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Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)

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User:Otterathome, User:80.171.27.157/80.171.27.157, and User:Mathieas

Removed unarchived thread that hadn't been touched in 24 hours--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:19, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I have unarchived this thread because it is an ongoing issue that remains unresolved. I would appreciate further comments. Thank you. --Zoeydahling (talk) 16:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Unarchiving was unwise. You're emphasizing a pattern of behaviour: off to WP:RFC/U with you for that. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

As the person who was accused of being a wikistalker (FYI not a real word). I am curious as to why this was archived without a resolution. I looked at the WP:RFC/U that Bwilins linked to and it stated that an incident can be archived for three reasons none of which I believe apply in this case. I don't claim to be an expert in wiki policy, so I would appreciate knowing why an unresolved matter was archived. Thanks. Mathieas (talk) 18:39, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Everything on this page is archived if nobody has followed up within the past 24 hours. If there are remaining issues, there are other dispute resolution avenues you could follow, like WP:Wikiquette alerts or WP:Requests for comment/User conduct. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

So the way it works is, someone makes an accusation against someone, there is a big long discussion (involving a bunch of unrelated stuff), then it gets shoved in a closet and forgotten without a resolution? Seems like a waste of time. So I guess this means I will not be going to wikijail. Mathieas (talk) 06:00, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me, but what "pattern of behavior" am I emphasizing? I am simply following the rules stated at the top of this page. They state "Threads will be archived automatically after 24 hours of inactivity. If you see a thread that should not be archived yet, please add a comment requesting more discussion, or if it is already archived, remove it from the archive and restore it to this page, preferably with a comment."

That is all I did. I unarchived a thread I believed did not merit being archived yet on account of not being resolved and I added a comment requesting more discussion.

Additionally, we already tried Wikiquette alerts and I addressed in the original post why I chose to go here instead of RFC/U. See quote: "Hi, an issue about User:Otterathome was recently raised over at WQA, but was closed as stale. I commented on the talk page of the user who was involved in marking it as such, and s/he replied suggesting RfC/U or if it was becoming a serious problem, ANI or ArbComm. After reading the limitations of RfC/U and the fact that the problem is continuing to escalate, I believe the issue needs to be addressed here. Below is the copy of the WQA alert, and at the bottom I have added some recent updates."

So that is why it was addressed here. Thanks. --Zoeydahling (talk) 05:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Again, off to RFC/U please:

• "He has continued on his tendantious editing by nominating another web star" (from previous ANI) - "continued" means pattern
• "He has also tried to impose his views on a quality scale rating assessment for Jessica Lee Rose" (from previous ANI) shows pattern across articles

It was already established beyond reasonable doubt by the community that Wikistalking was not occurring, and therefore immediate action was not required. You therefore were required to address the pattern that you were trying to establish if you wished further action to be taken. Nobody is going to be immediately blocked or banned for AfD'ing articles. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, remember how I said, since his previous AfD was over, I had no doubt his next one was in the works?

Have a look at this.

Again an LG15-related page, again a page he already tried to kill twice (once through AfD, once through calling for merge).

One month since the keep of the AfD, two weeks since decision not to merge.

How many LG15-related pages does he have to try to get rid of how many times until a pattern is established?

~ Renegade - 213.39.173.221 (talk) 02:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

In the new AfD he, again, tries to brush off any argument he can't attack on factual grounds by pretending they are invalid and "suggesting" people argue differently. In particular, he is trying to gloss over the fact that the nomination shows multiple signs of being frivolous and in Bad Faith by implying commenters are off topic if they question the validity of the nomination in the first place, rather than just accepting it and going with it.

He has also directly and unambiguously admitted his nomination is wrong by now, due to the fact that doing exactly what he (supposedly) wanted, improving the sources on the page, messed up the reference numbers in his nomination.

Instead of fixing his nomination, he went on to direct me to hide my post in which I point out his argumentation as it stands is wrong. I am not sure how Misplaced Pages etiquette is usually on this topic, but personally, I think telling a commenter to hide from the discussion that the nomination is factually incorrect and incoherent, in order to ensure its validity isn't put in doubt, is very questionable and not a sign the nomination could stand on its own.

In addition, his nomination in general, as pointed out in the AfD, shows several subtle signs of bad faith - including, but not limited to, implying that the fact that sources cited don't include information from future (as in time travel) is a sign they're bad, personally deciding which sources are independent 3rd party sources and which aren't, and making unexplained and bogus projections about the future chances of press coverage of the show.

~ Renegade - 80.171.53.32 (talk) 19:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't see anywhere that says ANI is not used for establishing patterns of behavior, after all, one of the possible things ANI says it can do is impose a topic ban, which would not be possible without the person establishing a pattern of behavior. Additionally, I don't see anywhere that says that RFC/U is used for establishing patterns of behavior, muchless that it is the only place to do so. If there is such a page, can you please direct me to it? I am trying to follow the policies as written out on the respective pages, but so far all that has happened is I have been told I "unwisely archived" something that, according to the written policies on this page, was completely within bounds, and told to go to another page to establish my case, when nowhere says that that is the only avenue to do so. Could somebody please clarify this all for me so I can understand where this is coming from? Thanks. --Zoeydahling (talk) 02:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

As you may not have realised, they won't stop complaining about me nominating their articles until something is done. They will defend their lg15-related articles to the end. See my archived comments for further details.--Otterathome (talk) 20:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I honestly think that this is exactly this kind of attitude that is the problem here. Since when are articles "owned" by one person or group? This is a community wiki. If you see articles as "ours" and "theirs" then you loose focus of the bigger picture which is to have a comprehensive community wiki of the highest possible quality. --Zoeydahling (talk) 23:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, something does need to be done here. Otter has demonstrated a pretty clear pattern of bad-faith editing, and is very clearly on a crusade to get an entire category of articles deleted. He's also got a bad habit of throwing around negative labels like 'wikistalker' and 'SPA' when people criticize him. He also seems to be nominating approximately one webseries related article for deletion per week. His deletion noms are OVERWHELMINGLY webseries related. This includes one situation where he nominated an article(Jackson Davis, took it to DRV after it was closed as a keep, and then 7 days after the DRV ended, and a mere 16 days after the original Nom, renominated it. In that nom he repeatedly tried to partially cite WP:NOTAGAIN ("Already nominated isn't a reason see WP:NOTAGAIN", leaving out the bit about how that doesn't apply if it's only been a short time since the last one) as a counter argument when people complained about the short period. He also partially cited the DRV's decision(That it wouldn't be inappropriate to renom it...he left out the part where they said "later in the year").

Then there's his more recent nomination of Vincent Caso. The edit history. and the nomination text itself are both very telling. His first edit to the article consists of unilaterally replacing it with a redirect to The Guild Mathieas reverted, protesting the 'unilateral deletion' in the edit note and also left a note on the talk page(the first and so far only edit to said talk page). Otter re-reverted to the redir, claiming in the edit summary it wasn't a deletion. Mathieas reverted again, saying it seemed like it to him. Otter never commented on the talk page. A little over 6 hours later, he nominated the article for deletion. His nomination summary was: "One of my wikistalkers User:Mathieas feels the need to disagree/revert me, so I have to spam another afd. Subject seems to fail WP:BIO/WP:N and seems to be only known for being in The Guild so redirect there." . The nom itself in the summary flirts with violations of WP:UNCIVIL and WP:POINT, by calling Mathieas a 'wikistalker' and saying straight out that he only Nom'd because Mathieas contested the unilateral summary redirect. Not quite 31 hours AFTER nominating it for deletion, he finally got around to adding a Notability template and citation needed tags.

Even more recently, he for the second time nominated yet another webseries related article, LG15: The Last for deletion. This time he avoided the article entirely, posting nothing it, simply nominating it. He also managed to actually write an overall decent summary this time. Problem is, the nom is rapidly snowballing into a speedy keep per WP:NOTAGAIN The first nomination was posted at 22:28, 3 August 2009... by otterathome. The previous nom, which had only one person vote 'delete', ended 34 days ago. He renominated it six weeks after his previous nom, and five weeks after it failed.

He's showing very clear signs of being on a personal crusade. In doing so, he's violated WP:NOTAGAIN twice, tried to subvert it by partially quoting it once, and has come dangerously close to violating WP:POINT and WP:UNCIVIL. He seems to be literally trying to 'sneak one by'; his conduct on the Caso article is particularly bad in this regard. Unilaterally replacing the article with a redirect, then edit warring and calling the person contesting it a wikistalker? Trying to go back after the fact to contest the lack of citations?

The overall pattern is pretty clear. Given that the closest he's come to giving anyone a chance to answer him when he contests the notability of a webseries related article was to issue an ultimatum... he simply wants them gone, and isn't interested in any sort of compromise. This shows he's not thinking about the good of the encyclopedia, but simply about what he personally thinks belongs here. It isn't just that he's going around nomming a lot of articles in one particular category that have problems, he's deliberately ignored consensus and has made absolutely no attempts to work with anyone or establish consensus. All he's done is to try to jam what he thinks down everyone else's throat. Does something need to be done? Absolutely. Otter needs to step back and realize that he can't just ignore his fellow editors, he needs to work with them and be both civil and reasonable as he does so. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 04:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Otter's response is a perfect example of the problem - he doesn't even acknowledge the possibility of a problem, or display any sign of willingness to talk about it - instead, he immediately jumps to implying fanboyism and dismisses the criticism as invalid. His entire "discussion" process consists of trying to discredit anyone opposing him in a debate.

There is a reason even WP:NOTAGAIN makes the exception of saying "If an article is frivolously nominated (or renominated) for deletion, then editors are justified in opposing the renomination. Frivolous renominations may constitute when only a short time has elapsed since the last nomination."

There is a reason pages like WP:LETGO or WP:GETOVERIT exist.

At a certain point in time, the limit is reached and it is time to stop. Even if it was not questionable that he's basically trying to nominate the entire LG15 franchise - at least the fact that he tried to get rid of Jackson Davis and The Last thrice each in one month should be a reason to at least tell him to settle down a little and leave it alone for a while. Or, as the closing admin of Jackson Davis the 3rd put it: "Advise that it should be a lengthy time before a 4th AfD is even considered. "

~ Renegade - 80.171.97.160 (talk) 19:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• User:Milowent suggested a topic ban on Otter after all of this; that sounds like a plan. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 21:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • By the way, s/he's at it again. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 22:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It is seeming more and more like that's the only way he's going to stop. I haven't had a chance to exhaustively check his AFD record(and I honestly don't know how other than spending hours going through his contribs), but of the recent noms of his that I *have* seen, NONE have succeeded. The best he's managed that I can find is a 'no consensus'. And if it does end up as a topic ban, the trick then is, what topic? I've yet to see him actually causing problems in the EDITING of articles, it looks like he's just going around trying to railroad delete them. And it isn't just lonelygirl articles, either(Caso is from The Guild, for example). Maybe what's needed isn't so much a topicban on Lonelygirl or even webseries articles, but a topic ban on Nominating on AFD? Admittedly he does have a knack for finding articles with issues, the problem is that deletion is his first resort rather than his last, in violation of WP:FAILN. If he bothered to actually try to work with people, he could actually be a huge asset. But given that the problem is not how he's editing the articles, but instead how he's FAILING to do so... I don't know that just a broad topic ban would really be the best solution. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 23:13, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

*Facepalm* Obviously the more narrow ban you'd need to include redirects and merges too, since he's already trying to go that route to get around the deletion opposition. Can't believe I left that out. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 23:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Graptor's point aside, which I actually think makes sense, but I digress, I think that if we go the topic ban route it should not just be for lonelygirl15-related articles, nor even just web series articles, because he has gone after Vincent Caso, who is an actor for another web series, but also Tubefilter, which is not a web series but one of the most prominent and well-respected web industry news sources. Therefore, I'd say a topic ban should cover something like "web content" or a similar term. --Zoeydahling (talk) 00:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE: Otter has now gone after ANOTHER web-based news source, GigaOM, putting up the {{Notability|Web}} tag with the description "will nominate for deletion in a few days, immediate editor attention required" This is absurd. The article is in fine shape, obviously not top-notch, but nothing on it indicates that it needs "immediate editor attention" (there's nothing libelous, etc). His statement that if no editor attention is given within "days" shows he clearly does not understand WP:DEADLINE. This is getting so frustrating. I really think a topic ban is in order here. --Zoeydahling (talk) 00:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

That right there... 'fix it NAO or I'll nom it for deletion'... from what I've seen that's an IMPROVEMENT, which is really sad. Still obviously missing the point of WP:FAILN: "For articles of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort." The problem lies in that he's not seeing the lack of clarity. He's unilaterally deciding that the topic is not notable, and can't seem to grasp what a 'good faith effort' to determine that entails. Though he's come down a lot from 'You have 30 days to fix it or I'll have it deleted' or whatever it was... Informing people that it has issues and inviting them to fix it, good. Hanging a deadline and an ultimatum over their heads while he does it, bad. Basically he's got it backwards. The idea is not to rid wikipedia of all articles that do not currently meet notability standards, it's to keep what CAN and get rid of or refactor what CANNOT. Obscure topics, Recently arisen topics, and recently created articles are all likely to have issues establishing notability; this does NOT equate to their topics not being notable. It can simply mean that for one reason or another the sources that ARE available haven't been included; that the article merely needs some work done to it to clean it up, rather than simply being removed only to be recreated later. Telling the difference is where Otter seems to have issues. He jumps to a conclusion too quickly, and in a very confrontational manner that puts people off. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 00:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem with the rampant and persistent nominations within a specific area is that it ties up editors fighting afd's that otherwise could be fixing, enhancing, or creating new articles within that area. I assume most editors have one or two areas of interest that they feel most comfortable editing within, if those editors are constantly dealing with afd discussions and ANI conflicts then the project suffers. Also, at this point given this particular users behavior any article he submits for afd is going to be met with suspicion and contribute to negativity among the editors. Mathieas (talk) 01:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

A topic ban would clearly be in order unless the individual in question is prepared to use some common sense in the application of Misplaced Pages policies. The fact that they tagged: GigaOM for WP:N clearly shows that they are not making a good faith effort to even understand the articles they are tagging. This implies that the individual is working on an agenda that is not in the best interest of Misplaced Pages. This is not the first time things like this have happened and clearly it will not be the last unless some action is taken.--Modelmotion (talk) 01:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

CRY FOR HELP TO ADMINS: You really need to intervene into Otterathome's behavior asap; I know that wiki debates are like schoolyard drama, but its no fun to even play (edit and contribute to wikipedia) at this point. I recommend a topic ban for webseries related articles, as at least two other editors have suggested at this point.--Milowent (talk) 01:24, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I still tend to think that if he does get topic banned it'd be preferable for it to be narrow. The single biggest problem atm is that he appears to be really, really terrible about passing judgment on the notability of articles and then AFDing them. Banning him from EDITING topics that he's NOT editing seems a bit outside the scope of the problem. Most of the articles he's nominated did or do have issues. He's simply deciding on his own that the issue is the topic not being notable without any regard for the possibility that it's just a problem with the current article's sourcing that can be fixed. As a result he's putting up a LOT of AFDs, and from what I've seen almost NONE of them are successful. This suggests a topic ban on NOMINATING articles for deletion, redirect, or merging only, as that's all he seems to have major issues with. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 01:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary OtterBreak One

Hmm, let's see:

• All web series news sources
• All LG15-related info
• All possible fragments of other web shows.

...when Otter is done, everything left of the phenomenon web series will be the lonelygirl15 page and a page stating "After ] was successful, numerous other web shows and news sources popped up. {{stub}}".
But clearly there is no bad faith involved. I mean, seriously...he tries to kill web series content, can't because it has references, so next he nominates the sources of the references for deletion, so he can discount the references on the original pages as being from non-notable sources.
That's obviously coincidental and not the intent at all. *rolleyes*

~ Renegade - 80.171.97.160 (talk) 01:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Edit: Since it seems like we are unable to textually express the extent of Otter's actions against LG15 in particular, and web series in general, I have invested the time to visualize the whole thing to allow administrators and uninvolved community members a quick overview of what has happened in the past one and a half months.

As you can see, Otter has been steadily involved in actions with the goal to remove web series related content from Misplaced Pages for the past 44 days, and only on four days in the past one and a half months he was not trying to kill something related to LG15 (during the Vincent Caso AfD).

In addition, of course, the The Last and Jackson Davis rows beautifully display Otter's overzealous behavior.

I hope this table helps to explain why exactly we are so fed up with Otterathome. This is not a matter of us being upset a series we like was nominated, this is a matter of Otter broadly and targetedly trying to erase LG15 and web series in general from Misplaced Pages.

• Way too much content for AN/I. Protonk (talk) 03:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

~ Renegade - 80.171.97.160 (talk) 03:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

That's fairly impressive, and goes back further than when I'd come in. I wish you'd indicated the results somehow in the chart though. For those who don't want to bother clicking: Katherine Pawlak was deleted with only three comments. Giles Anderson was deleted with one comment, after running for 12 days when it was relisted after six days due to no comments. Lucinda Rhodes-Flaherty was relisted twice, running for 13 days before it got a comment that prompted otter to withdraw the nom, because "The article was written in a way that it read like she only had minor roles." The comment was basically that she'd been in a LOT of things and had some legit sourcing. It wasn't closed for another 5 days after otter requested it. Jackson Davis ended as no consensus, went to DRV and came back no consensus with no prejudice against relisting. Re-AFD came back keep per WP:NOTAGAIN. Becki Kregowski came back delete with four comments, including one in favor of deletion from Milowent! The Last: 1st AFD came back keep, the merge discussion is short and not very productive, and includes this diff: ], where otter absolutely gives an ultimatum. No one else wanted to merge it, though it being open for three weeks mostly seems to be because nobody closed it and for no other real reason. 2nd AFD(apparently he meant his ultimatum) currently has no comments in favor of deletion that are not from Otter. Mesh Flinders was snow-closed after five days due to an overwhelming number of keeps and no deletes. Caso got a large discussion, but was kept after the deletes were fair drowned(and I included diffs of what he did before and after above, they're pretty bad). Tubefilter currently has three keeps and no deletes. GigaOM obviously hasn't progressed to anything.

So that's... 3 deletes, two with three comments or less(one relisted once), one with four comments; 1 withdrawn(after two relists); 1 no-consensus AFD; 1 no-consensus DRV; 4 total keeps, one per WP:NOTAGAIN, one WP:SNOW-closed, and two straight keeps(both with LOTS of comments); and 1 failed merge, with no one else in favor. Also one re-AFD that looks to likely be ending as a keep and one that is trending keep but is still early in. Note that the DRV and Merge immediately followed the no-consensus and one of the keeps, and that both of those have been relisted on AFD since. One was kept, the other is the ongoing heavily trending keep. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 04:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• He has also attempted to AfD or placed a WP:N tag on the following web series related articles: Melanie Merkosky, My Alibi, Tara Rushton Billbowery (talk) 03:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• Okay, I don't get it; do any admins even care about this? It seems like no one is noticing the noticeboard (pun intended). How much more proof is needed for something to be done about Otter? THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 06:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Billbowery, I just took the ones from the recent month I could quickly spot...I had no doubt there were more :)

Graptor: Listing them with outcome would require putting context in there, which would make the graph that much larger. Because, for example, even though you quickly list "three deletes", "1 no-consensus AFD" and "1 no-consensus DRV", you are not putting it into perspective. If you take a closer look, you'll see that all the deletes were at the beginning, with little participation, then came the no-consensus ones with more participation, and now, for a month, the outcome has always been keep, because everyone is aware of what is going on and is keeping a close look on the LG15-related pages. The outcomes are not related to notability, the outcomes are related to how many people are aware of what's going on and how many AfDs happen at the same time.

If you look at the volumes on the graph, you'll see that, at all times, we were able to save at least three of the nominated pages. As soon as the volume of nominations dropped below three at a time, we were able to make convincing arguments in all running discussions. It's a simple question of notifying interested editors and volume of work. We can't argue in six AfDs at the same time. And giving all that context, number of involved editors, spread over which AfDs, etc., etc. to give an accurate representation of the background of these outcomes would've exploded the graph. (It would also be interesting to see how many involved editors Otter actually notified as suggested in WP:AFD, but I'm not expecting many data points there.)

So yes. Short version: I didn't add the outcomes because simply putting them in there would imply all AfDs had an equal chance and equal participation, and some pages were just not notable enough. That is false. They were likely all notable enough, the workload was just too high to save & improve six articles at the same time.

~ Renegade - 80.171.128.47 (talk) 17:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI, The Last has been speedy kept by now, I updated that row in the graph.

UPDATE: Nevermind, Otter put it up for deletion review

Arbitrary OtterBreak Two

To see any wrong doing, you have to first assume bad faith, and as admins haven't become admins by assuming bad faith, they see nothing wrong. Nominating similar articles for deletion isn't a crime. Why don't you try Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct?--Otterathome (talk) 11:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure if the admins do have an opinion on this, they'll state it themselves. No need for you to act as their medium.

Even if your biased, disruptive abuse of the process was not a "crime", as you put it, your constant violations of WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF and WP:NEWBIES are.

~ Renegade - 80.171.128.47 (talk) 17:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You keep repeating WP:CIVIL + WP:AGF like a broken record, yet none of the times have you bring up the two things you ever quote me being uncivil or assuming bad faith. Hell if you can find some uncivil quotes within the last 2 months I'll request to be blocked myself. I'm not actually convinced you know what WP:CIVIL + WP:AGF mean, but I'll give you benefit of the doubt.--Otterathome (talk) 18:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to bring this forth as further evidence that Otter is not making a good faith effort to follow WP:FAILN. On Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Tubefilter, User:Billbowery said "But, in any case, you didn't even put a notability tag on the page or make a good faith effort to give editors a chance to improve the article.", Otterathome replied "it seems likely that if there was any significant coverage, it would have already been added to the article" That shows his nomination to that article was in bad faith, as per WP:FAILN, which states: Remember that all Misplaced Pages articles are not a final draft, and an article can be notable if such sources exist even if they have not been added at present...If it is likely that significant coverage in independent sources can be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate unless active effort has been made to find these sources." Thanks. --Zoeydahling (talk) 15:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps if you lot wouldn't post walls of text, people would bother paying attention to this mess. → ROUX ₪ 15:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• They need their walls of text to make you think there's a huge problem.--Otterathome (talk) 16:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• To Otter: Once again, you insult the people bringing forth this ANI instead of actually addressing why you think it is invalid.
• To Roux: Yes, I understand that it is long and probably intimidating to read, but at least on my part, and I would extend this assumption to others, the people bringing forth this claim are trying to show proof for our claims, and since this is such a long and complicated situation, long and complicated posts are needed. I am sure someone can put together a bullet-pointed list of the claims made here, but I'm not sure if we could do that and still maintain all of the proof accumulated here. I am sure myself or another use can put forth the effort though if you feel it is necessary? Thanks. --Zoeydahling (talk) 17:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• Honestly, I don't care. I've seen you forumshopping this crap around for at least, what, 2 months now? It certainly feels like it's been that long. And one thing I have learned about Misplaced Pages, particularly AN/I: the more that the complainants in a given situation to resort to long and dense walls of text that are, let's be blunt here, long on hyperbole and extremely short on diffs and concrete proof, the less likely it is that there is any actual problem beyond "Waaah he annoyed me once waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." The relationship is pretty much 1:1. So. If you want any admins--I'm not one--to pay any attention to this, I suggest you do boil it down, and include diffs of the behaviour. All of this nonsense is getting nowhere. → ROUX ₪ 17:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• Okay, well it's fairly obvious then that you haven't read the post in its entirety, not only because you claim it's too long, but because you claim it doesn't include many diffs. In fact, the original post had a large number of diffs, and each new claim has included new diffs to back it up. So no, this does not come down to "Waaah he annoyed me once waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." and I would appreciate if you wouldn't just assume that is the case. Also, it is not "forumshopping" to take a situation from a lower level of dispute resolution to a higher level. Anyway, I'll try to boil it down, but since you "don't care" I'm sure you won't bother reading it anyway :) --Zoeydahling (talk) 17:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Roux, we are elaborating this much because, so far, we got no reactions from anyone, and were left to assume that we simply did not present the issue well enough. To assume there is little content in our text just because there's lots of it is fallacious at the least.

I will gladly answer your questions if you have any?

