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User: StephenPaternoster

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

The above editor has been inserting unsourced material of low quality across Anglo-Viking and Anglo-Saxon articles, much of it reading as OR and fairly useless (possibly it was this. Or possibly that). He refuses to engage in any discussion over his edits on talk pages, even deleting other users' comments on article talk pages that pertain to his edits. He has also been reverting grammar and spelling fixes, declaring it to be 'fine as it is'. Following the latest reverts, he came up with this offensive edit comment. --Narson ~ Talk • 19:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Whatever else comes of this, he earned a block for the edit comment. You aren't coming off too sterling yourself (calling his edits dross in edit summaries), btw. Syrthiss (talk) 19:52, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Only 31 hours? For that inexcusable summary, I would have blocked him for at least a month, and brought it here for a review of an indef. Horologium (talk) 20:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Implied threat of violence in the edit summary. Paternoster needs to become Our Father Who Art Indef'd. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:34, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I support a longer block for that edit summary, a month would be fair. Off2riorob (talk) 20:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe Our Father needs to have a month added to that proposed indef, for butchering the English language. I'm sorely tempted to revert everything he's done that's at least the most recent change to an article. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:52, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Syrthiss, his edits were dross (worthless) in my view, I was commenting on them and not the editor (who I'm sure has much to offer when he realises he is not a lone crusader). He refused to enter into any discourse over why his work was being removed/edited, so bluntness was all that was left. If people won't talk, there are few options available. Apologies if that seems overly harsh. --Narson ~ Talk • 20:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that a comment like that doesn't really explain the problem. My edit summary for the first reversion was simply "editorializing", since it reads like a little original research essay. And the second one I reverted (so far) I labeled "editorializing, speculation, and poor English", the latter referring to that guy's tendency to write like a 3rd grader would talk, in run-on sentences. Ugh. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, now that I think of it, he writes the way Casey Stengel used to talk. However, when Casey wrote his autobiography, he worked with a professional writer. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:03, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I reverted a few items from his most recent updates, thus putting several articles about Vikings and such on my watch list due to the pillaging of those articles by the user in question. I feel as if I ought to post something on his talk page, but he'll just zap it like he did the block notice. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Usually I'm worried that I'm being too harsh. My first inclination was for indef, but figured I'd give him a small benefit of the doubt. If someone wants to block our father the antisemite for longer, I'm fine with that. Syrthiss (talk) 12:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I support a block extension for this awful anti Semitic comment. Off2riorob (talk) 13:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Support block extension - there's no way that comment can be acceptable Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:25, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The block has been extended for a very long time (indefinitely), which serves him right for saying such an awful thing and the extension will also save Bugs from having to correct his spelling. Off2riorob (talk) 14:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have him reblocked to indef. I wanted to make sure that he was unable to edit (the original block would have ended soon) pending any further discussion here, as so far it seems the consensus is my original block was too lenient). Syrthiss (talk) 14:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

That the startling and offensive edit comment justifies a ban is indisputable. However, a lot of what is said above is irrelevant and a summary indef. is disproportionate for an editor with no apparent track record. Leaky Caldron 14:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with the above. I do believe 31 hours might be too short as a preventative measure (there needs to be some break so he can re-think his approach or the same behaviour will occur), but I do feel the motivation behind his edits was initially good, if misguided. Ideally we would find an editor willing to mentor him when he emerges from the block and we will have a constructure editor out of it all. Obviously this will only work if Stephen starts communicating with other editors, but if he doesn't then he will likely earn another block anyway. --Narson ~ Talk • 14:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Mentoring is one thing. But who's going to teach him how to write English? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

One would assume it was more a lack of attention to his language rather than lack of knowledge, considering his location. I've often seen mentors copyedit propose edits as well. --Narson ~ Talk • 15:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If his userpage is to be believed, he is a 15 year-old who was born and reared in England. It's disturbing that a teenager would use such a vile and disgusting metaphor to indicate displeasure with another editor, particularly because of the photos on Narson's userpage. Horologium (talk) 16:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Hold on, he has communicated on his talk. Off2riorob (talk) 15:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

He is sorry and won't do it again...well I suppose everyone deserves a chance, I could support a block of at least a week to show him how serious the community takes that kind of comment, it would be illegal in some countries, and then keep an eye on him. Off2riorob (talk) 15:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I cannot support an immediate unblock, but I may have a bit of a personal antagonism towards that edit summary. My partner's mother was one of the lucky Jews in Bialystok; she was exiled to Siberia rather than murdered (including those sent to Auschwitz). Horologium (talk) 16:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I see that the general consensus is slightly veering towards leniency. My personal opinion is that any editor who can make such a callous, heartless, unfeeling and vicious edit as that edit summary (burning in Auschwitz) is, should never, ever be allowed to edit here. But I have been to Auschwitz, and perhaps he has not. --Anthony.bradbury 16:48, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Totally reprehensible though the comment was, and deserving of decisive action, the purpose of blocking is prevention, not punishment. The duration of a block has to be related to the likelihood of a user repeating inappropriate behavior. He needs to get himself over here and provide apologies and assurances.Leaky Caldron 17:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

? The user cannot edit here due to the indef, though I did make the offer to cut and paste any defense he cared to raise on his talk page to here. His unblock message does apologize and does say that he won't do it again. If I've misunderstood your comment, my apologies. Since I'm the one currently holding the block, I'm not going to respond to the unblock request myself. Syrthiss (talk) 17:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I had not read it when I posted above, but his talk page says: "I am sorry for what i done and i will not do it again i won't attack personal people it is not right and i will not do it again". You could have copied that over. It looks like an apology and an assurance he will not do it again. Leaky Caldron 17:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Alrighty, then my apology for not doing that. I considered that part of his unblock, and it was paraphrased by Off2riorob above. Syrthiss (talk) 17:45, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't unblock him yet - I gather he's only young and it's poor form to encourage the young to believe that just apologising will make everything all right instantly. Give him a week, and discuss some of his worse edits on his talk page in that time. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree that a longer block is needed. This is not being punitive, it's being preventative: absolute racism in that format has a ripple effect on the project. If a whole slew of people who were affected by the comment see that the editor received a very minor tap on the wrist, then you'll get a collective howl, AND set a precedent for future situations. I know this isn't a crystal ball, but the action/lack of correct action will have longstanding ramifications. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines on not coming back until he’s shown an appreciation of proper behaviours. If, as suspected, he’s a school student, ask him to produce an essay based on the 5 pillars or some suitable civility topic. If it passes in a week (or longer) fine, if he cannot be bothered let the block remain. We are allowed to be creative aren’t we? Leaky Caldron 18:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I am about to scram for the day. My thoughts on the above essay idea - really, I suspect he wouldn't want to write one and I myself really don't want to read it. Misplaced Pages is not a 12 step program, or therapy. My thoughts are this: if we accept that he is sorry, then a week away isn't going to make him sorry-er. If we accept his apology, we should unblock him now. If we think that his comment is just an indication of future disruption to come then we should recognize that the block is not punishment (to address Leaky Cauldron's concern) and is to prevent further disruption. If that is the case, the indef should stand and his unblock should be denied.

