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Umpteenth edit war in Gibraltar

Entire discussion moved to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Gibraltar to centralize discussion and to free up space on ANI. MuZemike

Request interaction ban on Drolz09

Entire discussion has been moved to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Drolz09 to centralize discussion and to free up space here. MuZemike

Incivility by User:TJ Spyke

• TJ Spyke (talk · message · contribs · page moves · edit summaries · count · api · logs · block log · email)

I had a discussion on mine and his talk page about an earlier good faith edit which I undid (See here: ), early in the discussion he did hint towards some incivility and I did discuss what I thought the main element of the conversation was before and after his incivility and then he blatantly violated WP:CALM while I was still trying to keep it civil and then he called me an "ASS" before he cracked a Sarah Palin joke which I believe it to have an uncivil meaning, he's had numerous warnings about uncivil behaviour, as well as edit warring which he was recently blocked for if you check his block log , I believe this to be just another case involving some of his immature antics and he obviously hasn't learned from his unblock on September 1, 2007 which reads "User agrees to conditions set out on his talk page and on Misplaced Pages:Community sanction noticeboard. Further disruption to result in an indefinite block", I believe its time for an indefinite block as he's clearly caused more disruption and anymore disruption was supposed to result in an indefinite block. Afro 03:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Endorse indef block - Final civility/edit warring warning was given last month after this ANI thread. He was just blocked for edit warring a few days ago. Enough already. iMatthew  at 03:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree as well sadly. I've had numerous discussions with him about his failure to accept changes, I feel he is just causing a disruption now. I once looked up to him, but now noticing all the problems that have resulted from him, I see he'll never change. I'm not saying I am perfect, but sometimes I even know when to let things go. He obviously goes by his own rules, and most times they just cause more problems than needed.--WillC 04:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
    • Will, I think you are doing this simply because you don't agree with me on many things. TJ Spyke 00:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
• Endorse/support as well given the block log (17 blocks, including a couple indefs and one block from just a few days ago) and warnings. Such additional comments as "expect by people too lazy to check the capitalization" from today come off as needlessly hostile if not baiting (notice the others oppose there without making the suggestion that those who support are somehow "lazy"). Plus in such recent discussions as this, berating everyone who dares argue to keep with repeated WP:ITSCRUFT (not even policy/guideline based) comments seems a bit too antagonistic as well. Sincerely, --A Nobody 04:09, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
  • The YouTube comment wasn't aimed at anybody on Misplaced Pages, I was referring to people in the media since often they don't bother to get capitalization for tech stuff right before they print articles (it's annoying reading a article and see the writer constantly write "Ipod", for example). All of my replies in the AFD have been civil, so I don't see what you are trying to do with those. TJ Spyke 00:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
• Unsubstantiated - Sept 1, 2007 was more than two years ago. The current discussion is heated, but barely passes the noticable level under WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA. It is certainly not disruption. If you have evidence of further personal attacks or disruption or gross incivility please provide diffs of those. We need much much more evidence to justify indef blocking someone who's a longtime contributor. Please don't bring cases unless you have sufficient evidence ready to go... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Further this - the block log is numerous prior to the Sept 2007 indef and then parole. However, since then, he's only had two - 3RR blocks in June and a few days ago in December. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose indef block Per GWH above. I don't see where this rises to the level of indefinite blockage. Yeah, this stuff is a bit incivil, but I don't see where we should hold a 2-year old block against TJ Spyke here. Other than 2 editwar blocks, he seems to have avoided any trouble in the past two years. --Jayron32 05:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, there was the incivility final warning from last month, but he's behaved since then other than these two. Even if this is a violation of that final warning, if that's all that has happened since the final warning then he's really only in line for a 24h block (beginning of the block escalation chain) as he hasn't been blocked for this recently. And it's not clear to me that this is justification for a block at all, even with a final warning a month ago. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:18, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

See this shouldn't be entirely about his incivility. There is also his endless edit wars over some important and some trivial things. His refusal to agree to a consensus. Plus his harassment on AFDs, including the current Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of WWE Raw Guest Hosts. Him being blocked 2 years ago is still a problem. No matter what the time frame, this just comes to show he never learned from those many blocks in the pasted. Plus he just being blocked a few days ago and I've already seen that he went straight back to edit warring over list formats after it ended. His incivility was even discussed just a month and 12 days ago. In this archived discussion, plenty of proof is given to show that he has had enough time to stop his incivility. That discussion did not result in a block because he agreed to change his ways. That being so recent, clearly he has not. With all these disruptions present, I don't see a reason to not block him.--WillC 06:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

2 out of 3 admins responding so far seem to disagree with blocking, on the evidence submitted so far. You need to make a better case than this. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:42, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Let me clarify that somewhat. The proposed jump to an immediate indef is definitely clouding this discussion. I believe that given the evidence here, an indef is simply completely inappropriate, and it was inappropriate to ask for one.

The question of whether he's misbehaving to some degree or another, violating the final warning from last month, whether these recent comments are sufficiently uncivil as to be actionable - these are different questions than "should we indef him right now".

Jumping straight from a warning to indef - absent obvious disruption/vandalism only abuse or something stunningly horrible - is moar dramaz pls - not a responsible approach. If you want to make a case that he's done wrong here enough to justify normal blocking - for 24 h, 48 h, whatever - that's a far easier thing to do, and not obviously a mistake under the circumstances.

If someone would like to restart this conversation from that standpoint and argue the case for enough abuse post-final-warning for a short, normal block, then that would be a good next step.

I do not have enough time this evening to conduct a complete examination myself. Some other admin may - or you can provide us more appropriate levels of detail to justify it (to me, Jayron, others).

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The complainer, User:Afkatk (renamed Afro), seems to have lost. Complaining about someone is incivility. We must have accountability. In America, there is no accountability, which is why lawsuits are rampant and causes all kind of trouble. If the consensus is to block TJSpike, then do it. If the consensus is against it, then Afro should be blocked for at least a week to prevent another disruption of drama and nuisance complaints. Only when there is accountability, will drama be reduced. JB50000 (talk) 08:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support blocking User:Afkatk/Afro if the current consensus continues. JB50000 (talk) 08:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

"Complaining about someone is incivility"? Yikes. I'm no fan of our current civility standards, but that's got to be one of the most pernicious statements on civility I've ever seen made outright on-wiki. I see nothing in WP:CIV to support this statement; in fact, it directly contravenes that policy:

From WP:CIV (relevant phrase in bold): To insist that an editor be sanctioned for an isolated, minor offense, or to treat constructive criticism as an attack, is itself potentially disruptive, and may result in warnings or even blocks if repeated.

This is the sort of statement that can be used to justify overzealous enforcement of standards not applicable to the given situation, or to skew sanction discussions in directions they weren't ever meant to go. Please, in the light of what WP:CIV actually says, please reconsider this stance. Thanks...GJC 20:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• I'm still undecided on this per the discussion above. However, can TJ Spyke or anyone else explain this? MuZemike 09:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

JB50000, I ask what has Afkatk done wrong? Reporting a user for constant violations of civil, 3RR, etc. If that is such a crime, then everyone in this entire site should be blocked. JB50000, are you not at fault for what you just said. You are complaining over this report. Mind you, this discussion is still in its early stages. MuZemike, it looks to be a discussion over formats. Something TJ has discussion with 4 different editors and edit warred with 5. Yet even after being shown changes has been done with format, he goes ahead and starts up another edit war.--WillC 09:15, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

So far two-thirds of people have been opposed and only one-third for block. If Afkatk (who hides the username with the name Afro) calls for a permanent block and the censensus is against that, then that person should receive disciplinary action. It's like if you sue someone friviously and lose, you have to pay the winner's legal fees, at least that is the way in the UK (but not in the US, which is why there is a lawyer problem in America). If Afkatk/Afro called for a 3 month block and was wrong, then that is excusable but to call for a permanent block and call for it wrongly (according to the consensus), then action must be taken. This is why this noticeboard is flooded with complaints. People can complain and don't have to take responsibility for their complaints. I am not against Atkatk. What I said in the beginning was to block TJ if consensus supported it but to take disciplinary action against Atkatk/Afro is consensus was that no block was taken. If a short block is the consensus, then do that and Akatk/Afro's complaint is validated. JB50000 (talk) 04:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes 2/3rds do seem against me but that still does not make any justification for blocking me, I don't see in what universe of logic it makes sense to block someone because they've brought an incident here. Afro (Not a Talk Page) 10:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

People have asked for more evidence, and I can not give that at the moment since I don't know where anymore is, though I am sure it exists. I would rather TJ not be blocked out of the kindness of my heart, however, his constant disruptions have turned my hand. I would like for more users who know TJ to get involved in this discussion. Would anyone mind if I was to contact WP:PW, the project which is primarily participates, about this discussion, to allow more users to give their opinion?--WillC 10:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

WillC, look at that diff more closely. You may have missed something in there which was why I brought that diff up. MuZemike 17:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Other than a few insults, all I see is a format discussion. Not sure what exactly you are referring to though.--WillC 18:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

"ASSumming"? MuZemike 20:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• TJ Spyke has quite a history of problematic behaviour but does seem to have been better lately. Given the history a block is probably warranted, and I would have trouble knowing when to expire such a block given past history, but it's surely not time for the banhammer here. I'd say we need to talk to TJ Spyke and find out why this particular issue has caused such a problem. I've suggested to Afro that xe seek a mediator as the present debate does not seem to be heading anywhere good. The root is what looks like a good faith content dispute so I don't see any reason why mediation can't fix it. Guy (Help!) 11:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
• Since the unblock in 2007, there have been quite a few incidents, including at least one admin board interest per month this season:
  • October 2009: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive569#TJ_Spyke and Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive572#User:TJ_Spyke_using_wikicleaner_to_bypass_redirects_contrary_to_WP:R2D
  • November 2009: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive576#Incivilty_from_TJ_Spyke
  • December 2009: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:TJ_Spyke_reported_by_User:Afkatk_.28Result:24_hours_.29 and of course this current thread
• Sincerely, --A Nobody 16:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a comment about TJ Spyke's block log. Most of the blocks were placed by Alkivar, who was desysopped in an arbitration case with his behavior towards TJ Spyke a significant part of why he was desysopped. So perhaps it would be prudent to take all the blocks Alkivar instated against TJ with a grain of salt. 96.244.150.95 (talk) 19:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Endorse. Per above. If this disruptive behavior isn't going to stop, then the user should be blocked. -FASTILY 20:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Ordinarily I'd agree but here we see a long-standing pattern of problem behaviour, a significant period of evident reform, and then what looks like a slide towards recidivism. I think we should try some kind of parole first before we simply give up on the guy. Guy (Help!) 21:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Just because he wasn't banned for two years doesn't mean he was reformed. There has been at least 4 ANI discussions about him (besides the ones linked above) just in the past few months. here are several just from October. Wwehurricane1 (talk) 00:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• Is there a reason no one bothered to inform me of this discussion so I could defend myself? First, to the first user: I was not trying to b uncivil and I apologize if they thought I was (I don't think I was). I asked him why he was assuming he knew my thought on something and I jokingly asked him if he knew what happens when you assume (the old adage that "when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me"); I wasn't trying to be rude. The Sarah Palin thing wasn't incivil and came after I had to ask him something 3 times before he answered (referring to how Palin always tries to avoid answering questions and instead comments on something unrelated). As for Will's comment about refusing to accept consensus, I stopped doing the activities mentioned in that report. As for my block log, thanks to the IP for pointing that out; the admin who was responsible for most of them (including the indef block) eventually got de-sysopped for his actions torwards me and others. TJ Spyke 00:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Because User talk:TJ Spyke#ANI Notice, wasn't notice enough? and the Sarah Palin crack really wasn't necessary, I still gave you the answer you requested and you responded by being uncivil and cracking an unnecessary joke. Afro 00:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Indef block Per GWH and above. The links provided show somewhat heated disputes, but nothing that rises to the level of indefinite blockage. 00:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose any block It would appear to me that the crux of this issue is the afore mentioned AfD discussion. A number of people have been badgering TJ (without being uncivil just for the record) and I note that a couple involved - including the OP of this incident - were involved in this. I suggest that TJ has been provoked by the opinion pushing of others, who should perhaps review their own behaviour before having a go at TJ's. As the old saying goes; "It takes two to tango". !! Justa Punk !! 05:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose any block There have been several times that I have disagreed with TJ Spyke (including during an AfD that is currently active). He is firm in his opinions and often blunt. Despite having had several disagreements, however, I have never had any negative interactions with him. A block would be harmful to Misplaced Pages, as his actions don't justify it, and blocking a productive contributor without just cause makes no sense. GaryColemanFan (talk) 06:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose any block Has done really nothing wrong just trying to prove his points. Also if he gets blocked for these reasons I should be too because i've done this before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Curtis23 (talk • contribs) 02:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Considering the LONG list of warnings on your talkpage, I'm sure TJ appreciates your support, Curtis, lol. Wwehurricane1 (talk) 02:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose indef block - At this time. User has demonstrated a pattern of worrisome conduct, but little recently. If the community would like to impose a block for any recent activity, I will support, but I am not aware of any precedent in which a user has been indef blocked after more than a year, after having contributed successfully to the encyclopedia. Sephiroth storm (talk) 14:30, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• I'm just gonna drop this since obviously consensus for what it seems is against any type of block against TJ (at least what I can make out) so I don't see any type of reason to continue this discussion, sorry if I've wasted anyones time. Afro (Not a Talk Page) 10:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

User:DBaba

DBaba (talk · contribs) in this edit on the talk page of Cave of the Patriarchs massacre is accusing me of being rascist/nationalistic, running a cabal, harassing, and being POV. And all of that after I worked it all out with another editor there, due to both of us being civil and sticking to the rules of Misplaced Pages, as that same section testifies. DBaba seems to have a serious bias here, as well as a problem with neutrally assessing my person. I have informed him of this discussion here. Debresser (talk) 23:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with these characterizations of what I've had to say. Debresser's activity continues to trouble me, and I find that this is just an alternative means of obstruction he has resorted to. DBaba (talk) 23:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Your viscious and baseless attack compared to the discussion preceding it says it all. Debresser (talk) 23:33, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't seem a seriously sticky attack. Is that all there is, or has he made other statements you find objectionable? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

That is all, mam. Frankly, I find that more than enough. Debresser (talk) 23:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

My previous post got removed somehow. It ran like this:

DBaba continues on Talk:Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre#Mediation calling people by unacceptable names. Debresser (talk) 23:46, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is DBaba's post in full:

Hope this helps. DBaba, my experience is you're generally a pretty good guy, but there's a problem with calling other editors racist. Remember the fiasco on Nanking Massacre a while ago? I was just being stupid, but you and User:Flyingtiger were convinced I was a Japanese negationist. Try and assume good faith of Debresser. ALI 01:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

E.g. If I remove a sentence or paragraph, it is either unsourced, or irrelevant. And I am willing to defend any my decision to do so. If User:DBaba has any specific problems he could have raised them on the talk page, as another editor has done. In view of my edits, it seems unjust to assume I have a POV agenda. In fact, I have made edits and comments to this article and its talk page that are contrary to what I would have liked, based on the facts and a neutral way of representing them. Calling editing - "interfering", is plain ridiculous. Especially since I am not what you would call a "newbie" on Misplaced Pages, and have numerous edits to my name, including many on pages related to Judaism. In short, User:DBaba seems to have a bias here, both in regard with the article as with me personally, and he has a very unpleasant way of expressing it. I think a civility warning is the least he should receive. Debresser (talk) 10:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Here are six instances of Debresser using the Undo function to remove cited and neutral text, all from this same article, in the space of one week.

I do not peg him as actually participating in any FBI-designated terrorist group, as is apparently the case with some of my other foils in this area, but this hasn't stopped him from working fruitfully to the same end: blanking factual and cited information, with the claim that it is "not important". I am troubled by this and I am troubled that he still does not understand what he has done wrong; and I believe he is being manipulative when he suggests I am "calling people by unacceptable names", or that I have been vicious.