~ Renegade - 80.171.128.47 (talk) 17:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, as an Admin I have to ask this: in 25 words or less, what exactly is the problem? Starting way back at the beginning, it appears that someone was accused of wikistalking someone, but then that accusation is modified to a complaint that Otterathome is nominating too many articles for AfD. If that is the problem, I am unclear about what special actions you want to be done about it. If these articles are notable, they will be kept; if he immediately renominates them, Otterathome will face restrictions for disruption. If the subjects are notable but the articles are being deleted, then the problem is something the average Admin can't fix. (And I'm not sure I have the answer to that problem.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

For whatever reason someone decided to merge which I believe are two separate issues: otterathome's allegations against me and the allegations against him. I had inquired about the two issues being separated after they were merged but that obviously did not happen. I had hoped for a definitive answer from an admin about the allegations made against me; unfortunately, they seem to have gotten lost in the flurry. Mathieas (talk) 21:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Tendentious editing, repeatedly nominating same genre articles for deletion w/o checking WP:FAILN, after they're kept, noming for merge/DrV/more AfDs, failing WP:CIVIL, etc. --Zoeydahling (talk) 18:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

In the last 44 days, on 40 days Otter had processes running with the goal to remove LG15-related pages from Misplaced Pages, at one point with 6 AFDs at the same time. He tried get rid of Jackson Davis thrice within one month (AFD, DRV, AFD) and LG15: The Last 4 times since August 3rd (AFD, Merge, AFD, DRV).

In the deletion discussions, he frequently violates WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:NEWBIES and shows no sign of interest in cooperation or any other solution but deletion.

I am sorry this is longer than 25 words, but the data mounts as time goes on :S

~ Renegade - 80.171.128.47 (talk) 18:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The reason it looks like a wikistalking complaint that evolved is because there were actually two seperate, though related, complaints that someone merged into the same thread. Otter complained that he was being wikistalked and later Zoey escalated the stale WQA to here. A few days later someone merged the two into a single thread, confusing the issue further.

The problem with otter, in short, is that he's AFDing a LOT of articles for notability without making a good faith effort to follow WP:FAILN.

In more detail: Instead of trying to establish if the problem with the article is notability or lack of citations; he's firing from the hip with an immediate AFD. No templates, no fact tags, no posts on talk pages. These AFDs are mostly in the area of a webseries called Lonelygirl15 but have branched out to The Guild and a couple web based news sources since. Two of the articles in Question he has made no less than 3 attempts each in the last 40 days to have them disposed of(2 AFDs each, with a merge or DRV inbetween). In addition, the majority of these AFDs are not successful. He has displayed a serious lack of judgment in submitting noms to AFD, and a serious lack of basic good-faith efforts to reach consensus with the other editors. He's also come dangerously close(at best) to violating WP:CIVIL and WP:POINT in the process.

The overall appearance, given the focus on one series in particular and web-related subjects in general, is that he's trying to use AFD as a club to rid the encyclopedia of things he doesn't like, regardless of consensus. That may or may not be the case, but his methods are unconscionable. There are well over a dozen links above demonstrating all of this. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 20:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Whoops, wrong before I posted apparently. Otter has now initiated his fourth attempt to get rid of LG15: The Last. After the second AFD was speedily kept, he's now taken it to Deletion Review -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 21:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Graptor, I think you made a mistake in your assertions: The Guild was last nominated for deletion back in 18 March 2008. As for the two articles mentioned the most here -- LG15: The Last & Jackson Davis -- from the relevant comments, it's clear that Otterathome is skating on thin ice, & nominating either for deletion in the foreseeable future might just get him a vacation from Misplaced Pages. In other words, it appears as if the matter is being handled. I'd suggest to Otterathome that he focus on another part of Misplaced Pages, preferably somewhere unrelated to AfD. So let's allow this WP:AN/I thread to end & go back to working on content. Anyone else think that Nechisar National Park might be worth submitting to the GA process? -- llywrch (talk) 04:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

As I posted up above, with something like seven diffs, he nominated an ACTOR from The Guild, Vincent Caso, and the manner he did so is one of the best illustrations of the problems with his tactics...thus the diffs. The 'archived' chart that Renegade put together up above is the quickest and easiest way to see just what exactly Otter's been doing, except it doesn't say what the result of each thing in it was...the bit I put in right after it does though, after I went through and clicked every single link in the chart. I feel like I'm going in circles here, repeating the same things over and over because people aren't listening... -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 09:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

• Ya know what...after some thought, I'm done. Everything I've seen here so far is utterly appalling, and I find that the tentative reversal of my opinion of the wikipedia community(Caused by discovering that most of my issues of four years ago have been addressed very well in new policies and changes of procedure) has been annihilated. Thus all point in my involvement here is lost. I find that my opinion from four years ago that the community here is not one I can condone joining is reaffirmed.

So far, I have seen: nearly the exact conduct that disgusted me so four years ago exhibited by Otter, in Violation of numerous policies, with attempts to cover it by wikilawyering. I've seen the Lonelygirl supporters 'borrowing' my arguments and trying to use them to support attempts to get Otter topic-banned from all Lonelygirl articles, despite the fact I've seen no evidence of disruptive editing by Otter in said articles(He saved that for Vincent Caso apparently). I've seen the WQA get ignored and go stale. I've seen an admin confuse and hobble the discussion here by two threads together as being "one incident" (Otter complains that a couple lonelygirl supporters are following him, a different lonelygirl supporter escalates the ignored WQA about Otter's disruptive AFDing), literally tacking the second onto the end of the first, making it very hard to follow. I've seen another admin dismiss the entire thing with, essentially, TL;DR, (I've read every single thing in this thread and on every single one of the linked AFDs. The idea that policy is being ignored because people can't be bothered to read ANY of the many desperate attempts to get someone to look at the evidence frankly offends me. Deeply.) In short, I've seen the very policies that gave me hope subverted. I've had every reason for my decision to not register here reaffirmed.

The sum total of my knowledge of Lonelygirl is this, in approximate chronological order: 1.) It's a webseries. 2.) The very title grates on me sufficiently to make me want to avoid it as much as possible. 3.) It's given as an example in approximately every other article on TvTropes. 4.) When crawling around TvTropes, 2 and 3 result in the recurring thought of 'Oh God, Lonelygirl AGAIN?' followed by either rapid scrolling or a tab close.

Prior to stumbling upon this epic failure, I'd never heard of ANY of the subjects that Otter AFD'd, and still don't know anything about most of them. And frankly, don't care if any of the articles in question stay or go. I saw a problem, but further saw an opportunity for my hopes about how the community here had improved over the last four years to be ardently confirmed. They have not been. I was hoping to keep this mess from ending up at ArbComm, but if what I've seen thus far is typical, those efforts were in vain. It's likely going to end up there, for no better reason than that nobody could be bothered to enforce policy. The policies may as well not exist if they are not enforced.

This will likely be my last edit to wikipedia for several years. Maybe in 2013 it'll be better. We'll see. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 12:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, Graptor, but if you're still reading this let me explain a simple fact of Misplaced Pages to you: we're all volunteers here, all of us donating our spare time to improve Misplaced Pages. And I seriously doubt that the first thought of anyone with a spare hour or two to donate is to come to WP:AN or WP:AN/I & spend it reading through a thread of allegations & counter-allegations, & all of the related article histories & talk pages, hoping to find some problem to resolve. (After reading some threads here, I wonder if the proper solution isn't simply banning all parties in a specific dispute for a week. It might not solve the dispute, but the rest of us don't have to read about it.) So if you can't be bothered to lay out your case succinctly why you need an Admin to intervene (usually because the dispute resolution process can't handle the matter, or can't handle it in a timely manner), it's going to be ignored. Be clear, be organized, & be persuasive & Admins will help you. Otherwise, we can't distinguish real problems needing attention from the usual squabbling in which everyone is whining like 6-year-olds over who hit whom first. -- llywrch (talk) 22:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I was trying deliberately not to edit any more, but I just can't resist answering this. That's a great sentiment and all, but there's a gigantic hole in it that undermines everything wikipedia is supposed to be. It's not run by consensus if what gets enforced and what doesn't, and when, is determined by what the admins are 'willing to get involved with'. On an individual basis it's perfectly understandable and not a problem. On a COLLECTIVE basis it's a huge, fundamental problem with the system. If actual problems get completely IGNORED because six different people all try to collectively present an argument and a few(or most, or all) of them don't do it very well, then there is a problem. Having to present your arguments in a particular way is why we have lawyers in the real world; 90% of the population is simply not capable of effectively presenting their arguments in court(or anywhere else, frequently).

*SOMEONE* has to digest this stuff and either make a decision or present it to someone who can. Simply ignoring it can result only in anger, stress, drama, and ultimately, people quitting the project(Or like in my case, never joining in the first place). Yes sometimes it's a childish dispute. Can you tell when it is and when it's not simply by tone? I can't, this is why I read these things through. And frankly, if the people that are supposed to be reading these things and sorting them out won't unless it's written a particular way, the inevitable result is actual wikilawyers! People that can't explain the things in a way that gets noticed get someone else to do it for them, so they don't just get ignored. God knows it's the last thing this project needs.

This dispute is a perfect example. No one has stepped in to close it as being baseless, but no one has stepped in to sort it out and deal with it either, leaving the dispute in a sort of escalating limbo. People get more and more pissed off as they're repeatedly ignored, and end up typing out ever longer and more involved things trying to exhaustively document the dispute. They conclude that the fact nothing's been done is because nobody's yet seen enough to prompt them to do anything. If you tell them that it's because their arguments aren't well presented, they're just going to be hurt, angry, and offended, and it'll end up worse. Especially if it's a complex and extended dispute involving a lot of incidents over a long period of time, as it does with Otter.

If this dispute continues as it has in the past, there are only two possible outcomes. It ends up at ArbComm, because they're the only ones I've seen on here who bother to actually make sure everything that's presented is read... which is wrong on more levels than I can name. The other is it continues until one side in its entirety quits the project in disgust at what they see as the bias inherent in the system. Both are stupid, both are pointless, and both make wikipedia as a whole look really, really bad. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 01:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I offered the chance to quote 1 incivil comment of mine as they keep repeating WP:CIVIL, and if they find one I'll request to be blocked myself. Looks like they couldn't find any, so the offer is off. I'm sure I wouldn't have to look far to find some directed towards me though. That sums most of this up.--Otterathome (talk) 15:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You'll need to read WP:CIVIL a little better:

"Incivility consists of ... aggressive behaviours that disrupt the project and lead to unproductive stress and conflict... a behavioral pattern of incivility is disruptive and unacceptable, and may result in blocks"

Almost immediate re-nom's for AfD of articles clearly fits the bill of being an "aggressive behaviour" and obviously one of "lead(ing) to unproductive stress and conflict". (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

They were not immediate and were all justified.--Otterathome (talk) 16:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You miss the point: the fact that we're all here after days of going on and on shows that they obviously were percieved to not be justified. I go by a basic rule: If I CSD it, I don't then AfD it if the CSD is denied. If the first AfD fails, and I still think it deserves it, I'm wise enough to wait 6 months before checking its current quality, and then trying it again. This isn't rocket science, and doing otherwise makes one look like a raving rabid deletionist AND like you have a hate for specific articles, neither of which are necessarily healthy. I'm not saying the articles don't deserve to be deleted, just be careful with WP:DICKism (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

They were re-nominated because only fans of the series took part, which means the AFDs could only go one way. So I was checking if it could be deleted, and the canvassing off-site and lack of neutral input meant it could only go one way. By re-nominating it again I was hoping that I would get some neutral input and less fans taking part, but I was wrong. This was probably already said elsewhere, but I'm not suprised you haven't read this story-length amount of text.--Otterathome (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If this was a different situation (like a bar), and I'd had a few drinks, I probably would have told you to "bugger off" at the suggestion that I had not read the "story-length amount of text". You know as bloody well as I do that I've read more than the above. Indeed, I'm the one who suggested an RFC/U long ago ... or did you forget that. Unfortunately, I'm also trying to introduce the concept of "common sense" and "co-operative editing" to you as we go, hoping it can be avoided. Re-AfD'ing because you didn't like the original result is disruption. Oh, by the way, if you call someone else's edits "useless", it violates WP:CIVIL, or perhaps you failed to read the story-length amount of text? Take a look around, there's not a line-up of people behind you here. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I certainly did not see any such offer. But here are your diffs: the edit summary here, comments: and that's just on the Jackson Davis 3rd AfD alone. I'm sure I could find more in other places if I looked. --Zoeydahling (talk) 16:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Saying it's rant isn't incivil, because that's what it was. Nothing wrong with , or .--Otterathome (talk) 16:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to leave that up to third party editors to decide. To any of them: I can clarify why I believe these are incivil if you'd like, but I honestly believe they speak for themselves and I don't see the need to justify why to Otter, who is obviously not going to believe his own comments are uncivil (and that's not just for him, I'm sure any editor would have trouble admitting their own comments were not civil). --Zoeydahling (talk) 16:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If I ever thought I had ever been incivil do you really think I would offer to be blocked if shown evidence? When you, and your fanbase stop assuming bad faith, 99% of this drama you have made will evaporate.--Otterathome (talk) 16:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

My point exactly. And once again, please read WP:TE#Characteristics_of_problem_editors. --Zoeydahling (talk) 17:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Kinda cute that you made this uncivil edit and then trotted over here to withdraw the offer 14 minutes later. "If you want to buy in to drama without investigating anything yourself, by all means, act like a sheep"--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

His useless word comments agreeing with other people without actually adding anything shows he is being a sheep. It was the best way to describe it.--Otterathome (talk) 16:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

So you justify calling a user's post a rant "because it was one" and you justify calling a user a sheep because they made a "useless word comment"? So bascially these things are so because you deemed them such. And the way you deem these posts is that the users are operating under bad faith and making rants/sheep-like comments. And you wonder why people have trouble assuming good faith for you? --Zoeydahling (talk) 17:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Multiple useless comments recently. So calling someone a sheep has made all of your fanbase that you've canvassed assume bad faith for several weeks? Funny. I'm still waiting to find out where all these incivil comments I've made are.--Otterathome (talk) 17:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Again, you call users' comments "useless" which is uncivil and assumes bad faith on their part. And this entire thread has shown plenty of earlier examples of incivility, it is not my job to go through and rebring up every single one now; they have been said before. And 1) I do not have a fanbase, I am a user and 2) please provide proof that I, personally, have canvassed a single vote, either on or off wikipedia. You can't. So in summary, you are lying, being uncivil, and assuming bad faith in one post. --Zoeydahling (talk) 17:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE: You need to stop calling user's comments "useless" (see new diff) It is a clear violation of WP:CIVIL. --Zoeydahling (talk) 18:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing incivil calling someones comments useless, and it is your job to bring up incivility as you and your friends seem to think they exist. So much claim of incivility, yet no evidence.--Otterathome (talk) 18

19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Plenty of diffs have been shown. Please show me where in WP:CIVIL it says you are allowed to call a user's post useless or a long rant because you think it is? In fact, I would reread Misplaced Pages:CIVIL#Engaging_in_incivility #1d if I were you. --Zoeydahling (talk) 18:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If you want me to I can create a separate page and list all the assuming bad faith and incivilness from the group of users defending these articles, but it would take a long time and wouldn't be a pleasant read. But as you fans are so persistent I may not have a choice.--Otterathome (talk) 16:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The fact is, you keep telling users to WP:AGF but you find they won't, right? Read WP:TE#Characteristics_of_problem_editors which says "You find that nobody will assume good faith, no matter how often you remind them." Perhaps that will give you some idea. --Zoeydahling (talk) 16:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE: Otterathome has just essentially accused me of being a wikistalker and has threatened to create a sockpuppet to further continue his behavior without detection . --Zoeydahling (talk) 17:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I would just like to point out this page, which is on Otterathome's sandbox. I believe it gets to the root of his POV.--Modelmotion (talk) 18:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Anyone want to close this thread yet? It's becoming quite clear now that none of the users have been able to show evidence for any serious policy/guideline violations, despite going on for weeks. I don't mind a Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Otterathome as there's little progress being made here.--Otterathome (talk) 18:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Considering I recently posted a diff of you calling someone sheep, and you not only defended yourself but repeated the slur on this board, I don't think it's ripe for closing quite yet. Especially when you claim that nobody's posted evidence of incivility.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

He was inflaming the situation, and if that's the worst comment I've made, then why did all these huge walls of text exist before I made that comment? Oh yeah, because of all these incivil comments I made that nobody can seem to show me.--Otterathome (talk) 18:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary OtterBreak Three

Since this entire thing has turned into Otter yelling "they can't prove it, they can't prove it" over and over, I would like to add that I did, in fact, spend five hours+ yesterday, after he "invited" me, personally, to provide evidence of his behavior. I have already narrowed his 500 then-recent edits down to several dozen revisions worth a second look. The reason I have not pointed out a single revision is not necessarily that there aren't any, but that a) with at least 15 processes of his, assuming an average of ten posts each of his, even assuming only 4 primary policies (WP:CIVIL, WP:AFD, WP:AGF, WP:NEWBIES) to check, we're still talking about 15*10*4* = 600 different constellations to look at, and, more importantly, b) that Otters behavior is less a problem of "direct" aggression, and more of subtle, constant disruption and refusal to cooperate. Apart from the revision where he flat-out bossed us around, there are few singular revisions usable as "evidence". He doesn't go out and tell people to go fuck themselves or something. Instead, he just constantly ignores what they're saying, or continuously dismisses their opinions as being from irrelevant fanboys. Which is just as much uncivil, but such a pattern is not visible from a single revision, and only becomes clear when one lines up multiple revisions of the same, repeating, disruptive behavior again and again.
He knows that. Which is why he insists so much on a single revision, a single quote.
Rest assured, I am working on such a list, but given that I have to weed through one and a half months of revisions, it could take several more days, if not a week (I have other stuff to do, too, after all). Especially considering, that with aggressive PMs, random bold yelling etc., it's not like the list of uncivil behavior is shrinking.
In theory, I'd be open for a break of this discussion until I'm done, but in practice, seeing how Mathieas's issue was quickly archived and pretended to have never existed without any official solution, I'm not sure a break would serve the discussion.

As said, the behavior I'm talking about is hard to prove with only a few revisions, but still, in order to prove I'm not talking out of my ass, and actually am working on that list, I'll try to give an example from the revisions I checked so far:
Misplaced Pages:CIVIL#Co-operation and civility states:

"Editors are expected to be reasonably cooperative, to refrain from making personal attacks, to work within the scope of policies, and to be responsive to good-faith questions."

This how that looks in practice with Otter:

• A discussion participant asks "Otterathome, the template is a statement that you don't think this article meets the guidelines, it is not an explanation of why. So, here's the question -- Can you explain why you think this article fails Misplaced Pages's guidelines? Please note that a mere reference back to the template you added is not a proper answer. Thanks!"
• Otter's reply: "Uhm, you want me to copy and paste the template here? I didn't think an explanation was needed by looking at the sources. Source 1. primary source, source 2 is a stats page, and source 3 shows the website on a list of a 100 other websites. Here is the template for convenience though:" He then includes/substitutes the template again.
• The original user replies: "No, Otterathome, I didn't want you to cut and paste the template here. Don't be deliberately obtuse. The template is a statement, it is not an explanation of why you think a template applies. Fortunately, you managed to (accidentally?) provide an explanation :

  Source 1. primary source, source 2 is a stats page, and source 3 shows the website on a list of a 100 other websites.

  That's an explanation, as opposed to the template, which is a statement. Statement != Explanation. An explanation is almost ALWAYS needed when applying a template, especially when an explznation is asked for. Makes your arguments go a whole lot smoother."
• To which he says: "An explanation would be appropriate, but I didn't think so by looking at the serious lack of sources. Any editor with a basic understand of notability policies would know exactly why it was placed."

Not only is he clearly not "responsive" to a reasonable question, to the point where the asking user accuses him of being "deliberately obtuse", but in the process, he also constantly belittles the user, implying s/he shouldn't even have to ask, and that the fact that she had to ask is a sign of lacking "basic understand of notability policies", making for an entirely independent, secondary violation of WP:CIVIL, engaging in incivility.

As said, it's a pattern, it takes many revisions to show, but that was the best example I could come up with on a whim. I will try to show the pattern with multiple revisions, but, as said, with as many edits as he makes, it can take a while.

~ Renegade - 213.39.211.244 (talk) 19:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: I find it ironic that Otter, of all people, is the one yelling for proof, after it was him that started all this with a completely baseless accusation of "wikistalking" which purely served to discredit Mathieas. P.P.S.: Sorry for the post length :S

Out of 500 edits that is all you've come up with? Like I said, no serious guidelines/policy violations. Close now?--Otterathome (talk) 19:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You're making it clearer and clearer that you're a tendentious editor, Otter. I strongly suggest backing off and stop yelling that everyone except you is wrong. That way lies enforced wikivacations. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Nope, I'm just trying to the bottom of this and get it resolved. But I can't resolve an issue I don't have evidence for.--Otterathome (talk) 19:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yo, Otter, I'm really happy for you and I'mma let you finish but Jujutacular has the most article for deletion nominations of all time.--jenlight (talk) 05:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Massive problem with admin User:Sandstein

At User_talk:Russavia#Topic_ban User:Sandstein notified me that I was "topic-banned from all edits or pages related to the history of the Soviet Union and its successor states (including Russia and the Baltic states), broadly construed and extending to all pages in all namespaces, for the duration of six months." I took issue with this, due to the editors who reported me to AN/I being as guilty of the same types of Battle over a variety of articles, and gave specific examples of it; inserting and edit-warring at Soviet War Memorial (Treptower Park) over the insertion of accusations that the memorial is known as the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist; which turns out was totally false, and the editors in question had not sighted sources they claimed to have done; the other being Alexander Litvinenko at which an editor professed his belief that Putin is a paedophile on the talk page, and the insertion of poorly sourced BLP violating material on said article on that accusation. The issue I had is partly the fact that it was made out that I am the only one who is guilty of such WP:BATTLE violations, and this is obviously not the case. As I wrote on my talk page "I am not blaming others, but I am saying that there are factors which contribute to such things, and that it is only fair that those factors be investigated also. Sandstein refuses to do this, which can only be seen as implicit approval of the behaviour of others as I have raised here. It's about being equitiable and making all editors responsible for their own edits, instead of using carefully selected diffs in order to get rid of a content opponent." So I am taking responsibility for my own edits, if anyone thinks otherwise, and am willing to cop things on the chin, within reason.

At User_talk:Russavia#List_of_articles I have posted a long list of articles I have been responsible for in creating and/or expanding, as a response to a question by another editor just above. Just below the list I wrote the following: "Having said that, I will abide by the topic ban...the history of the Soviet Union isn't really an area that interests me anyway---articles are so biased, that anyone with half a brain who should read them will know that they are biased and will take the article for the joke that they usually are."

Just below this, I queried of Sandstein how the Putin article wouldn't be part of the ban, but comments on a talk page would be. His response astounds me, as all one would have to do is "did you see on *insert name of Soviet history article here* Russavia's edits...what a fuckwit", and I would be in breach of the ban if I were to raise it, according to information I was clearly given This is doing my head in as much as yours, I know.

After the lifting of the permaban on myself, I posted High-Potential Management Personnel Reserve to namespace from my userspace. I tweaked a category on Dmitry Medvedev and reverted on Alexander Litvinenko (link to reasoning coming later). These edits garnered this response from Sandstein at User_talk:Russavia#Warning. Given the amount of conflicting information coming from Sandstein, as to what is or isn't covered by the ban (according to him), the fact that he all but said that Putin wouldn't be covered by this ban, led me to rightly assume that the articles I created would also not be included. The High-Potential Management Personnel Reserve was created 1 year ago, so is hardly history.

An uninvolved admin posted a request at User_talk:Russavia#Requesting_comment seeking clarification as to exactly what articles I can or can't edit, given Sandsteins interpretation of history -- something that I had already sought beforehand, but got no conclusive answers. Sandstein responded to this with User_talk:Russavia#Topic_ban_extended -- he has now banned me from ALL articles relating to Russia or Russians, and has made the laughable claim that I am disruptive in this entire area, which is clearly not the case. Also note Ezhiki's question "Dmitry Medvedev is a current politician as well, yet he was the first to be listed in your warning above. I guess I just don't see the logic (and by the looks of it Russavia doesn't either, and he has to work under this ban somehow). I hope you understand that under such restrictions a clarity of the guidelines is of utmost importance. Further comments, please?" It appears to me that Sandstein has extended the ban because he could not be bothered in providing details of what would and wouldn't be covered. How am I an editor under restrictions supposed to know what articles I can and can't edit when I get conflicting information from the admin handing down the decisions as judge, jury and executioner.