His current status is that Beeblebrox was placing the unblock on hold, assumedly to come discuss with me, and then rescinded his offer based on the edit summary. Before I log off, I'm going to go restore the unblock to the state it was before Beeblebrox placed it on hold as that is my last read on what the user wanted. Syrthiss (talk) 19:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not acting as an apologist for this editor. WP:Block lead is clear the purpose of blocks and repeats 2 further times (wp:Blocking_policy#Purpose_and_goal, Wp:Blocking_policy#Duration_of_blocks) that they are not for punishment. An indef. Block cannot stand without justification and there appears to have been no attempt at education either as per, Misplaced Pages:Blocking_policy#Education_and_warnings. He’s entitled to be treated per policy even if he does not have the competence to check out and understand the policy. My suggestion was merely to test his desire to join the community in view of the grave and wholly unacceptble error he made today. Leaky Caldron 20:16, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

He has again blanked his talk page and the editor that was looking at his unblock dropped out as he said he couldn't continue to be neutral after reading the edit summary, don't forget that we are allowed to add our own common sense to the situation. Off2riorob (talk) 20:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If he's actually 15 and is actually using his own name, that's trouble enough right there. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I would support an extended block. Bwrs (talk) 02:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• He's blanked his talk page, including the unblock request, so I think we're done here and can let the indef block stand pending any future unblock request. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

He has put in a new unblock request (rather rambling but hey ho). Pleased to see he wasn't planning to kill Jews but just me! ;) --Narson ~ Talk • 20:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you misinterpreted that Narson? I can't see that, have another look. Off2riorob (talk) 20:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

There is something not right here. Although the user is not noted for using punctuation, this dif. represents about 40 edits by the user (only a few by intervening editors). I cannot testify to the subject matter, but the general prose is not at the very poor level of his talk page explanation which is, frankly, puerile. I don’t know whether policy restricts illiterate editors and I do wonder if he is attempting some sort of juvenile attempt to “game” himself out of the block. I make no apology for assuming bad faith in view of his disgraceful edit summary leading to his block in the first place. I don't think he was talking about Narson by the way, more likely Hitler I think. Maybe my essay suggestion should be reconsidered, this time based on his ability to write coherently using correct grammar. Leaky Caldron 20:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I suspect the editor may have taken Dutch Courage to post his unblock request. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And....blanked again. --Narson ~ Talk • 23:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(response to Leaky Cauldron) Actually, I am pretty sure that the edit summary was directed at Narson. He has two photographs of Auschwitz on his userpage (free-use pictures he took and contributed to the project), and it's way too coincidental that a reference to the same concentration camp was made in response to an edit he made. In any case, I don't see a rush to unblock this kid, and if he keeps blanking his talk page, nobody is going to unblock him. Horologium (talk) 14:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The edit summary certainly was, no doubt about it. The discussion above is whether his "apology" on his now blanked talk page reiterated the threat. Having just re-read it, it is unclear, although I don't think he is reaserting it. Either way, he is a problem user and should be reinstated only once Admins. are satisfied about his future behaviour (and editing style).Leaky Caldron 17:44, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry yes, I was joking earlier (mostly). Refering to the past tense. He said he regretted his edit summary and while he meant it about me, never meant it in an antisemetic way (To denigrate the thing). TBH I forgot I had those pics there and it took me a while to understand why he had made the comment at all. I think we should perhaps wait for him to put up an unblock and leave it up for 24h before engaging with him about it. He obviously is trying to work out how to get his message across. --Narson ~ Talk • 23:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

DBpedia spamming infobox templates

There are apparently several users acting in concert to shove the Template:DBpedia Template template (created by, unsurprisingly DBpedia (talk · contribs) throughout all of the infoboxes on Misplaced Pages. This template is being used by DBpedia as part of its "live-extraction" project, apparently out of some attempt to make it easier for their own website to extract content from Misplaced Pages (rather than doing it on their own systems). Jens Lehmann (talk · contribs), SebastianHellmann (talk · contribs), Aklakan (talk · contribs) are ones that have been identified so far. From DBpedia's page and what I saw on Meta, I do not see anything that supports this as being a valid effort by, nor did I find anything on DBpedia that either encourages or requires this. There are far too many edits being done for just one editor to deal with, and at this point, I believe administrative intervention is needed. Jens Lehmann has already been blocked, but if there are three, there are likely more. They have already infected hundreds of templates. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I've blocked Jens Lehmann and Aklakan indefinitely. Of course, if it turns out that this is legitimate, I'll be happy to unblock them. However, these mass additions of template pages should really be discussed first. TNXMan 15:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, I wonder if this is the same user or different users from the same project. TNXMan 15:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

A short notice, would have been enough. We take the concerns of Wikipedians very seriously, so we will stop editing now. We have discussed to include the Template Annotations at the doc pages for months now, especially with Brion Vibber and Daniel Kinzler form Wikimedia. I also talked to about a dozen Wikipedians, who did not subject to this. I will post some more in a minute, but please do not act so fast and listen to me first.SebastianHellmann (talk) 15:40, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you provide links showing these discussions? TNXMan 15:42, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

(EC) It appears to be multiple users. Two are the names of people listed as contributers to DBmedia. Hellmann is claiming this was done with permission and after talking with two people, but I could not find anything on Wiki to support this claim. The only thing I could find was that they were given access to the live data stream, but not permission to create and flood infobox docs with this template or their links. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you unblock the users, there are mybe 4 or 5 total, no more editing will happen until the matter is resolved, but at least they can discuss here.SebastianHellmann (talk) 16:35, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The user which I previously blocked have been unblocked. However, I left them a note that they may not add any more template pages until consensus regarding the issue has been reached. TNXMan 17:14, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I also informed themSebastianHellmann (talk) 09:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Subject has been moved, please discuss here: Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(technical)#DBpedia_Template_Annotations SebastianHellmann (talk) 22:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I will start collecting the links, please wait. In the future there are plans that DBpedia will directly contribute to the Misplaced Pages tool server soon. There are many other uses and it is not just any project. It is driven by Universities (Leipzig and Berlin) and it has gained quite some renown and serves as the backbone for the LinkedDataCloud see http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/ , which consists completely of open and freely available data sets. SebastianHellmann (talk) 15:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

here: :Links: ] and ] and ]

On the last one there is a talk about using it for the tool server. More talk about this issue was done with Christian Beckr, especially about geocoordinates.

Here is a private correspondance with Daniel Kinzler ], it is in German, but we discuss the place for the template annotations. Brion Vibber provided us with the live stream. The use of the Template annotations is quite obvious and are not DBpedia specific. It just unifies the meaning of template properties, so that you can map birthplace, birth_place, bornin and all the other variants to a single meaning. The templates are made to look nice, but the annotations make the machine readable. They are directly comparable to microformats, but as our policy is to ba as minimally invasive as possible, we didn't try to change the templates directly. Although, we discussed it quite long now, we maybe just didn't address the right people. The section with the annotations in the template doc pages is intended to cause as few attention as possible only findable by people who already know where they are (really who looks at a template page?). So the accusation of any form of advertising or spamming does not really hold. If there are any ideas where we could better place these, we are open and will move them somewhere else. Also a place to discuss the further collaboration with Misplaced Pages and DBpedia would be nice. Some users(e.g. andrew dunbar, hippietrail) from the Wikitech-I list where quite enlighted, by the possibilites.SebastianHellmann (talk) 16:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for a link giving you permission to do these templates. The meta discussions were specific to Meta and only about the onthology pages there. Neither discussion mentions nor gives any implied nor expressed permission to create the templates and put them on every infobox page on Misplaced Pages. A private correspondence with a single editor in German is also not any kind of permission nor validity for the actions taken. There is no collaboration between Wikipdedia and DBpedia, so claims otherwise do not hold. Getting access to the live stream is not uncommon, and like any one else, DBpedia is free to parse Misplaced Pages's data. Expecting that anyone would be allowed to modify Misplaced Pages for your exclusive use to make it easier on you, rather than you properly adjusting your programming, is not something that should be done without extensive community discussion AT Misplaced Pages. As it is, it appears you are simply promoting DBpedia through these actions. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 19:30, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

We will ask explicit permission, would it be enough if we post it at village pump or do we have to post it somewhere else, also? SebastianHellmann (talk) 09:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Subject has been moved, please discuss here: Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(technical)#DBpedia_Template_Annotations SebastianHellmann (talk) 22:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Strikes me that this is a topic for village pump. I cannot, however, imagine that Misplaced Pages would allow templates on Misplaced Pages articles to permit an external agent to expressly pull data. Obviously, the outside project has to write their application to do things correctly, and not require Misplaced Pages to conform to theirs. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:08, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

DBpedia is not a website, but a community effort to enrich the encyclopedia Misplaced Pages with structured data. The resulting datasets are available to everyone under the same license as Misplaced Pages and currently used by thousands of users, e.g. for data integration purposes, but also by Misplaced Pages authors to identify inconsistencies and incoherences. The strategy of the DBpedia live extraction, was discussed with Daniel Kinzler and Brion Vibber. In order to support the DBpedia live extraction, Brian e.g. also granted us access to the Misplaced Pages live update stream. The addition of special DBpedia infobox templates to Misplaced Pages was only done to enable the Misplaced Pages authors to better employ DBpedia for increasing the coherence of Misplaced Pages. --Soeren1611 (talk) 16:16, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It's clear what you are trying to do now. The best place for this discussion would either be at the technical village pump or the village pump (proposals) (as BWilkins mentioned). I would be much more at ease if there were explicit permission given somewhere to allow the creation of the template pages. TNXMan 16:36, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