I also think he and I can work this out without any help from outside, and that his choice to come here to seek sanction against me is a stunt which further demonstrates political activism on his part. And I apologize for calling him an ethnonationalist, which only served to change the subject from how awful and POV his editing has been, as well as being needless and an inefficient method of bringing him into the light. DBaba (talk) 18:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Apology accepted. But you see, you are doing it again! Now you are accusing me of coming here as "a stunt". You just don't seem to know what Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith is about... As to my removals of "cited and neutral text", please see the talk page that at least part of it is considered POV by some, or is indeed plain irrelevant to this article. These are content issues that you should discuss on the talk page, not here. But your failure to apply WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, now those have to be brought here. Debresser (talk) 20:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, being that he calls experienced Misplaced Pages editors "participating in any FBI-designated terrorist group", perhaps it is wiser to just block this guy altogether? Debresser (talk) 17:37, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Is your objection to the suggestion that they participate in the Jewish Defense League, or to calling the JDL an "FBI-designated terrorist group"? — Sizzle Flambé (☎/✍) 19:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, is anybody reading this? Debresser (talk) 19:26, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

When you start off Talk:Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre#Mediation with (and I'll quote) "all edits by User:Zero are POV down to their minutest details", most admins are going to ignore both of you (or block both of you). You can decide which way I should go. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:22, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Please notice that although I personally feel that was the truth, I factually admitted I should not have said so. And I did so in the best way possible: I undid my edits to the article and tweaked other things. I also admitted in this edit that I had previously been overly hasty in editing the article. DBaba to the contrary, seems to be steadfast in his opinions. Debresser (talk) 08:46, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I've collapsed the mediation section as it's just a poisoned well and nothing good can come from it. There's plenty of conduct that's not productive but I'm not interested in playing the who was the first to be uncivil game. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you seriously mean to say that you put saying that an editor has a POV on one level with saying that he is racist and participates in an FBI-designated terrorist group? Especially since he wrote this after the content issue was already resolved, and his edit could have no meaningfull purpose. Debresser (talk) 12:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to encourage this unpleasantness any further, as it's been quite some time now, but I must say I strongly object to the way Debresser is distorting my words. I hope he can understand that the context in which I questioned his judgment had much to do with how creepy and horrible I find it that there is a guy promoting a "terrorist" group's Facebook page on Misplaced Pages; I was hoping that mentioning that would reorient his priorities, from maligning me to looking out for innocent people who may yet be murdered. I'm not going to do a list of the offenses I ascribe to Debresser, because we are now working positively, forwards, in a spirit of good faith. The bridge is valueless without the water under it. And I do wish you a beautiful holiday, bro. DBaba (talk) 21:14, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

User:Jojhutton

In early December, User:Jojhutton began removing "United States" (both the link and the text) from articles, primarily geographical articles about cities, townships, et cetera, but also from biographical and other articles. He was quickly questioned about this on his talk page, and in the ensuing discussions he often cited WP:PLACE, sometimes referring to WP:PLACE#United States. He was informed again and again that this guideline is about naming conventions, and that nowhere in that guideline (or any other policy or guideline that has been identified so far) is there a call for the removal of "United States" from the infoboxes or bodies of articles. The principle stated by many opposing editors (including myself) has been that in an international encyclopedia, articles about people and things in the United States should not assume that the reader knows which country is involved, but should specify the country consistently. However, he has doggedly continued to remove this information from articles (albeit a small number of articles thus far), even after a public discussion at the Village pump. His practice, when questioned about this on his talk page, has been to archive discussions using the "hat" template, so as to "close" the discussions, thus indicating that he is not willing to discuss any further. So far, it appears that at least 11 editors have questioned him on this on his talk page since December 7, and that no one has supported him; additional editors disagreed with him in the village pump discussion. This seems to have had no effect, as the edits continue through today, December 19. He is a well-established editor, and I believe his edits are typically of good quality. It's just that with this particular issue, he believes that various (non-Misplaced Pages) manuals of style tell him to remove the country, and he seems determined to do so in spite of opposition from many other editors, lack of support from any other editors, and the lack of supporting Misplaced Pages policies or guidelines that anyone can find; so far he has not cited any that stand up under scrutiny. What makes it worse is that in these discussions he has had a tendency to accuse other editors of wikilawyering, gaming the system, stalking, et cetera and using sarcasm and insults; and he resorts to these devices very quickly. He accused one editor of stalking after a single isolated revert. I have repeatedly asked him to discuss this and have remained civil throughout; but I'm not sure what else to do, so I am mentioning it here. Thanks. Omnedon (talk) 17:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Relevant related discussions:

• in this ANI archive about Jojhutton
• this long section in Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)
• talk:MOS

Toddst1 (talk) 19:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a content dispute that has sparked a minor amount of edit warring and incivility. Forgive me if I'm a little bit green on this particular issue, but as a style / content matter there seems to be no absolute rule or overwhelming consensus to include "United States" in place names within an article and in infoboxes, when the lede has already clearly established that the setting is the United States. Sure there are strong arguments on both sides. The proponents claim it is America-centrism and disrespectful of non-American readers to assume they know something is in America, or to have different rules for American place names that seem to assert that the United States is some kind of default location when the country is unnamed. The opponents claim that articles should be written for clarity, not to encourage equality among nations, and everybody knows which country we're talking about when we say that someplace is a city in California. The outcome of those discussions isn't really relevant. You can't legislate consensus from a guideline page. What's relevant is that consensus is not so clear that choosing one versus the other is anything other than a content choice. Like a lot of style choices (American versus British spelling, punctuation inside versus outside the quotes, citation styles) deference should be paid to status quo, the opinions of regular editors on an article, and consistency among related articles or within a project. Making mass changes or mass reverts just to enforce your favored version is disruptive and can lead to lots of wikidrama. So best not to do this on either side, just stick to the articles you enjoy editing. I sympathize with Jojhutton's frustration, but calling it "stalking" is unduly inflamatory. Technically it is not stalking. Stalking is when you follow someone from one article to another to pursue a grudge. By contrast, noticing one bad edit, then checking up on the editor's other recent activity to see if it's a pattern, is only good wikignoming. The problem here is that Jojhutton's edits are not clearly wrong, so reverting them en masse is provocative. If someone really wants to add, or remove, or link or delink, the country name "United States" from a bunch of article bodies and infoboxes, they need to get a strong prior consensus not only that this is the correct way to go style-wise, but that the mass edits are a good idea. Best to get approval for a semi-automated bot or the like. But this is such a tiny issue. The two editors have been reverting each other to 1RR or maybe 2 on perhaps five or six articles in the past few days. Administrative mediation could be useful, but I don't see anything warranting sanctions here. Just my opinion. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:30, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It began as a content dispute, and content is still at the heart of it, but the issue now seems to be a refusal by User:Jojhutton to accept that every time he makes an edit to remove "U.S", someone disputes it. Not always the same editor, so it's not a simple matter of two editors disagreeing. The issue as I see it, is that User:Jojhutton has an opinion that the United States is redundant when discussing a place name for a United States town or city and his contention is that it should be presented as "City/State". He's entitled to his opinion, but his opinion should not and does not carry any more weight than that of any other editor. It has moved from a content dispute because, he has used WP:Place#United States as justification for removal, and although every editor who has commented has said either strongly or weakly that he is misinterpreting that part of the guideline he has dug in his heels, told everyone they are wrong, and has continued to use it as justification. You say, "The problem here is that Jojhutton's edits are not clearly wrong, so reverting them en masse is provocative." I would say that Jojhutton's edits in the face of opposition, and without anything resembling consensus is more provocative. I've been concerned mainly with the use in the infobox, rather than the article body. I've pointed out to him that several infobox instructions explicitly state to use the "City/State/Country" format, with no exception made for "U.S." and I've also given numerous examples of WP:FAs that use this format. I've also pointed out that consensus is not always achieved by a formal discussion, and often consensus is indicated by the fact that something exists, is used commonly over time over a wide area, and has remained without opposition, which is the case for at least the infobox component of this disagreement. His response has been to say that it's very interesting but still completely wrong. Clearly there is some kind of consensus in place to say that the use is at least "acceptable" given that it's used widely, and even in featured articles that have been more closely scrutinised than many articles. He does not need to accept that it is a preferred style, because nobody is suggesting that, but he does need to accept that there is nothing to say it's incorrect, and that editors who choose this style are not wrong. I'm disturbed that he reacts to some editors as "stalkers". That's particularly hostile, and in the case of User talk:Omnedon and you need only look at this user's page to see that editing American geographical articles is a primary interest. I was concerned with this edit at Marilyn Monroe which removed "U.S." from the infobox and added sources with the edit summary "removing original research and adding a ref to support current version" Having "U.S" in the infobox is not original research. This suggests that User:Jojhutton is either unfamiliar with or is misinterpreting what is meant by "original research" or is providing a deliberately misleading edit summary. Neither is acceptable. "United States" was first added to Marilyn Monroe's infobox when the infobox was included with this edit in April 2006. (Admittedly as "Los Angeles, United States" which is not correct either). Since April 2006 this has not been a contentious point, and it is only a contentious point now because one editor has decided it's not appropriate. I believe that due to widespread use, support by infobox template instructions, and the fact the some of Misplaced Pages's best articles use the country name in the infobox, there is a consensus to say that it is acceptable, and anyone wanting to add this to the infobox should not feel hindered - but there is no such evidence to support the removal. It is currently, as you say, an issue primarily between two editors, and a small issue, but when User:Jojhutton first started this about a week ago, he got a response from several editors who seem to have moved on now that he is not making such widespread edits. I would have too, if not for the Marilyn Monroe edit which shows that he has not accepted the other viewpoint, and has put the change through with a dodgy edit summary. I would hope that is the last time that happens. Rossrs (talk) 23:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it seems not such a big deal to people who have memorized the names of the US states, their postal abbreviation, etc. and who speak English as a first language. Leaving out "United States" (and it has been removed from the lede in some instances) is not a tiny thing: it encourages confusion and can mislead. Believe it or not, not everyone outside the US knows what an Arizona is or that AZ is its postal abbreviation. Some will think AZ means Azerbaijan, CA Canada, and KY Kenya. Without the country name somewhere obvious, we run the risk of misleading international users. I don't think that's encyclopedic. --NellieBly (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that there are those who do not understand that New Mexico is part of the US and not Mexico. MarnetteD | Talk 23:15, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

There would be a not-small number of Americans who don't know that either. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

This being an English encyclopedia, most people who have learned the language know that California is in the United States. Those who have not can probably figure it out from the first sentence of the lede if the article is written properly, e.g. "City National Bank is an American financial institution headquartered in Los Angeles, California", not "City National Bank is an American financial institution headquartered in Los Angeles, California, US". Anyway, I agree that the arguments are strong on both sides but not unanimous, which makes an isolated edit on the subject a matter of editor discretion, not behavior. If consensus is clear in a particular area (say, articles about airports, or an infobox, where counter to my earlier statement, a small group of editors maintaining that particular template or family of templates can establish consensus for how the location fields are to be used) and an editor violates that after objections, it could cross the line into tendentious editing. Also, edit warring is bad, making accusations in edit summaries is bad, and doing mass bold edits over others' oposition outside of one's normal editing space is bad. Is he on some kind of campaign, or does this just affect articles he's actively editing? If he's minding his own business on a small number of articles and other editors are ganging up on him outside of their normal editing range, that does approach some kind of hounding. I'm reminded of the geocoding fights and date delinking, kind of funny that people get so passionate about the details. It's like, war of the wikignomes! - Wikidemon (talk) 00:39, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I must point out that I came into this situation after several other editors had already taken issue with Jojhutton's practice of removing "United States" from articles. Those discussions have since been moved into an archive; they started here on 7 December. There were four such discussions which took place (three of which were "archived" with the "hat" template) before I even became aware of the situation. I became involved when some articles on my watchlist were similarly edited some days later; these are articles which I've been involved with in the past and which I watch. Among these were articles for several (but for some reason, not all) townships in Marion County, Indiana, as well as articles for several Indiana towns. For example, here he removed "United States" from Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana. Because of these edits, I calmly questioned the practice on his talk page like many before me, and was quickly accused of wikilawyering and gaming the system. However, I have not engaged in edit warring with him.

So, this is not simply a content dispute between two editors. Rather, it is part of an ongoing pattern in which at least 10 editors (not including myself) have questioned the practice on his talk page over the last couple of weeks and have been met with the same answers over and over without any resolution or progress at all. The practice itself is not the core issue here; rather, it is the way this particular editor is dealing with the situation. The validity of the reasons he cites has been questioned again and again, but though he has altered his edit summaries, the edits themselves have continued in the same manner throughout the various discussions (albeit on the same small scale as before). Given that everyone involved in the discussions on his talk page has disagreed with him, his determination to continue, combined with his tendency toward sarcasm and accusation and his unwillingness to have discussions, shows clear disregard for any kind of consensus-building. Basically, he seems not to be interested in anyone else's opinions. Consensus is a frequently-discussed concept on Misplaced Pages, of course, and its application and methods of development are sometimes vexed questions; personally, I think it's easier to define what consensus is not rather than what it is, and it is certainly not ignoring the well-founded objections of a dozen other editors and pushing on regardless with a dismissive attitude. Omnedon (talk) 05:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

"Dismissive" is one way to describe it, but given the accusatory and ridiculing tone in some of Jojhutton's comments, "dismissive" is probably the most tactful way of describing his approach. His frustration is duly noted. I also note the frustration of those that have attempted to discuss this with him. Regarding the earlier comment : "If consensus is clear in a particular area (say, articles about airports, or an infobox, where counter to my earlier statement, a small group of editors maintaining that particular template or family of templates can establish consensus for how the location fields are to be used) and an editor violates that after objections, it could cross the line into tendentious editing." That was exactly what he was doing with some of the actor related infoboxes despite the fact the the infobox itself, supported by WP:ACTOR says that for birth and death place the format is city,state,country. Jojhutton removes and reverts against this consensus and the clearly expressed opposition of several editors - this is a behavioural issue which stems from a content/style issue. If Jojhutton can accept that there is a community based consensus to allow the use of country as acceptable -not preferred, not mandatory, not standard - just acceptable, there won't be a problem. If he can also accept that removing against the objections of other editors is unacceptable, again there will be no problem. That's what we've been trying and failing to achieve over the last week or so. I believe Jojhutton has the best interests of Misplaced Pages at heart, but I'm not as confident as he seems to be that he has all the answers on this topic. Rossrs (talk) 06:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Since the discussion started here on ANI just yesterday, Jojhutton has continued his practice by removing "United States" from more than 20 articles about places in California, once again citing WP:PLACE#United States in the edit summary. That guideline has been shown again and again to have no bearing whatsoever on what he is doing. He has been questioned repeatedly by many editors on that, yet he is clearly determined to continue anyway. He is continuing to operate against the clearly-voiced objections of many editors. Omnedon (talk) 19:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to say I share the concerns of Omnedon, Rossrs, Cptnono, Cybercobra, and the various other editors who've been trying to grapple with this problem recently. A couple days back I politely suggested on Jojhutton's talk page that he should refrain from carrying on with these edits, given that it's clearly provoking concern from many editors, none of whom seem to support his campaign. Unfortunately, he seems intent on ignoring these concerns and just doing his own thing.

As others have already pointed out, Jojhutton cites the Place policy when making these cuts, but the policy has been shown to have no bearing on what he's doing. Alternately, he references in discussions and on his talk page "every English language manual of style" as the basis for his activity. Manuals like the APA or MLA handbooks are certainly fine resources, but a) I see nothing in my own copy of the MLA Handbook that addresses this (and he doesn't cite any specific sections/pages, despite my request), and b) such handbooks don't control Misplaced Pages content anyway.

Various editors' voicing their concerns has so far had no effect. Attempts to engage Jojhutton in debate haven't been fruitful, and reverting the cuts simply prompts him to quickly put the cuts back (often with accusations that the editor is "stalking"), resulting in 3RR violations and edit wars, for which he's already been warned. Guidance from administrators on this would certainly be appreciated! Huwmanbeing ☀★ 20:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The addition to the FAQ on his talk page, made while this discussion is taking place, does not inspire an assumption of good faith. The FAQ seems to anticipate another stream of questions and complaints. The link to this : "This archived discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style seems to agree that the convention is (City, State)" seems to overlook that although four editors discussed it, they stopped short of endorsing it as a blanket rule. It's cherry picking. There is no mention of the discussions in which his viewpoint is challenged and his edits disputed, such as this discussion, or the several on his talk page and talk page archives, the one at Village Pump or even the one at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Is there a convention for use of country when refering to US cities. It looks a lot like WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. His talk page is his business, but the FAQ hasn't been added for decoration. It's a shame to be talking about an editor rather than to an editor, but when an editor appears to have withdrawn from the discussion when there are still things to be resolved, it doesn't leave a lot of choice. Rossrs (talk) 08:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I love how people are always claiming Americans are geographically ignorant, but won't allow the removal of "US" from place names on the grounds that people outside of the US don't know where American cities are located. They attack Americans for wanting to label things like Paris, France as proof of American ignorance, but won't allow the removal of the country name from Paris, Texas, USA (for example) on the grounds that nobody outside of the US could possibly know that Texas is in the US. Woogee (talk) 22:15, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I think removing country names from English speaking countries is a great idea. Surely every English speaker knows perfectly well where Cumbria, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nunavut, Otago, Somerset, Taranaki, Tasmania, Victoria, Waikato, and Yukon are. --GRuban (talk) 16:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

What? I'm a life-long English speaker and I no idea what/where Otago, Taranaki or Waikato are. Either way, it's beside the point since this thread is in regard to the actions of an editor and related edits. Thanks Huwmanbeing ☀★ 17:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Woogee, there are so many things wrong with that statement that I hardly know where to begin. And no, GRuban, not all English-speaking people automatically know where all of those places are. But in any case, as has been mentioned, this isn't about content, but about a behavioral problem with an editor. Omnedon (talk) 03:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Clearly my attempt at humor failed. Apologies. Carry on. --GRuban (talk) 13:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually it did occur to me that you might be joking; but it's hard to tell in text without any other hints. Certainly in my experience (not necessarily here) people have occasionally expressed views to me that I privately considered to be outrageous, yet they were quite serious. Omnedon (talk) 13:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping you were joking GRuban. I've never even heard of Nunavut. At least one other person took you seriously. Kinda funny :-) Rossrs (talk) 20:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be funny, Rossrs, except that this situation is still continuing. GRuban, with hindsight, it's obvious that you were joking, and I'm sorry I misinterpreted it at the time; I think it was partly because of the association with Jojhutton's behavior, as well as the comment that preceded your joke. It's hard to understand why an editor would continue making these edits under these circumstances, yet it's happening, and as Rossrs mentions, the editor continues to avoid any substantive discussion, and continues to cite WP:PLACE in his FAQ. Omnedon (talk) 13:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Misuse of userpage User:Pbalajula?