I posted at User_talk:Sandstein#A_solution a possible solution. That being that seeing as Sandstein believes I am a problematic editor in articles relating to the history of the USSR/Russia with the Baltic States, that the 6 month ban be limited to those types of articles. There is no evidence of me being a problem across ALL Russian articles, by any stretch of the imagination, and by limiting the scope to the areas in which I am seen to be a problem, there can be no ambiguity about whether an article I am editing is part of the ban or not. Simply blanket banning an editor from an entire topic in which it can be shown they are productive, because of a problem in a small corner, is not the way that an admin should be operating, particularly moreso when they have not provided sound reasoning for 1) what articles may or may not be edited and 2) extending the ban despite unanswered questions and objections from numerous other admins and editors in good standing.

I take responsibility for my actions, and agree to abide by a topic ban; that being the original topic ban as placed along with sound reasoning as to what articles I may or may not edit (very ambigious although even then), or the topic ban that I suggested on Sandstein's talk page (totally unambiguous as to what I may or may not edit). I recognise that it is my wikibehaviour which is the cause of the initial topic ban, and I take responsibility for that; other's behaviour can, and will, be dealt with elsewhere at another time. There seems to a consensus amongst those admins and editors who have already commented that the blanket ban now in force is draconian and is totally unwarranted. Sandstein mentioned it should be taken to WP:AE, but as this is now as much of a problem with Sandstein's conduct as the ban itself, it is probably the best solution that both issues be dealt with in the one place, as both Sandstein and myself are at fault here, and that is what I am requesting. --Russavia 19:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, huge suprise, you ignored my advice to move on.

So you probably will ignore this advice to: large block of text will probably be skipped over and ignored, this needs to be cut down by 80%. You also have no edit diffs to support your allegations.

It is a real shame you will be indefenetly banned within a few weeks, if not a few days. Ikip (talk) 19:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

This is wrong place. If Russavia wants to appeal the sanction by Sandstein, he should complain at WP:AE. If he wants to sanction Sandstein, he should ask ArbCom. If he wants to reverse the previous vote at the ANI that had happened two days ago (the decision by Sandstein was supported by two other administrators and no one voted against), he should provide some new and really compelling arguments in his favor.Biophys (talk) 19:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Seeing this wall of text, I did some research

March 2009 - Russavia is warned by Jehochman to respect NPOV under RFAR/Digwuren

June 2009 Russavia is formally warned and placed on notice by Thatcher under RFAR/Digwuren

September 2009 Russavia is formally topic banned by Sandstein under RFAR/Digwuren

Among other things, all of the proper paperwork is in place and it is obvious that Sandstein is not the only administrator who has found Russavia's conduct in this area problematic (there are other blocks for stalking and edit warring, but I am focusing on these in particular). Unless this goes to WP:AE the sanctions will not be overturned and you will be blocked if you violate the topic ban. The other option is appealing to arbcom at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration#Requests_for_clarification. MBisanz 19:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, you can move this to WP:AE, otherwise someone else will probably close this and move it for you. Again, I would strongly suggest condensing this by 80%. You can add this information later, if needed and brought up. Ikip (talk) 19:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The issue at hand is not Russavia's behavior being problematic—he himself admitted that restricting his edits in the area where he is judged to have caused problems is warranted. The issue is that he was placed under editing restrictions, yet all his requests to explain just what exactly those restrictions entail were either ignored by the Sandstein (admin handling the topic-ban) or replied in a manner that did not clarify much (please, do take time to read conflicting and self-contradictory responses to Russavia's inquiries on his talk page). If one is restricted from editing certain topics and agrees to abide by such a restriction, why should the question to explain what those restrictions include be met not with a proper explanation, but with accusations of disruptiveness and extensions of the topic-ban? Such behavior can easily be seen as admin abuse, and this is precisely why Sandstein's actions were questioned by two other admins (myself included) and several editors. This is what this inquiry is about. What the ban was imposed for in the first place is beyond the scope of this thread—Russavia accepted it and only needed some clarifications, which he has full rights to ask for.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:03, September 11, 2009 (UTC)

The referrals to AE and arbitration clarifications appear to be correctly stated. The community does not have the ability to overturn sanctions that derive from discretionary provisions of an arbitration case. No comment or opinion on whether the current action was meritorious. Durova 20:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

No request to overturn sanctions has been made here. The request is to review the actions of an admin, who was unable to explain what exactly does and does not fall under the definition of the topic ban he imposed, and, rather than to provide such explanations, chose to extend the ban to include pretty much everything the user has ever been editing ("just in case", I guess?). It is my understanding that an admin should be able to explain his actions when asked to do so (and he was asked not just by Russavia, but by at least five other people, none of whom were involved in the shenanigans that led to Russavia's topic-ban). Is that an unreasonable request unsuitable for WP:AN/I?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:30, September 11, 2009 (UTC)

Such a request should be directed to the Arbitration Committee because the acting administrator invokes an arbitration decision. Durova 20:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

So Sandstein unblocks an editor, and that editor makes his first edit a complain here... the topic ban was certainly justified, and a block following its violation seems justified as well, although I would quibble whether it was justified to make it an indef - I would go with a day or so for the first violation. Overall, I think Sandstein acted properly. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

(e/c with the last two comments) The wall of text by Russavia above (after a day of exchanges in this vein) is too long for me to read as well, so I would just like to refer interested colleagues to the relevant prior discussions at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive562#Russavia unacceptable behavior at The Soviet Story and User talk:Sandstein#A solution. Should there be admin consensus to modify or overturn either my original topic ban or my subsequent expansion of it (although per WP:DIGWUREN#Discretionary sanctions any appeal discussion should take place at WP:AE), then that is of course fine with me, but I would appreciate it if any administrator making such an amendment would join the few of us who patrol WP:AE (rarely a fun chore, unfortunately). I apologize if any of my very unsuccessful attempts to help Russavia understand the scope of and reason for his ban may have been confusing or contradictory.  Sandstein  20:25, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Support Sandsteins's actions without reservation; caution Russavia not to become disruptive in his characterization of sanctions against him, well and duly earned, as poor actions by the administrator who carried out the final phase. I note not the several warnings received, nor the previous discussions, have led Russavia to contemplate his actions with an eye to improving his demeanor and habits here, and suggest that unless he wishes to meet with further sanctions, he not waste any more bandwidth or time on complaining that he acted poorly and was justifiably sanctioned. Puppy has spoken. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 20:33, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

For the sake of moving on and not dragging this to infinity, I would suggest that Russavia should be placed under a topic-ban as outlined at User talk:Sandstein#A solution (in brief: articles dealing with the history of the Soviet Union and the Baltic States would be a no-no, while something as innocuous as Russian airlines or diplomatic relations with countries outside of the Baltics would be OK). In case of reasonable doubts, Russavia needs to be explained which kinds of articles he may and may not edit under the editing restrictions. It's not like the terms of the topic-ban cannot be extended later should that become necessary; until then there is no need to deprive Misplaced Pages of many useful edits Russavia made in the course of last months. Would anyone second that?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:39, September 11, 2009 (UTC)

• Procedural oppose it would muddy the waters to overlay a community sanction on top of disputed impementation of the Digwuren arbitration discretionary sanctions. Please straighten this out through regular channels. WP:RFAR is thataway. Durova 21:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I completely support Ezhiki. I am not uninvolved enough to see if the original topic ban is warranted but by extension it to basically anything this user with tens of thousand user has written we just defacto ban one of a very few content producers in this already severely under-resourced area. Soon there will be not enough people there to simply maintain the articles (it is already not enough for any significant projects). IMHO the ban's negatives much underweight all the possible benefits. I would support very broad ban of Russavia from the topics related to Baltic states, Russia-Baltic and Soviet-Baltics relation there the most of the conflict seems to be centred in. Regarding the procedure, I was under impression that AN/I is a good place to review administrative actions but ff AE is a more appropriate forum for review of the topic ban then please transfer my statement there Alex Bakharev (talk) 00:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Ezhiki and Bakharev make some good points here. The original topic ban resulted from Russavia's incivil reaction to a series of calculated provocations by Martintg and others, who are trying to get rid of their content opponent. WP:CIVIL explicitly states, that the policy should not be used as a weapon against others; therefore their behaviour should be condemned. However, one could expect an experienced editor such as Russavia to be more careful. There is no excuse for getting provoked. The original topic ban (Soviet history) may be warranted, but I disagree with Sandstein's extension, which doesn't seem to be based on solid argumentation, but on Sandstein's personal frustration. (The correct decision would have been to delegate the issue to another, uninvolved admin who could assess it more calmly.) Since Russavia is one of the most productive editors in Russia-related subjects, the extended topic ban would hurt this area of WP a lot and would have far more negative than positive consequences. I think this solution would be the best way to go. Offliner (talk) 01:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

After spending too much time reading this stuff on various pages, I agree with Ezhiki, Bakharev and Offliner. I doubt Russavia would violate the terms of his proposal, which goes to the heart of the matter and doesn't deprive the encyclopedia of his contributions in other areas.John Z (talk) 04:23, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe that a more limited ban would not suffice to prevent continued disruption because Russavia does not really recognize having done anything wrong in the first place, because he has a history of disruption across Russia-related topics and because he seems to have a tendency to wikilawyer the limitations of any restrictions. But should there emerge an admin consensus for limiting the scope of the ban, I would appreciate any admin who implements such consensus to take (co-)responsibility for enforcing it.  Sandstein  05:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Well he does say "I recognise that it is my wikibehaviour which is the cause of the initial topic ban" in his TL,DR above, so I AGF. Speculation on his future conduct is just that, and disingenuous wikilawyering out of restrictions he devised would be hard. His disruptions have at times consisted of pointing out serious problems (BLP) in an ineffective way, rather than taking it to BLP/N, say. I ain't an admin, but I'd add my 2 cents and tell him he's behaving like an idiot if he does.John Z (talk) 09:15, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Per several commentators above, this is not the proper forum (either AE appeal or ArbCom) but while it's here I do feel it necessary to point to Russavia's behavior after the action:

• "Perhaps I will start a new account, and use it to spread accusations of people being murderers, paedophiles and shit like that. But of course, the people will be Russian. What will that get me? Oh, don't worry, I know that already...a medal." - threats of creating sock puppet accounts, obvious attempts at battleground, incivility and extreme assumption of bad faith against Sandstein (who's ruled several times against me I might add and is probably one of the most fair and reasonable admins on AE)
• "That has gotta be the most sorry and pathetic excuse for a banning I have ever seen." - incivility bordering on a personal attack
• "But hey, this has to do with the history of Russia, broadly construed, so I will wait with baited breathe for one of the adolescent children to come running to you to ban me" - personal attacks against other editors, simply because they dared to report his/her bad behavior.
• "What an absolutely-fucking-exciting article that would be to read, I can hardly wait to read it" - completely unnecessary profanity and sarcasm aimed at amping up the drama, battleground (there's a lot more of this, I just picked a single example)
• "I will fight you on that." - note that part of the original report was Russavia saying stuff like "I will fight you to the death on that" on articles
• "So-called topic ban be damned." - this appears to be a willful violation of the ban and a "challange" to Sandstein.

And a whole lot more at . Basically, the Russavia's response should be enough to clear away any doubts that a topic ban was very appropriate. Given that Russavia then responded by purposefully violating his topic ban twice, an overall ban was also appropriate. The fact that this user has created content does not excuse the gross incivility, personal attacks and creation of battlegrounds (not to mention edit warring) that this user engages in (if this was an isolated instance then content creation could serve as a mitigating factor but this user is most definetly a repeat offender, as can be seen from his/her block log).

Russavia could have accepted his topic ban or appealed it through the proper channels. He could have asked for clarification without the use of profanity and personal attacks. Instead he himself made things worse for her/himself by increasing the level of incivility and rudeness and announcing to everyone that s/he was going to violate the ban and then proceeding to violate it. While s/he spends a lot of time on his/her talk page blaming others, I think it's pretty clear that there's only one person to blame here.radek (talk) 05:15, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Support - Sandstein's action. It was up to Sandstein to rule in this case and he did so. I do not believe that current practice allows AE cases be taken to ANI by disappointed participants. Russavia is welcome to pursue his grievance at WP:RFAR. If Russavia thinks Sandstein misused his admin powers let him try to make the case to Arbcom directly. EdJohnston (talk) 06:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

• Nothing changes on Misplaced Pages does it? Actually the real problem is being ignored. The problem over Russavia is actually inconsequential, the problem is that yet again we have an Admin, this time Sandstein, acting in an arrogant and overbearing way, and as usual most are joyfully shrieking "wrong place" or "don't be mean to Admins." In truth, it matters not one jot if this is in the wrong place, this is an encyclopedia not a Politburo run by programmed robots. As usual, here, the result is do anything but look at the true problem - that one Admin can be permitted to behave in this way is wrong and needs to be stopped. Such Admin behaviour has already cost Misplaced Pages dearly, many former content editors have already disappeared, or like me, stopped writing completely, sickened by juvenile, pompous and arrogant little people, who have through some default been allowed to become Admins. It's a huge problem and it's a growing problem. Now we shall have the usual catcalls of "It's Giano, ban him" "How dare he be so rude" and "put it in the right place" - as I said nothing changes here - does it? So many Wiki-departments for so many crimes, so many wanting to be in charge of them, and so few to do the real work. It's pathetic! Now stick it in the right place - and, I could make a suggestion as to where. Giano (talk) 08:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm in full agreement with Giano's comments above. He describes the problem very well. --Malleus Fatuorum 09:30, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm not; the characterisation of "juvenile, pompous and arrogant" is a bit strong. Nevertheless, I do agree that as a learning point, it would've been possible to use a more respectful and tactful tone with this editor.—S Marshall /_Cont 10:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

May I inquire who you believe should use a more respectful and tactful tone with which editor? (See also Durova's comment in the "Trout" section below, who appears to have erroneously believed that I used any expletives or was in any way incivil.)  Sandstein  21:15, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the community as a whole could perhaps have used a lighter touch with Russavia. So far as I can see, no individual editor said anything out of line, and I quite deliberately refrained from naming anyone as a perpetrator. But, I think the cumulative effect of all the things said to Russavia was stronger than it needed to be in the circumstances.—S Marshall /_Cont 23:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Overall, the way Sandstein communicates with Russavia is really strange, to my personal opinion. It makes me remember US films where a police officers has to act against a car hijacker that has run into a bunch of innocent pedestrians whyle trying to escape police. No mercy, no listening to the other side's words, maximum sanctions, etc. And, to look at the origins of this case, Russavia behaviour was quite far from battling anyone, and agression of course. Telling "I will fight you until death on this edit:D" - may only be understood as a humour, even if there is no smiley after it, and there is one. Strange days, strange ways of administration, I'd say.

BTW, after I Sandstein actions against Russavia, I seriously consider the possibility that after this very edit I will be banned from, say, "editing discussions of administrators' actions". In this case I will gladly delete my account myself, and leave from editing WP, for I do not want to have an account on a site where admins are like slavemasters. And I will fight you to the death on it, Sandstein:D FeelSunny (talk) 10:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oh, the drama.

  Sandstein himself didn't go over the top. He was strong, but not too strong in the circumstances. It all got a bit too much earlier in this thread when people started rushing to Sandstein's defence. Admins aren't slavemasters, they're volunteers; they can be wrong (and all too often are). They still deserve to be approached with respect.

  The problem here is that as a group, they haven't given that respect to Russavia.—S Marshall /_Cont 17:08, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that you can not feel safe editing wikipedia just staying within the borders of a common sense. Instead you need to keep in mind billion rules, and think that some very proactive admin may interpret your words in quite a weird way, then setting some freaking ban on your account. And this is sad. FeelSunny (talk) 18:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Russavia needed to be pulled into line, but the actions of Sandstein were disproportionate, and maybe even vindictive. Mentorship for Russavia may be an appropriate remedy, as I consider some of his actions now and previously have unintentionally led to conflict. Banning should always be a last resort, and I do not believe we have exhausted all options.

Russavia, some of your actions in the past have annoyed me (your reformatting of Diplomatic missions of Russia without due regard for category consistency being the most egregious). However you have written some articles of note, and I have found you to be a largely conscientious and dedicated editor. Those values, unfortunately, are what drive some of us to take extreme exception whenever other members of the community present ideas different from ourselves. Some suggestions:

(1) take a measured approach whenever you come into conflict with others. Humour trolls. Reason with one-track-mind agenda pushers while respecting their values. Ignore vandals as you remove their handiwork.

(2) don't write War and Peace when presenting your opinions. Be succinct and to the point.

(3) respect your audience. It is cute at best, and galling at worst, when we Australians who have never known warfare or oppression insensitively seek to impose our views on others who may have a clearer understanding of events, we risk being labled as Полезный идиот.

(4) never loose your temper - well, you can loose your temper, but just don't type when this happens.

(5) there is nothing shameful about "crying to" an administrator. Standing up for yourself in a fight might win you respect at Mirrabooka Senior High School. Running your own edit war here is neither helpful nor heroic.

Sandstein - I know that Russavia can be annoying and over-eager sometimes, but remember that the standard of behaviour and accountability for Admins is always expected to be higher. Kransky (talk) 11:45, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Alex Bakharev that Russavia contributes positively in articles on modern Russian history, and he contributes a lot. His problem is different. Russavia perceives a significant number of users to be "enemies of Russia" and he is going to fight with such users "to the death" as he said himself. He is so obsessed that he named (or indicated in diffs) some of his perceived "enemies" in reply to Sandstein. If he is prohibited from editing any articles edited by users who he named himself as his "enemies" and from commenting about these users, this may be fine, and the topic restriction could be lifted.Biophys (talk) 13:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I would like Russavia to be restricted from editing articles concerning diplomatic relations and missions. The issue isn't political, but rather he took it upon himself to reformat List of diplomatic missions of Russia without seeking or obtaining consensus. Almost all the other list of diplomatic missions by country articles are formatted in a standard matter (see List of diplomatic missions of Kenya, Peru or before it was changed]). The matter was debated last year without resolution. I am a stickler for consistency, as it helps avoid any suggestion of double standards.

Russavia has also created plenty of stubb articles on Russian ambassadors, diplomatic missions and relations with specific countries of varying quality. Kransky (talk) 13:41, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Add: I actually took the time to read Russavia's long post here, as well as the extensive write ups on his own talk page. The striking thing is that NOWHERE does Russavia even indicate that he is aware that his conduct has been problematic, instead he blames and makes personal attacks on others, lashes out with profanity at Sandstein, threatens to use sock puppets and acts as if it is up to him/her whether or not to abide by the ban or not. A very telling part is how he (mis)characterizes Sandstein's comments from his talk page, here - which is probably what is contributing to some editors mistakenly believing that somehow Sandstein was "rude" to Russavia - which he wasn't. For example, here is how Russavia describes Sandstein's comments:

His response astounds me, as all one would have to do is "did you see on *insert name of Soviet history article here* Russavia's edits...what a fuckwit",

Here is what Sandstein actually said:

Since you agree to abide by your topic ban, I am unblocking you. Should you violate the ban, you may be re-blocked or your topic ban may be extended. As to your question, I cannot usefully answer it, since it seems to be some sort of accusation in the form of a question. Let me only note that no editor is "entitled" to redress or to anything else on Misplaced Pages. To clarify any ambiguity that may exist, you are topic-banned from the subject of Soviet (and Russian, Baltic, etc.) history. That means that you may pursue dispute resolution with other editors, except where such dispute resolution concerns content related to Soviet history. You may certainly object if others make personal attacks against you, and request appropriate admin action. However, I strongly advise you not to do this with respect to any such attacks that may have been previously made in the context of Soviet history articles, so as to avoid violating your topic ban inadvertently. Any wikilawyering about the ban will also not be tolerated.

This is apparently the "astounding" response. How in the world did Russavia get the "fuckwit" comment (complete with quotation marks which make it seem like this was a phrase actually used by Sandstein, or someone else) from the measured and calm response by Sandstein?

These seem to be all attempts at creating Wiki drama and mis-characterizing Sandstein's actions in the hope that no one will bother to check their accuracy.radek (talk) 15:05, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Let me bring you up to speed. User:Colchicum basically called me a Nazi on User:Digwuren talk page, formulating the response as "I stronly suggest you not collaborate with Ruavia." Sandstein claimed that I would be unable to address such personal attacks myself due to the ban, stating "Russavia, if somebody else makes a proper WP:AE request about this, I will look at it, as will other admmins, but you are currently topicbanned and not helping yourself. If you continue in this vein, I will remove your ability to edit your talk page.". He later responded on my talk page "You may certainly object if others make personal attacks against you, and request appropriate admin action. However, I strongly advise you not to do this with respect to any such attacks that may have been previously made in the context of Soviet history articles, so as to avoid violating your topic ban inadvertently. Any wikilawyering about the ban will also not be tolerated." So I said, that all one would have to do (if they wanted to be a complete arsehole) is write on someone's talk page "did you see on *insert name of Soviet history article here* Russavia's edits...what a fuckwit" and I would be unable to do absolutely anything about it. Add into the fray, that I left the message on another editor's talk page, and another editor made the personal attack against myself. So in short, what Sandstein has said, is that ANY editor may make ANY personal attack on myself, whether it be calling me a fuckwit, a Nazi, communist scum, hell, even a paedophile, and they would only have to connect it to editing on a Russian/Soviet article, and I would be totally unable to report it, as it would violate the ban, according to Sandstein. Does anyone else agree with his opinion there? If so, I suggest you get your head read. --Russavia 01:05, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, this is out of context and illustrates the problem of your being unable or unwilling to understand the scope of your restrictions (which is why I had to widen them to make them unambiguous). As I said there, you may of course report personal attacks (though this is the first time you provide an actual diff of that attack, which is indeed particularly revolting), including attacks like the "fuckwit" example you give, but it would be better not bring up old personal attacks that were previously made in areas within the topic ban or you might violate the ban inadvertently in the course of their discussion. Colchicum's "Ruavia" attack would be grounds for an indef block, if immediately reported; as it is of March 2009, it is not really actionable any more (blocks are not punitive), but I am certainly ready to intervene if any such conduct repeats itself.

I am tired of this drama and propose the following: If any uninvolved administrator (i.e., nobody involved in Eastern Europe content disputes) believes that any other sanction against Russavia would be more appropriate and workable in lieu of the current broad Russia/Soviet topic ban, I do not object to them imposing that other sanction instead, with the understanding that they would be then responsible for any enforcement and fallout management.  Sandstein  03:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Sandstein, it isn't the first time that I have provided the diff for the attack. I did so at User_talk:Russavia#Example_of_others_WP:BATTLE_-_topic_ban_be_damned. And it is your response there that made me unable to understand the ban, due to it basically being claimed such an attack would be covered under the ban. Do you get it now? --Russavia 01:56, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Trout

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

We all deserve a little trout for posting here. It's lovely with baked with dill, broccoli, and potatoes serves me right for offering mild commentary at an Eastern European dispute thread. Please remember that this noticeboard's purpose is community-based administrative action. There are things it can do and things it cannot.

