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Issues with User:Kwamikagami

We are having an issue with an editor adding hyphens to medical articles against consensus. Discussion took place here with 6 against the hyphens and 2 for them. Kwam was asked not to continue making these changes and to allow those who primarily write the article allow them to reflect usage in current medical literature. He continues here and here One of our expert contributors are having difficult with him. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:44, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I am with consensus, though a couple editors now don't want to accept that for reasons I fail to understand. At first, I was hyphenating all articles per the MOS, as long as that was supported by the medical literature. I agreed with the majority of editors at the time that we won't use normal English punctuation for cancer articles since the majority of journals don't bother with it, but there was one exception: we agreed that we should not call tumors "large" or "small" unless they are actually large or small. Mispunctuating "small cell carcinoma" (for one that may be quite large) is so misleading for those not familiar with the terminology (technically "small-cell carcinoma") that we agreed to continue hyphenating in such situations. That is what I've been doing. If Doc or anyone else wants to change the consensus, then we should get together and discuss it, and see if we agree it's medically responsible to tell patients or their loved ones that they have large tumors when they're small, or small tumors when they're large. — kwami (talk) 04:17, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to break in here Doc James ... Kwami, with all due respect, that's just FLAT WRONG. There was NEVER any consensus - your "imaginary" consensus (or as you call it on your Talk Page, "silent consensus" - LOL!!!) was something you PREMATURELY and UNILATERALLY declared after (IMO) "bad faith vote counting"!

Importantly here ... it's highly prototypical, and part-and-parcel, of your little personal idiosyncratic modus operandi, as I will explain in GREAT detail (below, in a minute). Tell us, as Doc James asks, out of your "imaginary/silent/rigged consensus", JUST EXACTLY HOW you came to hyphenating "squamous-cell", "clear-cell", and "basal cell" ... JUST TO NAME A FEW? I won't even TALK about "salivary gland--like", and probably OTHERS which I intend to run down here soon. Huh? Huh?

And if ya knew SQUAT about what you were talking about, you would know that >90% of small cell lung cancer patients have WIDELY disseminated disease at the time of discovery, and are GONERS anyway, and that tumor size has VERY little correlation with survival ... not to mention that YOU KNOW the "confuse them" argument is merely flotsam you're trying to grab onto because you're drowning. NOBODY with >12 functioning neural connections is going to be confused by the lack of hyphen, because ITS DRAMATICALLY OBVIOUS from the CONTEXT what the "small" means, PLUS no one will JUST look at Misplaced Pages if they are researching a small cell cancer diagnosed in them or their loved ones. Your rationale just doesn't pass the "Sniff Test", and YOU KNOW IT! You have caused MASSIVE problems in a NUMBER of areas - look at your own Talk Page! UNREAL!!!

In one of the edits above you returned "Squamous-cell". I seem to read the opinions of other differently than you and have asked the users to clarify. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:10, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I may have restored that in a revert of a pointy edit, rather than picking through the changes, but I don't recall purposefully hyphenating such forms after agreeing not to. — kwami (talk) 06:23, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