You wrote "village pump (proposals)", but you linked to WP:VPP, which is WP:village pump (policy). Did you mean WP:VPR? Chrisahn (talk) 15:42, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Subject has been moved, please discuss here: Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(technical)#DBpedia_Template_Annotations SebastianHellmann (talk) 22:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick warning since there has already been some miscommunication: The communication seems to be happening primarily with Germans. My limited knowledge of the German Misplaced Pages tells me that they are much more open towards standardisation and uniformisation of articles and connections with external databases. For matters involving the English Misplaced Pages directly DBpedia should take care to discuss here first. Almost nobody reads Meta, and the German Misplaced Pages has its own culture and is basically irrelevant to us. Hans Adler 16:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Once the commmunication glitches have been ironed out, I think this is something that has the potential to help us enormously. Sharing structured information between language wikipedias is an obvious way to get this information to more readers mor efficiently and more reliably.--Kotniski (talk) 19:27, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

DBpedia has been extracting Misplaced Pages data for years. Until now, we used local configuration files to specify which infobox properties should be extracted. These new templates are not meant to make our job easier. (In fact, they make it harder - reading the configuration from them is much more complex than reading it from local files.) The main goal of these new templates is to allow Wikipedians to change the way DBpedia extracts infobox data and provide instant feedback.

Subject has been moved, please discuss here: Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(technical)#DBpedia_Template_Annotations SebastianHellmann (talk) 22:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The subject has not been "moved" rather you started a new discussion there. Please be more clear about that. I also doubt this is a technical issue. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 22:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think these changes are 'spam', they were never meant to 'promote' DBpedia. But we certainly should have used the proper channels to ask the community about them first.

In the interest of full disclosure, Echera (talk · contribs) is also a member of the DBpedia team (at the Free University of Berlin) and has made similar changes as the users listed above. Maybe we can leave these edits while the discussion is going on, but if you want me to I will revert them. -- Chrisahn (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for identifying them and I ask that you do revert them. They are NOT appropriate, have absolutely no consensus, and are purely intended to help DBpedia. They do nothing for Misplaced Pages. As you said, DBpedia has been extracting data for years, the same as many other folks. It needs to stick to local configuration files, not try to modify Misplaced Pages to match their software. This is exactly what you are doing, which is nothing that improves Misplaced Pages. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:54, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Fake ESCA "guideline" spamming

Count Iblis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is spamming his new Template:ESCA onto many physics article talk pages; the template falsely portrays his essay Misplaced Pages:Editing scientific articles as a guideline and insists that editors follow it. He has reverted my removals of the template from some articles on my watch list where I took it out. This essay arose during arguments with Brews ohare (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), an editor now banned from all physics-related articles and discussions, and whose side Count Iblis took in these disputes, in an attempt to tip disputes in favor of editors with good arguments from first principles, as opposed to arguments supported by reliable sources. He has not had a lot of support in turning this essay into a guideline, so should be stopped from spamming it around and portraying it as one. Dicklyon (talk) 18:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia_talk:Editing_scientific_articles#new_ESCA_template_being_spammed_across_physics_talk_page and User_talk:Count_Iblis#ESCA_template. Dicklyon (talk) 18:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I have warned the user. Pushing an essay as something more is disruptive, pure and simple. The fact that this is coming on the heels of the Rfar is not promising. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 18:38, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

This essay has absolutely nothing to do with Brews Ohare and the speed of light Arbcom case. I note that Dicklyon was heavily involved big edit wars with Brews Ohare and he simply cannot think objectively about this essay (apart from him being wrong about the origins of the essay).

I have added the template to thise few articles where sticking to the guidelines is absolutely necessary for very good reasons. The template can be removed if there is no consensus for it as apparently happened on the special relativity page. I request Dicklyon to stay out of the article on the Scharnhort article, because precisely there a new text is going to be added in the near future which requires the kind of discussions that Dicklyon apparently does like (see recent speed of light talk page discussion with him about the Scharnhorst effect in which he was too lazy to even read the relevant source).

In conclusion, I'm not spamming rather only including the template on those few pages where it is essential to stick to the guidelies. E.g., I added it to the entropy talk page, because I'm writing a new verion of that article off-line and I forsee discussions on the talk page which, given the history of that page, requires precisely these guidelines. Count Iblis (talk) 18:42, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It is not a guideline. That you think it is important to stick to is all well and good, but it's an essay. Unless the talk page community agrees that yes, there should be an essay linked to on the top of those articles, you shouldn't be edit warring to keep them in. You can't order or request other editors to stay off pages. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 18:46, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, we can change the wording "guideline" to something else. I think though that Dickyon has been behaving in an aggressive way here, by calling what I did "spamming", even though it was added to a limited number of pages and by also removing it from pages where he is not directly involved in. Count Iblis (talk) 18:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Editors are – or should be – encouraged to openly discuss how they believe that Misplaced Pages's goals can be accomplished (and its policies best followed) in the context of articles which may fall within their own areas of expertise. I have no quarrel with that, and there's no harm in editors writing essays (userspace or not) which distill, encapsulate, or generalize their advice and experience. Furthermore, it's generally legitimate (and often helpful) to refer to such essays in talk page discussions. Essays serve the dual purposes of offering a clear presentation of principles, and of avoiding the need for repetition of similar concepts across multiple talk pages.

That said, one thing that editors shouldn't be doing is what we find in the usage of Template:ESCA. It's not appropriate to privilege the opinions of one, or a few, editors in a talk page hatnote (, , , , , , ), nor is it appropriate to imply that an essay has the force of a widely-accepted and -endorsed Misplaced Pages guideline. The hatnotes should be removed from the talkpages, as they portray an importance and an authority that isn't rooted in any Misplaced Pages policy, process, or practice.

Where relevant, Count Iblis is welcome to announce WP:ESCA in an ordinary talk page comment, in a new section at the bottom of the talk page, just as any other editor is free to do. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:04, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Would it be ok. to add the template later on a talk page if most editors there agree with that? That's nore or less what I argued for on the NOR talk page. Basically my thinking here is that the regulars on the policy pages are more concerned about what happens on the politics pages which are far more prone to edit warring. This stops progress in policy development that would benefit the science articles. This means that an essay like the one I wrote can never become part of official policy. Therefore we need to think in the direction of "local policy making". Count Iblis (talk) 19:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

As an additional point, it's definitely not a good idea to edit war to add one's homebrewed hatnotes. Count Iblis is up against the edge of 3RR at Talk:Scharnhorst effect: , , , . TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:17, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

{{ESCA}} needs to be removed from the article talk pages that it has been transcluded to. Is there any reasonable use of this template ? if not, it should perhaps be taken to WP:TFD. Count Iblis and others are free to refer to the essay in their talk page comments, when relevant. Abecedare (talk) 19:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It has been, except at Scharnhorst effect where the edit warring is occuring (and it has now been removed from there again) -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 19:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Reply to TenOfAllTrades: I'm not going to revert any more. The only reason why I reverted there and not on other pages had to do with the nature of that page (first principle discussions absolutely necessary).

Reply to Abecedare: Sticking to the guidelines is abolutely necessary on technical wiki pages, such as Relations between heat capacities. I understand that the regulars on the policy pages do not appreciate this and that as a result you cannot propose the necessary policy changes. But this then calls for "local policy making". Count Iblis (talk) 19:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Count Iblis, I have no objection to you writing an essay and presenting it as your POV; however presenting it as a policy, guideline, or even "local policy" is deceptive, and not an acceptable alternative. Please see WP:Policies and guidelines for the accepted use of those terms on wikipedia. If we each start defining our own meanings for such terminology, we end up talking past each other and collaboration becomes impossible. Abecedare (talk) 19:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

All else aside we should not be putting messages to our editors at the top of the article, that is what talk pages are for. Chillum 19:49, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

For clarity, Iblis was placing his hatnotes at the top of the article talk pages, not the articles themselves. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:07, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Isn't all of this taken care of by a simple Misplaced Pages notion that if you make an edit to an article, and it is reverted, you should seek consensus on the talk page if you want to put it in? --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree. The editing history on the affected pages shows that except on the special relativity page, inclusion of the template has the consensus of the involved editors. It was removed by uninvolved editors who reacted to this AN/I discussion or the TFD discussion.