This userpage seems to violate the normal purpose for a userpage. The editor makes no edits to Misplaced Pages and has created this autobiography, including external links and categories. It has been edited by these accounts:

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

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

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

The page only mentions Peter Balajula once and spends the rest of the space dealing with Ted Failon, who is apparently under investigation for shooting his wife, and this is unsourced information.

If this user (or Ted Failon) is currently in Saudi Arabia and is trying to bring their userpage into compliance as a normal userpage, or to fix a BLP violation, then they should probably be allowed to do so. Since they make no edits to Misplaced Pages, it might even be better to delete the page completely.

This actually brings up a related issue. If someone doesn't edit here, they have no right to host a userpage here. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Which is why WP:MFD exists. Collect (talk) 15:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Isn't it a custom to notify users of an ANI discussion? Otherwise, they may find their page deleted suddenly. The user page use of categories at the bottom is questionable to me. I thought categories were for articles. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Notice given. Cirt (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I was bold and removed the categories and interwiki's that are intended for articles only. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

While the shooting of his wife is unsourced on the user page it is sourced in the Ted Failon article. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 07:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Something still needs to be done about this page. Misplaced Pages isn't a free webhosting service. If someone doesn't edit here, they have no right to host a userpage here. The page should be blanked. If the user decides to edit, they're welcome to create a proper userpage, one that doesn't pretend to be a mainspace article with unsourced content about someone else. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

User:98.237.250.200

User talk:98.237.250.200 is repeatedly disrupting Omerta, removing referenced material, a template and adding information that is already dealt with on Omerta (disambiguation). He is also attacking other editors, see here. - DonCalo (talk) 01:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, he has not edited since his most recent warning. Should we perhaps wait until he edits in violation of that warning? --Jayron32 01:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Too late, I've blocked him for a week for making death threats; even with warnings, that is utterly unacceptable behaviour. There are times when blocks need to be imposed not as punishment but as preventative, not only of a particular editor, but of editors in general, since such behaviour is completely contrary to our principles and should be, and be seen to be, intolerable. Time to stop pussyfooting around here, I think. Rodhullandemu 01:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

My bad, I didn't check that diff. Absolutely, no warnings for that shit. Completely appropriate block. Fully endorse. --Jayron32 02:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The threat is terrible, threat of bodily harm. Given the block duration of other editors, one week seems rather short. Even legal threats result in indefinite block. Consider a longer block, such as 30 days. Since it is an IP, allowing current account holders to edit after, say 31 hours or 7 days is acceptable. Anyone wish to reconsider? Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI, my previous comments are here. Rodhullandemu 19:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, hands up anyone who wants to discuss.....

This is not the appropriate forum for this discussion. I'm moving this discussion to the miscellaneous village pump), specifically Misplaced Pages:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Okay, hands up anyone who wants to discuss...... Happy holidays! --MZMcBride (talk) 07:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic insult

Ethnic attack by Meowy (talk · contribs). The advocated account turned to be another sock. Brand 07:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Forgive my naivete, but what part of that was an ethnic insult? Is it the "Azeri" bit? If so, could you elaborate on how that is ethnically insulting? Thanks. Throwaway85 (talk) 09:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

"A silver bullet for Azeri wolfishness". This is a subject of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 in particular. Brand 10:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the further explanation. Perhaps it's simply due to my unfamiliarity with the conflict, but I don't see the comment as being overly offensive, certainly not moreso than other comments that routinely fly on Misplaced Pages. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that someone were to say that uti possidetis is the silver bullet for Irish Nationalism, something I'm much more familiar with. While I could see the comment being inappropriate and inflammatory, I can't really see it being actionable in and of itself. I'm aware that Meowy has a history of being blocked for personal attacks, but I think this particular instance would have to be part of a larger pattern of anti-azerbijani comments from Meowy for it to warrant anything more than a warning. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it warrants an administrative warning, given the unveiled groundlessness of the comment, in compliance with both general and arbcom principles. Brand 10:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that's fair. If any admin would like to issue a warning, then please feel free to do so. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, excuse me for being too literate. "Silver bullet for Irish Nationalism". Why would you think silver bullets would be effective against Irish persons? Well, obviously you are making some allusions as to the only effective way to stop werewolves. I could nit-pick and ask what have wolves to do with Ireland? Not so with Azerbaijan. As you say, you are unfamiliar with the subject. Wolves are used as a symbol by those at the extreme end of Turkish and Azeri nationalism (see Grey Wolves for example, and Azerbaijan National Democrat Party). Those same wolfish Azerbaijanis go tediously on and on and on about the "de-jure" status of Nagorno-Karabakh (and certain editors want that phrase to appear on every Misplaced Pages article that mentions anything connected to Nagorno-Karabakh), but "de jure" is quickly shot down by "uti possidetis". My comment is thus not groundless, uses a completely acceptable metaphor, and would be well understood by those who know the subject. Meowy 16:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd say any metaphor that involves shooting is borderline from the start. I'd certainly consider it threatening. I'd suggest you withdraw the statement. — The Hand That Feeds You: 17:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Of all the many silly comments I've seen on Misplaced Pages (and there have been a fair few) the above ranks amongst the most silly. So, following exactly the same silly reasoning, I'd say any poster who uses metaphorical phrases like "borderlines" probably has an unnatural interest in ethnicity and the control of populations. I'd certainly consider talk containing such metaphors threatening, just one stage removed from barbed wire fences and genocide. Meowy 19:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You ask "Why would you think silver bullets would be effective against Irish persons"? Well, contrary to common belief silver bullets will hurt non-werewolves as well and is not a recommended method of distinguishing between Irish and werewolf. Chillum 16:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It is also a bit of a waste of money, what with today's sky-high price of precious metals. So, to placate the worried brow of The Hand That Feeds You, I can easily assure him that I have no intention of shooting any Azeris, or werewolves, or vampires, or even the Irish, using real silver bullets. Meowy 19:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

My two cents, since I have been at the receiveing end of so many attacks, insults and slurs by this user. I have a few samples here:

The NY times citation is a fake, there is no such article (all NY times reports for that period are available online, and nothing for Bitlis exists for that date). ... Meowy 02:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC) (It is not!)

BTW, reading that http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Niles_and_Sutherland.pdf the initial feelings are one of amusement and astonishment that someone could come up with such breathtaking lies.

All you seem interested in doing is inserting out-and-out lies into articles, using as "sources" extreme nationalist Turkish propaganda. Little wonder nobody chooses to engage constructively with you. Meowy 22:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

More skillful propagandists of Hudavendigar's ilk realise that in some articles it is better to let sleeping dogs lie. However, he has chosen to awaken this article, so let's now tear him apart by telling in the article the full horror of the history he wishes to rewrite and whitewash. Meowy 20:54, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

"Editor Murat, the main culprit for this article's lamentable state, has inserted and reinserted a section titled "Armed Armenian Revolts Against Ottoman Rule", which is full of fabrications. There were no "Armed Armenian Revolts Against Ottoman Rule"". Meowy 01:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

"your 6Dec post is a POV diatribe that could have come from a card carrying MHP fanatic"..."Your Turkish nationalist propaganda sources"... "straight from a Turkish propaganda website"..."Murat's obscene misuse of the word "revolt""..."which is actually a tawdry pack of lies" Meowy 01:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

None of the above have been punished as far as I know. Meowy has proven time and again that he is a disruptive editor, has degraded the quality of wikipedia, considers it an ethnic battleground, throws ethnic insults around with impunity, deletes and distorts as it fits his nationalistic agenda, and amazingly he is still allowed to do so. At what point will other editors and wikipedia be protected from this predator? He was banned from this very topic if I am not mistaken anyway. What other outrage needs to be committed so he does not get away again with slap on the hand?--Murat (talk) 19:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

By making the above post you are breaking your editing restrictions, Murat. As you know, because of your persistant POV-warring and insertion of Turkish government propaganda into articles you are forbidden from making any posts anywhere on Misplaced Pages that concern the Armenian Genocide. Similar but even broader restrictions apply for Brand, btw. So he also has broken his editing restrictions by making this complaint becasue he is banned from making any posts connected to "the ethnic and historical issues related to" Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran. Meowy 19:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

No, he hasn't. An ANI thread relating to you doesn't count. And this thread is pointless. I've asked Meowy to tone down the rhetoric, as it certainly can get OTT every now and then. But frankly, I've seen worse. This one we can let slide. Now can everyone please find something better to do? Moreschi (talk) 23:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, but you are a reasonable administrator! I'm sure other administrators would say it did count. I recall one editor, banned from posting anything Russia-related, was warned by another administrator that if he uploading a photo of Fidel Castro that happened to have been taken by a Russian photographer, he would be breaking his ban. Meowy 00:47, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Great job Moreschi... he already looks wiser and surley learned his lesson.--Murat (talk) 01:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Murat, while baiting Meowy may well succeed in getting him blocked, baiting me may well succeed in getting you blocked. Not a good idea. Moreschi (talk) 13:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Point of Order

Although I may agree with the finding that meowy's comments did not consitute an actionable offense, I find it disturbing that Moreschi closed the thread personally, given that the alleged offense occurred on his talk page and he is very much involved. In the interests of transparency, fairness, and due process, could an uninvolved admin please review the case and determine if it should indeed be closed? Thanks. Throwaway85 (talk) 13:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Update: I've contacted User:Wehwalt in regards to this matter, as I've found him to be a stickler for due process in the past. I await his verdict. Throwaway85 (talk) 14:01, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Persistent personal attacks by 71.125.130.14

An IP user 71.125.130.14 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) (who I strongly suspect to be a previously blocked editor) is posting a series of vitriolic personal attacks against various editors on a number of pages, including his own user talk page:

He has been asked by another editor to desist from personal attacks, but his response was to call that editor a "WikiNazi Watermelon prevaricative putz". I suggest a block, since he clearly has no intention of being civil. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You gotta admit "WikiNazi Watermelon" has a nice surrealistic ring to it, but... yeah. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Blocked for two weeks. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

What the heck is "watermelon" supposed to mean as an insult, anyway? -- ChrisO (talk) 15:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I suspect its green on the outside, red on the inside. And I disagree with Boris - for proper surrealism, it would need a double alliteration ("WikiNazi WaterNelon" - again, we see the failing of the English language...) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

That would end up in some ways as a triple alliteration ... I assume they were going for the WikiNazi Watermelon prevaricative putz double play. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we have a winner for "least persuasive unblock request of the year"... -- ChrisO (talk) 15:54, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

National socialism combined with eco-socialism? That makes absolutely no sense! –MuZemike 17:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course it does. Us fascist communists even have our own symbol. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The sickle and the can opener??? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 04:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it...if not...what is it? Ks0stm 05:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

See Fasces. Viriditas (talk) 06:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Outing by 89.101.230.52

After removing an external link from the Athlone wikipedia article in line with wikipedias external links guidelines I recieved the following from tthe IP above.

Leave the Athlone Live link forum intact if you don't mind. It has 400+ registered members, all of whom have an interest in Athlone. The link has been there a lot longer than you have been on Misplaced Pages. In fact, several of the forum members wrote much of the entry for the town of Athlone itself on Misplaced Pages.

I moved this from my user page to my talk page and responded in a civila manner and was willing to discuss it but have had further edits to my page from this user. They have hunted online for my identity and posted my name publicly on my page and later threatened to "go down to xxxxxxxxxxx to make you stop" and finished by stating "Now, quit while you're ahead.".

I think you will agree that such behaviour is intolerable and I request that something be done to stop this (Mremeralddragon (talk) 16:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC))

Are you willing to provide the appropriate diffs to an admin (I'm not one), if so, then please be prepared to do so because this sounds like a simple case of outing and this user needs some time to sit in the corner and think about what they've done. This isn't possible though without an admin (or more likely someone with higher privileges who you trust with your personal info) actually seeing the issue. As much as sometimes we would like to, Admins can't just act on our word alone. Frmatt (talk) 16:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

No problem supplying info thats needed and the difs are obvious in my page history anyway as there has been little to no activity on it since joining wikipedia. I just want this nonsense to be done and dusted. (Mremeralddragon (talk) 16:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC))

Would you be okay with the diffs being posted here so that the poor overworked admins don't have to search through your page history? I ask because of the possibility of your actual identity being revealed... Frmatt (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Here they are (all from 89.101.230.52 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)):

, , , , , , ,

I have also changed this thread title to make it obvious that this is more than just incivility -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Nobody has notified the IP user of this thread. Oh, and BTW, this isn't "threatened" outing, they've posted Mremeralddragon's supposed real name already. That's clear outing, not threatened. 99.166.95.142 (talk) 16:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• I have notified the IP user of this thread. I have also removed the "threatened" from this thread title -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks PhantomSteve and IP 99...I didn't want to do anything without Mremeralddragon's permission, including searching the diffs. I know that I wouldn't necessarily want my information available to just anyone, so figured it was safer to not do anything without permission. Now, all we need is an admin to look into this! Frmatt (talk) 16:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm also going to send a message to the Oversighter list, asking them to look at this thread. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Incidently, I took the No problem supplying info thats needed and the difs are obvious in my page history anyway statement as meaning that the OP has no objections to them being here. I have mailed the OS list, hopefully one will pop over and look at these diffs. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• The user appears to have a dynamic IP but I have blocked the most recent IP for a week and semi-protected the page for a month. CIreland (talk) 17:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Outing edits have been suppressed. -- Avi (talk) 17:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you, CIreland and Avi. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for everything guys. And no i didnt have any problems with the diffs being added. I was actually adding them myself and noticed via an edit conflict warning that they had already been posted. Its all good. Im just happy things have been sorted out now. Thanks guys. (Mremeralddragon (talk) 18:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC))

All Mr IP has done is made things harder on themselves. If anything, now the page is going to be watched even more closely. I believe the operative term is Plaxico? HalfShadow 19:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

StevenMario

StevenMario (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a 14-year old self-proclaimed "cartoon expert" who keep introducing inaccurate or unsourced information into multiple cartoon-related articles. He has been warned by multiple users (see , , , ), and while his edits are not strictly vandalism (although some have come close), this editor is determined to force his opinions only onto these pages (even without sources, as seen here), and has some serious problems with civility (seen here and here) when his actions are questioned. TheRealFennShysa (talk) 19:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You were required to notify him - see the top of this page. I've done that now. Dougweller (talk) 19:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, thanks - forgot to do that... TheRealFennShysa (talk) 19:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe he is Mascot Guy? Just a thought, Mascot Guy loves to edit children's Cartoons. --Rockstonetalk to me! 19:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so - most of this kid's IP ranges (usually beginning in "68." or "208." seem to be originating in Georgia, not San Diego, as Mascot Guy appeared to have. TheRealFennShysa (talk) 19:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to add that StevenMario keeps ignoring the consensus at Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. The consensus is to say that the review scores have been mostly positive, but Steven has changed it to say mixed reviews on multiple occasions. TJ Spyke 19:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

From what I have read up on MascotGuy, this is definitely not him. His mother has stated that he is a twenty-two year old who is obsessed with fonts and bridges. His mother made no mention of cartoons, and Steven does not seem to have any overlapping interests with Derek, the origin of the whole MascotGuy fiasco. Since Mario also has been around for a few months while editing cartoon-related articles, it is unlikely that his mother would've missed this cue. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

"I'm probably not the best person to be moderating Misplaced Pages"

(not that I try) Can some neutral adminstrators please take a look at the diffs below and explain either to User:Raylopez99 that they are indeed unacceptable, or to me why they are ok? Thanks! , , , . --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

If you argue with him, you get to keep him. --TS 20:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I don't like the style used, which I think is ineffective, I think you have to accept that different people have different styles. He has not really said anything bad. So I don't think the diffs you provided are unacceptable.

This suggests that the problem is as much you as it is him. Stop being upset that some people disagree with your belief. Global warming is not a religion; don't treat it like one. There is no need to burn heretics at the stake.