But there's the problem in a nutshell. Although Kwamikagami is perfectly aware of the strength of opposition to the changes he makes, he continues to do so (as in the "Squamous-cell" case), then uses weasel terms to explain away such cavalier editing behaviour: I may have restored ... – there's no "may have" about it; I don't recall purposefully hyphenating ... – nobody's complaining about his memory, just his editing against consensus. If he can't manage to edit without causing problems on medical articles, and can't recognise when he causes a problem, then it may be time to consider whether he ought to be editing medical articles at all. --RexxS (talk) 09:20, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's ridiculous. I reverted a pointy edit. I didn't waste my time sifting through and manually reverting only the pointy bits, I simply reverted. If you want to go in and individually restore the other bits, be my guest. — kwami (talk) 13:42, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I intend to post on this at great length this weekend, after I complete a full investigation of the problems this gentleman has caused A LOT of people, and am thus prepared to be more accurate and detailed, but I would quickly add and emphasize that THESE sorts of comments are part of Kwami's particular modus operandi. He MASSIVELY screws stuff up with THOUSANDS of edits and page moves without the SLIGHTEST concern for what others might think or attempts to contact them for discussion, in areas he knows DIDDLY SQUAT about, and then when confronted, agrees to stop or alter his behavior, while just continuing on doing the same things again, and when caught again, says "didn't do it on purpose", throws out arguments that are intellectually dishonest (my opinion, given the irony of his obviously high intelligence contrasted with his inane excuses and reasoning that a third-grader wouldn't swallow), and then puts forth sources to back his argument that prove FALSE when checked, and covers THAT by saying "well, for some reason I can't access that page right now". Look, I hate being mad, confrontational, and uncivil, but Kwami has ENRAGED me with this stuff! Its obvious its a "power trip" ... BET: Anyone shows me a link where Kwami has ADMITTED he was wrong, apologized, stopped what he was doing, and fixed the damage WITHOUT 500 MAN HOURS AND 3 TERABYTES OF B.S. ARGUING, I will mail you $50 cash U.S. Grrrrr.... Regards: Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 22:13, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a wider problem than medical articles. In March I made a report at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive684#User:Kwamikagami moving ship class articles from XXXX class format to XXX-class format reported by Toddy1 (Result:). The problem there was that Kwamikagami was moving ship articles to a hyphenated form of the name, even though the matter was still under discussion, and no consensus had been reached; he had been asked to stop, and agreed to stop, but carried on anyway until the ANI was brought. The discussion of the ANI turned into a discussion of whether the names should have hyphens, for which there was no consensus. On that one too, Kwamikagami had a weasel explanation of why he had carried on making the moves even after agreeing to stop; and he was criticised for it. But nothing was done about his behaving in this way.--Toddy1 (talk) 12:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I love this. I was following the MOS for ship names. I was using the forms already in the articles themselves! — kwami (talk) 13:44, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(undent) I think what would be fair is for Kwami to remove all the hyphens from medical articles that he added from everything but "small-cell" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

This thread may also be of relevance here. This is the third time that Kwamikagami has had their actions in respect to moves brought here in as many months. I've no idea how many of these moves have required the admin bit but I suspect some of them have. Kwamikagami seems regularly to find what they think is a clear consensus when othersthink the consensus is unclear at best. They then seem to often act on this "consensus" despite being involved. Once could just be a mistake, but three times seems to suggest a possibly worrying pattern. Dpmuk (talk) 16:02, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

With all this wiki-lawyering over petty stuff like hyphens, how did Kwami ever get to be an admin, and why is he still an admin? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Kwami does a lot of great work. Just needs to be more receptive to feedback that is all and careful with his interpretation of others comments. When one makes as many edits as he a few issues are sure to occur. Thus hopefully he will act upon the suggestion above...Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, "small-cell" has been objected to by a regular editor of the relevant page. (Reliable sources are divided, about 3 to 2, in favor of non-hyphenation/not following standard grammar.) The hyphen in "non-small cell" is the only hyphen that has gone uncontested so far (Kwami advocates for double hyphenation there; standard grammar is either two hypens or one en dash and one hyphen). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

How does this hyphen stuff benefit the readers? It shows the same way, either way, in the search box. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 17:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

For the fraction of readers who understand the grammar rules, the hyphenation makes it immediately obvious that a small-cell tumor is a tumor composed of small cells, rather than a small tumor composed of cells. The majority of readers do not know the grammar rules and thus receive no benefit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Kwamikagami persists in promoting his own agenda and ignoring the consensus that we achieved at WikiProject Medicine. Axl ¤ 19:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

"One of our expert contributors are having difficult with him."

— Doc James

I disagree. Several of our expert editors are having problems with him. Axl ¤ 19:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Noetica's analysis (please comment after my post, not within it)

There is be a genuine inconsistency between WP:MOSMED and WP:MOS on such hyphenation. But there is also at least one problem within WP:MOSMED itself (and with its linked resources). Some excerpts:

1. For punctuation, e.g., possessive apostrophes and hyphens, follow the use by high-quality sources.
2. Where there is a dispute over a name, editors should cite recognised authorities and organisations rather than conduct original research.
3. Examples of original research include counting Google or PubMed results, comparing the size or relevance of the varieties of English, and quoting from personal or professional experience.
4. PubMed is an excellent starting point for locating peer reviewed medical sources .