Note that on the Scharnhorst effect page, Tim Shuba, Dicklyon and TenOfAllTrades have made no contributions toward editing that article nor in the discussions on the talk page about editing that article. The only active editors there are Michael C. Price, BenRG and me. The articles to which I added the template were (with the expeption of the two relativity related pages) similar articles where the active editors would welcome it. Count Iblis (talk) 18:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a contentious essay that, when its two or so authors have their way, directly contradicts policy. Please stop spamming it onto article talk pages. Jayjg 19:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

As I just pointed out in the template deletion discussion, that is hardly surprising. This began life as a personal essay. I don't know when I first referred to it but that is all it was. I disagreed with it then but ignored it: as a personal (singular author or plural) essay you are free to write what you want within reason. That doesn't mean that when you find you don't have objections it can be portrayed as having a consensus behind it. I suspect I am not alone in deciding that it was not worth debating with you over a simple expression of your personal views. The difficulty arises when you alter its status to a propsoed policy - that requires a much greater level of scrutiny. CrispMuncher (talk)

The real problem

The real problem is that Misplaced Pages's policies are ignoring precisely those pages that are considered to be the most reliable and that are consulted quite often: The pages on technical scientific topics. These are mostly written by experts and are mostly free of the vicious disputes we so often see on politics pages. So, here on AN/I you almost never hear about these pages. The real important problems are therefore the problems that occur on these pages w.r.t. mistakes (and not (necessarily) w.r.t. editing disputes). Example: For a few years Misplaced Pages readers were led to believe that in thermodynamics the relation between internal energy changes, volume changes and entropy changes is given by the inequality:

dE <= T dS - P dV,

rather than the equality:

dE = T dS - P dV

This was a huge mistake made not just in one thermodynamics page, but systematically appeared on many pages right until early 2008. And there were many more similar mistakes.

I corrected these errors and also completely rewrote some thermodynamics pages. I also suggested changes in policy at that time last year but I was met with strong opposition. Then, recently I wrote up WP:ESCA which lacks the support to get official policy. On the NOR talk page I suggested that in the absence of a Misplaced Pages-wide consensus, one could perhaps proceed with policies that are valid on a local level. That's what led me to add the template to a few pages that would benefit from the WP:ESCA. Perhaps that was a bit too provocative. However, I have to note that the opposition to this action was not really motivated on any pragmatic grounds. Instead the same destructive forces that affect the politic pages are at play here. We can see this clearly when we read what Dicklyon wrote above, as I'll now discuss in the next section.

Dicklyon's mistaken complaint

Diclyon wrote:

"Fake ESCA "guideline" spamming"

His choice of the words "fake" and "spamming" are unecessarily provocative. Im not interested in fooling people to stick to guidelines they would not support, that can never work anyway. The guidelines are meant to be adhered to voluntarily. Also, there was no "spamming". The template was only added to a few talkpages.

Let's see what he wrote next:

"Count Iblis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is spamming his new Template:ESCA onto many physics article talk pages; the template falsely portrays his essay Misplaced Pages:Editing scientific articles as a guideline and insists that editors follow it."

I don't think "requesting" is the same as "insisting".

"He has reverted my removals of the template from some articles on my watch list where I took it out."

I think on only two pages, one of the pages there was more or less an agreement to stick to these guidelines to settle a minor editing dispute between BenRG, Michael C. Price and me, in which both me and BenRG wanted to remove a text but Michael C. Price objected invoking ESCA and we have agreed that the text should be debated further. Dicklyon was not at all involved in this debate. Also, this is an example where there would be nothing suspect about me putting the template in the talk page.

Dicklyon then continues:

"This essay arose during arguments with Brews ohare (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), an editor now banned from all physics-related articles and discussions, and whose side Count Iblis took in these disputes, in an attempt to tip disputes in favor of editors with good arguments from first principles, as opposed to arguments supported by reliable sources."

That's complete and utter nonsense. I strongly disagreed with Brews in the disputes that were about the speed of light. I only agreed with him that the matter should be settled using discussions from first principles. Such discussions unfortunately never really materialized (despite a few attempts to do so). Also discussing from first principles does not mean that we do not use reliable sources anymore.

Another deeply disturbing thing is the fact that Brews, who is an engineering professor, was banned from all physics pages. This proves that something is deeply wrong with Misplaced Pages. Brews did make mistakes. Not only was he wrong about his position he took regarding the speed of light, he also dominated the talk pages to get his way. But there was also harassment by Dicklyon against Brews on other physics pages. In these cases, it was not really Brews who was in the wrong.

Brews has made many outstanding contributions to physics articles. But Arbcom decided to treat Brews as some crank editor, banning him from all physics pages. Even the worst edit warriors on the politcs pages are treated better than that. E.g., if you make a lot of trouble on Obama related pages, then you'll likely be banned from only the Obama related pages, not all politics pages, despite the fact that you are just Mr. Nobody, and not some political science professor from whom we have seen and can expect many good edits on other politics pages. This is because the Admins have different political views and the right wing Admins, while recognizing that you've been disruptive, will support you somewhat. In case of Brews, the Admins presumably knew nothing about physics and it was presumably easier for themn to think that Diclyon was always correct as his conduct is usually consistent with Wiki Law.

Finally Dicklyon says: "He has not had a lot of support in turning this essay into a guideline, so should be stopped from spamming it around and portraying it as one."

It is correct that I did not get the necessary supprt, so I proceeded in the basis of local consensus. I accept that I wasa bit too provocative. But then Dicklyon was also wrong to revert the inclusion on the Scharnhorst talk page where the guidelines were invoked just yesterday and are now very relevant.

Dicklyon: You are rewriting history here. WP:ESCA was a creation that long predates my awareness of it. I contributed a bit about multiple meanings of technical words that arise in multiple technical arenas. There is no connection whatsoever to the "disputes with Brews" and dragging this point in is simply defamatory excrescence. Brews ohare (talk) 17:18, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion

We have seen that my efforts to propose guidelines for science articles suffers setback after setback, primarily because Misplaced Pages's policies are too much focussed on settling disputes on politics pages. This complaint by Dicklyon about my actions was itself motivated by similar ridiculous polemic reasons. I do recognize that adding the template may have been provocative on some pages. I willl now proceed by asking the editors on each page first before adding the text. Count Iblis (talk) 00:41, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

As I have just commented a little more specifically at Misplaced Pages talk:Editing scientific articles: If editors generally understand what is happening, people working on any subject are unlikely to allowed to establish a local consensus to ignore the core principles. Sufficient editors who do not work primarily on physics do understand the technical articles well enough to understand this direction of argument, if not necessarily the details of particular controversies. You probably ought to discuss it in the framework of the proper way to interpret the core principles in your subject field. Provided you can explain how your interpretation is a special but compatible case of the general principles, people generally may perhaps find themselves to some degree in consensus with you. If a proposal that each subject area could establish its own local consensus without the acceptance of the community were presented to a more general audience than here, it would be laughed out of court: the overlap of subjects and the interdisciplinary nature of many articles would result in the inability to produce a coherent encyclopedia.

It is true that editors in all sorts of special areas have gotten away with using their jargon and their idiosyncratic writing and argumentation, because nobody from outside was willing to pay the necessary attention. It's time this were stopped, not canonized. DGG ( talk ) 01:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I and others have debated the relevant issues on the NOR talk page, a year ago, months ago and just a few days ago. Tuically you are told that it's not a big deal, that you can just invoke IAR if you need to etc. etc. OIn the NOR talk page there is even a dispute amoung the reugulars there if ESCA violates the NOR guidelines or not. Carl seems to be saying that it only violates NR in the most pedant reading of it.

I think the way to "canonize" things is precisely to first raise your problem at the highest level. This is what has been done. Then you can work at some lower lever, like writing a new essay and trying to get support for it. Because that will then aslo get the attention of a lot of edotors who are not involved in the areas where you are working. That is what I did when I wrote ESCA. Then, lacking support, you can try to advertise the fact that it is in fact de-facto policy. That is what I did using the template. It was added mostly to those few physics articles containing a lot of first principles mathematical derivations written by me and a few other articles where the editors already knew about ESCA and I could expect some support.