Flowchart

Seek modification of Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren#Discretionary_sanctions → Misplaced Pages:RFAR#Requests_for_clarification

Debate Sandstein's conduct → Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Sandstein

Nobody is giving the run-around to shield abusive administrators from scrutiny. In fact, if you want to scrutinize Sandstein properly I'll gladly certify RfC. Sandstein, it would be advisable to tone down some of your statements. Best wishes (and can we close this thread please)? Durova 17:42, 12 September 2009 (UTC) your friendly local apparatchick

Thanks for your input, Durova, with which I agree with respect to procedure (although according to the relevant remedy appeals against sanctions should be made at WP:AE). Which of my statements do you think I should tone down? I ask this because it is always a particular concern of mine to meet professional standards of civility and courtesy in all interactions, even when the people I interact with do not, as is frequently the case at AE. Feel free to reply at my talk page so as not to prolong this thread.  Sandstein  18:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

To be candid, I posted that before fully reading Radek's statement above. Apparently a crude expletive was attributed to you in quotation marks without a diff; Radek contends that what you actually posted was quite different (also without a diff). Apologies if I misunderstood. Since there have also been assertions that you failed to adequately define the scope of the ban, perhaps the best course of action would be to proactively open a request for clarification. A number of experienced editors argue that a somewhat different restriction would be more effective at addressing the problems. So a review of the restiction could occur definitively there. And if diffs are forthcoming of inappropriate conduct on your part then that could be handled too. Let's resolve disputes rather than expand them. Durova 19:52, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. If you refer to the word "fuckwit" used in Russavia's statement, of course I never used such an expletive and I am surprised to see that you believe I would. (I'm not sure that Russavia even means to allege that I did; his statement is somewhat confused.) Radek's quote is correct; the diff is . – As to procedure, how to proceed is obviously up to whoever wants the sanction amended, but I believe that a request for clarification would not be the best venue, since nobody asks for clarification of the ArbCom remedy itself. Instead, as I have advised repeatedly to no effect, WP:DIGWUREN#Discretionary sanctions directs that WP:AE be used to discuss any appeals.  Sandstein  20:22, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom has been reorganizing its spaces extensively lately. There used to be a section for appeals; that doesn't exist anymore and seems to have been bundled with clarifications. Hamlet, Prince of Trollmark is poking my elbow and making jibes about implications that ArbCom doesn't think it makes mistakes anymore. Anyway, in certain situations the best solution is for the acting administrator to initiate a motion and invite scrutiny. Have I erred? Will honor whatever outcome arises. Everybody gets to have their say in a venue that can actually have a meaningful effect; less frustration and drama on all sides. Sounds sensible? Durova 20:57, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, to paraphrase a quip about the US Supreme Court, ArbCom is not the last instance because it's infallible, it's infallible because it's the last instance... For my part, I will not initiate any new proceedings and believe that I have adequately explained my opinion in the discussions that have already taken place, but I will of course honor any admin consensus or ArbCom decision modifying my sanction.  Sandstein  21:11, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

And to steal a quote from Absolutely Fabulous: "I was trying to take control of my life, you know, only to find that it's actually controlled for me by petty bureaucracy and bits of bloody paper - ignorant bloody petty rules and laws that just obstruct every tiny little action until you've committed a crime without even knowing it! I mean, you know, why can't life just be made a little easier for everybody, eh?" Several admins and editors have said now that your explanations were not coherent enough to enable myself to continue editting - for example, why does removing BLP from Vladimir Putin not come under the ban, but editing Dmitry Medvedev does? Why does High-Potential Management Personnel Reserve (a program announced in July 2008, and first list released in February 2009) come under history of Russia, but User:Russavia/Duma-A would be ok for me to edit as it is a current list? The HPMPR also is a list of current members of this group. And why would the Duma list be ok, but Medvedev, who is the current President not be ok? It is this type of contradictions from yourself which has led to this. If you had of answered the questions that were asked of not only myself, but also of User:Ezhiki (who is an admin in good standing), we would know where I stood, and where I can edit. Instead, you totally ignored all of us and broadened the ban to include all Russian topics, and used reasoning that came across to me (and others) as some sort of "How dare you question me". You have fobbed off a solution that several editors and admins seem to think is a fair solution, and a solution that leaves us able to know exactly what I may edit without any doubts in anyones minds. And you have also fobbed off a suggestion that I be allowed to continue editing articles in my userspace (see the list at User:Russavia). Also Sandstein, please cease and desist in saying that I do not take responsibility for my actions, because I have written it at least half a dozen times now in various ways and in various places - your continual spouting of this claim seems to me that you are only doing so to try and justify your actions which have been called into question. You demand that I take responsibility for my actions and for my role in this unfortunate drama. The question is, when will you stand up and take responsibility for your actions in this mess? --Russavia 21:48, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually Sandstein declares an intention to honor any consensus that forms at this ANI discussion. So I'll be heading off to enjoy a fine meal of trout. Best wishes for a satisfactory conclusion. Durova 22:25, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I want to also note another case in which Sandstein has recently imposed a topic ban - on user Loosmark . This isn't in order to comment on Sandstein but rather to contrast the behavior of the two users, Russavia and Loosmark in response to their respective bans, and how the community has reacted to each.

Regardless of the actual merits of the case and how it will end, after being banned by Sandstein, Loosmark, after being topic banned , did NOT post long, profanity filled accusations against other users on his talk page. He did NOT make un-civil remarks towards Sandstein. He did NOT make promises to try and avoid the ban through the use of sock puppets. Instead he simply asked Sandstein about how to appeal the ban (although he did indicate that he found the ban ridiculous) . He then posted his appeal at the appropriate venue, appropriate formatted, in polite words, specifically addressing the issue at hand .

On the other hand, after receiving his topic ban, Russavia did ALL of those things that Loosmark did not. He threatened to create sock puppets ("Perhaps I will start a new account, and use it to spread accusations of people being murderers, paedophiles and shit like that."). He launched on long tirades accusing other editors of stuff month and months ago (I'm not gonna provide any more diffs and wiki links here - there are too many, and anyone who feels competent enough to offer an opinion or take any kind of action here HAS A RESPONSIBILITY to read through Russavia's talk page , this report and all the other information). He made uncivil remarks to Sandstein (as well as to other editors) and explicitly stated that he was going to purposefully violate the ban (which is what caused his topic ban to be changed into a general ban). He threatened Sandstein. He made further comments with the purposeful intention of violating his topic ban ("topic ban be damned" ). He then filed an angry, profanity filled report here (though by the standards of his talk page, I guess this can be considered toned down) in which he misrepresented what Sandstein actually said to him, and continued with the incivility and the personal attacks. In fact he filed the report at the wrong place and then acted offended and insulted when this was pointed out to him. He also, unlike, Loosmark, went around and asked other editors to speak up for him.

Like I said, I don't know what the actual outcome of the two appeals (more precisely, one appeal and one misfiled report) will be, but I can imagine one set of outcomes that will contribute to creating the worst incentives possible for the future behavior of editors active in Eastern European topics. And these incentives would be - if you play by the rules, and act polite, you get screwed and your appeal rejected. Screaming loudly, using profanity, attacking users and administrators, creating lots of drama and generally acting in an uncivil manner will get you what you want. I understand some admins might be tired of dealing with this drama, but I would ask them to take a bit more of a long term view here.radek (talk) 04:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree with Radeksz's account of the two situations.

   Russavia's melt down and subsequent recalcitrance, profanity and threats should be rewarded how? Any change to Sandstein's action will signal that reward for threats, lobbying, and intimidation are effective both in waging content wars and in avoiding sanctions for the most heinous display of a complete lack of any integrity or civility I've seen yet on WP. Even sockpuppeting paid propagandists pale by comparison.

   Russavia should have considered keeping to their positive contributions. Editors have accepted total bans of much longer duration in recognition they stepped over the line. Not Russavia. Their behavior leading to the sanction and—100 times more disturbing—after the sanction is their choice. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  16:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Good points. See my essay for an explanation of what is going on here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

@Durova: I think that a procedural oppose is not helpful here. Sandstein did the RIGHT THING. If he didn't do it perfectly in the light of our bureaucratic policies - so what? Disruptive users should be taught a lesson, and the lesson should not be "if you make a lot of noise and point out a procedural error, you can keep on being disruptive". See also another of my essays :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The procedural oppose was not against Sandstein's action. It was to a proposed community-based sanction. Since then Sandstein voluntarily announced willingness to accept consensus that arises here, so the procedural oppose may be considered withdrawn. Durova 22:02, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Arguably, Sandstein may have done the right thing at first, but his subsequent handling of the situation is nothing to write home about. Russavia's behavior was definitely not stellar in many regards, but giving how he was subsequently treated, his frustration is something to be expected from a human being I suspect he is. Analogies made with the Loosmark case are pretty misleading here. Loosmark's edit ban was something that Loosmark found easy to comply with (there's only so much that can fall under "Ukrainian-Polish relations during WWII", even "broadly construed), even though he disagreed with the ban itself. Russavia's topic ban turned out to be anything but easy to comply with. Being topic-banned "from all edits or pages related to the history of the Soviet Union and its successor states (including Russia and the Baltic states)" seems straightforward enough, true, but after Russavia vented his frustration with that (human behavior which is totally understandable, even though not laudable), accepted the original ban (however grudgingly), and attempted to work within the limits of that ban, what kind of treatment has he received? He was immediately warned that his edits are in violation of the ban. Now, honestly folks, does editing High-Potential Management Personnel Reserve look like a "page related to the history of the Soviet Union and its successor states" (emphasis mine)? OK, by some far-fetched definition maybe it does. At this point, wouldn't you want to know what that definition is supposed to be? Russavia sure did, so he requested explanations as to the what the ban does and does not include. Then he requested another one. In response, he was basically told that the ban includes everything that deals with Russians or Russia. Now, I don't know about other admins, but I see it as a contradiction with the original terms. So did Russavia. So he asked again. So did I. How hard is it to explain what the ban does and does not include, anyway? Apparently, so hard that it was easier to just extend the ban terms. So, the bottom line: if one doesn't understand the ban terms and asks for a clarification, one should get his ban terms broadened? That's what was at the root of this thread, and that's what seemingly got lost with all the issues that got folks sidetracked.

All in all, it seems that an agreement emerges in this thread that this proposed solution is somehow a way to ignore Russavia's behavior and to "reward" him with loosening the ban. In reality, it is nothing but the attempt to formalize the terms of the ban the way it was imposed initially by Sandstein himself. Can we please stick to discussing that and not get distracted with issues of Russavia's behavior (for which he is going to be punished well enough by this topic ban in whatever form it is finally worded)? I see no one reacted to Sandstein's generous offer to take over handling of this ban either. I somehow doubt my candidature is going to be the best fit for that task (I don't believe I'm involved with "Eastern European" disputes, but I sure am now involved with this case), but if no one objects, I will be more than willing to make sure that for the next six months Russavia does not touch a single article that deals with the history of the Soviet Union and the Baltic states and remains civil in all his interactions (the last clause is not a part of either the original or a modified topic ban, but since it's a concern voiced by several people in this very thread, it makes sense to include it). If no other candidate emerges, and Sandstein remains the one in charge of enforcement, let's at least try to enforce something that is fairly imposed and is not a "let's ban the guy just in case and because we don't like his attitude" decision. Since when have our admins stopped being fair and impartial and became petty and acrimonious? Between two solutions—one limiting disruption and positive contributions and another just limiting disruption—shouldn't we want to select the latter if we care at all about the continuous success of Misplaced Pages?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:00, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

The procedural oppose was not an endorsement of Sandstein's action. It was more a matter of seeking a solution that didn't cause greater problems down the road. Late last year there was an occasion where the Arbitration Committee modified a ban at my request. I should have posed the request differently and thought it out better, because when the arbitration sanction expired the fellow's status was left undefined at the community level. In the long run that caused more headaches; wanted to avoid that sort of headaches here. Durova 18:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The thing is, Russavia did not "accept his ban" - s/he threatened to create disruptive sock puppet accounts, s/he posted stuff on his talk page under the heading "topic ban be damned", and generally acted in a way that would merit a ban or civility parole by itself regardless of what he had done previously. As far as asking for clarification - it is possible to do that in a civil way, without using profanity, threatening admins and insulting people, you know. This may be a "human reaction" (what isn't here?) but it is not "understandable".radek (talk) 16:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

That he did, but then he accepted the terms in a much more civil and calm manner, and tried to work within those terms (only to find out that they are not what they seem to be, which would probably add to anyone's frustration at that point). He's not beyond hope, you know; I can't fathom why some would want to imply that. His request for clarification was also pretty civil (no profanity, threatening, and insults). Anyway, that he later realized his tone is unacceptable is better than him not realizing it at all, wouldn't you agree? Besides, like I proposed above, if folks agree to have me take over the enforcement of this case, I'll make sure that uncivil comments are also covered by the ban definition. Surely that should take care of all the problems without unnecessarily limiting positive contributions?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:28, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

Ezhiki, I take that this I will be more than willing to make sure that for the next six months Russavia does not touch a single article that deals with the history of the Soviet Union and the Baltic states and remains civil in all his interactions (the last clause is not a part of either the original or a modified topic ban, but since it's a concern voiced by several people in this very thread, it makes sense to include it). is what you mean by enforcement of this case. That's fine, except that the topic ban also includes Russia, including present day Russia. Furthermore, remaining civil in all interactions is of course not a part of the original topic ban, as it is already expected of all Misplaced Pages editors. Rather, I think the appropriate action here would be to put Russavia on civility parole, AFTER his/her topic ban expires (since this is the area where most of the trouble comes from), and until s/he demonstrates that it is no longer needed (or some pre specificed amount of time).radek (talk) 16:37, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Radek, I'm sorry, but you don't seem to have studied the case in all its entirety. The original topic-ban terms did not include "Russia, including present-day Russia". The original terms included "the history of the Soviet Union and its successor states (including Russia and the Baltic states)" (emphasis mine). All of Russia was added only after Russavia, another admin, and myself repeatedly requested explanations as to what can and cannot be considered "the history of USSR/Russia", got contradictory responses (which we then pointed out to be contradictory). The scope of the ban was extended based solely because the enforcing admin was unable, for whatever reason, to coherently explain the terms of the ban as originally imposed and chose to extend it instead. In my book, that's as unfair a treatment as a treatment can get (but it often seems that I am the only one who has a copy of that particular book).

Regarding the rest of the suggestions you made above, I leave them for others to comment. The only reason why I bother to post here at all is to make sure Russavia's ban is a) fair; b) clearly defined; and c) limits his positive contributions to the smallest possible extent. As long as that goal is reached, the exact wording/implementation of the topic ban does not matter to me.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:47, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

Ezhiki, I have indeed studied the case in some detail. The current topic ban does include all of Russia, like I said. Given Russavia's behavior after his initial more limited ban I think this is quite justified. The scope of the ban was extended because of Wikilawyering and willful and purposeful violation of the limited ban (including a section titled "topic ban be damned"), not because of anything Sandstein did (solely or otherwise) - like I said this extension is quite justified. The ban is both clearly defined (and Russavia can always ask - in a civil manner - for clarification) and fair. Come on, I've seen editors get perma banned for the level of incivility and aggression displayed here - Russavia is being let off easy.radek (talk) 17:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Radek, I honestly do not understand why you and several others (including the admin in charge) refer to Russavia's (and other, otherwise uninvolved, people's!) requests for ban term clarifications as "wikilawyering". If a topic ban were to be imposed on you, would you not want to clarify what is and is not covered, if you had your doubts? Would you not request clarifications if you received a warning for the edits that you in all honesty believed should not be covered by the ban? As I demonstrated above, Russavia tried to do just that (here's that diff again), and so did I. Both of our inquiries were ignored; instead, the ban terms were extended... for wikilawyering??? Only then did Russavia said "topic ban be damned"—but that's frustration and puzzlement talking, not a genuine intent to break the rules. I don't know in how many more ways I can explain this over and over again, but I'll try: the modified ban (the one that includes all of Russia) is indeed "well-defined", but it is neither fair nor allows Russavia to edit the articles in areas where he's never even remotely been disruptive. There is no useful purpose for banning Russavia from articles where his contributions were nothing but positive. Apart from Russavia's sporadic angry outbursts in response to what he (and me, and others) perceived to be unfair treatment (outbursts which he himself later retracted and regretted), there is no reason to extend the topic ban coverage to "all Russia". What say you? :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:18, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

• What are you talking about? Both notices by Sandstein were exactly the same. In his first notice Sandstein topic-banned Russavia "from all edits or pages related to the history of the Soviet Union and its successor states (including Russia and the Baltic states)", see the diff. Then he was asked by Russavia and Ezhiki to explain meaning of his word "history" in the context of the ban (that's a difficult question: no one has an idea if the "history" starts today). After tense negotiations at the talk page of Russavia, Sandstein issued his second notice that was precisely the same, but without word "history", see the diff. Biophys (talk) 18:37, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, since it did not include the word "history", it cannot be precisely the same, right? I don't know about you, but I find it patently obvious that the removal of that one little word has very important ramifications as to what can and cannot be edited under the topic ban. Besides, if from the very start Sandstein really meant "all Russia/USSR" and not just their "history" (something, I should add, he refused to clarify by completely ignoring questions directly addressed at him), then why, according to his attempts at explanations on the onset of the conflict did he make it explicitly clear that articles about all "current politicians" (but for some reason not Dmitry Medvedev) are OK to edit? Something doesn't tally here...
  • Anyway, as promised, I would repeat myself once again: let's make sure that the topic ban imposed on Russivia is a) fair; b) clearly defined; and c) limits his positive contributions to the smallest possible extent. I also renew my offer to handle the ban myself, unless some other administrator is willing to step up and replace Sandstein in a role he himself admitted he is tired of.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:51, September 14, 2009 (UTC)
    • I stated above my personal opinion how the ban could be modified: Russavia should not edit any articles edited by people who he called himself his "enemies", and there are indeed very few articles he should not edit. Unfortunately, this or any other alternative proposals were not supported by other administrators during this discussion (see above). I am afraid this should be now refiled to AE or Arbcom to modify the remedy if they decide so.Biophys (talk) 19:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Ezhiki, first, let's be clear that the ban as it currently stands concerns articles concerning Soviet/Baltic/Russian history and all Russia related articles. Second, given Russavia's behavior your "a) fair" and "b) clearly defined" are already taken care of here. So that leaves "c) limits his positive contributions to the smallest possible extent". In most circumstances I would be sympathetic to that argument because I realize that the fact that people OCCASIONALLY screw up in one way does not mean they have nothing good to contribute in other respects. However, in this particular case there are three very strong arguments against this kind of "clemency":

• Russavia's block log - this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. S/he should've learned her/his lesson earlier and acted accordingly. The fact that s/he is going to be unable to continue with her/his "positive contributions" is entirely her/his fault.
• Russavia's response - like I said before, the stuff s/he wrote after the ban was imposed is by itself enough to warrant an indefinite all around ban. Had s/he been civil about it'd be a different matter.
• Precedent - limiting and/or rescinding the ban would basically constitute a reward for extremely uncivil behavior, abusing administrators, making threats and profanity. This would encourage future users who find themselves restricted to engage in similar disruptive antics, greatly hurting the Wiki project as a whole (not to mention it would implicitly punish those editors who try to follow the rules for actually following the rules).

Basically, the case that you are making now should have been made 1) by Russavia and 2) in place of the threats and uncivil remarks that s/he actually made, right after the ban was imposed.

I understand that at some point Russavia asked if s/he could post the articles which were already in her/his user page. If there is a clear understanding that this would constitute a one time, exception to the six month topic ban on all Russian/Soviet/Baltic articles and all Russia related articles, and if there is clear evidence that the user is willing to change his/her behavior by agreeing to a civility parole, then I think that singular exception could be made.radek (talk) 23:52, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Ezhiki

Thank you Ezhiki for offering to police any revised ban, which you suggest follow a ban of editing any articles relating to the history of the Soviet Union with the Baltic States (and Russia with the same states). I would understand this to mean that I would still be able to edit any articles relating to the history of Russia, so long as it does not involve articles relating to Russia's history/interactions with the Baltic States? If the ban is amended as such, I give my word that I will not involve myself with such articles, and will remain civil. This does not mean that I won't push editors to abide by WP:V and other policies, but I will watch how I handle it. Additionally, in case anyone has missed my previous acknowledgements (on at least half a dozen or more occasions), I take responsibility for all of my edits on WP, and I expect others to do likewise. Such a ban will allow me to edit in other areas where my contributions are positive. A couple of questions I do have though. If the ban is amended to what you have offered to impose and police...

• At User:Russavia/Australia–Russia_relations#1963.E2.80.931991 there is information relating to the recognition of the de jure incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union. When I place this into mainspace, would I have to remove this section, and have another editor place it?
• Editors may or may not know, but I have been heavily involved in categorisation of Russian articles. One category I have been responsible for creating, and also maintenance of is Category:Bilateral relations of Russia. This involves not only creating categories, but also searching WP, and using Alex Bakharev's bot, in order to find articles which can be placed in such categories. If I were to come across an article, which should be placed in Category:Estonia–Russia relations, how would I go about it? Obviously, I would be unable to edit the article myself for the duration of the ban, but would I post a request on the article talk page? Elsewhere?
• Would the ban stop me from editing or creating articles on Russian diplomats who may have been born in any of the Baltic SSRs, or whilst they were under the rule of the Russian Empire?

If you could provide answers for this, I would be appreciative, as it would go a long way to my understanding any fair ban which is imposed. --Russavia 08:08, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

There is still no reason what so ever for this ban to be amended. The only plausible argument is to allow this user to keep making positive contributions and restrict negative ones. However, there's no guarantee that this user, given his/her behavior in the past, as documented by the block log and on his/her own talk page, will not abuse this concession. Furthermore, amending the ban would be a reword for extremely bad behavior (threatening to create sock puppets, willfully breaking the ban, using offensive language and expletives towards other users and admins, general incivility) thus setting very dangerous precedent on Misplaced Pages for the future - bad behavior gets rewarded, good behavior gets punished.

I can see letting this user post the articles already in his/her userpage, but that's about it.radek (talk) 15:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course there is no reason, as you see me as a content opponent...this much is clear. Unfortunately, due to the ban, I am not able to provide evidence of this...Stalinist show trials or what, eh? Also, please do not bring up issues relating to articles covered by my ban, as it is not fair for me to be subjected to such attacks, without a right of reply. What is being discussed is the unfair extension of the ban to cover ALL Russian topics due to Sandstein refusing or being unable or just not caring to answer questions in relation to the ban and being too "tired" to do so...questions such as those which have been asked below which are required in order to clarify his unfair extended ban. As you are clearly involved in disputes in this area, your opinion surely needs to be considered as such...that is...an opportunity to get rid of a content opponent...what is more valued is that of uninvolved editors and admins, who are willing to look at my overall contributions, rather than selected articles, and they will be able to see that whilst there has been some disruption in topics relating to the Soviet Union and the Baltic states (that being, their interactions, etc), over the REST OF RUSSIAN related articles, my edits can be seen as nothing but positive for the very most part, and that banning me from editing those subjects serves zero purpose, either for myself or for the project as a whole. To do so is nothing short of vindictive, and is akin to putting me in jail for six months on the pretext of me being capable of committing murder. It is, therefore, these people's whose opinions who are really required; the uninvolved editor and admin, who is able to cut through all the shit and see what is what, and most importantly, what is fair. --Russavia 15:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, I am doing my darndest to avoid the appearance of "taking sides", as my goal is always "fairness". I don't want to be seen as "involved" either way. However, as an outside observer looking in, I would have to say that the continuous assumptions of bad faith, veiled attacks, and paragraphs of wikilawyering are doing less to help the entire situation. If you want a fully-fleshed list of what you can and cannot do, ArbCom would be happy to help :-) . Really, back away, take a few small lumps, stick by it, keep yours (and everybody's) nose clean, and keep being productive - this too shall pass if you let it. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Questions for Sandstein

Sandstein, as you are the admin who has imposed the all encompassing ban covered anything to do with Russia or Russians, can you please provide some clarification for me.