Is PubMed to be used in settling names for content and titles, or not? If it is, how can counting, weighting, and evaluating the kudos of sources listed there not be considered original research?

And at the top of WP:MOSMED:

• This page proposes style guidelines for editing medical articles. The general rules from the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style also apply when writing medical articles.

As for WP:MOS, it is the central resource for guidelines on punctuation. It gives great detail at WP:HYPHEN (see also WP:ENDASH and WP:SLASH) for the matter in question here. It does not delegate any matter of punctuation to subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style. Arguably therefore, especially if such a subsidiary page is not well coordinated with WP:MOS, and if it contains contradictions and uncertainties, WP:MOS is the one to follow.

WP:MOS includes this guidance at WP:HYPHEN:

• A hyphen can help with ease of reading (face-to-face discussion, hard-boiled egg); a hyphen is particularly useful in long noun phrases where non-experts are part of the readership, such as in Misplaced Pages's scientific articles: gas-phase reaction dynamics.

It goes on to show specifically how this is managed; and the guidance is pretty standard for high-quality publishing. In light of the facts laid out above, I conclude that:

1. Kwami is justified in applying guidelines from WP:MOS, as he has done.
2. WP:MOSMED and its linked resources need to be made non-contradictory.
3. There needs to be a discussion at WT:MOS to resolve the current inconsistency between WP:MOS and WP:MOSMED.

Noetica 23:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

" Is PubMed to be used in settling names for content and titles, or not? If it is, how can counting, weighting, and evaluating the kudos of sources listed there not be considered original research? "

— Noetica

From WP:NOR (first sentence): "Misplaced Pages articles must not contain original research." This describes article content, not article titles.

The next sentence: "The term "original research" (OR) is used on Misplaced Pages to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and stories—for which no reliable published source exists." The point of using PubMed is that is indeed providing reliable sources.

Next: "That includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources." Using PubMed to advance the position is using the sources; the name of the article is itself used by the sources—that's the whole point.

To summarize, WP:NOR is not applicable to the naming of article titles. Even if it was, the use of PubMed would not contravene that policy.

To answer the first question: Yes, PubMed is a good way to settle disputes in content/title names. WikiProject Medicine already has consensus on this matter.

Axl ¤ 08:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The relevant policy is WP:TITLE. The policy describes five criteria: recognizability, naturalness, precision, conciseness and consistency.

Let's compare "Non-small cell lung carcinoma" with "Non-small-cell lung carcinoma":-

1. Recognizability: "Non-small cell lung carcinoma" is more frequently used and more recognizable.
2. Naturalness: Are readers really more likely to type in "Non-small-cell lung carcinoma" rather than "Non-small cell lung carcinoma"? I don't think so. Readers are more likely to use the more commonly encountered variant.
3. Precision: In this context, "precision" refers to unambiguous naming of the topic. This isn't a problem for either title—thus a draw.
4. Conciseness: Both are equally long—another draw.
5. Consistency: Until Kwamikagami came along, consistency favoured "Non-small cell lung carcinoma". His interference has muddied the waters. Let's call it a draw.

Overall, that's 5–3 in favour of "Non-small cell lung carcinoma". Axl ¤ 08:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Hyphens are irrelevant in the search box. Whether you type with or without, you'll still get the same results. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:05, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure, you're referring to #2: Naturalness. The second part of the criterion is "a good title should convey what the subject is actually called in English". "Non-small cell lung carcinoma" still wins here. Axl ¤ 09:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

When oncologists say "non~small~cell carcinoma", the grammatical parsing is conveyed with intonation, not with hyphens: there would be a different intonation to "(non-small) cell carcinoma" than there would be to "non-(small cell) carcinoma". Similarly, "small (cell carcinoma)" would be accented differently than "(small cell) carcinoma". Neither hyphens nor the lack of hyphens is really part of the name, but intonation is—and we can't write intonation. Although not perfect, hyphens are an attempt to capture this distinctive intonation in writing. Therefore (2) 'naturalness' supports hyphenation, because that's how the name is actually pronounced. Anyway, most readers for which this matters will be new to the topic, and for them it wodn't matter which is used, at least not in your sense. For those familiar with the topic, the meaning is also clear either way so it still won't matter. I also take issue with (1) recognizability. The hyphenated form is obviously more recognizable for the literate (i.e., anyone who has a high-school level of written English), and this isn't Simple English WP where we need to assume that our readers may not be literate. If we accept your conclusion that 3–5 are a draw, then as I count it we have 2–0 in favor of hyphenation. And the potential for real confusion among naive readers if we don't hyphenate. — kwami (talk) 10:38, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