If this is not allowed, then things will proceed in a way it always has: ESCA will be the de-facto policy on may pages, but uninvolved editors will know nothing about this. So, in each step where editors have rejected changes in policies from high up to the local level, they have lost influence. Count Iblis (talk) 15:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Debate on WP:ESCA

The proposed ESCA guideline is ridiculous and appears to be supported primarily by ne'er-do-wells. I participated for a while in the ESCA talkpage discussion but quit when 1) the dispute that brought me there was resolved; and 2) it became evident that the guideline proposal wasn't going anywhere and that ESCA would stay an essay rather than become something more dangerous. I haven't dared look at it again since then, figuring that the stupidity there was self-contained enough to safely ignore. It's not good at all that it's spilling to article talkpages. Count Iblis says there were no pragmatic grounds for opposing, but I gave ample pragmatic grounds on the talkpage: despite still having essay status, the proposed guideline already started being used to support ramming inappropriate OR into mathematics articles that had to be beaten back by a multi-day crap-fest across perhaps a half dozen different venues. As for Count Iblis's entropy equation, the correct equations are available in about 83 billion gadzillion thermodynamics textbooks and there should be no trouble citing one if somebody makes an issue of it. If someone put in an incorrect equation, just fix it and put a brief explanation on the talkpage; and if they give you grief about it, back it up with a citation. Arguing about it from so-called "first principles" is precisely what the OR policy was designed to prevent.

Somebody might like to put this link on the ESCA talkpage, to illustrate what we're up against. It contains links to 54 "solutions" to the P=NP problem, each one justified from first principles. The ESCA proponents are encouraged to figure out which of those solutions are wrong (hint: they're all wrong) and point out the errors in each of them with sufficient clarity to convince the type of person who writes such "proofs" that they need to go back to the drawing board. That road leads to total madness and is why the OR policy was developed in the first place. We're simply not in the business of reviewing original proofs--even if we have the expertise for it, unlike a journal we don't have the authority to reject a submission once and for all and close discussion on it if the person can keep arguing for acceptance on grounds of (claimed) correctness. So we simply don't accept correctness as grounds. We only accept verifiable citations.

I have serious doubts of the competence of some of the ESCA editors to be working on physics articles unless they're following published presentations very closely. I'd like it if someone like Mathsci were to look at their contributions and advise ANI about whether some kind of further intervention is needed. It's quite possible that the Speed of Light arbitration didn't ban enough people. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 04:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

As on the ESCA talk page, you are again totally wrong. E.g., on the entropy page, I had to remove "sourced" edits, because they were wrong. Of course, I could have cited another source, but then the discussion would degenerate into one about whose sources are better. That's besides the point, because it is easy to argue based on thermodynamics itself. All that ESCA asks the editor to do is to make sure the edits are consistent with the current scientific undersanding of the topic. The moment you do OR and write u a proof that "P = NP", then that clearly violates ESCA. The guidelines are very similar to the COI guidelines in that it asks editors to please be careful.

And please keep Mathsci out of this, he has a known POV against Likebox and the last thing we need here is engage in polemics. But, note that the whole idea of letting an expert review contributions of editors seems to be in the spirit of ESCA :) Count Iblis (talk) 14:42, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Another thing, I now remember that a few weeks ago here on AN/I, you were arguing about Likebox alleged problematic behavior and you then went over to the ESCA talk page, and voted against the proposals without reading what ESCA was about. You based your entire argument on the polemics of that AN/I debate. Count Iblis (talk) 15:04, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

All of this is a little too verbose for me, but this isn't the first or last time that a well-meaning editor "spams" the encyclopedia with an essay that they wish to promote into a guideline, or a template they wish to remain on talk pages as an editing suggestion for a family of articles. Sometimes you do have to nudge, cajole, and advocate a new proposal to other editors because for the most part editing advice does not promote itself. In this case it looks like the effort is a little too ambitious and is meeting some resistance. My advice here would be to go a little slower and less aggressively, to accept wider input from other editors, and perhaps to narrow the scope, e.g. to the hard sciences. The basic premise of the essay makes sense to me, and speaks to a wider point that is true in nearly all articles, that "verifiability, not truth" should not be taken to the extreme and that sometimes what we want is "verifiability and truth". Truth-testing verifiable statements is fairly helpful because some sources suffer from errors, interpretation, the vagaries of language, differing explanatory contexts, and so on. That has to be done carefully to avoid original research, or over-reliance on primary sources. Another reasonable claim is that sourcing requirements, and editing methods, should be adapted to fit the subject area of the article. Technical scientific articles surely work a little differently than articles about politics, entertainment, or current events. There are some overarching epistemological (or perhaps I should say encyclopedic) similarities, but also some specific differences. It makes some sense to write an essay about this, and perhaps even to encourage enough editors to abide by the essay that it does become a guideline and/or is well enough accepted to add to a talk page template. A good measure of acceptance would be whether it can be added without people objecting or removing it. Nobody objects, for example, if someone adds the "calm" template to politics articles, the "BLP" template for living individuals, or the "current event" or "recently deceased" templates where appropriate. By that measure this essay isn't quite ripe yet. Whether it will ever be ripe or not is a matter for the editors interested in the subject matter to decide, IMO. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll say it more succinctly; editors often find that they want exceptions to the content policies (particularly WP:NOR) for their own area of interest. When they have difficulty getting it, they try to change policy. This is a more interesting way of attempting to do that; writing an essay that contradicts policy, and then trying to promote it to guideline status through the back-door of a template. Jayjg 19:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:ESCA says among other things:

Check non-trivial statements you intend to insert into an article. Determine whether your statement could be invalid under some circumstances. To find out, you may need to study the entire source in which the statement is made, or look in other sources. The validity of a statement made on some particular page of a technical book may well rely upon necessary conditions mentioned many pages earlier, or even in another source. If you find that the statement is valid only within a specific context, you need explicitly to include that context in the article.

I don't think this is useful ammunition for edit warriors. Count Iblis (talk) 22:14, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by User:Neuromancer

User:Neuromancer has a consistent pattern of disruptive editing and talk page-inappropriate discussion, most problematically at HIV and Talk:HIV, and as another editor has stated, has "violated nearly every behavioral policy this site has". This user has repeatedly demonstrated an agenda of disrupting HIV-related articles with fringe viewpoints with no substantiation in RS. Despite extensive policy explanations and warnings from other editors, Neuromancer continues to pursue this course, including creating POV forks (HIV dissent, later re-directed, and Alternative HIV viewpoints, currently at AfD) containing synthesis, BLP violations and other problems. The user has been blocked previously for WP:3RR and given multiple warnings at the user talk page and on article talk pages by a large number of editors.

Neuromancer has also contributed several copyright violations, cutting and pasting from copyrighted sources without quoting or citing. This edit contains nine paragraphs copied verbatim from avert.org and a sentence and references copied from another website without citation. Warnings and explanations (Talk:HIV#Copyright_violations_by_Neuromancer, ) were ignored, with the user later performing another unreferenced copy and paste from a copyrighted website.

Neuromancer, after threatening to wikistalk ("However, I will be sure to peruse EVERY edit to EVERY article you have contributed to, just on the off chance you have somehow detracted from those articles as well"), has begun to make good on this threat by becoming engaged at Magnetic water treatment (an article on my watchlist), Cancell (an article contributed to by User:MastCell, ) and Medical uses of silver, following talk page interactions, including an accusation of censorship, with a regular silver editor, User:Hipocrite. Each of these editors has warned Neuromancer about a variety of behaviours in the past, with invariably hostile response. The diversity and scope of Neuromancer's disruptions suggests that intervention could be appropriate. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 19:49, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll add my voice, as an involved editor/admin, to the request for some outside eyes here. Neuromancer (talk · contribs) has been active in pressing an AIDS-denialist agenda across numerous articles (representative edit). Issues include:

• Persistent edit-warring (block log)
• Canvassing potentially sympathetic editors (), , , ).
• Most of his non-HIV-related edits seem to be based on Wikihounding; as Keepcalm points out, they're drawn from the contrib histories of editors with whom Neuromancer has been in conflict (followed Hipocrite (talk · contribs) to Dennis Ketcham (), etc).
• Creation of numerous POV forks, including Alternative HIV viewpoints and HIV dissent.
• This sort of thing - not that I'm fussed about having my IQ questioned - it's probably barely above room temperature anyway - but it's a bit grating coming from someone who's constantly accusing others of personal attacks and failure to assume good faith.
• Constant references to a "WP:HIV cabal", by which Neuromancer presumably means editors who hold the "POV" that HIV causes AIDS.
• Very basic WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT - despite extensive forum-shopping, and hearing a universal rejection of his proposed edits, Neuromancer keeps repeating the same arguments (see the last 5 or 6 threads at Talk:HIV for examples). He's indicated that he's "not going to stop" just because a "cabal" opposes his edits.
• He's cut-and-pasted a long section from an AIDS-denialist website, and then complained of having "hours of research" erased when this was reverted (will find diffs).