• In Hugo Chavez is my adding File:Dmitry Medvedev and Hugo Chavez 10 September 2009-6.jpg to the article in violation of the ban? This goes with all other non-Russian articles which are sorely lacking photos, for which we are able to utilise the Kremlin databases, due to my efforts in getting the necessary permissions. Should we not be ensuring that articles are adequately illustrated.
• In Hugo Chavez is my adding information on his 11 visits to Russia, 3 in the last 12 months, and why he has done so, in violation of the ban?
• In Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega or Evo Morales, is my adding a photo of these three leaders with Dmitry Medvedev, and providing of information as to why the meeting was held, etc, etc in violation of the ban?
• A similar question as I asked of Ezhiki. I have been heavily involved in categorisation of Russian articles. If I come across an article which I believe needs some more categorisation which involves Russia, how do I raise attention to it? After all, should we not be ensuring that articles are categorised for ease for our readers in finding articles relating to a particular topic?
• To what extent am I able to remove WP:BLP violations of Russia-related articles. If one reads WP:BLP, it states, Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. The ban as placed by yourself, negates my ability to adhere to one of these most important and core policies on WP, as far as I can tell

Look forward to your clarifications. --Russavia 08:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

These all relate to Russia and fall under the scope of your topic ban, until such time as you convince another uninvolved admin that your topic ban may be safely reduced in scope (see my comment above). Please direct any additional necessary questions to my talk page, as I may not continue to read this thread.  Sandstein  16:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Then you damn well should continue to read this page. You are the Admin who has caused this, and this is the public place where it is being discussed. If you wish to arrogantly only handle public matters in your "home office" then abdicate your responsibilities and stay at home. Giano (talk) 16:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that insulting Sandstein is the best way to have him continue to read the thread. Cheers. lifebaka++ 18:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Insulting? Wise up or shut up - no one has been insulted. The thread is of Sandstein's making, he can either delegate this elsehwere or see it through. If the heat in the kitchen is.... need I continue? Giano (talk) 21:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

He has delegated it elsewhere: to WP:AE or to any uninvolved administrator who commits to following up afterward. It might be advisable under these circumstances to foster transition with a collegial atmosphere. If Sandstein's handling has been unsatisfactory, then surely the best way to remedy the situation is by encouraging an environment where someone else would be willing to replace him. Durova 22:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Can somebody remind me where and when did Giano gain an immunity from CIV? I know he has it, I am just curious what needs to be done to do so. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There's an editor I haven't seen in these parts for quite a while. Time has not improved collegiality (my perception only, of course). VЄСRUМВА  ♪  02:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Sandstein, I realise that you are now busy pushing for the implementation of Misplaced Pages:Discretionary sanctions - I suggest editors check it out, which is essentially a proposed policy which would enable admins to blanket ban any editor from any topic area without the need for arbitration or the like - but do you realise that the answer to my question is potentially leaving the Foundation open to lawsuits? I suggest that you read WP:BLP very carefully. I have removed unsourced, libellous materials from the articles of many Russian people on so many occasions that I have lost count, including accusations that they are criminals, murderers, "guilty" of this or that. But hey, given what you are saying, and given that according to you I am not allowed to remove, discuss, advise or anything else relating to libellous materials on WP, I will in future attempt to contact the subjects of said articles directly, and advise them of the violations and urge them to sue the Foundation for allowing libellous to remain on the project, and will provide them with a link to your answer above which bans me from touching, discussing or advising of the libellous materials about any such subjects. This is not a legal threat, before anyone accuses me of this, but according to Sandstein, this is the only option that I have, and it is an option that one has to consider. But, I won't do that, I will let basic common sense prevail. I will resolve myself to ignoring your interpretation of the ban as it stands right now, and I will remove any potentially libellous information on sight, and in cases of borderline material which may breach WP:BLP, I will raise it at the appropriate place.

The same goes for WP:COPYVIO. Again, you are mandating leaving the Foundation open to lawsuits? For example, in looking at my watchlist, I have come across an article which contains a blatant copyright infringement of a New York Times article. But due to your interpretation, I am not allowed to remove the infringement, I am not allowed to alert anyone to the infringement and I am not allowed to discuss the infringement. So what am I to do? Contact the New York Times and have them add it to a list of things which they can sue the foundation for?

If anyone is interested, the article in question...Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia in the lead states:

"South Ossetia's president Eduard Kokoity has publicly acknowledged in his words that he and the forces under his command or with whom he is working are engaging in what can only be called ethnic cleansing of Georgian people in South Ossetia."

which is of course a blatant copyvio of which states:

"Kokoity’s words are a rare public acknowledgment by an official that he and the forces under his command or with whom he is working are engaging in what can only be called ethnic cleansing, a form of genocide."

So tell me, is that going to have me indef banned? How to handle it? 1) I remove the copyvio myself and be banned for editing the article? 2) I raise the issue on the talk page, and then get indef banned for breaching the ban 3) I raise the issue on the talk page, and then get indef banned for breaching the ban 4) Someone else remove it, and then I get indef banned for breaching the ban by mentioning the article here? 5) We simply stick our collective heads in the sand, ignore the issue altogether, and then await the lawsuit from the NYT?

I think it is plainly obvious that you have not thought about your words above (which adds to the all encompassing ban itself), so I would suggest that you refactor your answers. Or indef ban me accordingly, because if that copyvio remains in the article within 24 hours, I will remove it myself.

Again, you will unlikely see all of this as wikilawyering. Thats your perogative. Just as its my perogative to see your answers and intepretations as irrational, and potentially more damaging to WP as a project, especially as this the type of thing that I often do on a daily basis on WP. --Russavia 17:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Your statement above, "I will in future ... urge them to sue the Foundation" (), is a legal threat against the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as the announcement of an intent to disrupt the project. Please unambiguously withdraw it with your next edit, or you may be indefinitely blocked. A copy of this message is left at your talk page.

As to the substantive question, there might be ways to phrase problem reports to the appropriate noticeboards in such a way as not to violate a topic ban. But I believe, judging from your conduct in this matter, that you would be likely to misuse any leeway in this regard as an opportunity to circumvent the ban by rephrasing content disagreements in terms of problem reports, or to wikilawyer endlessly about what kind of reports you are allowed to make. You are therefore advised to leave any problem reporting in the area of your topic ban to others. Fortunately, the continued operation of Misplaced Pages does not depend on any one editor.  Sandstein  20:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

See, this is the problem that I have experienced with you from the outset of this problem Sandstein, in that you don't read what is written, but rather jump the gun entirely, ignoring what is written, accusing of issuing threats, wikilawyering and a host of other things. Read what I wrote in its entireity. I wrote explicitly, This is not a legal threat, before anyone accuses me of this, but according to Sandstein, this is the only option that I have, and it is an option that one has to consider. But, I won't do that, I will let basic common sense prevail. It was right there in the diff that you just posted, how could you not see it? Like I said, I will let common sense prevail, and I will remove libellous information on sight, from any article, no matter what subject it may be in, and whether that article is covered by any ban or not, as interpreted by yourself. I suggest you read WP:BLP some time. And I will report potentially libellous material to the BLP noticeboard. And you are right, the continued operation of Misplaced Pages does not depend on any one editor; but libel laws in the US, which WP:BLP has to adhere to, are such that if the subject whom the libel is directed towards is able to prove that information has been published and seen by an audience, they may have a pretty good case...the nature of WP makes this quite easy to prove...and my removing material which breaches WP:BLP is not a hindrance to the project, but rather a help...do you really think I am a vindictive prick that I would bring trouble to a project that I have dedicated a lot of my time to? And probably unknown to you, that I am still contributing to in my normal area of editing. I have removed BLP material from articles in the past that has been present for over 12 months or more, so one should be thankful for me removing such information, instead of letting it sit there and possibly leave the door open for problems. This is how I have always operated, and I will continue to operate. In fact Sandstein, my last question which was asked above was asked on purpose, just for me to see what your response would be, and whether you have actually thought things thru before answering. It is obvious you have not, particularly as you completely missed what I wrote above in my initial post. As to misjudging anything I may or may not do, I really don't have much faith in your judgement, when it is obvious you have no idea on how I approach such things, unless you can provide some diffs to back up your bad faith personal attack, where I have used issues such as reporting a BLP violation as a way of attacking others. Or wait, I can show you an article where I was getting attacked by both sides (at one stage) -- Talk:Valeriya Novodvorskaya - so just how do I deal with BLP violations again? Therefore, I see no reason to retract anything, as you have totally misread (or not read) and misunderstood what I wrote, that's not my fault now is it? Nor is it the first time this has occurred with yourself. --Russavia 21:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I will refrain from replying to this, but will let other admins decide whether WP:NLT action remains warranted here, in the hope thereby to contribute to end this ridiculous drama.  Sandstein  22:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yup. Sorry to end all the fun, folks, but I have now seen more than enough. I have indefinitely banned Russavia and made the following comment on his talk page: . When people repeatedly act like jerks, we show them the door, regardless of their past history of "good work". Good Ol’factory 22:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I avoided posting anything here for the past day or so in hopes someone would comment on the substance of the case. Unfortunately, we admins just can't keep focus on the issue without straying from the course to pursue something unrelated and more fun (like Giano-bashing; a perennial favorite).

Still, a few comments were made which I just can't leave unaddressed. The most important thing is that for some reason you folks think that if Russavia's topic-ban is amended, it would somehow constitute a "reward" for his bad behavior. That is one part I don't understand. Russavia "bad behavior" is already being addressed by imposing a topic ban on him. In whatever form that ban is ultimately defined, it's punishment enough. The behavior was contained to a range of very specific and easily definable topics. Banning Russavia from editing those topics constitutes punishment which is both adequate and commensurate with the deviation from the acceptable behavioral norm. However, banning Russavia from anything other than those topics makes no sense whatsoever, no matter how you look at it. OK, he feels strongly about the issues surrounding the Baltic states or whatnot. Fine, we limit him so he doesn't edit that for the next six months. But why oh why do we limit him from all articles dealing with Russia, articles to most of which he contributed nothing but high-quality material and in which he had never been disruptive? Because of the far-fetched scenario that he might start being disruptive there? Because of the few snappy remarks he made in the process? Our own policies specifically say that our disciplinary measures are "used to prevent damage or disruption to Misplaced Pages, not to punish users". And while they can sometimes be used as a deterrent as well, what are we deterring Russavia from by prohibiting him editing of articles on, say, Russian aviation? Russian diplomatic relations? It seems not so much as a valid preventive measure as it is our petty anger over his frustrated responses to the admin imposing the block. To be concise, what problem does blocking Russiavia from editing articles on anything related to Russia solve exactly? Why do our admins find it more beneficial to deprive Misplaced Pages of great contributions rather than give Russavia a chance to improve? He can't improve if he can't edit a single page that he can help with! How hard is it to impose additional disciplinary measure should Russavia for whatever reason go beserk in other articles related to Russia but not to the areas of contention covered by the original topic ban?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:09, September 16, 2009 (UTC)

The topic ban is absolutely not punishment, it is protective of the encyclopedia and its community. The arbitration committee came to the rather obvious conclusion that nationalist and other real-world disputes make a hash of our articles in a number of hot-button topic areas, including those relating to Eastern Europe. As a result, it has granted administrators the authority to topic ban editors whose behavior is disruptive; the decision does not require a definitive finding that every single edit made by a topic-banned editor is disruptive. The remedy also does not require Sandstein to set out each individual page, or every specific type of edit, which is prohibited. That would be inimical to the object of the remedy, which is to provide a tool to administrators to reduce disruption in the affected topic area.

The decision does require that appeals of the topic ban (and that is what this is, despite attempts to couch it as a review of Sandstein's behavior - his behavior in this case is essentially limited to imposing the ban, and reviewing it is tantamount to reviewing the ban) be heard at WP:AE or submitted to the arbitration committee itself. It also asks that administrators reviewing discretionary sanctions seek consensus to overturn them. What Russavia is arguing against is the essential nature of a topic ban - that the opportunity for making positive edits is exchanged for the benefit realized by excluding a particular editor from the topic area. In the absence of disruptive behavior, no such exchange would be necessary. A paean to opportunities lost should acknowledge that they are in fact opportunities thrown away. Nathan 19:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The topic ban... is protective of the encyclopedia and its community'—but that's my point exactly! By imposing the topic ban, we protect the encyclopedia and its community from the Russavia's actions which have been deemed disruptive by limiting his edits in areas where he was deemed to be disruptive. By imposing a topic ban which is way too broad, we still, of course, accomplish that goal, but we also deprive the community of his positive contributions in areas where he's never been disruptive. This thread does not seek to "set out each individual page, or every specific type of edit" Russavia can make. On the contrary, I am trying to argue that it is still possible to define fairly generic topic-ban terms which, unlike the terms including "all Russia", would still be effective and easy to enforce. I've been hesitant to post a proposed new definition because we need to address the core issue first, but I'd be more than willing to submit one if it helps move things on.

Moving this thread to AE is a valid procedural concern, but if you review the material above, you'll see that not everyone who commented here shares it. It is perfectly possible to "modify" the ban (which basically boils down to asking Sandstein to please retract his overly broad decision to extend the ban coverage and to his handling the whole thing to another admin, which is something he seems to be perfectly willing to do). Between enduring the ArbComm bureaucracy and one admin possibly amending his own judgment, which do you believe is a simpler solution? Another purpose of this thread is to "seek consensus"—also something you specifically mention. If you tally the opinions voiced so far, there's hardly a consensus just yet.

In conclusion, regarding Russavia allegedly "arguing against the essential nature of a topic ban", that's not at all the case. He is not arguing to allow him to edit the articles in which he was deemed to be disruptive; he is arguing to allow him to edit the articles in which he's never been disruptive. It's not that difficult to separate the two areas without having to ban him from editing anything and everything that mentions "Russia". If his disruption is so unbearable, why do we even bother with the topic ban? Why not just block the guy for six months? Surely that'll protect the community just fine! That, somehow, strikes people as too broad, but the topic-ban dealing with "all Russia" isn't? I just don't get the logic.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:47, September 16, 2009 (UTC)

You write "This thread does not seek to "set out each individual page, or every specific type of edit" Russavia can make." and I concede that this may not be your intention. Even so, it is a valid characterisation of Russavia's comments - a number of people have used the term "wikilawyering" to describe his criticism and comments on Sandstein's topic ban, and I find the descriptions apt and of a piece with his past history. (I apologise if I am getting Russavia's gender wrong here). In this context, I take the term as wikispeak for Russavia's searching for loopholes by demanding that exacting detail be used in defining the topic ban. You've argued above that its unfair that Sandstein extended the ban when its terms were questioned; I think an alternate and more likely explanation is that the terms were broadened so that they could be more simply enforced, when it became clear that Russavia was searching for ways to minimize the scope of the ban as initially set down.

If you disagree, then you're free to propose an alternative text. Sandstein commented on his talkpage that he would agree to another (uninvolved) administrator taking over enforcement of an alternate topic ban; you may not be able to enforce the ban yourself, but certainly you could propose language you believe is better and find a single administrator to agree to monitor the ban? I would submit, though, that Sandstein has a great deal more experience in this area than most administrators, and we frequently rely on that experience at arbitration enforcement - where Sandstein is the most active administrator at the moment. If he believes a less general ban will not address the concerns with Russavia's conduct, or will ultimately lead to a greater chance of escalating enforcement actions, then I'm not inclined to favor your judgment on the issue over his. Nathan 21:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am affraid I am an involved admin as I have a history of contribution to the field by my own. On the other hand, I (unlike Sandstein) have my information firsthand and was not spoon-fed by a selected info from an interested group. Russavia contributed a lot of uncontroversially postive staff into the fields of Russian and Soviet aviation, Diplomatic relations of Russia, etc. I am not aware of uncontroversially negative contributions of him. On the other hand his contributions related to Russian apartment bombings, Alexander Litvinenko - related articles, as well as Russian-Baltic and Russian-Georgia-South Ossetia-Abkhazia relations are often controversial. His discussions on the talk pages are often useful but sometimes too verbose and hardly civil (although I do not remember personal attacks of RuSSavia and Flying Pig levels as used by his opponents). I would think that the above info makes the choice of the restrictions clear: Russavia is banned from the articles related to Baltics and Georgia as well as articles related to Russian apartment bombings and Alexander Litvinenko. He is allowed to briefly point out the problem in the articles on the talk pages and Misplaced Pages boards, but warned to be brief, civil and to the point. Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Concentrated stalking and attacks against Russavia

Yesterday a member of a closed e-mail list named "Wikipediametric" forwarded me their archive asking me to do something about it. Out of the 3000+ emails more than a half is filled with discussion how "to get" and "attack" Russavia. Among the suggested methods were stalking Russavia edits, carefully crafted edit warring (making sure that no member of the group would make more than one or two reverts), low level personal attacks designed to engineer civility blocks for Russavia's responses, block shopping, attempts to out Russavia. "Friends of Russavia", particular User:PasswordUsername, User:Offliner, User:YMB29 as well as User:Anonimu were also under similar attack. The group was also discussing ways to plant their own checkusers, methods of creating sockpuppets untraceable by checkusering, etc. So far I have not found a single discussion or even kudos for creating noncontroversial wiki content but long series of joy on every block for the people listed as their enemies, particular Russavia. They specifically discussed how to nurture special relations with Sandstein and use them to block their enemies. Among the most active members are User:Digwuren, User:Biophys, User:Piotrus, User:Molobo, User:Radeksz. The emails are almost certainly genuine. It looks like for at list half a year Russavia was a target of constant coordinated attacks by a group of active wikipedians quite skillful in the art of achieving victory by banning their opponents. I am not sure he was aware of this particular group but the editing history of articles touched by Russavia is quite telling by itself. I do not think it is in the project best interest to let them succeed.

I am not sure what to do about this archive. I will forward it to the Arbcom and I could provide it to any administrator I trust. I would not give it to nonadmins (including Russavia himself) or anybody else (unless the authors give me permissions) as it contain a significant amount of personal information that might be abused. Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds fun. For the record: a discussion group of that name exists and I am a member of it, but Russavia was not that often discussed, and when he was, while we are no fans of him, we hardly discussed some campaigning against him (caveat: I have little interest in Russavia and I wasn't reading ALL of the emails about him - I am simply not interested in him that much). I do however sense another reputation damage campaign in the making. Sigh. Last time it was about whether an editor has the right to collect evidence for dispute resolution, this time I guess we will be discussing whether the editor has the right to discuss other editors and wikipolitics off-wiki. PS. Alex - you really had the time to read 1,500 emails? I find it hard to believe. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, the last time there was a big email bust (real or fake), some of the people involved completely lost their nerve and started telling stacks of different stories to different people and completely polluted and it turned into a stampede. The same could happen here I guess. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I would think asking the ArbCom to do an in-camera arbitration would be the best option in this circumstance. In any circumstance, this is gonna involve ArbCom at some point or another; this sounds like heavy-duty harassment. -Jeremy 05:34, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

There's also a possibility like in a previous case, that the involved parties escalated their manoevres for the arbcase and then the arbcom got fed up with the evidence and the result was a lot of sabre rattling for a deeper pit. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I strongly urge you to forward a copy to arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org, also I wouldn't mind seeing a copy of this myself at mattbisanzyahoo.com (yes I am an admin, otrs, crat, identified, whatever). MBisanz 05:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's been dumped on the internet for all to see, apparently. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

That does bring up the good point that anyone who has a copy needs to remember private correspondence rules and not post it onwiki. MBisanz 05:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Lovely. That list contains a ton of private information, including real life names and related details of editors who want to remain anonymous on Wiki, including some that were wiki stalked and such. I very much doubt that any member of that discussion group would commit such a faux pas, it seems to me that the group archive was hacked. I hope that the ArbCom reviews this issue quickly and whoever leaked the private info on multiple editors out gets his due. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you, Alex. The Arbitration Committee has also been made aware of this list; if you could send the copy you received to the Committee, we can compare it to the one we received. I would discourage anyone from sharing this information; the more it is passed around, the greater the likelihood that it will become corrupted in some form. If anyone has other information that may also be of value for the Arbitration Committee to review, please feel free to send it as well. Risker (talk) 05:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment struck. Incidentally, I had previously forwarded an email that would be in the arb-l archive for July 4th, 2009, that now makes sense in light of Alex's comments, that the Committee might want to look at. MBisanz 06:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I have posted the message I received to the arbcom(I) list. Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Your mail to 'arbcom-l' with the subject

Wikipediametrics info

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

Post by non-member to a members-only list

• Wow, that is a stunning development. I've been watching this thread from its inception, as I recollect, it was Good Ol’factory that actually ended up banning Russavia for Wikilawyering after Sandstein gave him fair warning. Seems to me that Russavia dug his own hole, regardless of what this alleged list claims to have perpetrated. --149.135.66.235 (talk) 06:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I confirm that I too was sent access to this material; I too find it highly damning at first sight, and I too consider it genuine. I have confronted Piotrus about it (who was contacting me over the related incident of the compromised account of User:Tymek), and asked him to provide me access to the original list archive, so I can check if the leaked material is genuine. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Indef'd Redking7

Not really an incident (yet) but I just indef'd Redking7, and oddly enough he isn't happy . Feel free to take a look William M. Connolley (talk) 21:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Seems a bit extreme, imo. Off2riorob (talk) 21:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps as you clearly have a lot going on at the moment, it would be better if you didn't make any controversial admin decisions. Off2riorob (talk) 21:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Redking7 has been nothing but a timesink for many editors and admins for a long time (and over numerous areas, xe isn't quite a SPA). An indef is, IMO, not harming the encyclopedia in any way. Black Kite 22:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Rather extreme, I should add. I don't see any reason for this, just the rationale, "give a dog a bad name". Can you admins not wait until something actually happens, then you might be able to justify what is technically an editor ban. Tfz 22:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

It's difficult to give a dog a bad name when the dog insists on gaining one themselves. This is an editor who is persistently tendentious on RoC issues, but also previously were obsessed with the same thing on Ireland-related nationalist disputes (this edit revently and dozens like this; they were even blocked for edit-warring over Ireland-related articles at one point) and has recently managed to unhelpfully join in with the Macedonia-related one . The phrase "drama magnet" springs to mind. Black Kite 23:11, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I never remember Redking7 being "persistently tendentious on RoC issues, but also previously were obsessed with the same thing" on Irish related disputes. Maybe you mean British related disputes, because that's where the trouble often starts, but of course none of those British editors ever get blocked. Tfz 23:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Uh, no. Redking7's two blocks were for edit warring on The Troubles and List of diplomatic missions of Ireland which strangely enough, are Irish-related articles. The "British editors never get blocked" straw man is probably not worth waving around here, to be honest. Frankly I'm not particularly bothered whether xe's blocked or not; merely pointing out that mine (and probably many other) editor's experiences of him are a net negative. Your mileage, as always, may vary. Black Kite 23:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The troubles are British/Irish related in my experience, and wrong to blame Irish editors for that. I have said what I have to say on the Redking7 issue. Tfz 23:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Appears to be a good block.— Dædαlus 23:02, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Spell it out then. Tfz 23:09, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Continuous edit warring, refactoring talk page posts and the refusal to get why it's wrong, not to mention a refusal to get the point.— Dædαlus 23:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Generalisations + innuendo, I would would like something more concrete than that. Tfz 23:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Innuendo? I don't know what you're talking about.— Dædαlus 23:35, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

He is requesting unblock; clear consensus here on whether he should get it or not might be neat. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 23:20, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Redking7 (talk · contribs · logs) does seem to have had some problems over the years here, although I'm not sure he's to the "indef" point yet, he may be at the one to two week point. (depending upon the circumstances of the block) Looking at the contribs., I'm not sure the "SPA" moniker is entirely accurate, although there is a pattern to his edits. If you're looking for a consensus on an unblock, I'd be in favor of a mod. to 1 or 2 weeks, but not an immediate unblock. — Ched :  ?  23:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Would a 1RR restriction or topic ban help here?  Skomorokh  00:36, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

This block should just be scratched and re-evaluated on basic principle (and that's not to say the outcome will not be the same). The last three blocks on this user were from WMC himself, and then he indeffed him 8 hours before he gets his status as an admin removed by arbcom. This just looks like a last hurrah from an admin who knew they were about to be canned, and as such it should not be allowed to stand unreviewed, or be given the cursory 'you didn't say the magic word' unblock decline. MickMacNee (talk) 02:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

(1) WMC does not strike me as the kind of person who would make "last hurrah" guestures. Had he received any warnings that his behaviour was contemptable? Did he know he was on thin ice? If he did he would have modified his behviour, or at least defend himself.

(2) A number of admins endorsed the temporary blocks imposed by WMC whenever RedKing sought redress. Nobody criticised WMC's actions.

(3) RedKing7 displays no capacity to debate issues in good faith. Bystanders to a debate generally only need three minutes to understand "we are including missions in Taiwan, Palestine, Kosovo and elsewhere because they are de facto missions, even though no diplomatic missions exists between those states". RedKing7 still doesn't seem to get it.

Kransky (talk) 12:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed re-evaluation of the block

In my opinion, a long block would clearly be deserved, but I don't think it would cure the problem. Instead, I propose an editing restriction.

Redking7 is a long-term edit warrior on the subject of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and various countries. His changes are constantly being reverted, but he won't participate in any proper form of dispute resolution. In the boxed section below I've packaged up some diffs.