With all due respect, I object IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS to Kwami counting up "the score" (i.e. "2-0 in favor") on ANYTHING having to do with this issue. In previous "votes", so to speak, in discussions on this issue, it was OBVIOUS that Kwami does NOT make a good faith effort to "count the votes" correctly, and neither will he accept consensus when its staring him directly in his face. Just the fact that he is STILL persisting with this stuff is CONCLUSIVE evidence of that, because at a previous EXTENSIVE discussion on this - kindly linked by Doc James above - it WAS QUITE OBVIOUS that the physicians and medical experts posting, as I recall from memory User:Uploadvirus, User:Jmh649, User:WhatamIdoing, User:My_core_competency_is_competency, User:Axl, and User:Colin were AGAINST his position, and only his "compadre" and fellow linguistics expert User:Tony1 - neither of whom know DIDDLY SQUAT about lung cancer and its literature best I can tell - User:Tony1 was in favor of his position. I submit that there is NO QUESTION that he is resisting this consensus beyond ANY level of reasonableness, and probably will not stop without being served a court order from the ICC.

I am also going to state that, in my opinion, he has been misleading (at best) in providing evidence to justify some of his actions. Yesterday, I went to expand a stub I had begun on Salivary gland-like carcinoma of the lung - of course, it had been altered to "salivary gland--like" (i.e. a freaking "double dash" thing)!!! Mouth agape, I think to myself "Sweet Jesus, if THAT version appears anywhere in the lit, I will eat my living room table sans ketchup!". So I ask him about it, and he replies with some book cite. So I check it, and he was WRONG! The book was even goofier, having some idiocy like "salivary-gland--like", or maybe even including $, &, and # in there somewhere, I don't remember. I do remember checking all 4 instances of this tumor name occurring in the book, and NONE of them matched what he said it was. When I called him on it, citing a specific page, he replied with something like "I couldnt get that page on my computer, the page I looked at said what I said". I haven't had time to double verify his denial, but as I recall nopw, the page he quoted was misleading (I think, will recheck this).

Another issue worth considering here, IMO, is his attitude about fixing problems he has caused. At least twice he has been asked to go fix a bunch of these lung (and other site-specific) cancer articles, and at least once he AGREED to, then DIDN'T - rudely demanding he be provided a list of what to fix (note: obvious answer is "damn near every one you ever done"). Also, at least once, he told the requesting person "go fix it yourself" in a tone that ticked me off severely.

I will post much more cogently and extensively on this later, am in a hurry this morning, so I apologize for the crude way this is argued. And I ALSO APOLOGIZE TO EVERYONE, including Kwami, for the way this has gotten out of hand. I HATE FIGHTING WITH ANYONE. TTYL!

With best regards to all: Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 13:07, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The 'freaking "double dash" thing' is actually an en-dash; and this example is very much like "New York–London flight" from The Chicago Manual of Style. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:58, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The general point here seem to be that Misplaced Pages should reflect the real world. If physicians are mostly illiterate with respect to English writing subtleties, let them have their cake and eat it. Wikipeidia is usually not the appropriate place to right great wrongs. Tijfo098 (talk) 18:13, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

"Salivary gland-like" should be a hyphen, not an n-dash. The n-dash is used as shorthand for actual words, such as "New York to London" in your example, or "1876--1901" being short for "from 1876 through 1901". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:26, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Is "salivary" modifying "gland-like"? Or is it (salivary gland)-like carcinoma, i.e. "salivary gland" is an open compound here just like "New York"? Perhaps you should read the article before commenting... Tijfo098 (talk) 09:43, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, (salivary gland)-like. And, yes, silly me for believing what I was taught in grade school. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:09, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Or perhaps someone should read The Subversive Copy Editor; review. Perhaps we need to make a Homo editorialis barnstar. ;-) Tijfo098 (talk) 09:17, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Kwami says above that the grammatically correct forms are "obviously more recognizable for the literate (i.e., anyone who has a high-school level of written English)".