I would like some outside eyes on the situation, if anyone's willing. I don't want to be melodramatic, but these are the sorts of challenges that Misplaced Pages needs to handle effectively if it ever hopes to achieve its goal of becoming a serious, respectable reference work. MastCell  21:01, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Having looked at the diffs, talk pages, and assorted miscellany included here, this looks like a case of POV-pushing, with some intransigent statements by Neuromancer. I fear that this is just a continuation of a problem we've seen several times here over the last few weeks (and probably longer) where people with a strong, but minority or fringe POV feel like they are backed into a corner by consensus against them. While I'm not sure that their behaviour is indicative of a block, is there someone who would be willing (and more knowledgeable than I in these particular subjects) to work with Neuromancer to help them understand why their view is fringe and that this isn't personal, its just community consensus that happens to disagree with what they believe? I would also appreciate hearing from both Neuromancer, MastCell, and Hipocrite about their opinions.

On a semi-related note, how do we allow users such as Neuromancer to feel like they have been given an adequate opportunity to have their point of view heard and discussed and not simply swatted out of the air (not that this has happened here...but can happen very easily). While their points of view may be fringe, and not follow community consensus, how do we continue to honour their contributions while maintaining the integrity of WP, and without driving them away?

I'll return to this conversation a little later...its supper time! Frmatt (talk) 21:07, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I would agree that Neuromancer has been resistant to guidance, and has been very confrontational at times. The exchanges on Talk:HIV have been lengthy, but I do think some have been constructive - they've dealt with substantive issues, and resulted in edits that improved the article (only incrementally, though). I have not followed the activity outside Talk:HIV, but those diffs are disheartening. The WP culture takes some getting used to, and plunging into HIV was probably a mistake for a new editor. I'd like to see Neuromancer get some guidance, to understand the difference between disagreement and conspiracy. It's tiring and disruptive when an editor insists that others formally prove numerous well-established concepts that are already supported by reliable sources. -- Scray (talk) 22:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

• As someone who's interacted extensively with Neuromancer on Talk:HIV, I agree most with Scray's characterization. Emw (talk) 00:07, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

• As someone who has interacted, discussed, argued, and usually reached something of a consensus with both Scray and Emw (both of whom I have come to admire for their ability to semi effectively deal with me), and whom I have had much more interaction than anyone else involved in this discussion, I would like to to put out there than I am more than open to discourse of policy, disagreement and conspiracy.
• Additionally, I would like to point out that I do not believe there is a conspiracy to get rid of me, or I would already be gone. My references to the HIV cabal are due to this post on my talk page, and is mostly an attempt at humor, not an impassioned belief that "you are all after me..." Thank you for your patience, and I agree, perhaps HIV was not the place to jump into the Misplaced Pages as I have. But I am here, and trying to make the best of it. Neuromancer (talk) 00:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

As the guy who posted that, it was really in response to Mister Hospodar who happened to post some paranoid kind of stuff on Neuro's user talk. It is supposed to be a smidge humorous; it's actually a rather long-standing joke turned wisdom on wiki. However, I chose that link of all the essays on non-existent cabals to highlight that there is no cabal conspiring against you unless you created it. I guess it didn't take the desired effect as Neuro began referring to cabals afterward, rats.

I full well admit that I took and ran, more as humorous jab back at you, and a few others, than anything serious. I don't think there is a cabal, HOWEVER, there are a group of you who very adamantly defend and revert edits on a number of similar pages. After reading your posted words of wisdom, I thought it humorously appropriate to throw it back at you in kind. My references to a cabal have never been more than half-hearted humor in an attempt to lighten the situation. Seeing as how you are the only one who got the joke... Well, crap! Neuromancer (talk) 02:42, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Heh, well, good to know now then! Thanks for clarifying. JoeSmack 02:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Anyways, here are my words on the subject. Neuro isn't the only fellow who's made himself heard towards AIDS denialism on talk pages over the years. In particular though, there has been a lot of passion from him that is very accusatory, and this more than anything began sparking contention.

I really tried to steer the conversation as much as possible to specific constructive discourse about articles in question , but largely this opportunity was not taken advantage of. Instead, in response to his broad debates, there have been several clear, spelled out arguments highlighting the faults in the particular angle he takes on AIDS denialism (, to name a couple i did). The AfD for the content fork of AIDS denialism alone should be a pretty clear wake up call.

I think he hears and sees them but is still trying to game policy/guidelines in his favor, such as omitting "although content may be shortened or moved if it gives undue weight to a minor point of view, as explained below." to the WP:YESPOV quote in his response below, etc. There has probably been a bit a wikistalking, and cries of censorship/this must be heard/you can't erase history kind of brew-ha-ha, but I like keeping editors more than loosing them so I would love to see mentoring or fostering of better habits than blocks. JoeSmack 02:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I'd like to respond to Frmatt above because I think it is a step we need to discuss too. For one, I would say that there has been so much effort by AIDS denialists over the years to bend NPOV of HIV/AIDS articles that it has left a somewhat bitter taste in the mouth. I've been patrolling for about four years now, and the last conflict that was this big was Special:Contributions/Sci_guy. Every effort since has felt like a rehash that gets a little tired, thus this tends to be my first kind of question towards the reprise - . So, somewhat WP:BITEY, I would say so, at least for me. Can someone not previously involved in this incident maybe provide how they'd deal with it better? JoeSmack 03:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Oooh..."Specious" and "Spurious"...I'm impressed by your vocabulary! lol

In all seriousness, though, I will admit that after four years of that type of thing, my response would probably be very similar. In response to your question, I think that you were surprisingly civil, not overly bitey and all in all gave an appropriate response. I wonder if there might be a solution in creating a subpage that is permanently linked to the talk page...something like Talk:HIV/Other Claims with the notation that this page would contain discussion of other claims about HIV that have previously been discussed, and been excluded as a result of consensus...including the appropriate sources that were considered. This would allow users to see the arguments that have already been made, what the consensus was, and how the consensus was achieved. This would also allow users the option of adding new information and sources that may have come to light recently and provide a talking area that wouldn't necessarily clog up the main talk page. I know that as a (relatively) new user, I would appreciate that, especially in some of the articles that I edit which contain some controversial topics. It may also give new users (at least to that page) the knowledge that there is a place for them to express their points of view and to see what the consensus about them is. Frmatt (talk) 03:30, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert on AN/I, but my sense is that we should be focused on the concerns raised here about Neuromancer's editing, rather than a side discussion of how to make it easier for new editors of HIV (even though this is very constructive and well-intentioned). -- Scray (talk) 04:21, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Very true, and I've added it elsewhere.

Brought this offtopic, my bad. Frmatt, that is one idea but i'm wary of having subpages as they tend to get abandoned, and subtalk pages do even more so. I'll look at the username project link you provided, thanks for the feedback. Ok, i'm gonna whisk this into a collapsebox. JoeSmack 17:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Knowing that ANI is not necessarily the place to propose any type of restrictions, I would like to ask Neuromancer if they would be amenable to having an uninvolved editor work with them to help them understand the policies? Specifically, that when Neuromancer finds themselves in an edit/content conflict, that they would invite their mentor/coach into the conversation as someone who is relatively impartial and working to ensure that they understand the policies about WP:FRINGE, WP:RS, WP:POV, especially when they find themselves in conflict. Frmatt (talk) 04:27, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Response by Neuromancer

I assume that I can weigh in on this conversation?

• First and foremost, I have edited in good faith, with the intent to better the Misplaced Pages in general.
• Secondly, I am not trying to push a fringe POV. This is my understanding, please correct me if I am mistaken...

• Wikipolicy requires at WP:NPOV that “All Misplaced Pages articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources.” It further requires at WP:YESPOV that “Article content should not be deleted solely on the grounds that it is "POV"" and that "The neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject, nor does it endorse or oppose specific viewpoints.”