I would support lifting of the indef block, if he will accept two conditions:

1. A 1RR restriction on all articles: no more than one revert per article per week
2. No edits or discussion regarding Taiwan, or on Taiwan's relations with other countries.

I'd also warn him that violation of the 1RR could lead to an indef block. Since he is currently requesting unblock, I'd make the unblock depend on him voluntarily accepting these restrictions. Since he still sees no problem whatever with his editing, it's an open question whether he will accept the restrictions. If he doesn't, I would leave the indef in place.

Reviewers can see details of all the past blocks on his current Talk page, since he didn't remove the old notices or the unblock requests.

EdJohnston (talk) 04:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Some very old stuff there, and he was entitled to change RoI to Ireland, because that is the name of the country, and the Misplaced Pages entry is quite wrong in this regard. There has just been a poll concluded on this issue, and it is contentious with many editors, and quite wrong to single out Redking. If this is the evidence you are offering for long block, then I can think of many many more editors who should have long block too. I propose a shorter block of a week at most, but no new parameters included. Tfz 13:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• That seems fine with me. Protonk (talk) 05:56, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
• So what was the upshot here? A block just before one is about to lose one's bit seems... unseemly. But apparently the issues with the user are non trivial. Is there consensus here to leave things be? To go with a conditional unblock subject to the provisos given? Thanks for clarification. ++Lar: t/c 03:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
• I would support replacing the indef with something much shorter, but with the topic ban on anything to do with Taiwan/ROC and the People's Republic of China, either the pages or the talk. He is POV pushing, has been uncivil, and generally disruptive. Bevinbell 13:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
• I commented on his talk page before I found this thread. I agree with EdJohnston's proposal. PhilKnight (talk) 20:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

1RR on all articles is very extreme, it's impossible to edit anything under those restrictions. Maybe 2 month ban on the pertinent articles would be a safer course to follow. WC does seem to have a "thingy" with Redking and really shouldn't have indeffed when he knew his adminship as effectively terminated. On the balance of probabilities, this block is very unsafe. Tfz 00:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Talk page protection

I've reblocked to protect the talk page. He doesn't seem to be doing anything useful with it, and given his long history, this "what did I do" bit doesn't seem to be going anywhere. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Is User:Stevertigo a disruptive editor??

The following stems from this edit by User:Stevertigo, an issue which arrived here very recently. The fact that "the Holocaust" is sometimes used to refer to the destruction of more than the Jews of during World War 2, is not under dispute. However, as can be seen on the talk page, myself and a couple of others have outlined to Steve several times - while pointing to a preponderance of reliable sources, that regardless of how "The Holocaust" is defined, "Holocaust denial", refers (with the exception of a few passing references regarding the implicit denial of Roma peoples, as one user brought forward) virtually exclusively to the denial of the destruction of the Jews during WW2.

Steve has responded with an eye-watering amount of wikilawyering, the most I have ever seen in my Misplaced Pages tenure. Some comments directed at Steve have undoubtedly been less than diplomatic, but this, and then amending it with this, frankly, is absolutely repellent behaviour in my opinion. I believed that I have exercised considerable discretion in this matter, such as by inviting Steve to suggest how he would amend the article, which he has responded to. However, it has occured to more than just me that Steve's desired prose not only misses the relevant points, but tacitly suggests that Steve is making his own extrapolations, then trying to find sources to support them. Well, not remotely tacit at all, in fact.

Judging from Steve's other edits (and pages in his userspace) such as this tremendously protracted redirect he established, not to mention this very recently written item or this BLP minefield, or what can only be described as a contemptuous attitude to other people's comments, I do not think it is unreasonable to infer that the interests Steve is interested in furthering are not Wikipedias. WilliamH (talk) 00:57, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you on a good many points, but what exactly are you suggesting we do here? lifebaka++ 01:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest a block, indefinitely if necessary. It is abundantly clear that he is much more interested in tendentiously furthering his own interests, as opposed to Misplaced Pages's. I need hardly point that that is detrimental to the project, and I see no reason why so much volunteer time should be used to appease it. WilliamH (talk) 01:39, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think a community ban discussion would get us anywhere, nor would it be all that constructive. We haven't eliminated other options yet, so I suggest we use them. How about an WP:RFC/U? lifebaka++ 14:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I've looked over the discussion, and it seems that Steve is now trying to talk in a more civilized manner, accepting what people have to say. I don't pretend to understand the large amounts of philosophical debate flying back and forth on that talk page, but it looks to me that he's calmed down considerably and stopped making threats and stupid comments. A little insignificant (talk) 01:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Completely disinterested observer checking in. Looking over the discussion on the article talk page, it appears to be a discussion, and not at all heated to the extent that is seemingly being portrayed. The ripostes are rather courtly and just because there is a dispute does not necessitate a call for admin action. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 02:16, 14 September 2009 (UTC).

Sorry, but I must ask if any of you actually viewed any of the pages I brought forward. How on earth is for example, aiming to hose away reliably sourced material with one's own extrapolations acceptable? WilliamH (talk) 02:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not a matter for AN/I, which deals w/ incipient problems that require admins to solve. Protonk (talk) 06:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

If there are disputes about the reliability of sources, try the Reliable Sources noticeboard. And throwing words like "Holocaust denier" around with hopes they will stick to an editor, is not going to further constructive debate. If they do not stick, they tend to boomerang. Next?--Wehwalt (talk) 09:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

How can one not use the term "holocaust denier" when dealing with the article holocaust denial? --jpgordon 14:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I've had a good night and have not yet gotten any sleep, so I will keep this short.

You paint a very good one-sided story William. I do mean that. Note of course that neutral observers appear to disagree with your one-sided portrayal and aren't hesitant to say so quite straightly. Your comment above (to those who took the time to review your concerns), "Sorry, but I must ask if any of you actually viewed any of the pages I brought forward" should be understood as evidence of the weakness of your claims. Their comments above explicitly testify of their literacy in this matter. You have no evidence to show otherwise, and you have no cause to insinuate their negligence in that aspect.

WilliamH wrote: "How on earth is for example, aiming to hose away reliably sourced material with one's own extrapolations acceptable?" - Your linkage to my subspace (which I on rare occasion use in certain mundane ways) pointed to a draft for an unrelated topic. How do you conjecture a connection between this topic and that one? If you are building an overall case against me, please do so: Elicit help from others and put together some kind of comprehensive report on my behaviour. Not only would I welcome one, I would take the opportunity to demonstrate every weakness in your claims, arguments, and conceptions, and will do so with gusto and sarcasm in full measure to even the slightest vexatiousness shown to me. Your title for this thread already strikes me as a bit vexatious.

I'm going to bed. -Stevertigo 12:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I think we can safely assume the thread title was meant to be benign. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I always AGF, but I would still prefer that the thread title be changed such that not even the slightest degree of slander remain. -Stevertigo 21:39, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have made the title more clear in that it is about the article and you, rather than somehow implying that you might ascribe to the theory. I assume this is better. lifebaka++ 04:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that the thread title is completely benign, and all suggestions otherwise are tremendous assumptions of bad faith. WilliamH (talk) 11:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

This thread is rife with assertions of bad faith. I don't believe they all need pointing out. lifebaka++ 19:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

A few people have checked the discussion page and note that the discussion seems less heated. Indeed. But this is beside the point. The question - and really, the only question for AN/I (as Protonk points out, this page is dedicated to specific kinds of problems) - is: is User:Stevertigo a disruptive editor? The thing about disruptive editors is, you cannot make a judgement based on just one glance. By definition, disruptive editing manifests itself through a pattern of edits across time or across several articles. That is why WilliamH provided a number of edit diffs. To those who say things have quieted down, I would point out this: Stevertigo has dominated discussion on the Holodcaust Denial talk page for quite some time, occupying quite a bit of space, and all this discussion has lead to not one single improvement of the article. Moreover, it seems to me that the rest of the participants in the discussion do not see any point to this lengthy discussion, do not feel that it is leading to any improvement of the article. This is an abuse of the talk page, which is meant to discuss improvements, and a perfect example of "disruptive" editing since Stevertigo's repeated comments, which never engage what other editors actually point out, is simply displacing any constructive discussion. Stevertigo's MO is to make things up, call it a "concept," and then refuse to provide any verifiable sources. He is a disruptive editor at best - the worse possibility is that he is here to push his own personal point of view with total disregard to our NOR policy. Here is another example . Slrubenstein | Talk 15:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

That this was recently archived yet is on this very same, not yet resolved issue, is an indication of the level of disruption. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not convinced Steve is completely gone, yet. As I've seen, he is improving little by little, as we make it apparent that pieces of what he's doing aren't acceptable. I don't know that we can change him completely, but neither do I know that we cannot. Steve is capable of taking the hint from this thread, I know, and is capable of changing his behavior. For the moment, it would be best if we issued a warning about some specific behaviors (such as starting talk page discussions whose purpose is not the improvement of the article) and see if he does in fact stop. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I am not "gone yet," Lifebaka - I was editing here five years before you showed up. I've yet to see anything more than a few insinuations and complaints, so I don't quite understand how anyone would think I would just go away and leave things in a depressed state. I likewise don't understand how some people can go though life thinking everyone else is just stupid, but that's a little off topic. Anyway, I've written down a few thoughts regarding this thread and others, and put them in my log. It's a bit fluid and maybe wanders a bit, but the gist is fairly straightforward.

By the way, I appreciate the title change. Now any slander therein is nearly unperceptible, and nowhere near as obvious. -Stevertigo 00:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Lifebaka didn't mean "gone" as in "retired" - s/he means that you aren't beyond hope, and that you've been learning and improving by mistakes. Sorry, that was a confusing sentence, could have raised all kinds of hell. A little insignificant _(please!) 00:25, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

My experience with Stevertigo has, unfortunately, been pretty unchanged over a number of years. He generally shows up at an article and decides to put his own unique and idiosyncratic spin on whatever is there, either by modifying text to suit his own opinions, or by adding his own mini-essays. Though he has been editing for many years, as far as I can tell the WP:V and WP:NOR policies have made little, if any, impression on him.

Here is a perfect recent example of this; he showed up at the Reducto ad Hitlerum article, and decided to insert his own confusing digression on whether or not the National Socialist party were really Socialists. Aside from its tangential nature, note that (as is typical) the essay has not one source in it. As is also typically the case, on any article he is editing that is actually being watched by other editors, his insertions are deleted. As is also typically the case, he edit wars to keep them in. When defeated, he drops it on the Talk: page, without any accompanying commentary.

Thus he showed up at the Holocaust denial article, with his own personal opinions of what the article should discuss - as it turned out, mainly a digression into which groups are covered by the phrase "The Holocaust" - something that is actually discussed in Misplaced Pages's article on the Holocaust. After days of circular discussion, including several suggestions by him that we should all be working together on a Holocaust comprehension article, he then proposed completely re-writing the lede, focusing in particular on his original point, and making his proposal without actually basing it on any discernible sources. Long exposure has taught me that every talk page discussion with him eventually comes to the question "Stevertigo, upon what sources do you base your opinions"? Constantly hammering on that statement usually makes him go away; unfortunately, in this case, many editors were unfamiliar with him, and gave him various openings to continue his digressions on his own unusual ideas. He has posted several thousand words on the Holocaust denial Talk: page without, as far as I can tell, bringing even one source that actually discusses Holocaust denial. At the least, this is extremely disruptive. Jayjg 01:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, was there any attempt, on your part or anyone elses, to ascertain what was missing in the reductio ad Nazium article? Indeed, as the term is said to not just refer to the Hitler fallacy, but to the Nazi one as well, I.. conceptualized.. a need for a treatment of the Socialism fallacy, and thought that article was the proper place, given the apparent ambiguity in the ad Nazium term.

So, I take it there was no effort on your part to ascertain what was missing in that article. Hm? Fine. But in the additions of others, do you at least attempt to ascertain whether or not the addition is actually true? Encyclopedic? Factual? Well-written? On-point? Relevant? Material? Substantive? Accurate? An improvement?

It strikes me at the very best "counterproductive" that you and others interpret RS in accord with only inane and destructive modalities that at best resemble deletionism. Keep in mind the context, these are articles in which you yourself neglect to detect any omission, and yet you claim to assert some kind of considered editorial judgment in simply deleting additions to them?

"Disruptive editing," indeed. -Stevertigo 02:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Steve, the way article writing is supposed to work is this: First, you find sources. Then, you write based on the sources. Then, you cite the sources you used. The issue appears to be that you are not beginning by finding sources, but instead writing and then attempting to cherry-pick sources which will support your text. Regardless of why you choose to operate this way, it gives the appearance that you are pushing a view. Please find sources as a first step.

Additionally, regarding the removal of unsourced content, WP:V stipulates that any unsourced contentious material should be removed. You shouldn't be too terribly surprised if, when you add material to a page without sources, it gets removed.

The new title you chose is... Odd. The first title was far more neutral. Cheers. lifebaka++ 03:02, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

User:Stevertigo has been around a long time and made many contributions. He isn't some troll who suddenly appeared. So whence this talk of banning him? Can't we tolerate people with unpopular perspectives? Do we all have to be mainstream here? If so, then who should we start kicking out: the gays? the libertarians? the Christians? Please let me know, so I can align myself with the Grand Inquisitor, and feel like a good person.--Anthon.Eff (talk) 03:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting perspective, Anthon. Keep in mind also the issue is not about "mainstream," its about this obtuse methodology of cobbling articles together from "reliable sources" such that they don't always make actual sense. In some cases it's quite deliberately so. So some people of course are worried that any future requirement of "making sense" will inevitably cause localized and other special-point-of-view concepts to implode. In fact its just a matter of time.

Just to forewarn you, when someone informs The Grand Inquisitor that you were just being sarcastic, he'll probably issue a standard proclamation and declare you "thou troubler of Misplaced Pages" as well. -Stevertigo 05:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Uh, Anthon, to be clear, Stevertigo is a troll who has been around over five years. The first encounter with him I recall (I could well be blocking out others) was when he showed up at "anti-Semitism" and argued that since Arabs are semites, anti-Semitism includes hatred of Arabs. This is the paradigm for how he operates and it has two major components. First, he claims he is using a conceptual method, but what he is really doing is taking actual concepts and breaking them down to parts that are actually not relevant to the concept. In the case of the name Ehud, he went so far as to do this with letters of the alphabet. It is true that Arabic is a semetic language. But "anti-Semitism" was explicitly coined to refer exclusively to hatred of Jews. Anyone who has done what jayjg and others call source-based research ... what I just call "research" ... would know this. As i pointed out on the Holocaust denial page, If Stevertigo really followed his method consistenly, he would be quite surprised to discover what the word "blowjob" really means. If Sgtevertigo really were commited to his "conceptual" approach, he would go the the article on blowjobs, and explain that since blow means a forceful expulsion of air, and a job is form of work, we need a section on people who blow out air for a living. This would be a violation of WP:NOR were it not just so ridiculous on its face. Anyway, the point is that he has done no research, he has no sources to support his claims, in the end it is simply what Stevertigo thinks a word or phrase should mean that he wants to go into the article. This of course never stands up to scrutiny, but Stevertio argues the point for days, weeks, and this is what makes him a disruptive editor. Second major element: Stevertigo has a clear preference for screwing with articles that have to do with Jews or topics sensitive to Jews. Although by his method we would have a long debate at the page on blowjobs, or "logrolling" or "parkway" or "driveway," Stevertigo prefers "Anti-Semitism," "Yeshu" "Ehud" and "Holocaust Denial." What do these things have in common? They are all issues sensitive to Jews, and Stevertigo has never done an iota of research concerning them. His is a simple, close to banal form of anti-Semitism. He has never directly insulted any Jews at ikipedia. But if left to his own devices, slowly, every article here relating to matters of Jewish interest or concern would be corrupted into meaningless garbage. I do not know if this is because this is his actual objective, or because he knows that it will draw some of the Jewish editors at Misplaced Pages, and force them to waste their time on the talk pages explaining over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again why he is wrong.

Please note my excessive use of "over and over and over." It is not a personal attack as such. It did not violate any content policy. But can anyone deny that its only effect is to irritate? This is Stevertigo in essense. It is why he is a disruptive editor. That he has gotten away with it for five years is no defense. In no other kind of violation, would we say that "well, he has been violating NPOV for five years so it must be okay." The only time editors say "Well he has been doing it for five years so stop complaining" is in the case of disruptive editors. That is because disruptive editors, by constantly shifting their targets, and by merely disrupting, rather than attacking, are generaly detected only by a small group of editors who for one reason or another (in this case, Jews or non-Jews who care about Jewish related articles) keep encountering this editor. But we have a policy, WP:DE that describes Stevertigo's MO almost to a tee! Folks, this is precisely why we have a DE policy. Generous editors here will say "let's give him anothe chance." That is because they weren't around for the over a month long "anti-semitism" saga (in which, after Stevertigo started introducing neologisms to support his argument, and created articles for his own neologisms, and was told, No, Steve, you can't create your own word and then create a Wikipdia article about your word, that is a neologism, and then we had to explain to him what the word "neologism" meant, then he went and created an article on neologisms! I kid you not! It is amost funny). But if we let him go this time, in a few nonths he will settle on some other article - maybe he will come up with his own theory about the etymology for Yom Kippur. Now, how many of you have this article on your watchlist? How many of you will notice it? Probably me and just a few others. And we will bring it up at AN/I and a different group of admins will read over the account of the conflict and say "Well, this seems mild, let's give him another chance." Folks, we have a policy against disruptive editors. Let's use it here. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

One could take all of that, substitute "Obama" and "liberals" in place of "Jews" and "antisemitism", and we would have an accurate description of Stevertigo's antics that led to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Obama articles as well. Sooner or later the ones with the proverbial mops around here have eat the spinach and say "that's all I can stands and I can't stands no more!" Tarc (talk) 13:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, most likely you'd get someone to act if you put some examples around, other than just the Ehud one. For instance, can you link me the threads from Anti-Semitism that you're talking about? Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

• I recently attempted to warn Stevertigo on Talk:Holocaust denial that his repetitive arguing was becoming disruptive; he responded by misconstruing what I'd written, wikilawyering over policy, trying to score points, and making some rather odd allusions that I might be in off-wiki contact with other editors there to silence him (, , ). I don't intend to second-guess why he does this, but regardless of the reasons the resulting disruption, bad feeling, and general unpleasantness caused by his actions are what matter. I would support removing his editing privileges; although a topic ban would be my first choice, I think his interests are wide-ranging enough that this would be ineffective. Note that because I consider myself marginally involved on Holocaust denial, I don't feel comfortable blocking Stevertigo myself. EyeSerene 14:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

• I deplore this dogpile.

  The consensus is against Stevertigo in a number of areas, and he has some controversial views. He also occasionally takes an unfortunate tone with people. But this AN/I thread is totally unwarranted.—S Marshall /_Cont 16:54, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you provide an example of a "controversial view" he has? The problem I have, and have raised, is not that he has controversial views, but that he is always promoting his own views. Misplaced Pages allows controversial views, as long as they are significant and come from notable sources. Not our own ideas, right? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

While I greatly appreciate the "dogpile" conceptualization, S Marshall, I have to disagree about it being "unwarranted," when in fact it's ridiculous. Particularly so when they don't bother to treat my arguments seriously to begin with, and then, instead of dealing with the concepts, they accuse me of "wikilawyering," which is precisely what this report itself actually is.

Note how easy it was to deal with William, who filed this report?

Slrubenstein wrote: "It is true that Arabic is a semetic language." - Actually, that's not accurate.

-Stevertigo (wlog | talk | edits) 20:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC) PS: Wrote some responses. May submit later.

Lifebaka asks for some more links. Here are two:. I must point out that archives from back then are sketchy - some articles were deleted, and then recreated when people had more research; we didn't have the same procedures for keeping records or archives of everything. In archive 4 of the anti-Semitism talk, Stevertigo makes his argument that Misplaced Pages isn't a dictionary so the article cannot be just a definition of "anti-Semitism." Fair enough. On this I agree fully. Here is where we differ: i think that instead of just defining the term, we need to see what sources exist concerning its history and the sociology of anti-Semitism, or whatever other research there has been, if any. Steve's approach is to apply his own brand oflogic, and this is used to make his own points (note: what is wrong is not that they are controvesial, but that they are his i.e. an editor's). In archive 4 he claims that anti-semitism has two meanings: first, it means hatred of Jews. Second, it is a term used to attack people who disagree with Jews. Uh, well, you can see how Jews might take exception to this second meaning of "anti-Semitism." Now, there may well be people who are anti-Zionists yet who are accused of anti-Semitism - this in fact is now the subject of a couple of articles, all backed up by research. Again, my problem with Steve's argument is that he is relying on his own argument, not research. In archive 6 he refers to himself, ironically I am sure, as an "anti-Semite." I really do not believe that he thinks he is an anti-Semite or was confessing to be an anti-Semite, I am merely pointing out that six years ago he was aware that there were other editors who found his views anti-Semitic. In archive six there is another classic example of his using his own kind of logic, rather than research: anti means opposed to, so anti-Semitism must mean, opposed to Semites, including Arabs. I and RK and Danny argued strenuously that anti-Semitism means Jew-hatred. RK points out that the person who coined the term meand, "Jew hatred." And here is the crucial thing: Stevertigo says it does not matter what the inventor of the word meant, words have meanings determined by logic. As RK points out, the reason that the inventor of the term is important is because there is extensive published historical research on the historical meaning of the term. Steve's insistence on logic is an insistence on his own beliefs. I am sorry I could not provide edit difs but it is hard with my connection to go back six years to find edit difs, but these archives are pretty short - I believe they are incomplete - so just search a bit and you will find all the pertinant stuff. Note: there was a separate archive for anti-Semitism talk, I do not know if there was a separate article or just some talk was being archived back then under a different system. The point is, those archived talk pages are all blank and I cannot recover the content, so some talk is missing. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Lifebaka, here is another link, to an article written entirely by our boy, Stevertigo.. It is pure crap. Let me be clear: it is not his "controversial views." It is his bullshit. I really am waiting for an example of some meaningful contribution to Misplaced Pages. Anyway, his article on a neologism that he himself invented is a perfect example of what I have been saying about his MO, just making stuff up and calling it logic to justify why he didn't need to do any research. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

(continued)

Honestly, take a step back. You're accusing a long-term editor of anti-Semitic views and being involved in a plot to corrupt every Jewish-related article on Misplaced Pages. That I think is bullshit. The link you just provided was from 2003. A little insignificant _(please!) 22:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

(To Slrubenstien above) Keep in mind that there are historical concepts of editorship and controversy involved. For example, you now say that "ant-Semitism" has a pejorative meaning, but at the time you rejected the notion altogether - not just that there were no sources. In fact the sources I provided, Chomsky, Finkelstein, etc., were met by you with extremely prejudicial rejection. Hence you've been working with a concept of authorship that defies higher conceptualization, frankly because you think it has no relation to your own. Note for example how you surreptitiously promoted Trinitiarianism as an absolute condition in the Christianity article lede, when in fact there is some variance. I discussed this a bit in my wlog.

So, yeah, this has been going on for some time. The important thing though here is for you to build a case, and approach it rationally. This works in any context. For example you and William both above cite a number of diff-links, but you fail to put them into context, and thus fail to make an actual case.

And what is the case you are trying to make here? That I be banned? That my arguments, regardless of substance, simply be ignored? That you can continue to simply reject anything I might have to say, even when I do provide sources? (Which I have done on a number of occasions). That you can continue to take my arguments out of context, or otherwise misrepresent them? Do explain.

Likewise we will have to deal with some issues that transcend us both, even though Arbcom has some notable impotence in dealing with matters of its own fundamental legislation. One thing that has to go is this notion that RS's dominant modality be a deletionist one. I say so just in case collaboration still has anything to do with this project. Keep in mind that you appear to have no issue of collaborating when it comes to dealing with views which are in agreement with your own conceptualizations. Keep in mind also that because you reject collaboration with those you disagree on the fundamentals, you thus demonstrate a serious misunderstanding of what collaboration means, and what it can ultimately do. So I really do want you get your arguments in concise order first, and if that means filing some kind of formal case, I can then refute each.