If you don't like what he says, you can always ignore him.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I beg your pardon? "your objectivity is exposed as bankrupt ... You must be like Caesar's wife, not an intellectual prostitute ... but the dagger is in your stomach and twisting around" - you find that acceptable? Sure, I could ignore them, since they are not directed at me (yet). But I would also ignore WP:CIVIL in the grossest way.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

He seems to be trying to get you to snap. He also seems to be a conspiracist when it comes to what goes on here. Just ignore him, but if it escalates, come back and they will deal with it. Also, feel free to let him know that people are usually watched to see if they are famous, so there are very few COIs here. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Ktrl101's diagnosis matches my own. Ignore him and he'll either go away or escalate in obnoxiousness to the point where something will be done. Hopefully not the latter, because people who get that obsessed usually stuck around. --TS 21:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm actually going to go with Steve here. That kind of behaviour is grossly uncivil, and merits a 48 hour block for incivility and personal attacks. If he doesn't smarten up from there, increase the blocks. I agree with Ktr101 and TS about disengagement, and would counsel you to address only his behaviour and not the content of his arguments in the future. It would be best to do this in a cool, calm, dispassionate manner. If he finds he can't get a rise out of you, he's likely to mosey on elsewhere. Still, we can't send the message that this kind of behaviour is appropriate, and a small block is justified. Throwaway85 (talk) 22:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Blocked for 48 hours for personal attacks, harassment and trolling. Vsmith (talk) 01:14, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to make that block a little longer, possibly permanently. --Calton | Talk 02:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

User:68.42.168.117

vandalizims check his edits William the Braveheart (talk) 21:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC) Revision history of Mario Party just look —Preceding unsigned comment added by William the Braveheart (talk • contribs) 21:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Warned user. -FASTILY 21:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

He only blanked the page once, per . A warning will suffice, which I will hand out. Otherwise, there is nothing worrisome with this user. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Fastily won. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

:D -FASTILY 00:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the first edit of an account usually a report to ANI? Fences&Windows 22:54, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Was thinking to shout Plaxico, but I'll let it be. SirFozzie (talk) 22:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Grundle2600

Sigh. Despite pledging to be "topic banned from editing or participating in discussion of any political or politically controversial article, as well as BLPs. This includes articles directly about politics, but also includes politically controversial topics, like climate change," Grundle2600 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is right back at it on Talk:Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident. Per this recent ANI thread, this was supposed to be the last straw. I'd like to propose that the indef block that was lifted following his pledge be reapplied. At the very least, a block of considerable length seem warranted. Should be a no-brainer this time. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in the edit you cite, , he says that "I still reserve the right to make edits about international political articles that are not BLPs", so he is not violating the conditions of his unblock, and I see no immediate reason to re-block. (Whether that unblock was a good idea in the first place is a different question.)  Sandstein  22:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in the edit I cited "climate change" was specifically listed, but Grundle did not rule it out as one of his conditions. So interpreted strictly, he violated his own pledge. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I said, "I still reserve the right to make edits about international political articles that are not BLPs." Grundle2600 (talk) 23:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

So? You are still editing at a politically-controversial, left vs. right hotbed article on climate change. That's as clear an indication as any that you intend to continue the actions that got you blocked in the first place. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Please cite any diffs that I made since my last block ended that you think are in violation of any wikipedia rule. Grundle2600 (talk) 23:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

What has that got to do with anything? You pledged to avoid "climate change" and then went back on your word, as far as I'm concerned. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:21, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I said, "I still reserve the right to make edits about international political articles that are not BLPs, such as nuclear power, overpopulation, and sweatshops. My edits in these articles have generally been welcomed by other editors, and the histories of these kinds of articles shows that I have substantially improved them without causing trouble." Grundle2600 (talk) 15:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Scjessey is falsely attributing that pledge to me. I never pledged that. According to the text at the very link that Scjessey posted, this is what I said:

"I agree to avoid editing articles about politicians from all countries, including their article talk pages. I also agree to avoiding editing articles about people from all countries whose main notability is their political commentary, such as Diane Francis, Michael Moore, and Paul Krugman, as well as their talk pages. I do not agree to any such ban on BPLs for non-political people, such as Phoebe Cates, Stephen Hawking, or Jules Verne, because the issue there for non-political BLPs (I think Tiger Woods was the only one) was not my edits to articles, but instead, some jokes I made in the comment section and talk pages. Therefore, I agree to stop making jokes about all living persons in the comment section and talk pages for articles. However, I still reserve the right to make edits about international political articles that are not BLPs, such as nuclear power, overpopulation, and sweatshops. My edits in these articles have generally been welcomed by other editors, and the histories of these kinds of articles shows that I have substantially improved them without causing trouble."

Thus, I never said the words that Scjessey is attributing to me.

I am going to assume good faith, and assume that this was an honest mistake on Scjessey's part.

Grundle2600 (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Grundle, the concern was with your editing behaviour in regards to any article with political connotations. As part of your unblock request, you said you would like to be able to edit articles on animals, etc. Climate change is very obviously a politically heated issue, and violates the spirit of your pledge. Throwaway85 (talk) 22:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Grundle should not have been allowed to add his own qualifiers and interpretations to the conditions laid out at Proposal to unblock. But that ship has now sailed unfortunately, as I'd say the fact he was unblocked serves as an implied acceptance of those "modified" conditions. So like a defendant who gets off with a lesser sentence because of a clerical or judicial error, here we are. Tarc (talk) 22:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely, totally agree. The conditions that were added by Grundle substantially weakened the proposed restrictions. Shrug - nobody said anything about it then, so I have to agree with Grundle that they were accepted by both sides. Based on the modified restrictions, his comment is not in violation. Ravensfire (talk) 23:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Throwaway85, you said, "Climate change is very obviously a politically heated issue, and violates the spirit of your pledge." You are wrong. It's exactly within my pledge, which states, "I still reserve the right to make edits about international political articles that are not BLPs, such as nuclear power, overpopulation, and sweatshops. My edits in these articles have generally been welcomed by other editors, and the histories of these kinds of articles shows that I have substantially improved them without causing trouble." Grundle2600 (talk) 23:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to make any judgements about Grundle's involvement, since I know nothing about the previous discussions on the subject. However, it should be noted that the article in question, while not a BLP per se, is fundamentally concerned with BLP issues since it relates to accusations against several individuals and organisations. It has been persistently affected by (and a number of editors blocked for) violations of the BLP policy. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion: Allow Grundle to edit politics articles again and topic ban him from BLPs and anything related to science. Articles in the latter two categories are serious articles; you don't want problematic editors to edit these articles. Editing politics related articles is more of a recreational game on Misplaced Pages. Count Iblis (talk) 23:33, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I oppose this. Grundle has shown nothing but contempt for Misplaced Pages policies on any article that has even the slightest hint of a political flavor. This latest transgression should be the end of this. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Can you cite any diffs that I made since my last block ended that shows "contempt for Misplaced Pages policies"? Grundle2600 (talk) 23:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Count Iblis, ban me from science articles? Why? Please see User:Grundle2600#Articles_that_I_started for lots of science articles that I started. There's no problem with any of them. And there's no problem with BLPs that aren't related to politics either. Can you point out a single diff that I made since my last block ended that violates any wikipedia rule? Grundle2600 (talk) 23:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe that Grundle is making an honest attempt to abide by the restrictions he specifically agreed to as conditions of his unblock. On the other hand, due to his history of using Misplaced Pages more as a journalism/investigation site than an encyclopedia, I don't have a lot of faith that this will work in the long term. But until and unless he violates policy again, or goes back on his pledge to avoid political BLPs, I don't think that any further action is needed. -- Atama頭 23:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

For the record, here is the diff that Scjessey's ANI complaint is about:

"I vote for calling the article Climategate, as that is the most commonly used term, just as the article about Panthera leo is called Lion. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)"

"Q Science said, 'By the way, of the 157 MB of released files, only about 8 MB (5%) were email.' I think that statistic should be added to the section of the article called 'Content of the documents.' It also seems odd that the only subsection in that section is the one about the emails. Perhaps the info about the rest of the documents doesn't have any reliable sources - yet. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)"

Grundle2600 (talk) 00:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Update - Grundle has been WP:ICE CREAM-ing the regulars. I think this calls for an immediate fudge sauce with walnut sprinkles. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I support Wikidemon's proposal. Grundle2600 (talk) 01:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I note that Grundle has made no effort to apologize for this infraction, and continues to argue that he has done nothing wrong. Wikidemon attempts to make light of this, as he has done in the past, but frankly Grundle's "I'm a nice guy. I've done nothing wrong" routine doesn't work on me anymore. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Scjessey, the only "infraction" is that you falsely attributed a quote to me which I never said. At first, I said that I thought that you had made an honest mistake. However, since you have not admitted your mistake, and you have not apologized, and you continue to pursue this matter against me, I now believe that what you did was a deliberate, bad faith attempt to get me blocked even though I did not break any rules. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for doing that. Grundle2600 (talk) 14:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Urgh. Last week, on one of his unblock requests, he stated "Then they should ban me from all political articles from all countries, instead of blocking me, so I can still edit articles on animals, science, technology, and pop culture" I hate to say "I told you so", but when I declined his unblock request last week, I stated "I'm not sure how you could turn an article about an animal or science or pop culture into a political battleground, but I am sure you will try hard to do so." It seems clear to me that Grundle is not interested in editing in a way that avoids controversey. Immediately after being unblocked, he dove in head first into one of the biggest edit wars going on at Misplaced Pages right now. This is completely unacceptable. He claimed while blocked, several times, that all he wanted to do was avoid political articles and edit innocuous stuff. He gets unblocked, and goes right back to the same behavior has before. Can we just return his indefinite block, and call this done with. The experimental unblocking has failed after less than a week. --Jayron32 05:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

That was a different unblock request, which was denied. Also, if you think that what I did was so bad, then why have you not cited any diffs to show that I broke any wikipedia rules? Grundle2600 (talk) 14:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I changed the heading of this section from "Grundle" to "Grundle2600" because there is another wikipedia editor named Grundle. Grundle2600 (talk) 14:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I also made this edit on my user talk page before my block was was lifted, where I replaced Jules Verne with Bill Watterson. Obviously, Verne has been dead for quite some time. Silly me! Grundle2600 (talk) 15:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

Having exhausted the community's goodwill, the indefinite block of Grundle2600 should be reinstated.

• Support — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 05:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Please cite any wikipedia rule that I have broken since my last block ended. Grundle2600 (talk) 15:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• support --Jayron32 07:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Please cite any wikipedia rule that I have broken since my last block ended. Grundle2600 (talk) 15:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Just a clarification, is this a proposal for a community ban? That's what we normally do with people who have exhausted the community's patience. If what is proposed is a normal block, what would be the conditions for an unblock? (I have not yet formed an opinion about the merits of either proposal.)  Sandstein  08:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• One way to get unblocked is for the person to acknowledge that they broke a specific wikipedia rule, and promise not to do it again. Since I have not broken any wikipedia rule since my last block ended, there is no wrongdoing for me to acknowledge, so I could not use that argument to get unblocked. The only other way to get unblocked is to argue that the block was not justified. In this case, no block is justified, and several people have already explained why. Even the people who support blocking me have ignored my multiple requests for them to cite any diffs which show that I broke any wikipedia rules since my last block ended. Grundle2600 (talk) 14:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose So far, no one has posted any diffs of me breaking any wikipedia rules since my last block ended. Grundle2600 (talk) 14:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose pending some showing that Grundle2600 broke a policy or what he agreed to on his talk page. And please, could the usual suspects please avoid cowboyship by going and blocking in the middle of a discussion? Let's talk this out.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, I have to agree with the two users above, someone needs to demonstrate how Grundle broke policy before we even think about a lifetime community ban. WVBluefield (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per Wehwalt & WVBluefield.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support - No policy was broken this time, but Grundle2600 broke a pledge to avoid politically-controversial articles after being indef blocked for breaking policies in the past. Agree with Wehwalt that this needs to be properly talked out this time - let's not make this a thing that crops up every week or month. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:12, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Why not just re-apply the original conditions, without his qualifications? The case is murky, because Grundle was seemingly allowed to agree to restrictions only conditionally. If we reapply the restrictions and he breaks them, the case for an indef block will be much more clear-cut.--Cúchullain /c 15:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose regrettfully. Too much confusion over the exact terms of the unblock (terms asoriginally posted or as modified by Grundle) giving plenty of doubt that anything was violated. Wikilawyering by Grundle on this? Obviously! But in this case, because of a lack of clarity on the community's side, not Grundle. Ravensfire (talk) 15:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• Comment What makes this even more ridiculous is that Grundle’s “violations” were made on an article talk page and not an article. This whole thread smacks of pettiness and demonstrates how one user can game the system to squash another editor. WVBluefield (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

  I beg your pardon? You'd have to be extraordinarily naive to think that article discussion does not have a direct affect on article changes. Also, I don't care for your suggestion that I am gaming the system. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:35, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Its becoming clear from the discussion above that not only has Grundle not violated any terms of his unblocking (as he wrote the terms favorably) but that you are using this forum to punish him for past run ins and not any current conduct. And for the record, an article talk page is not an article. WVBluefield (talk) 15:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's pure fantasy. This matter is nothing more than the logical result of Grundle2600's actions. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Conditional Suport I propose modifying Grundle's ban to include any articles with political connotations. I realize this may be difficult, but Grundle has editted productively articles which have nothing to do with politics, and it would be a shame to lose those contributions. I suggest modifying his block, and having rigorous administrator oversight to ensure future relapses do not occur. Throwaway85 (talk) 18:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Objections to complaint based on confusion over quote attribution

Scjessey, the person who created this ANI complaint against me, wrongly attributed a quote to me which I never said. Then after I explained his mistake and posted what I really did say, I said, "I am going to assume good faith, and assume that this was an honest mistake on Scjessey's part."

However, since then, Scjessey has not admitted that he mistakenly attributed something to me which I never said, and he has not apologized, and in fact, he has continued arguing against me. Therefore, I no longer believe that what he did was in good faith, and I no longer believe that it was an honest mistake. Instead, I now believe that Scjessey deliberately attributed a quote to me which I never said, in a bad faith attempt to get me blocked for something which I never said.

Shame on him.

Grundle2600 (talk) 14:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

We're talking about the topic ban quote here? Yes, I'd like to see Scjessey address that. Given that what is being discussed is the privilege of one editor to edit Misplaced Pages, we need to make sure what we post is accurate.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's what we are talking about here.

Scjessey said:

"Despite pledging to be 'topic banned from editing or participating in discussion of any political or politically controversial article, as well as BLPs. This includes articles directly about politics, but also includes politically controversial topics, like climate change,'"

But I never said that.

This is what I actually said:

"I agree to avoid editing articles about politicians from all countries, including their article talk pages. I also agree to avoiding editing articles about people from all countries whose main notability is their political commentary, such as Diane Francis, Michael Moore, and Paul Krugman, as well as their talk pages. I do not agree to any such ban on BPLs for non-political people, such as Phoebe Cates, Stephen Hawking, or Jules Verne, because the issue there for non-political BLPs (I think Tiger Woods was the only one) was not my edits to articles, but instead, some jokes I made in the comment section and talk pages. Therefore, I agree to stop making jokes about all living persons in the comment section and talk pages for articles. However, I still reserve the right to make edits about international political articles that are not BLPs, such as nuclear power, overpopulation, and sweatshops. My edits in these articles have generally been welcomed by other editors, and the histories of these kinds of articles shows that I have substantially improved them without causing trouble."

Thus, I never said the words that Scjessey is attributing to me.

Grundle2600 (talk) 14:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, I'd like to see Scjessey address this point. If Scjessey is maintaining that Grundle said this, and certainly that is the implication, I'd like to see Scjessey post a diff. We get enough drama at AN/I without questionable bases for persuing a matter, if that's what we have.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I also made this edit on my user talk page before my block was was lifted, where I replaced Jules Verne with Bill Watterson. Obviously, Verne has been dead for quite some time. Silly me! Grundle2600 (talk) 15:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I already explained this yesterday. I'll do it again if you like. Here's the gist of it in easy-to-read points:

• Grundle2600 was indef blocked for various violations of policy, including the most sacred (see archive of ANI discussion)
• A list of "sanctions" were proposed (see archive) by User:Multixfer. "Climate change" was specifically mentioned in the list of points.
• Grundle2600 pledged (with conditions) to abide by these points diff, but no mention of "climate change" appeared in Grundle2600's conditions.
• Grundle2600 violated the agreed-upon terms by joining the debate on a highly controversial climate change-related article.

I think this is a direct violation of his "promise to be good" pledge. Even if you don't agree, you'd have to argue that it is at the very least a violation of the "spirit" of that pledge. Grundle2600 has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to edit or discuss political (or politically-controversial) articles in a responsible manner, either by directly violating policy or trying to push a political agenda. How much more of this must we put up with? -- Scjessey (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

In Grundle's defense, his version of the conditions includes the phrase "I reserve the right to make edits about international political articles that are not BLPs...". I think that does cover the climate change articles for the most part. His changes are pretty cleverly written to include many of the articles that he wants to edit without imposing too many new limits on him. Ravensfire (talk) 15:47, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The talk page Grundle2600 edited has a BLP tag at the top of it, as pointed out by another editor above. It may not be a biography, but for the protection of the various individuals being discussed within the article it certainly falls under the auspices of WP:BLP. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Another proposal

Grundle is to abide by the original unblock conditions without any qualification:

1. Grundle is to refrain from posting his list of seven questions or referring to them anywhere on Misplaced Pages.
2. He is topic banned from editing or participating in discussion of any political or politically controversial article, as well as BLPs. This includes articles directly about politics, but also includes politically controversial topics, like climate change.
3. Grundle agrees to take note of and adhere thoroughly to WP:SYN
4. Grundle agrees to disengage from and avoid those he has had disputes with, especially political disputes.
5. Any posting of his seven questions or referring to them, or breaking of his topic ban, or deliberate engagement with those he has had disputes with will result in his indefinite block being immediately reinstated for a period of no less than 4 months.