That being said, I have also reviewed WP Fringe Theories Noticeboard, which states:

• Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

I fully understand that there are those who think that questioning the science behind HIV is ridiculous and worthy of censoring, however, there are those in the scientific community, who have published peer reviewed papers, questioned many aspects of HIV, AIDS, and the connection between the two. While the cabal currently editing the HIV and AIDS denialism articles claims a NPOV, and that they do not have to give equal eight to fringe POV, a simple review of their resistance to the inclusion of balanced information, whether it be in those articles, or in separate articles, seems very clear that they are not willing to be neutral on the subject.

As far as "Wikistalking" as Hipocrite has accused me of, I cannot even begin to express how petulant that statement is. While I will admit that I have reviewed other editors contributions, and even weighed in on a couple of the articles that they have been involved in, I am not now, nor have I ever, edited an article simply to "frustrate" another editor. This accusation was posted to my talk page by Hipocrite just this morning. While I do tend to have an interest in alternative health treatments, such as HIV, cancer, etc, I have also edited such articles as the Fort hood shooting. I think it is an unfair characterization to say that I am stalking anyone.

When it comes to canvassing... I fail to see how mentioning to another editor that a discussion is taking place that they may be interested in, is somehow a bad thing. I in fact copied this practice from such editors as Verbal and Hipocrite, who routinely post messages on one another's talk pages requesting input regarding a particular topic of debate throughout the Wiki. I have not requested that they take a particular viewpoint, merely that they have expressed interest in the topic in the past, and may be interested in the current conversation. Here is the most recent example I can readily find , or Nunh-huh, JoeSmack, TechBear.

I have not cut and pasted long sections from denialist web sites. I did take a list of factors known to cause false positive HIV antibody tests, which had 64 references, and use it in the site, and the original compiler was given credit. The references did not have any DOI or PMID information, let alone being suitable for Wiki formatting. Each and every one of those references was researched, updated, verified to be on point, and formated by me. I would call that hours of research.

As far as the "creation of numerous POV forks... I cannot agree with that. I have created 3 articles here. 2 on the topic of HIV. Initially, I un-forwarded HIV dissent and created article content there. That was nominated for deletion, and reverted back to a forward, the next day, prior to a discussion or consensus being reached. So I then created a new namespace, Alternative HIV viewpoints, where I published relatively the same article, which has also been nominated for deletion. Again, prior to the AfD discussion closing, the article was wiped and forwarded, and for trying to prevent this, I received a 24 hour ban. How is consensus and discussion supposed to take place when there is no article to discuss?

So, salient points:

• Always in good faith...
• Been Bold
• Ignored all rules, except for personal attacks. (Never have I personally attacked an editor)
• Modified behavior as users have brought potential violations to my attention.

Neuromancer (talk) 22:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I hope someone realizes that it is highly coincidental that a user who has edited what - 5 mainspace articles has somehow overlapped and edit-warred against people he has disagreements with on 4 of them - and those 4 are in totally disparate subjects, with the note that he has expressed an interest in a 5th, totally disparate subject here. How far does AGF go? Hipocrite (talk) 23:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

• Incidentally, I became involved with Dennis the Menace because I was following AfD, not you. When you nominate an article for delete or merge, it is common courtesy to allow the discussion to take place for the requisite 7 days. Blanking and forwarding is just rude, and makes any discussion difficult. Neuromancer (talk) 00:34, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Colloidal Silver has been used in Alternative HIV and Cancer treatments. It is not, as you say, "disparate." I have not intentionally edit warred with anyone. After it was brought to my attention, I changed my behavior. I have been involved in edit controversy in HIV and Alternative HIV Viewpoints. If there is another article you think is relevant, please list it. Neuromancer (talk) 23:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

User: DaleEastman, rapidfire blanketing, vote fixing

For the past 18 hours or so, there's been a substantial bulk article editing going on involving User:DaleEastman and his mysterious counterpart 74.248.35.168. Puppet issue? Half of it. Other half is attempted vote fixing, disruption, article edit blanketing, some personal harassment. I admit it's a moderately weak case on both halves but combined it's impossible to deal with... that and none of the CU criteria currently apply.

I accidentally ran into this situation on the categories for deletion board while I was exceedingly bored last evening. Ok, minor vote fixing. Not huge but it'll set up the rest! Take this CfD here. First seen a 'keep' vote without disclosing authorship of the category here, followed later by a comment in the exact same tone as earlier with another 'keep' vote here. Upon inspecting the contributions of each , besides the very obvious shared articles of choice, note the time the edits on DaleEastman ends and immediately picks up on the 74.x ... which happened just after a rather nasty comment finishing a conversation on his talk page here. I left XfD deletion and NPA lvl3 warnings on the user's talk page as each was a least a 2nd offense just that evening.

I guess I should get to the created category of contention. In the past day this user has taken the time to clear the CfD tag off 3 times. Oh wait, actually it's the "user' first and the IP the later two. Now, I can handle the new category. Sure, I admit I suggested for deletion based on redundancy and the fact it's not ever spelled correctly. I know you can CSD-C2 for that but the discussion was already up. Since we can't rename it just yet, figured I'd see what was tagged so that it was actually accurate. Well, not so much. Since this a political and religious firestorm of a topic I decided to set really really basic guidelines on vandalism cleanup. Since the category is for "Islamist" activity, I figured I'd be generous and search for "Islam" generically on the marked articles. I caught about 10 or so total (40% ro so), some with other disruptive, inciting, hoax information that I figured also needed to go. After all of that, I left extremely polite messages on the user talk page of User talk:Sherurcij and User talk:DaleEastman telling them what I'd done. These two had apparently "started" it all with the original CfD nomination and had done some sporadic hit-and-run edit warring across a number of pages.

It's just continuing this afternoon from the IP, tagging and minor edits some places, but most of that has been caught by patrols. It's been more the rather depressing attack toward me and last. I was a tad overzealous in my last post there, I confess, but given how much civility I'd given up to that point I didn't quite know how to react. I really did go far, far out of my way to try to reach for some good faith and stay on the fence on his sensitive Terrorism issue. The only good part of my coming in last night was that this user stopped wikistalking and User Serurcij who apparently focuses in articles of captured terror suspects, apparently. I don't care for either end of that argument and I did everything I could think of to just use policy in my changes.

To top it off for today, how about some random biting back from a welcome template here Um. Any help would be appreciated. The one polite thing I will say about both DaleEastman and the IP is that they didn't vandalize my user page. Sherurcij isn't 100% innocent from disruption either with some somewhat-heated talk page hitting, but very mild comparatively. My guess about DaleEastman was he got somewhat upset about an article probation warning on an article he created. Maybe that would have been a little too obvious. Anyway, they both seem highly politically-motivated with long and highly-focused edit histories and past admin intervention on different things, but DaleEasman and Mr 74.x have been quite... disruptive (and I have no idea if there are more IPs; some looked suspicious but I wanted to get to this). The IP seems to have taken a break and has added a red link for a new category "Terrorism by type", well, I'd rather not have to spend a few more hours on this.