Getting you and Jayjg to do something other than whine about "reliable sources" all day long - particularly when I referred 38 times to just one - would be good for everyone. My sense of things is that if I can't get obstinate persons to deal with just one reliable source, there's no point in me trying to introduce a second. In fact our presence here means to some degree my success in making you deal with just that one source. The rest is just a logical argument that says that "car parts" has something to do with "cars" and to a lesser degree "parts." Your completely irrelevant counterargument, which says essentially that an article like "cheesing" need not at all mention any definition of "cheese", is interesting. -Stevertigo (wlog | talk | edits) 22:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Disagreement with processes and policy is fair, but even if you are totally correct in your views of RS, V, etc, article space is not the correct place to implement them as folks just want to edit (and collaborate!) within the existing consensual processes and not entertain these "conceptualizations." You mention how long you've been editing here pretty frequently, so I guess you know better than us newbies how wikiprocesses were formed and what you can do to change them. Propose your changes inside the WP process space - a great place for conceptualizing with folks who focused are on that topic. RS's are required because V / NPOV are required. Deviating from current, consensual policy inside of article space is hugely time consuming and disruptive as evidenced by all of the text here and at Talk:Holocaust_denial. Until and unless policy changes, threads that propose material changes to content without reliable sourcing should just be summarily closed until sourcing is provided. Doing this actually supports the process of collaboration as finite resources don't need to be endlessly engaged with discusses content changes that fail (current) policy. cheers, --guyzero | talk 02:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't have to go very far in terms of the policy route than to cite WP:LEDE/WP:LEAD. The fact that much of the substance in that policy's own lede comes from my own conceptualizations about what an article lede needs to do, should not be an obstacle to your continued faith. In short, the substance behind WP:LEDE is higher, relevant conceptualization.

Keep in mind, I did provide sources. They simply rejected their relevance. So the extrapolated principle in this case is simple: If a topic is a specialized one, we need to explain why it is so. Also, if the topic likewise uses more general terminology, in some specialized way, then we need to explain why. There is some historiology for the relevant terms, which is not too controversial. However if even simple, concise, and relevant explanations of these specialized ("denial") and subjective ("motive, scale, intent") historiologies are rejected without substantive argument, then this rejection is easily understood to be based not in policy or a reliable interpretation thereof.

The common-sense explanation for this type of rejectionism is simply that these explanations give some sense that the specialized terminology is actually a specialized one. And thus they are not rejected because they do not fit policy, but because such explanations defy certain ethnic conceptualizations. This is basically what Slrubenstein was referring to when he said above that 'conceptualization destroys meaning' (paraphrasing). My translation-reparsing of this is something like 'such conceptual explanations can only contradict the ones written down in scrolls.' Now granted, these are "reliable scrolls" to be certain. Most of them anyway. But these have no meaning at all here if no efforts are made to unroll them, read them to people, and gain new understanding from their unconstrained resonance.

I have always known how to express myself with "sensitiv," as Slrubenstein calls it. That I often do not is simply a requirement of the age, an instrument of the times, a necessity of the context, and due in no small measure to the lack of good faith that I have grown accustomed to dealing with. I am always pleased, however, to find I am not right in this regard. Regards, -Stevertigo (wlog | talk | edits) 03:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Nuclear meltdown at User talk:Linas

If anyone is familiar with Linas (talk · contribs), you might want to have a chat with him. You'll have to tweak his block first since I've tried to stop his meltdown there. I have no idea who he is (I was led there by a crazy edit summary on my watchlist) but his user page indicates this meltdown has been brewing for a while. Maybe someone can talk him down? Wknight94 01:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Yikes. user:Juliancolton blocked user:Linas for 3 days post-meltdown. - Sinneed (talk) 01:21, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • That is actually block #2 in the last couple days. There is a ban in the near future if this continues. From his user page, I think he's forgetting that we're all disillusioned by the same things he is disillusioned by. But we don't all start screaming at people because of it. Wknight94 01:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Having been involved in this, can I suggest that if his incivility just amounts to saying "fuck the admins" a whole bunch of times on his talk page, people try to ignore it if possible? He's been a very valuable editor in the past. If he actually does damage it's a different story, but that kind of stuff is pretty harmless. Looie496 (talk) 02:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
      • The premise to your first question is a false one, so what you build upon it is ill-founded. Go and look at edits such as the one given below or this, which are not addressed to an administrator, or this. This is not lone-good-editor-versus-the-evil-administrator-cabal. This is I'm-an-expert-and-you-are-a-moron, directed at other people regardless of account privileges. Uncle G (talk) 02:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
    • One cure for such disillusionment is perhaps a realization such as the following: Linas has spent quite a lot of time berating people here (see User:Linas for starters) for not doing things as they are done at, say, Citizendium. The irony is, of course, that an edit such as this one made by Linas made over at Citizendium would result in an immediate, unequivocal, permanent expulsion from the project. Here, Linas has had xyr editing privileges suspended for a short while, and that only after having been warned first. So maybe the illusions that one might have had of an ideal encyclopaedia project, filled only with experts, all telling one other to fuck off, are good ones to have shattered. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 02:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) @Looie496: An off-color comment? Sure. But these are going way too far:

1. Fuck off, asshole
2. Fuck off asshole ... assholes like you never actually look at the article edit history, or realize that their bullshit is captured in that history ... Figure out what's wrong with your brain, and go fix that! ... Stop assaulting total strangers and acting like a total A-1 dick-weed!

   When he was blocked for these outrageous comments, his response included:

3. ...too many assholes like User:Aboutmovies ... So I called him an asshole, which he richly deserves ... Fuck off tedder. You are part of the problem, and not part of the solution. The sooner we get rid of fucking asshole admins like you, the better wikipedia will be
4. This entire edit is ridiculous.
5. Fuck you Juliancolton.
6. Fuck you, Wknight94.
7. FUCK YOU! ... my user page ... says YOU'RE ALL ASSHOLES! ... You are fucking stupid!

He asks if we "want correct articles written by foul-mouthed assholes like" him, and I'm not sure he's going to like the answer to that. If he wants to point out the problems with this system, I'm all for it, and I'll probably agree with most of what he says. But if he's going to scream and hollar like a pissed-off teenager, then I've got better things to do. Wknight94 03:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I see no issues with upping his block to indef. at this point. –Juliancolton |  03:06, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Personally I intend to take his good advice and fuck off. If we all did the same, maybe he'll come back in a few weeks, apologise, and get on with contributing solid content. Hesperian 03:10, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

And that would help build an encyclopedia... how? Jclemens (talk) 03:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

WTF?? Hesperian 03:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I agree with Hesperian on this. I'm not familiar with Linas, but if this is not a long-time issue of incivility, then allow him to cool down and continue editing. The issue can always be reviewed in the future if this behaviour continues. Let's not keep stoking the fire. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The chain of events seems to have started by User:Aboutmovies using an automated script to search for occurrences of Beyond Words Publishing. He picked up by accident an unrelated mathematics article on Trace monoid being edited by User:Pohta ce-am pohtit. "Beyond words" was the title of a volume in a Springer series in the references there. In then trying to use the citation template, Aboutmovies missed the series option in the citation template. Although both editors were very polite, the automated script was not mentioned. A further discussion about citations for mathematics articles (with partially correct points on both sides) set the scene for linas' complete over-reaction. Best in the circumstances to blame that undeclared automated script as the true culprit here. These can often give rise to misunderstandings when there is a glitch. Mathsci (talk) 08:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, my road map doesn't connect undeclared automated scripts with "Fuck off asshole" and "assholes like you" and "Figure out what's wrong with your brain" and "acting like a total A-1 dick-weed!" Now I'm fine with Hesperian's idea of waiting for an apology when Linas returns, but I would need odds to bet on that happening. Wknight94 12:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The says Linas has been blocked before for the same issue. I would support an indef block. A little insignificant (talk) 16:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• I thought this section opened with a request for someone to have a work with Linas - did this happen? I also note that there seems to be a lot of swearing and stuff happening on this editors talkpage, and that a lot of people have got their knickers in a twist about the naughty words being uttered - and it appears to be that a consensus is forming that Linas should be indef blocked for getting over enthusiastic in the haphazard flinging of rude words about his talkpage. I am not sure that this is really appropriate, and, in the absence of there appearing to be anyone willing to do it, I am going to see if there is any point or comment that Linas has in this matter. If there is something that I feel is relevant to this discussion I will bring it up back here. Could we hold off on the ban discussion until I do? Cheers, LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • You're correct that I started the discussion with a request for counselling. My attempt at giving him an alternative to a block was too late (he was blocked one minute earlier), so it was met with "Fuck you, Wknight94". I think that pretty much rules me out as a counselor, but hopefully someone else can be successful. Wknight94 21:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, LessHeard, as I explained on your talk page, I've asked a couple of editors, who also happen to be admins, and which Linas may respect, to talk to Linas (privately); names withheld here because I don't want to repeat my mistake of involving 3rd parties against their will in a very public venue like this, as I've regretfully done with Giano above... FYI: I've contacted the first of them before I ever saw this thread. Pcap ping 23:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Thanks, LHVU, Pcap, and Wk94 for handling this. I really hope Linas can be a productive editor again, without the implosion that led to these blocks. Wk94, you said it well- "Linas OTOH is in a state of lashing out at everyone and everything." I probably didn't help by delaying to post the block notice, that was a WP:BEANS type issue, nothing intentional. tedder (talk) 00:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
  • If you are including Hesperian, Huntster, or me in that forming consensus for a permanent block that you are observing, then you are mis-reading what we wrote. Uncle G (talk) 14:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

For those advocating an indefinite block, I would just say that this incident strongly reminds me of outbursts that happened with User:Ed Poor and User:The Cunctator in the distant past. Both of those users went on to make huge contributions as Bureaucrats and Arbcom members. We all have bad days. Some of us (the most passionate types especially) can have REALLY bad days. Sometimes bad weeks. Manning (talk) 06:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark Arbitration Enforcement closure

Few days ago i got topic-banned on some articles by admin Sandstein. Since I felt that the decision was unjust I filled an appeal on the Arbitration Requests for Enforcement page. Now admin AdjustShift decided to examine and rejected my appeal . The thing is I had many issues with this Admin in the past (more than with any other on whole wikipedia), for example he once made a bogus accusation against me that "i'm constantly trolling", for which he made a half-baked appology only after i reported him, diffs of the case here , scroll down it is case 88 named "accusations of trolling".

In this comment made on my talk page(!) he failed to asume good faith over a comment where i critised him for something, i don't recall what, and claimed i did it "to settle old issues", note that he also himself comments about "disagreements" and "normalising our relationship".

There were also other cases in the past where we argued because we had completely different positions (he usualy supported German POV while me of course Polish), on top of my head: the famous Molobo case, with secret evidence, Expulsion of Germans page (he made a controversial protection of the page, something i disagreed was necessary) and other i don't remember. I can dig up the diffs if necessary. In any case given that AdjustShift and me had so many issues in the past and that our relationship was so bad that in his own words needed to be normalised, i think it is completely innapropriate for him to examine my appeal. Loosmark (talk) 02:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

If it helps at all, I would have closed it the same way. I have to agree with Sandstein that you've gotten so involved in the area, you're starting to confuse editor's opinions about the content with what the editor themselves might believe. He gave several good examples when closing the initial report. Taking a breather from the area for a bit may help get your focus back. Shell 03:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Either way, we should still fully adress AdjustShift's actions in this situation.--Sky Attacker Here comes the bird! 03:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Whatever the merits of Loosmark's appeal, there does appear to be a serious conflict of interest with regard to AdjustShift here. I was under the impression that the action on such cases should be made by uninvolved administrators and AdjustShift, due to his previous disputes with Loosmark, is obviously not uninvolved here (I believe Sandstein excused himself, rightly, from ruling on the appeal since himself was involved). It's also unclear - and problematic in my view - that AdjustShift ignored (as he himself states) all the comments made by users other than Loosmark, Faustian and Sandstein. I understand that sometimes these discussions get long but what's the point of letting outside editors comment if their input is just flushed down the toilet?radek (talk) 03:16, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Shell how was I so involved in the area if I only made 2 problematic edits in on a single talk page? Anyway with my appeal I was hoping to at least get a more narrow topic page on single a couple of pages (the reviewing Admin could have proposed alternative solutions). In any case i think I deserve to have my appeal examined by an Admin who wasn't involved in many disputes with me in the past. In my opinion what AdjustShift did sets a very bad example and should be reversed. Loosmark (talk) 03:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I didn't mean the usual Misplaced Pages meaning of "involved" rather that something about the topic appears to cause you to overreact to the comments of other editors there. However, if there's a consensus that AdjustShift shouldn't have closed the request (I actually thought those requests were supposed to go to the ArbCom clarifications board) then there's no reason it couldn't be reopened so another admin can evaluate the request. Having already given my opinion, however, I would recuse from closing it as well. Shell 03:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that the request should be reopened, as per above. Sephiroth storm (talk) 03:36, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree that reopening is the best course, however I'd like to hear from AdjustShift before proceeding any further. I've left an invite on AdjustShift's page to that effect. Manning (talk) 04:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of the outcome, is the topic title appropriate? or is it biased? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 04:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC).

I've retitled it.  Skomorokh  04:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

An uninvolved administrator review - I have just read all of the relevant materials in this dispute at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Result_concerning_Loosmark_2.

I concur with User:AdjustShift's decision to reconfirm User:Sandstein's original verdict. I also note that another uninvolved admin (User:CIreland) has also reviewed and concurred with the original Sandstein decision.

I'll acknowledge that admin AdjustShift could have been a bit more diplomatic in his/her choice of words for the closure summary as "I ignored the comments of..." is always likely to be inflammatory when read out of context. But after reading everything I can see that what AdjustShift really meant was that there was nothing in any of those comments which impacted the judgement. (And every admin has been guilty of over-summarizing at some point or another.)

If needs be we can reopen the case and I'll promptly reclose it in my capacity as an indisputably uninvolved admin. Or we can just leave it as is. Manning (talk) 04:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Well rather than being a just a bit more diplomatic I think AdjustShift should have not examined the appeal in the first place since he was clearly involved in issues with me in the past. In regards with that I have a question, will AdjustShift's trying to pose as an uninvolved admin even be addressed in any way? I think it should not be swept under the carpet since otherwise such an incident can potentially repeat itself in the future. Loosmark (talk) 05:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Well before responding let me say that I have had no previous contact with AdjustShift (at least that I am aware of) so I am not speaking out of any particular loyalty to that user. I'll also note that the rules about being "uninvolved" exist to prevent the exercising of administrative power for any reason other than justice, fairness and the well-being of the encyclopedia project.

If you attempted to launch some form of arbitration action against AdjustShift it would come down to an argument about the term "uninvolved". AdjustShift could easily argue that he/she had not been previously involved in this particular dispute so was acting as an "uninvolved" admin. (If admins were unilaterally barred from exercising authority over any and all users we had ever previously disciplined we would, as a collective body, become ineffective fairly quickly.)

As I see it, your complaint about AdjustShift being "previously involved" is effectively a claim that AdjustShift demonstrated "unfair bias" against you. However, so far two other admins (User:CIreland and myself) have reviewed and found no evidence of unfair bias and have supported User:Sandstein's (and by default AdjustShift's) decision. Until there is evidence of AdjustShift being motivated by anything other than the welfare of the project, I would expect that any further attempts at arbitration would fail.

This is naturally not a statement of Misplaced Pages policy - it is merely the opinion of a single administrator. Others may or may not agree - such is the consensual nature of Misplaced Pages. Manning (talk) 05:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Manning I've a couple of comments: I think that "uninvolved" clearly needs to be understood in the widest possible meaning. If not then the thing just doesn't work : for example if editor "A" and Admin "B" argue over some content issue on a page and editor "A" is at the same time reported for some completely separated thing somewhere else, Admin "B" can simply jump there and claim uninvolvement. Regarding the statement that If admins were unilaterally barred from exercising authority over any and all users we had ever previously disciplined we would, as a collective body, become ineffective fairly quickly. i'd like to note that:

a) AdjustShift has never disciplined me, had he done that than yes i'd still have to prove he made a biased decision.
b) Rather he himself characterised our relationship as being in need of normalising (thus according to his own words it was not a normal relationship).
c) we argued quite a bit during the complain i filled against him for the trolling accusation
d) afterwards he wrote that i'm trying "to settle old issues". I have of course not done that, but even if we for a second asume the best case scenario for him that i was indeed trying to settle old issues it still comes down to has grievance because of it.
In my opinion this case is as clearcut as possible because i'm not trying to demonstrate those things, he simply stated them. We have a smoking gun so to say. Loosmark (talk) 06:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

We have a policy about this, WP:UNINVOLVED, which says that interactions in an administrative capacity (or disagreements about them) do not constitute involvement. (For instance, I do not consider myself "involved" with respect to Loosmark in any future request for admin intervention just because I topic-banned Loosmark and he disagrees with it.) In this case, although not entirely clear, it seems that the dispute at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive549#accusation of trolling involved content disagreements about Germany and Poland, which would make AdjustShift involved at least with respect to actions related to such content, but since the issues here concern Ukraine and Poland, I don't know whether the subjects are closely enough related to count for involvement purposes (I know too little about WWII history). That question seems to be moot now because the appeal has been independently reviewed by other admins here.  Sandstein  06:16, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Sandstein, I'm sorry but AdjustShift is not an uninvolved administrator. The issue concern Ukraine and Poland during WW2 and German WW2 history is very relevant here. I remember AdjustShift being very involved and even defending German editor from being blocked while in dispute with Polish editors. Please look at his close relation] with the editors who appeared from nowhere and commented against Loosmark]. Sorry but he is DEFINITELY not an uninvolved administrator I'm sorry to say that, but there is a huge unfairness going on here and I'm being more and more disappointed with the whole Wkipiedia experience and you, administrators.--Jacurek (talk) 06:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I remember AdjustShift being very involved and even defending German editor from being blocked while in dispute with Polish editors. This statement is 100% false. I have never considered an editor's nationality while making any decision as an admin. I'm not a German, and I don't speak a word of German language. AdjustShift (talk) 15:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

FALSE!? Then what was this????]--Jacurek (talk) 04

18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

My response: . AdjustShift (talk) 14:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Sandstein would you please read this thread from the beginning including the the diffs that I've presented? Obviously I don't consider you to be involved in any future request against me based just on a ban you gave me, such a position would be completely crazy because we'd run out of uninvolved admins in two days that way. Equally I'm not saying that AdjustShift is to be considered involved based on his involvement in the German - Polish disagreements but rather on the things he said about me: that i'm trying to settle old issues with him, that our relationship is not normal, etc etc etc. (diffs are somewhere above). Loosmark (talk) 06:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark & Jacurek: By all means launch any mediation/arbitration method about whether or not AdjustShift acted in an uninvolved capacity, as are your rights.

However in regard to THIS specific matter (regarding the closure of the arbitration appeal by AdjustShift), a number of uninvolved admins have already weighed in to give their verdicts and as such this matter is now effectively closed. Manning (talk) 06:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Huh, how closed? The specific matter here was my complain against the behavior of AdjustShift, I even titled the report that way, sb then retroactively changed my title to "Loosmark Arbitration Enforcement closure" without even consulting me. I'd like to know the opinion of other community members on this matter if you don't mind. Loosmark (talk) 07:15, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

While making the final decision, I ignored the comments of Dr. Dan, Jacurek, Piotrus, Radeksz, and Sciurinæ. So even if I have "close relationship with Sciurinæ", it had zero effect on my final decision. I concentrated on Loosmark's appeal, the original request filed by Faustian, and Sandstein's comments; others comments were not a factor while making the decision. My decision was fair because as an admin, I don't take any side. Loosmark's allegation that I support "German POV" is false. I'm not a German, and my knowledge about Germany is limited. John Vandenberg knows where I'm from; I'm not from Germany. Why should I support "German POV" when I'm not ever a German? I can't ever speak a word of German language. An as admin, I'm neither pro-German nor pro-Polish. The fact is certain editors who happened to be Polish have shown poor behavior on en.wikipedia. I don't care whether editors are from Poland or Greenland; if their behavior is inappropriate, actions will be taken against them. Loosmark's wikilawering is getting out of control; if he/she doesn't stop we may have to ban this editor from en.wikipedia. AdjustShift (talk) 15:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Loosmark's point is simply that closing the appeal by other admins is one thing - hence the "Resolved" - but that this report is another. Specifically it is about wrongful behavior by AdjustShift (and btw, it doesn't matter what a person's nationality is, one can still be involved or biased). An admin should not act on reports involving users he's had disputes (other than just ruling on reports involving them) with in the past and with regard to whom s/he has a potential conflict of interest. I think Loosmark was basically asking that this matter be clarified to AdjustShift so similar abuses do not take place in the future.radek (talk) 15:50, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Radeksz, I have no dispute with Loosmark on any Ukrainian-Polish article. The final decision of Sandstein was endorsed by two other admins apart from me. No abuse has taken place, I think we should move on. AdjustShift (talk) 16:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have explicitly stated that i don't consider AdjustShift involved because of some general involved in the Polish-German area, or his German POV, or the close relatioship with Sciunarae (i have not even mentioned him) but because of the things he said about me: bogus accusation of trolling, that our relationship is not normal, that i'm trying to settle old scores etc etc. diffs were provided above. I would also like to note that at least 3 other people here already tended to agree with my view. His direct threat above that i might be "banned from en.wikipedia" (!??) is a clear indication that he still holds grudges against me. As radek stated above I just want this matter to be clarified. Loosmark (talk) 16:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

My comment that Loosmark might be banned from en.wikipedia is a clear indication that Loosmark's behavior is inappropriate, and his/her wikilawering is uncalled-for. AdjustShift (talk) 00:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Uh, what? Your comment that Loosmark might be banned is proof that Loosmark's behavior is inappropriate? (I know that's verbatim but I repeated it just because it doesn't make any sense) As opposed to any kind of actual behavior on Loosmark's part? A "clear indication" does not occur because somebody says so without explaining why. This appears to be a clear cut example of circular logic. But it does show that you have formed some damaging pre-conceptions in regard to this user and should clearly excuse yourself from any future interactions with him, in all capacities as an administrator.

If I said that "My comment that AdjustShift is not qualified to be an administrator on en.wikipedia is a clear indication that AdjustShifts behavior constitutes an abuse of administrator privileges and his/her privileges should be revoked" how good of an argument would that be?radek (talk) 01:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

My comment that Loosmark might be banned from en.wikipedia is a clear indication that Loosmark's behavior is inappropriate
I think "your comment" that Loosmark might be banned comes a bit short of being a "clean indication" that my behavior is inappropriate. But you are of course free to report me if you feel so. Loosmark (talk) 01:08, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

This attempt to get me blocked while this ANI discussion is in progress is also a bit weird, because i don't think anybody here felt i was disruptive in any way and i think Sandstein's reply was quite correct. . Loosmark (talk) 02:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

More generally, to the reviewing administrators; look, I know there's already a "resolved" check mark above and Loosmark's appeal has been denied by truly uninvolved, no COI having, admins. That's fine, except the check mark has been placed there without actually addressing the purpose of this report. I think it would really be 'resolved' if just a note is made letting AdjustShift know that he should not involve himself in ruling on reports which involve users that he's had personal conflicts with. That's all. Just a clarification here is sufficient and then that's it.radek (talk) 01:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark has offered a deal on my talk page, and I've accepted it. From today's onward, I'll stay out of Loosmark's business, and Loosmark will stay out of my business. I'll not close anything (AE thread, ANI thread) related to Loosmark. I'll not comment on Loosmark, and Loosmark will not comment on me. After thinking long and hard about it, I have concluded that it would be better if both of us will not poke our nose in each other's business. Loosmark will walk his way, I will walk my way, but we will not cross each other's path. AdjustShift (talk) 14:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

BillTunell and userboxes

I recently discovered that BillTunell (talk · contribs) had been reformating several university student/alumni userboxes to include the school's (possibly) copyrighted logos. I've gone back and fixed all I could. I'm not exactly sure about the fair use/non-free content aspect of these images, but something should be done.