This will clear up the confusion about what restrictions were placed and agreed to.--Cúchullain /c 15:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

For now, I disagree. Grundle has several restrictions on him at this point from previous discussions/cases plus these new ones. Let's see if he can abide by his own restrictions without causing disruption. If he can - great! Job well done! If he can't, it should be easier to be get additional restrictions. I think he got let off the hook on this one, but maybe he'll work better under restrictions that he was able to modify, rather than have them dictated to him. Ravensfire (talk) 15:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Extremely disgusted and reluctant oppose - I'm sorry to say but the unblocking admin seriously screwed the pooch here by accepting Grundle's conditions, so unless another admin wants to start the ol wheel-war fun, we're stuck with dealing with the consequences. I have no faith whatsoever that Grundle can make positive contributions to such a politically charged as global warming and the e-mail hacking incident, but the unfortunate outcome of the unblock is that it will have to be tolerated until it crosses the line. Perhaps this will serve as a cautionary tale for the future; don't let the accused dictate the terms of the probation. Tarc (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

  Yeah, it looks like Grundle2600 is going to get off on a technicality. Ambiguity is the friend of the accused. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Scjessey, the only "ambiguity" is that you attributed something to me which I never said. Grundle2600 (talk) 16:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Tarc stated, "I have no faith whatsoever that Grundle can make positive contributions to such a politically charged as global warming and the e-mail hacking incident." You are mistaken. The most recent edit that I made to any such article was this one from December 9. And if you look at the current version of the article, you will see that the information that I added to the article is still there - 2 weeks after I added it. In fact, even Scjessey, the person who filed this current ANI complain against me, has edited that article since I added that info, but left intact the information that I added. Thus, I have just proven that I am capable of making a positive contribution to such an article. However, if you think that my edit has made the article worse, you are free to remove that information from the article. Grundle2600 (talk) 16:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• A single edit is not much of a sample to go on, and the bulk of your past disruption stemmed from talk page contributions, not article edits. Tarc (talk) 16:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Tarc, here is the diff that Scjessey's ANI complaint is about. It's on the talk page. It's a perfectly reasonable edit. Grundle2600 (talk) 16:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• You continue to ignore the facts, which I have laid it in an easy-to-follow form above. You are less likely to get sanctioned if you admit your error (or even admit it could be seen as an error), instead of arguing with every editor who disagrees with your version of events. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:22, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• Grundle, I voted to oppose, albeit reluctantly. Take your victories where you can and stop quibbling. Tarc (talk) 18:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I believe it to be in the best interests of all concerned for Grundle to maintain his editing priveleges, with the caveat that he refrain from editing, or commenting on the talk pages of, any article with political connotations. I propose, as above, that an administrator undertake to monitor his edits, and ensure he does not violate said condition. While I agree that technically, he has not violated any rules since his previous block, I feel his recent edits violate the spirit of what was imposed. The unblocking admin was perhaps too quick to accept Grundle's proposed conditions. I think we can avoid much future drama, and Grundle avoid future blocks, if he agrees to adhere to the condition I have proposed. Throwaway85 (talk) 18:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose blocking - But this should be considered a "last chance" for the editor. I think that's the consensus I see here, most people opposing an immediate reblock do so because of a technicality and because no disruption has occurred afterward, and I'm in that camp. But I don't see many people putting a great deal of faith in him. I say that if he can somehow avoid trouble, despite his history, then great. If he acts as everyone expects he will, then there's cause for the indefinite block to be reinstated. -- Atama頭 20:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment It is not a last chance for Grundle, because as far as I can tell, he has not done anything wrong. He is within the scope of his editing restrictions. Now, I will say that possibly the unblocking admin should not have let Grundle amend the understanding that way, but it did pass by unremarked, and Grundle's entitled. The edit itself seems unobjectionable. I would say that I'm far more upset at Scjessey. Either Scjessey's complaint that began all of this lacked clarity, or it lacked candor. I have my opinion on which, but I AGF. Frankly, I see nothing further to do here. Let's close all of this.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Legal threats by Zensurfer (talk · contribs)

Subject user has made legal threats on User_talk:SolidSnake1884, the talk page of a user currently blocked for vandalism/BLP violations, as well as this comment on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Robert Dickinson. I wholeheartedly agree that the "libellous" edits by SolidSnake1884 (talk · contribs) were vandalism, but Zensurfer's contribution history shows no attempt to resolve the issue using dispute resolution, as recommended in WP:NLT. —KuyaBriBri 23:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's not lose sight of the big picture. A quick look at the history of the article in question shows that almost all of the edits have been by Zensurfer, Zensurfer2 or Zensurfer3 - probably not too much of a stretch to say that they are related. Zensurfer may be close to the subject of the article, and thus aware of the real impact of SolidSnake1884's vandalism. Given Zensurfer's limited exposure across Misplaced Pages, I suspect that he/she isn't aware of WP:NLT. A gentle reminder on the editor's talk page should be enough, and I'll go do that now. Xymmax _{So let it be done} 23:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Too late :( Xymmax _{So let it be done} 23:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The Legendary Sky Attacker

User:DIREKTOR

I decide to write this WP:ANI because DIREKTOR made fun of SirFloyd once more, ignoring my requests of changing his way of talking one more time. User:DIREKTOR keeps making fun of other users editing on http://en.wikipedia.org/Josip_Broz_Tito. He keeps assuming their bad faith and he keeps teasing them, using provokingly language towards them. Even if many users have pointed out to him that they felt offended by his way of talking he keeps refusing apologising or at least changing his way of talking towards them. He keeps de-legitimating other users sources too even if they are from academics saying that the passages which may be perceived as critical towards Tiro (in his user page he says he supports "Josip Broz Tito's views") are based on fascist authors even if it isn’t true (for example “Heh, lol. Unsurprisingly, the source of that is Borivoje Karapandžić, a well known Ljotićevac ("Ljotić-ist"), a Serbian fascist. I'll get back to you on him”). ”). See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Josip_Broz_Tito) in the “unsourced”, “Hoping you're not just deleting passages”, “Encyclopaedia Britannica/BBC UK-History”,”This article is an embarrassment to the free Western world”, “This week in the news”, “Question” and “A week at the Tito article” sections. He keeps refusing confrontation too (for example “Enough of this nonsense”). He keeps calling User:AP1929 an Ustase (which is an insult, as Ustase are generally portrayed as criminals) for example when he, out of nothing, says the other users to “be advised that User:AP1929 is a well known Ustaše POV-pusher” in order to de-legitimate his comments, he keeps saying AP1929 edits because of a “political agenda”, he keeps assuming his bad faith accusing him of trying to deceive people (“you are either mentally unable to grasp … or, which seems more likely, you are trying to deceive people here”) and of pushing “incredible nonsense”. He keeps acting like this even if User:AP1929 says “I am highly insulted by several things DIREKTOR has produced right here on this very page” and he didn’t apologise. He admits "I find it personally hard to work in such a environment". He keeps accusing User:Sir_Floyd of editing because of a “political agenda” too (“you're intent on adding unrelated information to push a political agenda”), of being “simply unable to comprehend” “as always”, of “keep(ing) on pushing your POV” (“User:Sir Floyd added his standard cherry-picked quotes”), assuming his bad faith too. He keeps making fun of him (“Ah, User:Sir Floyd talks of "offensive behavior" and "productivity"”). He keeps acting like this even if User:Sir_Floyd says “I agree! It's offensive and it's not productive” and “Good one Mr Director, insulting the whole Croatian people (& Kosovo) to the core. This time you have gone too far. In order to clear this up, can you please explain your comment” and he didn’t clear his comment nor he apologise. He keeps making fun of other users (me, Sir_Floyd, AP1929 and User:ShadowRangerRIT by adding brief comments -to other users’comments- like “LoL” and “Heh, always fun”). He keeps accusing me editing because of a “agenda” too, saying my “criticism is nonsensical” when I asked to him why he deleted passages without transporting them elsewhere. He keeps assuming my bad faith too (“I see my unavoidable temporary absence was exploited to full effect”,” Its not "collaboration" (you seek) if you just insert your POV because I'm away”,” you just added the tags after pieces of text you disliked”) accusing me of “undecency” (a thing which I paticularly think it’s offensive) and threatening me of deleting my edits (“You may rest assured that 90% of the undiscussed POV edits you quickly sneaked in will be promptly reverted”), even if my edits were only insertions of requests for citations and the transportation of quotes to wikiquote. To understand the situation maybe you can see here too (http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive583#Incipient_edit_war_at_Josip_Broz_Tito, http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive584#User:AlasdairGreen27_trolling_once_more_2 and http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive586#Legal_threats_by_User:AP1929). In the first (and last till now) WP:ANI I opened I discovered users here on en.wiki thought articles on the Balkans should be avoided and that they were considered battlefields from two opposite groups of users, pushing their POVs. As you can see from the WP:ANI above they may be right. However, even if the discussion is often harsh there (to my surprise) this fact mustn’t justify a behavior contrary to wikipedia policies. When an user makes me understood that one comment I made could be perceived as offensive towards DIREKTOR I apologised to DIREKTOR on Tito’s talk page and on his talk page. So it is possible not to be unpolite on those articles. Then why can’t he use a different way of talking, like other users are trying to do? Why hasn’t he apologise like I do? Why has he made fun of my way of talking because of its politeness? Why i keep writing on the talk page what i have changed in order for others to question my edits and he can’t? Why when I told him “Can't we discuss instead?” does he have to make fun of me (“I'm sad that you're so sad. :)”,” He'll get what he wants apologizing all the way”,” Its a mad house, a maaad house”) even if I pointed out a lot of times to him that I was offended by his way of talking (“Telling to another user he/she has not behaved in a decent way is offensive, even if you put a smile after it. Can you please stop talking this way to me? Maybe you think it's not offensive to write that way, but i feel offended. Thanks”,” keep ignoring my request to stop talking to me like this, because saying "He'll get what he wants apologizing all the way" and "Its a mad house, a maaad house" or calling other users "Ustase guy" (as the Ustase are generally portrayed as criminals) is offensive and irritating, as you are teasing and making fun of me and of other users by saying those kind of things. Please use another way of talking towards me and the others. Thanks.”)? . The fact that this WP:ANI deals with a Balkan article shouldn’t make this WP:ANI different from any other WP:ANI. The fact that an old user (DIREKTOR) is involved shouldn’t have to justify his behavior too as he hasn’t gained a sort of immunity because of the numbers of its edits. I hope you’ll do something. Even if it is restricting all users involved in this and the previous WP:ANIs on the same article from writing on it for a year or more, as the situation as to be solved. Thanks. --AndreaFox2 (talk) 00:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

tl;dr. This should get some kind of prize. Mathsci (talk) 00:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The user obviously needs a warning, and I would suggest a block only if he kept this up. For some reason, I want to think his account is compromised, as this seems to be a lot from such an accomplished user. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Hm, if someone actually bothers to check these quotes one can easily notice that there is nothing malicious in these comments, at all. A warning for not matching the painful politeness of the other guy? Do I really have to go through these quotes one by one?

To save some poor soul the trouble of going through all this, the gist is: 1) I have not even come close to insulting anyone, 2) User:AndreaFox2 is annoyed by informal conversation, and 3) the fellow is trying to get me banned for daring to oppose his edits, by cherry-picking perfectly benign comments and presenting them in a "sinister" context. The trouble he faces is that despite his best efforts its still plainly obvious there is no malice in them at all. --DIREKTOR 01:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of turning out "manipulative" or something, I'll still say I am confident no serious Wikipedian will be deceived by this collection of out-of-context quotes. I deal with controversial issues, there's a lot of guys trying to get me banned so they'd have free reign over these obscure Balkans articles. A reminder: no insults have been presented here. WP:NPA has not been violated. 01:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)--DIREKTOR

I withdraw the statement above, as no one else has complained here. I guess one can get ticked off, but I'll remain neutral and suggest that you get a trouting instead. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I deserve it. I wasn't being as careful as I should've been with this guy. Apparently he'll manipulate my words whenever he gets a chance. Best make sure he does not get one. --DIREKTOR 01:32, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

It's amazing to watch how this DIREKTOR goes away with his disruptions each and every time. "his account is compromised", "out-of-context quotes" etc etc. yeah right. whats next? the dog eat his homework?  Dr. Loosmark  02:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, it looks like it'll work eventually. If these guys just keep posting nonsense reports like this eventually it'll look like I "get away with it every time". I suppose it only a matter of time before one of these ridiculous-type reports eventually gets me blocked. After all, it wouldn't be "fair" if I "got away with" every single report, would it?

Guys, I'm not "getting away" with anything - there is practically nothing to get away with. Please, please look carefully at these sort of cunning traps before making a decision, please look at every one separately, and please bear in mind there's a lot of weekend-editor guys here who want to push the POV of their petty Balkans faction - a lot of people want me banned and will write-up the equivalent of War and Peace here if they think it'll do the job. Over here, the people who just want everyone to get along are a minority. --DIREKTOR 02:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course. Every time everybody else is pushing their POV while you are the objective protector of the NPOV.  Dr. Loosmark  02:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

What can I say at this point? You're making an assessment of my neutrality based solely on the number of nonsense posts that have been flung at me. What do I say to that? Study-up on ex-Yugoslav history and then investigate my edits?

All I can tell you is that I have so far been attacked by supporters from every single Balkans faction - Serbs, Croats (I'm a Croat), Albanians, Bosniaks, and even Italians, and that it seems like all I ever do is keep screaming: "show me the sources". --DIREKTOR 02:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark, the only thing I find amazing is that every time someone complains about DIREKTOR, you appear and complain about how he gets off easier than you. Just let it go, not everyone's situation is the same.

DIREKTOR, some of those comments weren't the most civil, I hope you admit that. But there's nothing actionable that I can see. Just don't throw gasoline on the fire if you can help it. -- Atama頭 03:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

You're making an assessment of my neutrality based solely on the number of nonsense posts that have been flung at me. Not at all. I have checked some of your edits the last time you were a "guest" on this board and I have to say that I have noticed a certain type of self-rightness which annoys a lot of people. Mind I'm not saying that some of those editors with whom you interact aren't nationalistic POV pushers, they are. Still your constant cries that you are attacked by all those factions is over the top. Not everybody who disagrees with you is a nationalist attacking you.
@Atama indeed not everyone's situation is the same. Had I done 10% of the stuff we have seen in this report I'd be blocked already. But let's not go into that.  Dr. Loosmark  03:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

@Dr. Loosmark. I've seen guys get blocked or even banned on a whim or without the situation being properly addressed, I'm sorry if that happened in your case, and I hope you realize its something I'm actually trying to avoid. You should probably keep in mind that I'm working in the "Balkans department", "the trenches" as AlisdairGreen27 calls it. Proper civility is rare. Which brings me to my next reply

@Atama. Of course I admit it, but I was obviously being careful not to take things too far. I can only say again that its taken out of context. A few half-joking comments on someone's habit of unnecessarily apologizing in every post is nothing compared to some of the stuff being dished out there. Just for example, I've been accused on two occasions of insulting my own country, and all sorts of other crazy nonsense... --DIREKTOR 03:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

"half-joking comments on someone's habit" hmmm.  Dr. Loosmark  16:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

(TLDR) It is you AndreaFox2 that should have been banned long time ago under the Balkans policy for extreme PoV pushing on the Tito article. Last time I checked it 95% of your "references" were removed because they were cherry-picked defamatory quotes you intentionally twisted to make Tito look as bad as possible. Now you want to take revenge on DIREKTOR because he's one of the last normal guys that has enough patience to deal with your ilk. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 04:24, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I still think my TLDR tag was appropriate. Throwaway85 (talk) 18:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Administrator attention likely needed

DIREKTOR puts up with a ridiculous amount of BS over on Balkans related articles. Does he always react to it perfectly? No, but rarely is he the instigator. If you look at DIREKTOR's history on AN/I you'll find a string of POV pushers who bring him here that are inevitably indef blocked or banned for said pushing or for socking. It's a frustrating area to edit in, and if anything he should be commended for putting up with so much crap. He'll likely end up at ArbCom at some point, and likely we'll see an expansion of WP:ARBMAC. In the meantime, the articles he's editing likely need some admin attention. I've edited extensively in the area, so I can't use my tools and am frankly still burned out from the conflicts. User:Ricky81682 may be burned out as well, though User:Future Perfect at Sunrise does some work policing the area. It's not fun and you will be accused of everything under the sun, but it's also necessary. Any admins willing to step up? I think the two most likely articles that need some eyes are probably Josep Broz Tito and Ante Pavelić. AniMate 20:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

User:PCHS-NJROTC has unilaterally declared another user to be "banned"

User:PCHS-NJROTC seems to have a particular interest in what they refer to as "cheerleader vandals". They have seem to have decided that there is a ring of "cheerleader vandals" who spread their message via secret "chain letters". PCHS-NJROTC has recently added a banned user template to User:LBHS Cheerleader, the account which they seem to believe is the ringleader, despite having only 11 edits. The edit summary was "Has been banned for a while, ought to be tagged". LBHS Cheerleader does indeed appear on the list of banned users, because PCHS-NJROTC added them.