Thanks! ♪ daTheisen(talk) 20:48, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I undid the removal of the CFD template and blocked 74.248.35.168 (talk) as a disruptive and obvious sock of DaleEastman (talk · contribs). I'll also add a warning to DaleEastman's page. If the disruption or socking resumes, please report it back here, but could you please keep it shorter next time ? Abecedare (talk) 21:05, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Understood. I haven't figured out how to be brief yet and am used to RfCs and the like. Thanks! ♪ daTheisen(talk) 21:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Hold up here. Since when is socking not met with an immediate indef? Jtrainor (talk) 06:39, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not always an immediate Indef, Plus it's an IP...--SKATER 07:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate WP:OWNing of an article by User:William M. Connolley

I'd like an uninvolved admin to take a look at this. WMC stating he is just going to wait for other editors to get fed up and stop editing. WMC refactoring other people's talk edits. WMC telling other editors to leave. WMC telling other editors to leave, again. ---Irbisgreif-(talk | e-mail)-(contribs) 21:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that this was ill-advised, and I'd encourage WMC not to do it again. The other edits do not appear problematic; perhaps slightly less civil than is optimal, but nothing beyond what's normal in heated talk page discussions. Steve Smith (talk) 21:25, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay. ---Irbisgreif-(talk | e-mail)-(contribs) 21:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The complaintant may be violating WP:POINT, but WMC has been WP:OWNing the article for some time, continually removing tags without consensus, and reverting attempts to change the article in any way, or even to clarify inclusion criteria. He has had consensus for some of his edits. (I admit to arguing for deletion in the AfD, and have been opposed to WMC in some disputed edits, but agreeing with him in others. I don't consider him agreeable, but WP:CIVIL is not in question here.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Harassing and WP:POINT violations by Irbisgreif

The above complaint needs a bit more context. About two weeks ago, Irbisgreif nominated List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming for deletion for the 4th (sic - the article was nominated also under a previous name) time . He/she claimed POV and BLP violations. All previous nominations failed as clear keep, this one failed as no consensus. The article was taken to DRV, where (s)he again claimed BLP problems with the article multiple times. The DRV was closed as an endorse. Shortly after that, his/her BLP concerns seem to have vanished, and (s)he created Category:Scientists Opposing The Mainstream Scientific Assessment Of Global Warming and populated it with a large number of people, in clear violation of WP:BLPCAT. WMC and I removed the unsourced categorizations, and I nominated the category for deletion. Now Irbisgreif has initiated a completely spurious sockpuppet case against WMC involving several long-term and established editors. I have to say that my good faith has been stretched beyond breaking point... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Yep, this is utter drivel on Ig's part. Having tried and failed to delete the article, Ig now wants to fiddle around with it, or create an entire categrory around it, or who knows exactly what. But improving the encyclopaedia doesn't seem to be one of Ig's goals. The only thing Stephan fails to note in the above is that the DR was an abuse of process and done on entirely spurious grounds William M. Connolley (talk) 22:49, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that addition is not the case. There had been a change in the deletion policy, to make "no consensus" in a BLP matter default to "delete", instead of to "keep". There is clear consensus that the article is about living persons, although not for or against the statement that there are any prsent BLP violations. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:05, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there has been no such change. A much weaker change is being discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Deletion policy#Default_to_delete_for_BLPs and clearly rejected by the community. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

In a bizarre coincidence, Ig has left the building William M. Connolley (talk) 10:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

That's pretty weird. Maybe he "disappeared down a rathole?" Flying Jazz (talk) 14:54, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Please give it time and return to bickering and battling in a week.

I'd like to thank Steve Smith for discouraging WMC from blanking out talk page comments (particularly, mine). Other than that, I'd like to encourage administrators to ignore this mess. These editors are all passionate about their viewpoints (as am I), and we're all suspicious of each other (and some of us have more reason to be than others), and we're all cranky (including me). My view is that Irbisgreif shouldn't have formed the category recently. I agree with WMC; that was weird. Don't know what got into him. My view is that WMC and KimDabelsteinPetersen shouldn't have blanked out my talk page comment. That was beyond weird. Don't know what got into them. Irbisgreif also shouldn't have started that sockpuppetry case. That was really strange. You've been a naughty group of very naughty, naughty editors, and I don't think any of you have clean hands (except me, of course). Maybe you're all really the same person and you're acting in such overtly bizarre ways in order to scare away anyone rational (like me, of course). By the way, I do agree agree at the moment with basic premise of this AN/I notice. I think WMC and the "group" referred to in my blanked talk page posts really are violating WP:OWN in addition to WP:BATTLE. However, I'm willing to admit to the possibility that my view may be influenced by recent events during the AfD and deletion review, like WMC's unfounded accusations of bad faith when I contacted him on his talk page. That was weird. In summary, I hope administrators do nothing and editors keep away for a week and try to de-weirdify. Flying Jazz (talk) 23:30, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

block review

I have found it necessary to block an editor for 48 hours for repeatedly adding a defamatory link to multiple pages. The rationale for doing so is on my talk page, at & the link in its edit history. a few edits before that. I have asked two other admin to check my work, and their supporting comments are on the user talk page . Since the editor involved persists in considering me prejudiced, I mention it here. If any admin so considers it , they are at liberty to remove the block. Alternatively, any admin is also welcome to extend it, if they agree with me that this editor's conduct here has become a personal vendetta against the subject of the article involved, based on off wiki events . DGG ( talk ) 22:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It certainly seems OK to me. You gave fair warning and they didn't stop. TNXMan 22:30, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I had a look at his edit history--he's been here since 2007, and virtually all of his edits have been to the Joseph Schlessinger article. He was warned as early as his first month here, and still kept it up. I'm not only endorsing this block, but extending it indefinitely, as I don't see any prospect of him ever getting it. Blueboy96 03:39, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

fine with me--the one-subject concentration will easily indicate what's up if it resumes under another name. I agree ghat this is the sort of enmity that is unlike to die down with time. DGG ( talk ) 16:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Explicit threats of violence

Yeah, they're probably a joke. Yeah, it's probably just a vandal. Anyway, I just thought I should toss it up here anyway to see if people agree with me, because I simply don't think this is obvious enough for one person to make a decision. 89.243.191.126 (talk · contribs) made a couple fairly explicit threats of violence, between two of the edits giving both victims and a location where the violence will occur. and Someguy1221 (talk) 22:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I blocked them and if someone would like to report it to the proper authorities, I think that would be a good step. Mentioning names and places is too specific too ignore. TNXMan 22:40, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the contacts/info to report this (I presume a checkuser would?) but the school referred to is likely to be Queens Park Community School, in Brent (not Queens Park High School, which is in Chester). The school can be contacted by email on info@qpcs.brent.sch.uk (published on their website), but of course it's sunday here. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Does anybody know if a checkuser if being done on this? It probably is worth forwarding it to the authorities and I guess the IP alone would be enough info but it would be worth seeing what a checkuser throws up. RaseaC (talk) 23:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't know. The IP address geolocates to Waterloo, which is in central London south of the river. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Just a note that since this is an IP editing, there is nothing for a checkuser to do since a checkuser's only task is to look at IPs of a logged in account, not handle matters involving IP threats of violence. MBisanz 23:53, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

As the IP specifically refers to something about a pupil being Somalian in one, and black in the other, I could use the Met's online hate crime reporting tool, but does someone else have a more direct route? If not, I will do that and email the school - although both might come better from a Misplaced Pages email address. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

No one has a more direct route. And no one like the checkusers has a Misplaced Pages email. It is all up to individual editors to decide what they will and will not do. MBisanz 00:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure there's a quote about elves goes in here somewhere. I'll probably email the school tomorrow. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest ringing the Met as well, to be on the safe side. They generally have good working relationships with secondary schools. 0300 123 1212. ninety:one 00:27, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. That first diff is distinctly unsettling...Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, I won't bother because someone has OVERSIGHTED the diffs, thereby making it impossible for me to show them to anybody. Left hand meet right hand - perhaps the oversighter might like to contact the school or the cops. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:55, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I think two things need to happen here. Firstly the WP office needs to be informed because I assume the diffs still exist somewhere and secondly whoever deleted them should explain what else they have done in response to this incident. If we only have the IP to go with it could probably be reported to the met as I assume they've got better tools at their disposal. RaseaC (talk) 01:27, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

]. There's another from a different IP. This one has been reported to the police seeing as we actually have evidence of it, and I've taken a screengrab to be on the safe side. I've not done anything in response to the first incident. RaseaC (talk) 01:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The Queens Park Community School in London has been informed of the threat, a quote and a link if it is still valid. I do not have an email for the Salusbury Road, MET Police, but their number is +44 20 7372 1212, if anyone feels the need to call them. Neuromancer (talk) 01:47, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

A link to the third diff has been forwarded to the met along with a quote from the diff incase the link doesn't work and the second IP (81.100.220.76) which seems to be the same person. RaseaC (talk) 01:51, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

FYI, admins can still view the first Jamaica diff; I believe the Zimbabwe one can still be viewed. —Ed (talk • contribs) 04:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I assumed that would be the case, is there an admin that is able to report this to the authorities? RaseaC (talk) 13:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Resolved – IP Editor blocked for 1 week by User:MuZemike

Resolved – Blocked James086 08:07, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Resolved – IP has been blocked for 31 hours.

Durova 08:08, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Resolved – Not an on wikipedia issue - OP directed to resources elsewhere

Resolved – both blocked for edit warring. -- zzuuzz 10:38, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

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