noticed that. I must confess I am a coward here, I feared that TP would be able to slip away by claiming to be a legitimate seccond account and so I failed to press the matter. My hat is off to Luna Santin,outstanding work sir! - Schrandit (talk) 15:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It's indeed better to err on the side of caution when calling someone a sock. But you can always send an e-mail to a trusted admin, privately expressing your concerns. Keep that in mind in case you "spot" another potential sock. :) Baseball Bugs carrots 19:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(OD)In regards to Ncm's question, if Spotfixer is not permanently banned (currently only for a month), is it time to discuss the topic ban we were debating above for T2P now applying to the sockmaster account? Or should we wait until after he returns from his block? Dayewalker (talk) 15:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Ahh...good point. I assumed the sockmaster was indeffed. As that's not the case, I think we can just continue from where we left off; might as well impose them (if any) while we're here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a deal could be arranged. Let him come back, if he promises to inform WorldNutzDaily that wikipedia is now infested with conservatives. Then maybe they'll leave us alone. :) Baseball Bugs carrots 19:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• I just indeffed the master. No reason to put up with this nonsense again in a month. I'll contact the blocking admin immediately to let him know I modified his block. Protonk (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't think he will mind. But for clarity, endorse extension per Protonk. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Endorse block on sockmaster. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Endorse indef on sockmaster. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Indef was done. Good block. Baseball Bugs carrots 23:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

4chan hacked admin account

DFTT. ArbCom is aware; if any actual hack occurred they'll handle it. Durova 17:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

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

webcite watch the main page and WP:TFA --

Not safe for work. Hesperian 04:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, we'll figure it out soon enough. I just hope a bureaucrat is available. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Until we know which account it is - which we will the instant he does anything as all admin actions show up on the RecentChanges list - we can't do anything because we don't know which account's been compromised. -Jeremy 04:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, bureaucrats wouldn't be able to do anything. –Juliancolton |  04:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The 4chan page shows that he made an attempt to delete 4chan, which failed because it has too many revisions, if that's useful. Looie496 (talk) 04:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm getting on IRC to contact the stewards so that we can quickly desysop the account when we find out who got compromised. -Jeremy 04:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Won't blocking it be the easier and faster thing to do than de-sysopping? I thought any admin can block even admin accounts? The account obviously has to be blocked even if it is no longer an admin account. Chamal 04:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

He can unblock himself unless he's desysopped first. -Jeremy 04:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

How do we know this is real and not just a troll? If we're to believe the crap posted on /b/, he's gonna redirect the homepage to atheism, so I guess look for that? Most likely outcome: nothing ever comes of this. Oren0 (talk) 04:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The 4chan thread contains images of pages that only admins can access. If it's a trick, some labor has gone into it. Looie496 (talk) 05:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

He's being inundated, from what I can see from the webcite link, with all sorts of different suggestions. Even if nothing comes of this, if he has compromised an account, it needs to be desysopped, blocked, and CU'd. -Jeremy 05:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

They seem to have rather overestimated the capabilities of an admin account, judging by some of the comments there :D Oh, and they're following this discussion too, apparently. Chamal 05:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(RI) They can follow it all they want. I'm already idling in the stewards channel and watching RecentChanges, so if they try anything, I'll tell the stewards which account to desysop. -Jeremy 05:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you guys really think it'd be that hard to get a screenshot of the block page? Doesn't prove anything. Oren0 (talk) 05:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks like they have taken the thread down off 4chan...probably just moved it. - NeutralHomer • Talk • April 29, 2009 @ 05:08

And WebCite is saying "DB Connection failed". We have slashdotted WebCite? :-) John Vandenberg 05:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Is that what took WebCite down? I had an upload to WebCite fail when this was happening; I was uploading an old Western Union Telegraph Company technical manual. I filed a bug report with WebCite, but haven't received a response back. I thought WebCite had more capacity than that. If they're so limited that a 4chan reference can take them down, they may not be a good place to put documents referenced on Misplaced Pages. --John Nagle (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

@Oren0: Doesn't hurt to be careful, does it? While it is probably a bluff, we can just as well be a little alert right now. Chamal 05:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

No reason to be less vigilant, certainly. But more than anything those /b/ers want us to get all paranoid about this. It's not like people aren't watching the main page anyway. I'm just applying WP:DFTT and WP:RBI to the situation. The minute we let this turn into a big deal, whether it's true or not, the /b/ers win. Oren0 (talk) 07:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Just as a quick note the IP that posted here, keeps removing its signature and has been reverted at least three times now. Not sure if there is a valid reason for that or not? It is making it look like Hesperian started the thread, so should we at least have an "unsigned" there or something? Sincerely, --A Nobody 05:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(EC)To be on the safeside, I would do a checkuser on who seems intent on not have his "personal dox" listed on Misplaced Pages and keeps removing the Sinebot added sig at the top. - NeutralHomer • Talk • April 29, 2009 @ 05:18

(edit conflict)OrenO - well, I know how I could fake it, so I'm sure there's at least one 4channer who could do the same - but there are details of the screenshot that say "recent Misplaced Pages screen capture" to me (forgive me for not being explicit), so I'd say it's best to treat it as genuine - if the admins end up looking foolish, they'll at least be a better class of fools than the ones who would let such threats go. — Gavia immer (talk) 05:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(EC)My contact with the IP user on his talk page is that he is scared that Anonymous will come after him for reporting. - NeutralHomer • Talk • April 29, 2009 @ 05:26

Resolved

Resolved – block settings modified by Tnxman307. Yngvarr (t) (c) 23:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

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