When I asked PCHS-NJROTC about this, their responses were somewhat evasive. Apparently there was no community discussion of a ban nor any decision to ban this user. I am concerned that a user has been improperly labeled as "banned", based on the somewhat dubious decree of a single editor. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

No worries, it's already been settled. Not officially banned, taken off the banned list, template removed, issue resolved. PCHS-NJROTC 04:11, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Just be to clear, LBHS is indef banned: 19:18, 28 January 2008 Philippe (talk | contribs | block) blocked LBHS Cheerleader (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Vandalism-only account). — Huntster (t @ c) 04:13, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you perhaps mean to write "blocked"? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

No, seriously, I'd not letting a troll win this by convincing a user that I am "power hungry," so unless admins here seriously think there's a need for an "official ban," let this one drop as simple vandalism for my sake. The vandals will be blocked one way or another anyway unless they behave and contructively contribute, in which case there's no reason to hold their past against them in my opinion. I feel as if the general community has been very supportive of my efforts to fight this particular vandal, but I'm done with them entirely. This is not worth my good name. PCHS-NJROTC 04:27, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

You may have misunderstood why I brought this here. You declared a user to be banned when they weren't and then you dissembled when asked about it. Apparently there were other accounts affected by this, based on your actions since this thread started. Edits like this are not appropriate even if you suspect someone of being a vandal. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:37, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Fine, I quit, since you're going to try to persue action over something I was never warned about, and occured when I was practically a newbie, after I chose not to run checkuser on your account. Bye Misplaced Pages. PCHS-NJROTC 04:45, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

One person complains about you, no one else backs him up, and you quit within 4 messages? Wow. --Golbez (talk) 04:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I quit because this is not the first time I've been sanctioned over this kind of mess. I realize I am imperfect, and I tried to handle this within reason, but I will not be sanctioned because of a troll, which is why DC is being so... unreasonable? This was not over 4 messages. I hope this point is heard loud and clear. PCHS-NJROTC 04:58, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

If I may butt in where it is really none of my business, I don't feel that Delicious carbuncle is being at all unreasonable. In fact he could of been much more direct in his communication, and told you quite plainly that you are way out of line putting banned messages on any pages. Beach drifter (talk) 06:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• Indef blocks where no admin is willing to unblock is pretty much a ban. Since the vandal keeps coming back under new accounts, we're tossing the socks as we find them. PCHS-NJROTC is familiar with the long term abuse and for ease of processing, tags the account(s) as banned. Not seeing the problem here. Shell 04:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at this SPI case. Absent the bogeyman of "cheerleader vandals" why did User:Jess Selders 2012 get indef blocked? A 2 minute Google search show that there is a Jessica Selders at Charlotte High. Let's not get into this bans are just blocks etc bullshit. PCHS-NJROTC is quickly undoing all of their edits relating to this "ban", so I think they see the problem. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 05:02, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

It's over DC. Someone block my account at my request please, that way this discussion can just be closed and forgotten. I feel I have seriously wasted my time with certain elements of this project. For the record, just because Jessica Selders is a real person doesn't mean she has the right to edit. Are you trying to say that LBHS Cheerleader is a robot? Seriously... PCHS-NJROTC 05:05, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

As my last request, I would like a full blown sockpuppet investigation on DC; I think more than ever now that he is the same as the Cricket IP user troll. PCHS-NJROTC 05:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you've made my point for me. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 05:09, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe they're undoing it because you've continued to push the issue despite it being clear that PCHS-NJROTC really isn't doing anything but defending the 'pedia from rather long term abuse. PCHS hasn't blocked any of these accounts and has used appropriate channels. Laying this on one editor's doorstep with some rather nasty accusations and hyperbole might just be the real problem here. BTW editors interested in playing around rather than contributing have been known to use real names before, even one's that aren't their own (shocking, isn't it) - that's hardly an indication of good will given the contributions of that account. Shell 05:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. What if Jessica Selders wasn't even responsible for that, and she got into some real life "crap" over it all? Wouldn't that just be special? I reverted everything to sastisfy you, which was evidently a waste. No, undoing everything like that right now in order to "hide" something would be stupid, and I sincerely hope you don't really see me as that ignorant. You're probably going to be nailed for AGF among other things. You have this entirely backwards, and you're just mad that I made a big deal about the name issue. Bye. PCHS-NJROTC 05:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I lied that I'm done with this entirely; I'm going to, with approval of the community, try to find that person on Myspace or Facebook and personally and calmly, politely ask her if she was responsible (and may I add she most likely was not), and if not, I personally feel the username needs to be changed and her edits be oversighted. Of course, that will be my last contributions to this project, although I'm having second thoughts if the community isn't going to unreasonable as DC has. But only if. PCHS-NJROTC 05:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

In short, I realize it looks kind of silly that I'm leaving this over one person. It's not that I can't handle it, it's not that it's just this, it's that I need a break from the drama. I realize I have a lot of support here, and probably some opposition too. Fact is, I know just being the subject of a report here hurts one's reputation no matter how outlandish (unless it's blatant abuse, where it gets reverted immediately), and I feel it's time to seriously take a Wikibreak or even retire to cool down this stigma that has been brought upon me. PCHS-NJROTC 05:32, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Hey, don't worry about it, anyone who doesn't take the time to look and see what happened doesn't matter. See you later. Sephiroth storm (talk) 05:44, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Removed the retirement templates so that the IP troll won't see "victory" and try it with other users. Bascially, I have to continue to contribute now just so the troll don't get his wish. DC wouldn't even satisfy with that anyway. I restored the entry at LTA because it appears consenus that consenus has been in my favor here. But I'm done fighting LBHS Cheerleader. I never lost my cool or anything; I only wanted to settle the dispute. See, when it comes to legitimate users, I prefer to settle issues without getting into a lot of heat. Sigh, guess I'd never pass an RfA, but who needs RfA anyway? Darn, all of this to try to stop baseing everything on a possible link to another banned user, what a misunderstanding this has been. PCHS-NJROTC 06:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Dude. When you start talking in terms of "you" and "them" and using words like "victory", you are getting trolled. Just relax, move on to an area where you aren't emotionally involved and come back in a week's time. It is not important to win. Look at it this way. Your "opponent" has nearly limitless time, resources and entry points. Attempting to resolve the issue through provocative edit notices, formal bans and direct engagement is a fool's errand. The only course of action which will avail you is to drain the emotion out of the issue, limit the time and extent of the impact on mainspace and wait for them to grow bored. No one is served by your flaring up. Protonk (talk) 07:25, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Restarting serious discussion

There is a real issue here seems to have been lost under a torrent of emotional outbursts. An editor who had made a total of 11 edits (assuming there are no deleted edits) was indef blocked for what is very run-of-the-mill vandalism. That isn't abnormal. Having a single editor -- who seems to be on some kind of crusade relating to the high school which they attend -- decide that they are banned, is abnormal. The "a ban is just a block that no one is willing to lift" argument is a false equivalency, since we don't add all blocked accounts to a page which states "Banning is different from blocking".

From what I have seen of the "cheerleader vandal" threat, it is nothing more or less than simple vandalism and it is unproductive to elevate it to anything more. It seems likely to me that IPs and accounts have been blocked on spurious grounds because PCHS-NJROTC has associated them with this bogeyman. Certainly labeling users such as User:Random Chick236 as "banned" when they are not even blocked is wholly inappropriate (as is the edit summary "Give up kid, you're not funny. Try being contructive for a change"). Can we deal with the issue (unilateral declarations of bans by a single, overly-involved user) now, please? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:42, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

A user who has edits that solely consist of blanking articles on various high schools and replacing them with a message that praises his/her own school and does so consistently and with several possible alternate accounts after the original is blocked seems to be an indefinite block candidate to me, especially when subsequent sockpuppet accounts deliberately vandalize and attempt delete articles on rival schools. Whether it is right or wrong to label a de facto banned user as banned is besides the point.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Without having confirmed it, I suspect that PCHS-NJROTC personally identified most of those as sockpuppets, just as they decided that certain users were "banned". Take a look at User:Monsterbob234. PCHS-NJROTC added the sockpuppet template and "Hello to you to, here's my welcome wagon unwelcome wagon:" and the edit summary "Go to hell pollywog". The user appears to have made exactly one edit that is at all related to cheerleading. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not suggesting that this particular usage should be unblocked since they appear to be a vandalism only account, but I doubt they are a sockpuppet of User:LBHS Cheerleader and I don't think the message or edit summary were appropriate. Do you? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:19, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

DC, although some of what you say about being "tag happy" may be true, you must see how holding what happened over a year ago (before my grandmother's death even for goodness sake) is unreasonable. I'm sure there's actions you took as a newbie that you would not take at present because of experience. I have learned a lot since then, but I cannot go back and erase my "renegade, tag happy vandal fighting" past. More recent cases have been blatantly obvious. Jess Selders 2012 was not just blocked because of a random sockpuppetry accusation, but rather because there was a pattern of abuse, and because CheerleaderAgainstROTCFacism jumped in the middle of the discussion, pretty much proving my point. Now lets WP:AGF, say the latter wasn't the same person, the Jess Selders account actually belonged to Jessica Selders, and Jess only wanted to help the project. If that's the case, it should be the troll behind CARF on trial here, not me. If the two accounts are not linked, Jess was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If JS was indeed responsible for Jess Selders 2012 (and there's a significant chance that she was not), and she wants her name cleared of the sockpuppetry stigma, then she needs to request a username change. If the real person is not responsible, then I imagine she'd want the username changed so that her name is not involved in all of this. PCHS-NJROTC 20:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion you have manufactured a false threat of "cheerleader vandals" which you have used to have editors blocked for small amounts of simple vandalism. I could be wrong, but I have seen no evidence that any such group exists, or is a cause for concern if they do exist. Your histrionic message in this SPI case is ripe with speculation (and includes the all-caps "THESE GIRLS ARE RELENTLESS TROLLS AND NEED NOT BE FED!"). In that rant, you again asserted that User:LBHS Cheerleader was banned when you said "So does the "wiki-love" for those who (unknowing of their ban) give them a second chance". Editors can look at the details of the SPI case themselves, I'm not interested in getting sidetracked by going into the details. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems that consensus is that DC is making a mountain out of a mole hill here, and I'm sure you can all agree that I've been completely reasonable in the handleing of this case aside from contemplating retirement. Actually, retirement, along with my removal of all references to the user in question being banned, was all no more than a failed attempt to compromise. No emotions, no anger, just an attempt to compromise. Thought if I left just like that he'd have been satisfied. It seems as if I have set DC on fire when I challeged his disclosure of my real life name in a particular discussion, which he claims was coincidental. Is biting a troll really any better than him biting an established user? It should be clear to everyone here that anyone that would continue to persue action at AN/I after an honest user in question has already agreed to cave is seeking punishment, not prevention. We block and ban as a preventative measure, not to punish; it's all laid out at the blocking policy. IMO, consensus is that LBHSC is defacto banned. My only intention in adding LBHSC to the banned list was to stop assuming that LBHSC could be considered banned under User:Bobabobabo as the idea was pure speculation anyway. I see nothing unreasonable about the movement; we can't use such speculation against users suspected to be linked to LBHSC, but since she's been considered banned for quite sometime, I felt that she needed to be added to the list independantly. I was being WP:BOLD, which is encouraged here, and I didn't discuss it first because I wanted to WP:Deny recognition. PCHS-NJROTC 21:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Whoever this LBHSC person is, she is not Bobabobabo. Bobabobabo edit warred over anime episode list articles.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:34, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

PCHS-NJROTC, I got involved in this issue only because I watchlisted User:LBHS Cheerleader's page after you made some frankly bizarre accusations on my talk page and elsewhere. For your sake, I won't link to them directly, but the discussion is http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Delicious_carbuncle#WP:VILLAGE here]. I believe you know that what you did was wrong and I believe you lied about it in our initial discussion because you knew that. Your subsequent actions suggest that you are trying as hard as you can to get out of this without admitting that. I think it's too late for that. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:48, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that PCHS's concerns were not real. I am not saying that you did or did not correctly guess his first name there, but if someone posted MY real first name in an on-wiki discussion about me or with me, I'd be a little disturbed and confused myself. This is beginning to look more and more like a personal battle, and I think both sides need to disengage and return to neutral corners. There does not appear to be much to be gained here, and its getting nasty in both directions. I'm not sure any admin action is appropriate here, but the entire mess looks just like personal sniping, and not much more. --Jayron32 21:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I used a very common male first name in an example of trivial vandalism during a discussion with PCHS-NJROTC (which was my first encounter with them). PCHS-NJROTC claims that it is their first name. I will assume good faith and assume that it is, but I have repeatedly said that I did not, and do not, know their name, so it was not deliberately chosen. That they now believe that I am a meatpuppet of the "cheerleader vandals" should speak to their eagerness to find connections where none are likely to exist.

This isn't personal. I'm not here complaining about possible personal attacks or esoteric content disputes - PCHS-NJROTC unilaterally decided that another user was banned, used that label to influence block on likely uninvolved users, reverted edits of at least one user (who wasn't even blocked) as a banned user based on their mistaken identification as a sockpuppet of the original target. I have absolutely no stake in this or any influence over the actions of any of the parties. At the very least a clear statement from a clueful admin condemning their actions is required, but I would suggest that a topic ban on vandalism would be wise. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 01:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Topic ban? That's sillyness; talk about "cool down blocks" and being counter productive. No, just let it drop as half of what you're rehashing is ancient anyway, and did I mention that there was a checkuser in all of this way back when? In fact, the very term "cheerleader vandal" was not my invention, but rather that of User:Zzuuzz in a request for checkuser which was followed up by User:Alison. DC seems to be "out to get me" here as if I'm the only one working with this. User:PMDrive1061, who blocked the sockpuppets in the most recent case, has not challenged my actions, neither have User:Fullmetal Falcon who shares my pain in that he was once a quite active editor of the pages that LBHSC has been targeting. I am trusted with rollback for a reason, Lord knows I have not abused it. For the record, User:Shell Kinney, who is becomeing part of the WP:ArbCom, has pointed out that you are in the wrong DC. Perhaps we should topic ban DC from AN/I? I personally think a topic ban on anyone would be counter productive here, and frankly, count me out as a contributer to the project if the suggestion even comes close to being seriously considered. There's a reason why administrative action should not be taken on either side of these kind of heated matters, and it's because such actions make matters worse. I am completely done with this; this is a waste of the admins' time. PCHS-NJROTC 04:27, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)Thank you for making my point here for me Jayron. As I was saying... Right, I now agree that it is a longshot that LBHSC is Bobabobabo; the basis behind the speculation was the fact that she was going by the name "Jessica" (in multiple incidents), and begging everybody like Boba, but the modus operandi was completely different. However, I see that some people were basing decisions on this "possibility," so I decided that something had to be done to halt the mistaken specualtion being referenced to as fact. Trying to get out of this? No, I'm not in anything, and I really feel it is inappropriate that you made a subsection implying that arguements against you was not "serious discussion." Do you honestly think you could deal with the trolls better than I have? Note that not all "cheerleader vandals" are LBHS Cheerleader, a fact that I acknowledge. Bizzare accusations? For one, I cannot stand to see you attempt to "stick up" for a blatant troll, regardless of whether (s)he's a sock. Random harassment is not something that I'm used to seeing just "happen" out of no where. Off-wiki, people claiming to be cheerleaders from LBH have behaved in much the same way Mr. Cricket has, which is why I suggested the possiblity. Some of these LBHSC trolls have said off-wiki that they used to be admins/established users much the same way as Mr. Cricket. It's pretty obvious that Mr. Cricket is not a current cheerleader at LBH, however, because Cricket is not a carrier in Florida. To cut to the chase, what do you intend to accomplish with this thread? Revenge? Help for a troll? A name for yourself? Victory? Some kind of punative action towards me? What policies have I violated? What is your point? PCHS-NJROTC 22:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Per Jayron, I propose a speedy closure of this fiasco. I'm trying to keep my cool here and make peace; DC needs to do the same. PCHS-NJROTC 22:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

This is somewhat off topic, but I managed to find this "Jessica Selders" on Myspace.com, and the original text that the user added to her user page is a direct copy and paste from the "about me" section of her profile. If the vandal was not actually Jessica Selders, then it was a copyright violation. PCHS-NJROTC 00:42, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Not important. Stop looking too far into this.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm done with this discussion anyway; I just thought that would be interesting food for thought for anyone following this issue. I've called for closure of this discussion, and I hereby disassociate myself from this pointless debate. Have a Merry Christmas. PCHS-NJROTC 01:08, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Ending discussion