The short version: BillTunell (possibly) enabled fair use images to exist outside of the article space by using them in userboxes.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 04:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I have not inserted any images with a copyright notice (circle-c), and all the images I have inserted were tagged with the {{PD-textlogo}} template. Some of these templates have since been changed to {{Non-free logo}}, but using any images with such a tag was never my intention. If the adminstrators wish to consider some {{PD-textlogo}} images to be copyrightable under the threshold of originality standard (despite a public-domain tag and despite the lack of a filed copyright or copyright notice (circle-c)), then I will abide by those decisions. My problem is that Ryulong eliminated all my prior work wholesale, without prior notice or discussion, without bothering to research the underlying standard of threshold of originality, and while obviously suffering from confusion about trademark-versus-copyright notices/protection.

Four other quick points:

(1) Any number of other userboxes have been updated by other users with {{PD-textlogo}} images (e.g. Princeton, Michigan State, Stanford, Arkansas, Rutgers, Texas Tech) -- so if we are going to re-evaluate that policy, those images need to be deleted in addition to the ones I've worked on,

(2) Ryulong's revisions eliminated a lot of non-image-related work I did in terms of matching usebox colors to offical University-dictated web-publishing code numbers, eliminating category links, etc.,

(3) many images, including the Texas A&M image, have already been accepted on wikimedia commons as free images, and

(4) a separate user reverted my update to the {{User:UBX/MLB-Phillies}} userbox, which update is simlar in nature to this discussion, and which reversion I would seek permission to undo.

All of the above being said, I will not amend any further userboxes until this is resolved, and will, of course, abide by any decision of the adminstrators. BillTunell (talk) 17:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Most of the logos at User:BQZip01/FBS Trademarked logos are public domain as they are in typeface see WP:Public domain#Fonts for info. Powergate92Talk 04:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

This is currently being investigated, because many of them are unique and not simple typefaces and may not be in the public domain. I know that the University of Miami's logo is not a simple font logo.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 04:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Where is it being investigated? I've never seen a good way to decide. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I pointed it out to users who are savvy with copyright information and they are going to check the images to tell if they are actually not copyrightable and are merely trademarks.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes but some of the logos you removed like File:ArizonaWildcats.png and File:Vanderbilt Commodores.png are in typefaces and are in the public domain. Also just because a logo has color and simple geometric shapes doe's not make it copyrighted please see Template talk:PD-textlogo. Powergate92Talk 05:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It is not positive that these items are officially in the public domain because someone designed the stylized A for File:ArizonaWildcats.png and someone came up with putting a V inside of that star for File:Vanderbilt Commodores.png. BQZip01 (and other users) changed the copyright tags on all the images. Just because someone tagged an image with {{PD-textlogo}} does not automatically mean it is and always has been in the public domain.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The A in File:ArizonaWildcats.png is in antiqua so it is public domain and a V inside of a star can not be copyrighted as it typefaces inside of a simple geometric shape again see Template talk:PD-textlogo for info. Powergate92Talk 05:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Just because one user decided to assume that the image is in the public domain does not mean that the image is in fact in the public domain.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:29, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

To paraphrase, just because one user decided to assume that the image is in the non-free does not mean that the image is in fact non-free. — BQZip01 —  07:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Someone thinking an image is free to use puts Misplaced Pages in more legal trouble if it is in fact not free to use.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

So why even have the tag or allow "free" images at all. Surely someone might think they aren't free, but that isn't our standard. — BQZip01 —  04:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Me mistake the A is in Rockwell (typeface) not antiqua. Powergate92Talk 01:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I looked at some of the images in question; I believe the Vanderbilt image is public domain; it is a common V placed on a star with outlines. However, I do not believe the Arizona one is. Sure, the outline is easy to do, but I am thinking more with the way the red A is drawn with some sort of creativity. I am talking to other image admins now, but I don't expect this issue to be solved in the next few hours. To sum it up, there are some legit PD logos in the mix, but many are questionable. User:Zscout370 05:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• I'd agree with that - the Arizona one probably crosses the threshold of originality, and of course we should default to it being non-free, whilst the Vanderbilt one almost certainly doesn't. One should not make the mistake of thinking that just because a logo only contains lettering it is PD. That is not necessarily the case. Black Kite 06:29, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

  Just because you think it crosses the threshold doesn't make it so. Typographic ornamentation is specifically mentioned by the U.S. Copyright Office as something that does NOT make something copyrightable. — BQZip01 —  07:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Related issue with Nickelodeon logos

A second view needed; the Nickelodeon networks are changing their logos on September 28 and I uploaded this logo a month ago for TeenNick under a non-free fair use license, as is the usual case with all logos involving WP:TVS subjects. However Powergate has been modifying the license to be public domain-trademarked instead, claiming in a response to me after I reverted to fair-use licensing that they are PD because it is just a font and because of certain glyphs in the font cited, while I am under the assumption that the typeface is actually a copyrighted font custom-designed for Viacom and thus meets fair-use much more as a logo than as just an illustration of letters. I would like a determination if fair-use non-free is the appropriate license in these cases.

Other examples of Nickelodeon logos which I feel are incorrectly licensed as PD;

• File:Nickelodeon logo new.svg
• File:Nicktoons Network logo 2009.svg
• File:Nick at Nite logo 2009.svg
• File:Nick Jr. logo 2009.svg Nate • (chatter) 06:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

(I'm a lawyer, but not from the US and not a copyright expert.) AFAIK, and as explained at Misplaced Pages:Public domain#Fonts, fonts are not subject to copyright, at least not their letter shapes. The font files may be protected as computer software, but that's not the issue here. The logos consist mostly of text and are therefore probably PD in copyright terms (trademark protection etc. still applies).  Sandstein  13:39, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

(And this is also not a subject for ANI, but belongs on some image-specific noticeboard, which we surely have somewhere...  Sandstein  13:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC))

Indeed we do: WP:MCQ. – ukexpat (talk) 14:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

As I said on your talk page Mrschimpf, the i is in Fraktur (script) and the other letters are in Didone. Powergate92Talk 17:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Powergate, do you have a source about the fonts used? User:Zscout370 19:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The i in this image from the Fraktur (script) article looks about the same as the i in the Nickelodeon logos! As you can see if you look at the logos the other letters look like they are in Didone. Powergate92Talk 22:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I ask this in all seriousness, because it is the only possible explanation: do you have some form of visual impairment of which we should be aware? I'm not entirely conversant with the technical language of font descriptions, but the 'i' in Fraktur and the one in the Nickelodeon logo are similar only inasmuch as they are both recognisably the letter 'i.' As for claiming the rest of the Nickelodeon logo is in Didone... seriously? You're seriously saying this? Didone is a serif font, and the Nick logo is sans-serif. → ROUX ₪ 22:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

This does not appear to be an entirely civil comment or edit summary for this edit.--Sky Attacker Here comes the bird! 23:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Not that your opinion means...well...anything to me at all, but the visual impairment question was in fact honest. There is no similarity between the 'i' letters at all (notice the serifs on Fraktur, the rounded nature of the Nick logo, etc), and even less similarity between the Nick logo (rounded, sans-serif, square bottoms) and Didone (slim, serif, angular, modern). Powergate quite simply has no idea what he's talking about. → ROUX ₪ 03:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Look at the top of the i in the image and then look at the top of the i in the Nickelodeon logos the top of i's are about same the only difference is in the Nickelodeon logos the bottom of the i is cut off, just because the bottom of the i is cut off doe's not make it copyrighted as it is not original enough, see Threshold of originality#Typefaces and geometry. Also "do you have some form of visual impairment" is a personal attack. Powergate92Talk 01:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

See my comment above. Both Fraktur and Didone are serif fonts. The Nick logo is sans-serif. Do you know what these words mean? You are completely and totally wrong about this, which is why I asked if you had a visual impairment. If you are using screen magnification software or have visual problems your confusion would be explained. As it is, there is simply no way to state in any sort of seriousness that a) the fonts you stated are even remotely close to the font in the Nick logo, or b) that those specific fonts were used in the logo. None whatsoever. → ROUX ₪ 03:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I can see where some of the fonts look like, but other than comparisons, do we have anything from, lets say, a news release or something else? I feel the logos might be PD, but I am not fully convinced yet if this was using public domain fonts or some kind of special creation for this logo. User:Zscout370 01:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I found a news article about the logos but it doe's not say if the logos are copyrighted or anything about the fonts. Powergate92Talk 02:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Copyright isn't an issue anymore; with the changes of the US Copyright Laws in 1978, copyright is automatic. We have a burden to prove that these images are in the public domain. If not, then off to fair use land it goes. User:Zscout370 02:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I think we should discuss this at WP:Media copyright questions. Powergate92Talk 05:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

That they are even a set of letters is all that is necessary for them to be a typeface. The name of the font is irrelevant. — BQZip01 —  07:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

That is, in fact, the direct opposite of 'correct'. The specific wordmark could have been designed from scratch without creating a whole alphabet, making it a wholly created thing, instead of being assembled from an extant font. → ROUX ₪ 15:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

U.S. Courts disagree: Threshold_of_originality#Typefaces_and_geometry and you don't need a whole alphabet to make it a typeset. — BQZip01 —  16:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

A few letters is not a typeface. Sorry. → ROUX ₪ 16:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Roux, it doesn't have to be a whole alfabet. I'm forced to agree with BQZip01 based on the link above.--Sky Attacker Here comes the bird! 22:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

What Sky said. The courts have ruled the opposite (please read the link above; it is about this logo, as another example. — BQZip01 —  03:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Another related issue

User:ZScout has taken it upon himself to unilaterally delete several images that consist entirely of text and/or simple geometric shapes. I request that they all be restored as improper speedy deletions.

File:ASUinterlock.gif

File:AzSt.gif

File:Colorado.gif

File:UT&Tmark.png

File:Tulane shield web.png *note that this one was deleted after someone changed the file tag. Needs to be fixed.

File:Akron.gif

While I view these as clear PD images, it doesn't mean they can't have a valid use and a FUR even if they aren't PD. Speedy deletion isn't appropriate here. — BQZip01 —  05:25, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Ian Plimer, again (again)

User:William M. Connolley and User:Verbal have re-added the "see also" link to Climate change denial, despite 5 editors objecting specifically to the "see also" on WP:BLP/N (me, GoRight, Child of Midnight, agr, and Pete Tillman). Also, earlier on WP:AN (archive link to earlier discussion), Thatcher, Cla68, and Rd232 opposed adding an unadorned "see also". At issue is the heavy language in Climate change denial, which claim deniers are engaged in disinformation and have a profit motive, both of which are very serious charges. Most editors agree it's acceptable to link to Climate change denial in the context of the article, i.e. if someone claims he is a denier, but there is significant objection to an out-of-context "see also" link, which implies an unambiguous link.

Given the objection to an unadorned "see also" link (at least respected 8 editors by my count), can some uninvolved admin please revert or protect that page? ATren (talk) 11:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

And since we seem to be in general agreement that it is a BLP violation to add the link in the "see also" section without context, please block WMC or whomever else tries to readd it. Cla68 (talk) 11:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway has now added the "see also" link back in after Cla removed it, so it's taking on the appearance of an edit war. Can an uninvolved admin take a look? ATren (talk) 12:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

No we don't have general agreement that this is the case and the over the top response you just suggested is one reason why expanding BLP like this is unwise. Protonk (talk) 16:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

moved from WP:AN by EdChem (talk) 12:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I have read the whole discussion at the BLP noticeboard and the relevant Plimer pages, and any administrator considering acting should be very careful in trusting the above description - I would characterise it as highly biased. I have never edited any page on global warming / climate change, and am truly an uninvolved editor. I would evaluate the arguments advanced about there being a BLP problem as extremely weak. WP:RS sources support the description of Plimer as a climate change denier. In my view, the 'see also' link is justifiable, reasonable, and appropriate. EdChem (talk) 12:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the entire discussion on those pages? The BLP/N section had at least 5 editors object to an unadorned "see also" link, most of whom supported an in-context link (which, by the way, is now there, so the "see also" link is now superfluous). Also, on the archived thread, Thatcher, Cla, and Rd232 all weighed in on the side of not including the link, once they realized that the Climate change denial article speaks about the perpetration of fraud, which is a much weightier charge than skepticism or even simplistic denialism. Note again, the issue is with the "see also" link, which gives the implication of unambiguous association, not with including denial in the article context where, for example, George Monbiot's claim has now been documented with a link to the denial page. ATren (talk) 12:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have posted a notification to WMC, Verbal, and Tony Sidaway - each was adversely mentioned in this report and should have been notified as a matter of courtesy. EdChem (talk) 12:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Indeed there is no consensus that this See Also link is in any way a BLP violation. A it is now in the text I don't see a huge problem with the see also being removed (although the text should probably be changed so it actually includes "climate change", which is why I missed it), but the misleading representations of policy and consensus need to stop. It's interesting that several editors have attempted to force policy changes here and have stated they want the climate change denial article deleted - which clearly would be against wikipedia policy, and damage the goals of the project. Note Ed Chem notified me of this discussion.Verbal chat 12:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Uncle G has done some weird things here, so I'm re-opening this even thought TS removed it. Several of us have tried to talk to UG about this, but he insists nothing is odd and he has explained all here . So... UG sez same restoration of status quo ante the edit war and same protection (with same expiry date) as at Heaven and Earth (book). However, we have "(Changed protection level for "Ian Plimer": Same edit war as at Heaven and Earth (book), same protection as at Heaven and Earth (book). ( (expires 03:57, 13 August 2010 (UTC)) (expires 03:57, 13 August 2010 (UTC))))" and "Viridae (talk | contribs) m (35,214 bytes) (Changed protection level for "Heaven and Earth (book)": Edit warring / Content dispute: edit warring, claims of BLP violations ( (expires 00:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)) (expires 03:57, 13 August 2)" and those don't look the same to me. A one year prot looks totally over the top; UG won't acknowledge this William M. Connolley (talk) 13:37, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• That's perhaps because you didn't actually say that at any point. Instead you asked for a rationale for protecting the article against the edit warring, which was already clearly given both above and in the protection log. Copy and paste error on my part, as could have been easily figured out from the rationale given. Expiry date adjusted. Resolved. Now go back and actually settle your content dispute on those two articles' talk pages. Shoo! Uncle G (talk) 13:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

UG has modified the protection. When it expires, perhaps we can discuss any changes civilly on the talk page before making them? There is significant opposition to a "see also" link, but there is discussion about adding Monbiot's claims to the article text, which I and others think is appropriate. ATren (talk) 14:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Nope, still not resolved. Uncle G is being just ateensy bit evasive with his response above. If you look on his talk page, you'll find: The duration is most definitely not "fucked up", and is quite deliberate. Err, except it wasn't. It was wrong. Uncle G: this is a complaint about your behaviour. Please don't take it upon yourself to resolve it.

However, now we've got the timestamps corrected, the next issue is your revert-before-protect. This seems rather dubious William M. Connolley (talk) 14:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• The protected page is also still not tagged, by the way. EdChem (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Yep, I told Uncle G that too, but he was too busy writing invective here to deal with it William M. Connolley (talk) 14:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • William M. Connolley clearly knows how to do that. Uncle G (talk) 14:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

This incident is an edit war at Ian Plimer/Heaven and Earth (book). Honestly, complaining about the status quo ante being The Wrong Version and trying to make the discussion about the uninvolved protecting administrator is something that we expect from POV-pushing novices, not experienced editors, William M. Connolley.

Now, again: Shoo! Go and resolve the content dispute that you are a party to. Uncle G (talk) 14:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• You've misspelled Connolley's name twice here. The fact that you've written out his name in full but misspelled it in two different ways in two consecutive posts strongly suggests that it's a deliberate dig, rather unbecoming of a supposedly neutral administrator. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Nah. No such intent. It's just more bloody typing errors on my part. I didn't copy and paste the names, but typed them out longhand. I mis-spelled "Ian Plimer" as "Ian Pilmer", you'll notice, too. On two separate pages. I caught those in a later edit. I didn't catch the above. Gah! Fixed. Uncle G (talk) 14:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
    • OK, thanks. There are some people who are trying to kick WMC while he's down, so it's good to know you're not one of them. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Can items in the See also section that are already linked higher up in the article please be removed per WP:SEEALSO? Thank you, --98.182.55.163 (talk) 14:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• That's a matter for Talk:Ian Plimer. (Ian Plimer has no "See also" section, note.) The status quo ante the edit war, without the contested biographical content, has been reinstated. That's what you get per Misplaced Pages:Protection policy#Content disputes and Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons. It's also the same as is the case at Heaven and Earth (book), where the same edit war, with the same participants, over the same content, is occurring. Anything else here is editorial. If there's a consenus {{editprotected}} request on the talk page for a non-controversial edit unrelated to the content dispute, then I or any other uninvolved administrator will fulfil it for you. Uncle G (talk) 14:52, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that "Shoo!" is something you might say to inexperienced editors, and is impolite in this context. Now, lets get back to the points you are failing to get: perhaps we can do the really simple one first: you haven't tagged the article as protected, and you haven't explained your protect on the article talk page as you should William M. Connolley (talk) 14:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• You didn't need any such explanation by the protecting administrator at Talk:Heaven and Earth (book). Now go and resolve the content dispute that you are involved in. Uncle G (talk) 15:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Quite right, I didn't. I did the correct thing there myself (which weirdly enough was heavily criticised by an arb. However, this time you're going to have to do the right thing. You have realised that it is the right thing, yes? And you are just being stubborn in conduct unbefitting an admin, yes? Now go tag it, and add a note to the talk page explaining yourself William M. Connolley (talk) 15:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
    • You were heavily criticized for it? Not by me. That is surprising. Where, exactly? Given that you are wanting to avoid sanction — another thing that you didn't actually say — I'll put the tag on for you. But this protecting administrator would have had no issue with your simply putting the {{protected}} tag on the protected article yourself. Uncle G (talk) 15:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
      • WMC is no longer an adminstrator. Per arbitor Risker, an involved adminstrator placing a disputed tag on an article is "very borderline" , and "provocative ... and controversial..." , "inappropriate at best" , and "a controversial act" . Just to keep you up to date. Hipocrite (talk) 15:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• • • • • I've just found out about the ArbCom decision. This explains a lot. It seems that I disagree with Risker about that particular edit. As I said, as the protecting administrator I wouldn't have had any trouble with a similar edit, doing nothing more than adding {{protected}} to a protected page, here. I wouldn't have regarded it as toe-stepping or provocative. Uncle G (talk) 16:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Uncle G, I am not involved in the ongoing dispute at Ian Plimer but I am concerned by your actions. I am also not an administrator and thus cannot edit through protection to tag the page as protected. You could have done so in the time it took you to find the WMC diff. As the administrator who put the protection in place, it is YOUR responsibility to add the tag - so please, just go and place the tag you should have placed hours ago. Then, please answer the question that remains - why did you revert immediately prior to instituting page protection, instead of protecting the current version, as is standard practice according to WP:PREFER? EdChem (talk) 14:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• The question was answered hours ago, too, before it was actually asked, even. Read (1) the edit summary of the edit itself, where there's an explanation, (2) what is right at the top of this discussion, where there is an explanation, (3) what is immediately above, where there is an explanation, and (4) the policies that apply, where there is an explanation. Four times over really should be enough for anyone. Uncle G (talk) 15:06, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Uncle G, since you are finding tagging the page such a challenge, here is a link to the instructions from the new admin school discussion of protection: Misplaced Pages:New_admin_school/Protecting#Protecting_a_page If you look carefully you will find that step 8 in the process involves tagging the page. Since the page is presently fully protected, only an admin can make the edit necessary to add the tag. You are the admin who instituted the full protection. The responsibility is yours. It won't take you long to do. Please, do what you should have done when you first fully protected the page for a year and tag the page as protected. EdChem (talk) 15:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• I seem to be saying this a lot: Already answered. See above. Uncle G (talk) 16:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Well done Uncle G: you've added the tag. Now you need to add a note to the talk page explaining why you've protected it. However, the issue of your choice to revert the page before protecting remains unresolved. Please don't mark reports of your own behaviour as resolved; I'm sure you'll agree you have a COI on this report William M. Connolley (talk) 15:47, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• I have taken the resposibility of closing this boondogle. Some urgings:

1. Cla68 is reminded that WP:RFPP exists and is urged to take the route of less drama and request protection there.
2. Uncle G is reminded that he should remain vigilent to use tools accurately, and is urged to carefully review complaints or concerns about his adminstive behavior - that a complete review of the situation would have led him to realize that WMC was no longer an adminstrator, and thus unable to add the protected tag (regardless of the propriety of doing so). He is additionally urged to try even harder to communicate effectively, even if its the other party that is doing wrong.
3. WMC is reminded that not everyone is up to speed with every action taken everywhere, and is urged to give more complete context to his comments requesting action. He is additionally urged to try even harder to communicate effectively, even if its the other party that is doing wrong.
4. The community is urged to consider if involved admins adding {{protected}} to articles they are involved in is adminstrative abuse. Hipocrite (talk) 16:38, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
5. PS: I decline to consider if the revert-before-protect is appropriate, but comment that the best way forward is to find an alternative version that both sides find minimally acceptable in the interim. If there are further complaints about the wrong version being protected, they should be refiled, though I suggest raising them calmly with the protecting admin before noticeboarding, and urge the filing party and protecting admin to wipe the slate clean before raising said issues. Hipocrite (talk) 16:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• • I would suggest that revert-before-protect is totally appropriate in BLP situations per special enforcement. "Administrators are authorized to use any and all means at their disposal to ensure that every Misplaced Pages article is in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the biographies of living persons policy. Administrators may use the page protection and deletion tools as they believe to be reasonably necessary to effect compliance." Also note "Appeals may be made to the appropriate administrators’ noticeboard. However, administrators are cautioned not to reverse or modify such actions without clear community consensus to do so." Also see WP:BLPLOG.--agr (talk) 21:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Please read all of the ArbCom remedy you're citing. Any WP:BLPSE action must be logged and identified as such. If these actions are being undertaken under WP:BLPSE, then they need to be appropriately identified and logged as such. You even link directly to the log page in your post, so you're presumably aware of this requirement. Special enforcement is a specific power which carries specific responsibilities, not an abstract precept to retroactively justify random administrative actions. For the record, this revert-before-protect appears acceptable under the current iteration of our protection policy. MastCell  21:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
      • I included the log link to call attention to the logging requirement. (I believe it was you who recently brought it to my attention.) Sorry I wasn't more explicit. --agr (talk) 23:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
        • Thanks guys. Cla68 (talk) 23:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup project

Ive been running some text analysis scripts across wikipedia, and Ive discovered that we are missing a lot of vandalism and that we use a LOT of email addresses. This proposes several issues. having someone's email address on wikipedia is a really easy for spammers to get their email address and render their accounts useless due to spam. if we are going to include the addressed we should obsucate the address to reduce the ability for spammers to harvest the addresses. User:Betacommand/Log is a current logfile for the scanner. Any hands willing to help are welcome. β 18:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

You're worried about the use of email addresses in Misplaced Pages, so you've compiled a list of all of them on one handy page? For what it's worth I think your idea is useful. Real people wanting to use their own email addresses on talk pages is a bad idea, but it's up to them. But how do we know the address is theirs and not someone elses? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 18:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

that page should be cleared out quickly so it will not be an issue, but verification of these addresses is a issue along with the fact that these are introduced with vandalism at times also. β 18:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have deleted the page. Compiling and presenting sensitive information like that is very bad idea. Admins who are interested can still work on it while it is deleted. Please inform oversight-l if there are any problems which appear to need suppression. John Vandenberg 00:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

John where should i forward what Ive found so it can be addressed? its too much work for a single user, especially me due to the edit rate limit im under. β 12:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Arn't you banned from using any sort of automated anything? Jtrainor (talk) 01:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Im prevented from running automated editing tools. This particular tool does not edit and is not covered by the restrictions. β 12:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

This is not automated editing. I don't think any restriction prevents BC from using a computer to compile stuff, and post it here (or from using a computer for that matter ;)). -- Luk 06:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the restriction in question:

For one year, you are (i) topic-banned from any non-free-content-related work and related talk pages; (ii) subject to a 0RR restriction on any free-content-image-related work and related talk pages; (iii) prohibited from operating bots or running automated scripts of whatever nature; (iv) prohibited from inducing or attempting to induce others to operate bots or run automated scripts; and (v) subject to an editing throttle of a maximum of four edits every ten minutes (excludes reversion of blatant vandalism). After six months, you may apply to ArbCom for a review of the terms of this condition.
Suggests that he shouldn't be running scripts. _{Naluboutes, Nalubotes} 12:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)