My major incivility issues that DC have pointed out are ancient history and have disappeared in the last year. Any incivility I've demonstrated in more recent time have been no more than what is typically demonstrated by the average vandal fighter. Vandal fighters are human; they are not going to by "nicey nice" 100% of the time; you might see the occasional "grow up" or "why can't you just be constructive" comment from me aimed at a vandal, but I've come a long way from telling people "go to hell pollywog." Heck, I've even tried to stray away from telling people "grow up" for fear of controversy. The ancient issues were already addressed. I really find it ironic that DC can't be forgiving of an established users' past, yet he expects us to be perfect angels when it comes to dealing with people like User:LBHS Cheerleader and User:Jess Selders 2012, which general consensus is that they're linked. I've WP:AGFed with DC's posting of my name, but everyone must see the heat my questioning of the post has caused, and that an IP troll saw it as a perfect time to get all of this nonsense brewed. Anyone who fuels this debate fuels the hopes and dreams of an IP editor who calls User:McSly a "flaming homosexual," his own ISP's staff "outsourced sandniggers," and me a "retarded rotc dork" aka Hitler Youth who is power hungry and lives in a double-wide . Why are we discussing this? I cannot help but think that DC is simply mad, and I think the best solution is to just axe this whole discussion now. "Not looking good" as an edit summary? The IP editor, who hadn't edited anything related to me in a while, comes in out of no where and bad mouths me right when DC and I are in a discussion, and DC takes him seriously? DC references to my name (reportedly unintentionally, which I'll accept) about a month after the IP troll did the same? Now DC is on some kind of man hunt to basically get me in trouble after I PO'd him and his IP friend? Put two and two together here AN/I. I'm not saying DC is a sockmaster, but something awefully funny is going on here. PCHS-NJROTC 04:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• I think many people are feeling somewhat uncomfortable getting involved with this. I certainly would prefer not to, but I will say that it seems to me that Delicious Carbuncle asked a fair and simple question. What has transpired after that seems solely due to the manner in which PCHS-NJROTC responded. Delicious Carbuncle has certainly not deserved to be served with rambling, accusatory screeds which seem to fail to address the substance of DC's queries while ascribe to DC accusations which I have not seen him make. And no, what is going on here is not funny by a longshot, awful, definitely. Unomi (talk) 07:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

  Without having read everything, This is my view. User PCHS-NJROTC has made some mistakes, the majority of them seems to be in the past, and he has learned from them. I suggest that this AN/I will serve as sufficient "punishment" for his old issues. I agree that it does seem suspicious that DC was pushed the issue, after P-ROTC has tried to resolve this issue, however there is no evidence that the user is in violation of policy. I suggest that this AN/I serve as a warning to both parties, and thats it. Sephiroth storm (talk) 14:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

PCHS-NJROTC added a banned user template to User:LBHS Cheerleader on 19 December, so this has little to do with their history of abusive comments although it does show a pattern. You need to read the entire thread before offering opinions such as those above. What is it you think I need to be "warned" about? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no requirement for me to read an entire discussion. IAC, what I did see however, is a user admit that he made mistakes, and indicated an understanding of those problems. When the user became aware that their recent edit was disruptive, as in the discussion here, the user removed the template, without prompting, which shows good faith on his part. What I think you need to be warned about, is that when a user shows good faith in that his actions were not intended to harm anyone or damage the encyclopedia, you should lay off. Sephiroth storm (talk) 16:13, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no requirement to read an entire discussion? That is enlightening. In that case, having not acquainted myself with the facts, it is quite clearly obvious that you are wrong on several points, for reasons which I do not think it is worth going into here. Hands of gorse, heart of steel (talk) 20:28, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

May I point out, since it appears that one of my comments was misread, that I did not litterally mean any of this is "funny," but rather, I meant "suspicious." Issues at AN/I are always affected by the response from the involved party(s); had I responded with "f*** you losers" as some users have in past discussions I'd have been blocked without question for showing bad faith, so blaming anything on my response is not a valid arguement. I believe that Sephiroth storm's point is that DC needs to assume good faith as I had removed all references to the apparent "ban" as soon as they were questioned here as an offered settlement. I also pledged to disassociate myself with the trolling issue, which I will hold true to aside from reverting blatant vandalism where I naturally see it and issuing standard warnings levels one through four. Is any of this official business really needed? If LBHS Cheerleader apparently shouldn't be officially banned for "simple vandalism," why should a legitimate user be officially topic banned after he has already agreed to disassociate himself? PCHS-NJROTC 16:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• Allow me to express myself one last time... I will not have my name here (PCHS-NJROTC) tarnished over some IP troll giving an established user ideas to go looking for "power hunger" in my history of edits. Period. Done. Already decided. Please, speedy closure, please. I will not be topic banned or otherwise sanctioned; anyone seriously thinking of imposing sanctions is going to have to permaban User:Vandal Fighter Killed in Action from Misplaced Pages entirely if they think this is worth a ban. I do have a right to vanish, and as to go through any kind of "punishment" (which isn't something I believe in on-wiki as actions are supposed to be preventative), I would just assume vanish forever. That's what the talks of retirement were about. Sanctions could be troublesome for me in real life, and it's not worth the risk to go through all of this for a troll. May I add that a ban from this would probably be a quite unpopular movement. Anyway, I don't care; if it's that serious, change my name, and then ban me, but disassociate all of my actions from the name "PCHS-NJROTC" if that's your course of action. I do, however, doubt that this will happen since there's no consensus to do it. This is not "pouting;" this is my true opinion. Have I not made myself clear I want nothing further to do with this or LBHS Cheerleader? PCHS-NJROTC 00:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Resolution

I've dragged this back out of the archives to get some resolution. PCHS-NJROTC seems to have put a metaphorical gun to their own head and threatened to shoot themselves if anyone tried to get too close, but that doesn't do anything to address the issue. I am not sure why admins seem so reluctant to get involved with what seems fairly cut-and-dried to me. Is it ok for users to unilaterally claim other users are banned? If it is, I've got some people I think I will add to the banned list. If it isn't, what do you want to do about it? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The answer, as I'm sure you well know, is that only ArbCom or the community can ban a user, not a single individual (well, except for Jimbo Wales). PCHS-NJROTC screwed up, but he's no doubt learned the difference between a ban and a block by now – and he let the issue drop. I suggest you do the same. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 04:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I think there was a recent case where an admin assumed community support and unilaterally banned a user, but that is not terribly relevant here. Why do you assume PCHS-NJROTC has learned anything from this? I haven't seen any clear admission that they did anything wrong. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:11, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I offer settlement in the case, offer to disassociate myself with the LBHSC case, and learn not to be too WP:BOLD in any situation; basically, I've learned that pretty much everything needs to be thoroughly discussed before any action is taken beyond normal procedure. My error was assuming a ban because others had cited a ban when dealing with the user. Although I merely was trying to be bold and put an end in the groundless assumption that LBHSC was Bobabobabo just because I speculated that they might be linked, I was wrong. Admission to wrong doing is always a bad idea (except when praying to God); investigation comes to a halt with confession, and usually the person who offers confession is hammered. Despite, I have now given you what you want; I have spelled it out in bold letters for you. Now, can you move on now please? PCHS-NJROTC 19:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I hate to say this, but your explanation doesn't add up. If you thought that LBHS Cheerleader was a sockpuppet of banned user User:Bobabobabo, why did you remove the {{sockpuppet|Bobabobabo}} tag when you added the {{Banned user}} tag? And your very next edit was to dispute the connection between the two accounts and label them as a "meatpuppet ring" (the dreaded "cheerleader vandals", I assume). When I asked you about LBHS Cheerleader's "ban", you told me "It's a sockmaster who is banned by consensus" and "...I've decided to just pull the Bobabobabo tag and throw in an independant ban on LBHS Cheerleader". I don't think you are doing much for your credibility here. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:32, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I once saw a possible connection, but I felt that since there was no actual technical evidence that it was inappropriate for people to base any action on the possible link. The modus operandi in the article space was different, as was the geographical location, my basis was that they both went by the name Jessica and they both had a habit of begging. The idea was to stop people from assuming despite the lack of technical evidence. I thought just shifting the assumed ban to LBHSC directly would be the ideal course of action, but you're right that I should have discussed it first. I'm sure you will agree that it was inappropriate for people to be automatically assuming a ban under Boba when that was just an untested hypothesis rather than a conclusion. This being said without any knowledge of who DC is in real life or what he does for a living, DC, you should be an attorney if your not one, although I'm not sure if you'd be a better defense attorney (because it seems you're doing a good job defending LBHSC here) or a prosecutor (because of your skill at getting people to confess "I was wrong." If you're wondering, that's a compliment for your skills demonstrated here. PCHS-NJROTC 19:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The consensus I referenced to was where people seemed to be saying "oh, there's no reason to ban this one individually; lets instead use the Boba ban against her." I personally disagree with that as there's no technical evidence. Don't you? PCHS-NJROTC 19:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• there is something more serious that seems not to have been noticed: the earlier statement of PCHS-NJROTC: "I'm going to, with approval of the community, try to find that person on Myspace or Facebook and personally and calmly, politely ask her if she was responsible " and a later statement of theirs that they did precisely that: track down the person on Myspace, and extensive speculation about whether a particular named girl at a particular high school is responsible. To me, this is OUTing, or attempted OUTing, for either of which we normally block. As far as I know, the community does not give its approval" to things like this. DGG ( talk ) 05:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I would like to state that I believe it was wrong for DC to drag this back out, this is my OPINION, it indicates a possible Conflict of interest. As far as the above goes, it is troubling, I would suggest talking to the user, I think he is aware his actions were not in line with our policies. Sephiroth storm (talk) 06:32, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe that PCHS-NJROTC is interested in further discussion on the matter. Unomi (talk) 06:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

What possible "conflict of interest" could I have here? PCHS-NJROTC has made it very clear that they would like the issue to be dropped, but the fact remains that there has been no clear statement about this from any admins. Nor have I seen a clear statement from PCHS-NJROTC that they believe that what they did was wrong. I'm sorry to belabour this, but rather than avoiding the issue, let's settle this and move on. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:11, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Admins have been all over this DC. Furthermore, WP:OUTING? I didn't give out anybody's information, and as far as actually carrying out the proposed action of simply asking if it was her, and if she wanted everything oversighted, that was a proposed course of action; I did not actually contact anybody or ask any questions, and would not have without significant community support for the proposal. DC was responsible for just as much OUTing as I was in the matter by going on Google and finding her to be a real person through search results. I asked first, DC did not, and now we have linked to personal information about a "Jessica Selders" all thanks to User:Delicious carbuncle and his despirate desire to get sanctions imposed on me. Who's really OUTing people here? Also of note is that DC has been blocked for OUTing. The block was later lifted, but I believe he could be showing a rather nasty pattern of it. He posted my name, which was apparently unintentional, and then he posted a link to JS's personal, real life information. DC, you keep reviving this discussion, and you obviously seek punishment in the matter. As to why I want closure of the discussion, it's because as soon as my actions were challenged, I went in and removed references to the de facto "ban" and indicated my further disassociation with the issue, and you're still not satisfied DC. Quite frankly, I feel threatened here. I AGFed when DC wrote my name in a discussion, which was apparently unintentional. DC has failed to AGF when I stated my further disassociation with the LBHSC case, which in case wasn't clear, see . If admins apparently couldn't agree on a ban on LBHSC, what makes you think they'll agree on any sort of ban on me? PCHS-NJROTC 15:01, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

DGG, if you are looking for an indication of an WP:OUTING, it wasn't PCHS-NJROTC that first brought up that user and her supposed real name. It was User:Delicious carbuncle here. This whole thing here seems like a misunderstanding, or mistake, about using the words 'banned' and 'blocked'. To have it turn into this kind of drama seems a bit much. DD2K (talk) 15:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not consider it acceptable to try to get a Misplaced Pages contributor to disclose their real life identity. As for "only proposed," you then reported you had gone and looked for the myspace page, and found it. that's more than "proposed"; though you and DC may have finished the discussion between you, this aspect concerns one of our basic rules. We can block sockpuppets without needing to know who they are in RL. I'm concerned now about what you did in this respect--I am frankly not concerned about the rest. As a result of getting overinvolved, people sometimes are led to do inappropriate things. I do not think you realize that a hunt for the RL person was wrong. I await the view of others. DGG ( talk ) 15:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)As far as I can see, all that people are asking from you is that you discuss calmly and rationally without too much hyperbole involved. The reason, as I far as I can tell, that DC suggested you should be banned from vandalism work is that you seem to be taking an entirely too militant approach to it. I would suggest that you at least limit yourself to revert, warn, report to WP:AIV, WP:LTA, WP:ABUSE and refrain from contacting access providers yourself. I am two minds regarding this as I can see that you are very active with WP:ABUSE, but I fear that your approach to it can be counter productive and I am concerned regarding your apparent ability of perceiving and claiming support where there is none. I do not believe that DC is out to get you, nor am I. I am however somewhat taken aback by your reactions and I hope that we can reach a point where you can come to see why your actions were challenged. I would also note that you have stated your full name on wikipedia and as such claims of outing against your are null and void. Please do consider that I am writing in good faith and please do not feel that you have to respond immediately. Unomi (talk) 16:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

With respect, has everyone forgotten how to use diffs? NJROTC, you need to used diffs to support statements such as: "that was a proposed course of action; I did not actually contact anybody or ask any questions" DGG should use a diff in support of "you then reported you had gone and looked for the myspace page, and found it."

Now, in response to DC, While NJROTC has not admitted "guilt", he has taken action to remove controversial edits, and has stated that he will distance himself from the situation. I say you may have a COI, because you have not, to my knowledge suggested any compromise, or anything less than sanctions against this user. I can assure you, that this is not the first ANI that has gone without an "official" closeure. IMO, what you should have done, was left the discussion in archive, and watched to see if JNROTC abided by his agreement to separate himself from the noted vandals, "I believe that Sephiroth storm's point is that DC needs to assume good faith as I had removed all references to the apparent "ban" as soon as they were questioned here as an offered settlement." I would like to state that I do not, as of now have a viewpoint on the OUTING issue, as I haven't seen any diffs of the issue. Sephiroth storm (talk) 17:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Very well, DC added a link to an off-wiki site about Jessica Selders at CHS here. Although I did look up JS on Myspace, I did not provide any links to her there on-wiki, what I did do is explain that the user may have violated copyright which I found appropriate because it may be a reason to oversight. I fail to find how explaining that text added by a user is a direct copy and paste is WP:OUTING, but okay, if you desire to see it as such, lets go ahead and remove the comment from this thread. I did not contact her or any of the sort, I just curiously looked her up to see who she was, which is an off-wiki activity that pretty much anyone could do if they so desire. Didn't so much as attempt to get past any private settings, contact the person, or reveal my findings to the rest of Misplaced Pages (except that there's a possible copyvio), just merely viewed what is posted for public access. DGG, in my opinion, is jumping to conclusions. May I also add that DC was once blocked for outing, but the block was reversed because the user apparently "wrote two articles about himself," see I don't know, but it seems this is a similar case here as the user claims to be Jessica Selders, an athlete at CHS. I don't know, may the admins decide on this one as everything about this case seems to be within a debatable gray area. PCHS-NJROTC 18:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

PCHS, if you look at a somewhat similar recent situation, a lot of it depends on the purpose. For example, if I type "I am going to look you up on MySpace", then it's often an attempt to "win an argument", or to dissuade the other editing from further posting. That is a serious threat. In the case I linked you to, they were not only blocked for having made the call, but for having done the off-wiki research in order to find the information about a specific Misplaced Pages user to use against them. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

However, I'm not looking for information to use against her. She's already blocked, so how could I possibly use anything on Myspace against her. The mention of the copyvio was me AGFing (assuming good faith in that it may not have actually been JS responsible) and was for own protection. IMHO, we should rename the account and oversight references to the name (where feasible) as it does potentially get an uninvolved party involved here. We also need to stop referencing to her here; we should AGF as it is not uncommon for vandals to use someone else's name rather than their own. I know I wouldn't want to be impersonated by a vandal. PCHS-NJROTC 18:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

May I add that, in my opinion, we should be extremely careful when taking actions on wiki for issues off wiki. LBHSC vandals found and harassed me off wiki back when they were more active vandals, but I did not seek on wiki sanctions over it; I instead notified Myspace abuse (since the off wiki harassment took place on Myspace). In my opinion, what happens off wiki should stay off wiki. PCHS-NJROTC 18:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

user:JamesBWatson won't leave my user subpage alone

JamesBWatson seems to have some sort of personally vendetta against me. He's going back through all my edits and attempting to make editing quite annoying for me. Specifically, one thing that he has been doing is removing templates from my user page that he doesn't like. I've warned him about this in the edit comments, but he won't stop. I just want him (as well as everyone else) to leave my user subpage alone. The page is User:Bryan.Wade/Bryan.Wade Here is an example edit, but you can just check the history: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User%3ABryan.Wade%2FBryan.Wade&action=historysubmit&diff=333054441&oldid=332634652 Bryan.Wade (talk) 08:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I've advised JamesBWatson (talk · contribs) on his talk page that it is uncourteous (and potentially blockable) to edit-war on other users' user pages, and that there is no policy prohibiting users from awarding themselves silly medals. While I'm at it, I might also advise Bryan.Wade that there are perhaps better uses for his time than awarding himself silly medals. I don't think that there's much else for an admin to do here.  Sandstein  08:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I have the following things to say about this

1. I will, since people want me to, let Bryan Wade continue in his silly pretense that he has extensive editing history that he doesn't have.
2. I have not been "going back through all edits and attempting to make editing quite annoying for . I have removed his false claims to have extensive editing history: that is all. Making exaggerated claims is not helpful.
3. Might this have been mentioned on my user talk page first? I would have thought that ANI was for use when direct approach to the editor in question had failed.

JamesBWatson (talk) 09:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that if we are going to tolerate these bloody silly self awards then we should at least ensure that they they are accurate. Stating that one is "entitled to display (bullshit award)" that implies 7 years editing when that is a barefaced lie helps the project how exactly? I propose that we delete the subpage. Theresa Knott | token threats 09:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

No -- you have the right to lie on your userpage. If I put a userbox for "native speaker of Mongolian" or "born in Zimbabwe" on my page, that's simply what I can do. If I want to embarrass myself when it turns out that I won't even be able to answer "hello" in Mongolian, then so be it. Same with awards. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 09:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes but why do we allow people that? It's not just a question of people making themselves look like prats if they want to, it's also a case of other people being deceived. Let's make life easier for newbies and harder for liars by removing said lies when we come across them. Theresa Knott | token threats 09:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, if a non-admin put {{user wikipedia/Administrator}} on their userpage, I'm fairly sure it would be removed as misleading... Tim Song (talk) 09:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• See Essjay controversy for a case of an editor who (1) lied about his qualifications; (2) used those lies as leverage in editing disputes; (3) used them in a magazine interview about Misplaced Pages; (4) got hired by Wikia; (5) had the whole house of cards collapse, to the considerable embarrassment of Misplaced Pages, the WMF, and Jimbo Wales. Asserting "the right to lie on your userpage" looks like the seed of that whole tragedy. — Sizzle Flambé (☎/✍) 16:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I happened to come across this discussion (do not ask me why ;)), and I think that the entire issue could be avoided. Every editor has the right to write that which he/she desires on his/her userpage, and thus it can be controversial to prevent this when specifically asked otherwise on multiple occassions. Taking a different point of view, this is Misplaced Pages and our long-term goal is to improve articles; not to write our userpages (although it is, of course, nice to do so!). Therefore, although I feel that neither user had malacious intent in his actions (and knowing JamesBWatson, I am sure that he did not (I would be against blocking him)), no action committed really furthured the goals of the encyclopedia. Succintly, I feel that we might as well let people (or other species (who knows what edits Misplaced Pages!)) do that which they wish unless their actions influence others in a counterproductive or harmful manner. (Disclaimer: I am not an administrator). --PST 09:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I do think that lying about editing experience is harmful.Theresa Knott | token threats 09:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

In this case, you might be right since it's easy to check, but I would not want to have to send in a certified copy of my BFA, birth-certificate, and passport to the wikimedia foundation or whatnot. That's potential deception, too - and we allow it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 09:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

What percentage of the Earth's population have read his userpage? Not that I do not agree with you, but his userpage comprises a small portion of a vast encyclopedia... --PST 10:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no. You don't have any "right" to your userpage. Indeed we don't have any "rights" in Misplaced Pages whatsoever. You volunteer, and are permitted, to participate in an exercise to build an encyclopedia. To help you do that, you are given a userpage. The userpage is to help you build the encyclopedia - and must be used with that aim. Now, since what helps build the encyclopedia is capable of being understood differently by different parts of the community, you are given a wide latitude to decide how you will use the userpage to help the encyclopedia. Valid interpretations of this aim are - to tell us about yourself - to record your interests and wiki experience or "to build community". We don't generally dictate what's allowed or disallowed, because Wikipedians hold different ideas of what uses help the encyclopedia. However, if a particular use is obviously not helping the encyclopedia by any interpretation held by the community, then that use is disallowed. Rights don't come into it at all.--Scott Mac (Doc) 09:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

"Right" was not meant to be a legal term here. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 09:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

In this context it is not a useful term at all.--Scott Mac (Doc) 09:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Theresa, lying on userpages "because one has the right to" is disruptive and unhelpful. Any objections to my listing the subpage for deletion? ╟─TreasuryTag►Tellers' wands─╢ 10:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Go for it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 10:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

In real-life, we usually ignore pomposity; why should Misplaced Pages be any different? --PST 10:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) While I do not wish to escalate the matter, I notice that Bryan.Wade's award was removed once again... As I said, if he contributes productively to the encyclopedia, it does not really matter what he places in his user page (in my view). I think that the motivation of a potentially valuable editor (I do not know his contributions to Misplaced Pages articles, but I assume that they are productive) is more important than the prevention of harmless (my opinion, here ;)) self-praise. --PST 10:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• WP is a broad church of serious editors, practical jokers, sockpuppets and puppetmasters, compulsive liars and people with or without a sense of humour. There are a number of WP editors who, using their userspace, have created fictitious personae for themselves for the amusement of themselves and for others. OTOH, if someone puts misleading or false claims in their Userspace for a purpose which is not as mentioned, it is not to be condoned - they are merely discrediting themselves, as any simple tool will reveal the self-delusional façade they have created is but a sham. I would draw the line at when/if such an editor falsely claims I gave him/her such and such an award, in which case I would feel justified in removing same for it would/could reflect badly on me. Ohconfucius 10:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Page in question listed at WP:MFD. ╟─TreasuryTag►secretariat─╢ 10:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Quick Comment: Perhaps reading the lead of Misplaced Pages:Service awards may shed light on the matter. PST 10:22, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Also ANI/User:Zaferk. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 10:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Are we really discussing this? --Coffee // have a cup // ark // 13:38, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • ANI does make one question reality sometimes. Fences&Windows 13:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for the complete waste of time, Treasury Tag. We just went through this discussion a few weeks ago. Tarc (talk) 16:11, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • If you don't want to discuss it then don't. No one is forcing you to. Theresa Knott | token threats 16:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
    • I was referring to the MfD, but If you don't like what I have to say, no one compelled you to comment either. It goes both ways. Tarc (talk) 18:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• • It's not clear from that discussion what conclusion, if any, was reached. However, unless something on a user page is a blatant, gross violation of policy, users should not be messing around with other users' pages. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Problematic editor - User:Drake600

Drake600 (talk · contribs) has been a registered editor for almost a year. In that time he has created a number of promotional company stubs, all of which have been inevitably speedied - his talk page is just a string of speedy deletion notices. Out of almost 300 contributions, only around ten are actually legit. Even worse, he is prone to hoaxes - inserting false information, usually "Anton Vassilenko" (his own name?) as a key person in company articles, several of which I found while writing this report , , , (some as IP's, 195.250.188.95 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 81.25.246.173 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)). Quick googling shows that "Anton Vassilenko" is a guy in his twenties from Narva, not a worldwide famous CEO/composer. Some of the hoaxes have successfully been in articles since the start of 2009.

His latest creation - One-M-Productions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - had a look of legit company; if I hadn't been familiar with the user (and his fixation on word "Montek") I might have passed it as a legit article. Even the company home page looks nice and professional - and you have to dig deeper to realize it is just a standard Joomla installation on a free webhost.

As Drake600 is obviously just a throwaway account, there is little point to block him. IP's are dynamic and require just a cable modem reboot to change. Adding filters for "Anton Vassilenko" would be good, but Montek is a common Indian name. So I am at loss of what we can do.

--Sander Säde 09:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

There is that one issue of sockpuppetry, which might be worthy of an sockpuppet investigation. Otherwise he needs to be warned or blocked for disruptive editing. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 14:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd support an indefinite block for this account, they were warned and blocked for creating such articles in July, but have persisted. Fences&Windows 15:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed,and so blocked. Not marking this resolved, though based on the other issues raised. Jclemens (talk) 17:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

BjörnBergman

BjörnBergman (talk · contribs) is blocked on swedish wikipedia, and now he is spamming mine and other swedish administrators english talk page with complete nonsens and requests for unblocking on the swedish wikipedia. Ghostrider (talk) 15:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Some clear harassment there with intent to continue in this. "Men ni kommer inte få nån God jul om jag inte får nån avblockering. Jag kommer att tjata och tjata tills du avblockerara mig....Gå och avblockera mig eller sänk min blockering om ni vill ha en god jul." Roughly translated: "But you will not get a Merry Christmas if I am not unblocked. I will nag and nag until you unblock me .... go and unblock me or lower my block if you want a happy Christmas." --Moonriddengirl 16:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking at his history here, I have blocked him for harassment. This block is for 24 hours, but should likely be lengthened if he resumes. --Moonriddengirl 16:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

He is now showing the same beaviour on english wikipeda as he did on swedish. With long monoluges demanding unblocking. Ghostrider (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe he will get the message this time, although notes like this aren't promising (still with the threats to nag and nag). --Moonriddengirl 16:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Easily sorted, just revoke his talk page privilege if he continues to nag. Mjroots (talk) 18:24, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the time for that just came? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghostrider (talk • contribs) 20:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Possible Plagarism: Emily West Morgan

I found a plagarism concern and am not sure how to proceed.

Comparing the article Emily West Morgan to this Texas A&M article. I found some identical text and other pieces of text that are almost the same with only some superficial changes. The A&M article appears to be original work (it even cites various references which the WP article does not) so I have no reason to think that that author copied from WP. I have left comments about this on the talk page.

What should be done?

Thanks.

--Mcorazao (talk) 16:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, the first question is whether it represents plagiarism (a non-emergency) or copyright infringement, which must be handled immediately. When the article was created, , it was substantially more similar to that external source. The article was created in June, 2005, but the oldest archive is February 2007 for the external site. That doesn't mean we didn't copy it from them. Evidence strongly suggests we did, as they would have had to have taken the text from us in the first month of its creation, before it was substantially changed: . There is nothing at that external site to indicate it is not copyrighted; copyright is presumptive. Though the article has been changed, it seems likely to be an unauthorized derivative work. When copying is blatant, we tag with {{db-g12}}. When it isn't, we use {{subst:copyvio}} and list it for closure at Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems. This permits time for verification of compatible license or for interested contributors to salvage the article with new content in temporary space. I'll tag this one pending clarification. --Moonriddengirl 16:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit trying to force an image as free of copyright

For nearly a year now, User:BQZip01 has been attempting to force marking as free the athletics logo of the West Virginia University, claiming it as PD-Text. I'm not here to debate the validity of those arguments. I am here to request an administrator offer a caution to this editor to see appropriate dispute resolution pathways rather than continue the nearly year long edit war.

There are two images in question:

• File:WestVirginiaMountaineers.png - This image was deleted after being replaced by the second of these two images. There is some discussion regarding the status of this image on its (please do not delete) talk page.
• File:West Virginia Flying WV logo.svg - A replicate of the above image, except the colors are reversed.

An administrator, should they restore the first image, will see in its edit history multiple cases of BQZip01 marking the image as free and being reverted by more people than me. Similar pattern has erupted on the second image after it replaced the first. BQZip01 has attempted to make a claim that this is an entirely different image, and therefore the earlier non-consensus discussion does not apply.

Substantial discussion occurred regarding the free or non-free status of this image occurred in October of 2009 at Misplaced Pages:Media_copyright_questions/Archive/2009/October#West_Virginia_logo. No consensus was arrived at that the image was in fact free of copyright.

I have repeatedly asked User:BQZip01 to start a Request for Comment. To date, he has not started one and based on his talk page edits refuses to do so. I would appreciate it if an administrator would step in and please ask BQZip01 to cease and desist and direct his energies into the form of an RfC. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 16:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Ummmm.. What is BQZip01 thinking? The files are obviously non-free media. That image is clearly not simple enough to be considered PD. -FASTILY 16:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The only reason why the colors were reversed was due to the WVU guidelines I used for the logo images. User:Zscout370 17:47, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Please can I have some advice

I don't know if I'm in the wrong - I might well be - but I don't like how I've been treated by another editor, so would appreciate some clarification. If I'm in the wrong then I at least know not to do it again. There has been a debate on Talk:Avatar_(2009_film)#American-British_film.3F between myself and another editor. It's become a heated debate, but that isn't the problem. The other editor invited input at WT:FILM.

This is what he wrote: .

I have no problem with this. But in my eyes, it was non-neutral and continued the discussion rather than just notifed. That is the editor made a point and expressed an opinion, so I responded to the point raised even though the main discussion was taking place on the Avatar talk page:

The other editor moved my comments to the Avatar page, but left his own up. I reverted this edit even though I agreed with the principle behind it. The reason I restored my comments is because he left his own comments, which I felt were not just notifying other editors of the discussion but that he was furthering the discussion. You can see there were a couple of reverts between us:

I felt it was out of order that he made further comment on the subject but was deleting my comments while leaving his up. I also agree that the discussion should take place at the one location. This was eventually resolved when the other editor removed the 'bias' from his comments thus leaving it as a simple notification:

This is where things turned ugly with another editor, when User:Wildhartlivie left a comment at my talk page: . They accused me of edit warring because I had restored my comments to the talk page. I explained why I had done this, that i felt the other editor had done more than just notify the other Project members of the discussion, but had furthered the discussion: . The other editor did not agree: . He reiterated the accusation taht I was edit-warring which I felt was insulting. I was attempting to resolve the dispute through discussion for a start, and disagreed with the nature in which the discussion was raised. I didn't really see why the other editor's comments expressing an opinion on the dispute should remain, while mine were deleted. I felt it was appropriate for my comments to be there while his were. I felt the other editor finally acknowledged this by altering his comments to reflect my concerns. It may have been wrong of me to restore my comments, but I genuinely felt a injustice at the time. What I take exception to is this accusation of edit-warring by this other editor while I was taking part in a discussion so a dispute wouldn't become an edit-war. I thought it was rude, so informed him that I thought it was insulting to accuse me of edit-warring and re-explained my position: . He responded with this:

So there are some things I would like to clarify. Was the discussion raised in an acceptable manner? Was it legitimate for me to post a response? Was it legitimate for my comments to be removed? was it legitimate for me to restore my comments? And was it legitimate for this other editor to leave such comments on my talk page? Maybe my actions were incorrect, in which case I am sorry, but I do feel slightly aggrieved by the whole thing. Betty Logan (talk) 19:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Kikodawgzzz's use of minor edit flag

Hello.

I was directed here from Wikiquette Alerts.

Kikodawgzzz continues to add tags to the White privilege entry (history), including tags for speedy deletion, while using the minor edits flag. He's been warned twice about this on his user talk page, but he has done it twice since then. (Click here for the most recent example.) -- Marie Paradox (talk) 20:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

(ECx2) I don't think they should have been marked minor, but I don't see why it warrants an ANI post. He hasn't been warned the standard 4 times yet. However, he does seem to be editing disruptively. Ks0stm 20:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Administrators should review my own talk page, as well as those of Marie Paradox and Malik Shabazz, and in addition, the revert wars AND the discussion board on the article in question. It's my firm conviction that by doing so, Misplaced Pages administrators will conclude that the article is POV to the point of being un-salvageable, and must either be removed entirely, or deleted and then re-created with an eye to encyclopedic objectivity. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 20:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I've reviewed your talk page and, quite frankly, I'm impressed with everyone's patience with you. Jauerback/_dude. 20:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see any connection between your belief that an article is POV and your refusal (or inability) to fix your preferences to stop marking all your edits as minor. Or your repeated attempts to have the article speedily deleted, when you have been told, by three different editors, that your belief that the article is POV is not a valid criterion for speedy deletion. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 20:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

A veritable sock drawer at Articles for deletion/Tim Ireland

The Tim Ireland article has been controversial for some time, with several accounts nominating it for speedy deletion on multiple occasions, and/or repeatedly PRODding it (the repeat PRODs are, of course invalid). The article was originally PRODded by Magpie1892 in July, with the PROD removed by CJPargeter. Magpie1892 PRODded the article a second time in early December, I removed the PROD as invalid, and the sockfest began. The PROD was added back several times by IPs, then twice by User:Chithecynic, who has also acknowledged being one of the IPs. It was also speedy-nominated by IPs and by Seven-nil, who has virtually no edit history and only one edit not related to this article. On December 17, Chithecynic nominated the article for deletion. All but one of the "delete" !votes in the AFD (that by Fenix down, who is clearly editing in good faith and not involved in the shenanigans) appear to come from the accounts/addresses which had previously placed invalid PRODs or speedies (quickly declined/removed) on the article. These account share other features -- for the named accounts, very limited edit histories; problems signing posts correctly, and posting personal attacks on editors disputing their edits(mostly me, see such charming examples as (Chithecynic); , (Magpie1892); (Seven-nil); (217.28.34.132, open-to-public IP address with many other users); (92.41.202.43, presumably same access as !voter 92.41.217.22). I'm not sure this article over a minimally notable UK blogger has stirred up such a hullaballoo fracas, but it's getting way out of hand. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, you'll just love this, so :p - the following accounts are  Confirmed as being the one editor:

• Magpie1892 (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Seven-nil (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Wolfowitz=twat (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

The underlying IP has been blocked, too, as it's been abusive in itself. The other accounts are  Unrelated - Alison 20:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Banned user on a rampage - Urgent action needed

The contribs log and edit summaries says it all . This is a sock of banned User:Shuppiluliuma. Not a day goes by without him socking through some new IP. Can anything be done about this? --Athenean (talk) 20:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

No Misplaced Pages administrator will be able to stop Turkey from invading and destroying Gayreece. 151.57.166.230 (talk) 21:01, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

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