Problem: Data disagrees.

I know zero people who never attended university that actually understand or follow the most basic hyphenation rules. In my experience, a clear majority of university graduates don't know the hyphenation rules. And as a relevant piece of proof, I remind you that basically 100% of the high-quality reliable sources for these subjects—the very sources that are getting it "wrong"—are written and edited by people with not only university degrees, but with advanced degrees. So unless you are prepared to define MDs and PhDs and DOs as being outside the set of "anyone who has a high-school level of written English", this simply isn't true.

More importantly, when words quit being descriptions and start being separate entities, then their names sometimes stop following the grammar rules for descriptive phrases. It's File Transfer Protocol, a specific thing, not "file-transfer protocol", any old protocol for transferring files. Similarly, it's Small cell carcinoma, a specific thing, not just any old carcinoma involving small cells (and, by the way, there are lots of carcinomas that have small cells and are not SCC). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You're correct in what you say, but IMO not in applying it to this case. First of all, quality sources do hyphenate here. This has been noted on the medical MOS page. In general, few sources hyphenate the names of carcinomas (though medical references for students often do, I imagine due to the same comprehension concerns I have), but these are an exception: a large number of even medical journals hyphenate them as well. In the MOS discussion, some of the medical-article editors suggested that was precisely because these names are so counter-intuitive when unpunctuated. So we have a case where a common but not majority format is used precisely when addressing a non-professional audience—precisely our situation on WP.

Secondly, I suspect that, while in some cases the lack of punctuation may be due to the authors being semi-literate (I'm in a technical field, and professionals in the hard sciences especially often are semi-literate, which is why they often need editors so desperately), more generally it's probably a case of familiarity. Just as someone writing about high-school students all the time will start writing high school students, since to their audience it's obvious that they're not talking about school students who are high, so people writing about basal-cell ganglioma all the time will start writing it basal cell ganglioma. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a matter of familiarity, and unlike the editors of medical journals, we can't assume our readers are familiar with what a basal-cell ganglioma is. You will find that phrase hyphenated in professional sources, BTW, just not frequently. — kwami (talk) 18:21, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

With all due respect, Kwami, that's a load of bunk. "Quality sources hyphenate" ... "quality sources" in whose opinion? Yours? LOL! I've been reading the cancer literature like a madman for 35 years, and have seen VERY few hyphens, so now you're telling me that ALL the major peer reviewed journals, the WHO Cancer Classification works, CDC and NCI stuff, etc. are not "quality sources"??? And professionals in the hard sciences are semi-literate, as opposed to folks in technical fields like you? LOL! You mean the "ignerint" folks with majors in physics, chemistry, etc.? Those folks? How about you take a look at standardized average GRE Verbal scores for physics and chemistry majors vs. technical folks like yourself, and see what THOSE say about "relative literacy". I scored 700 on the GRE Verbal, which was 98%ile when I took it. How'd YOU score? And just exactly WHICH sources you got for teaching medical students that use hyphens? Hey - don't hand pick them, either - restriction of range in statistics is cheating! Do a selection ACROSS the spectrum! And just not frequently is an understatement, with a probability of like 0.01 of getting a hyphen. LOL!

And your little comment about "not arguing with me, and leaving me to my foibles", when translated, means I "got you by the short hairs" with my analysis in regards to your behavior, and you have no rebuttal you CAN make. Everyone here knows that, at least, whether they agree with the hyphen thing or not! LOL! Nice try - no fly, dude. No disrespect intended, I'm just speaking "semi-literately" :-)

"Semi - literate." Are you sure that shouldn't be semi — literate or semi – — literate or maybe semi — – — – — – — literate??? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:44, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's not make this into a content dispute

It's not. The problem is not the content dispute, it's the continued disputed edits and page moves by an editor (who is coincidentally an admin, but that's only relevant insomuch as he should know better) who has already been brought up for this before. ANI discussion should only concern how to make that problem go away. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 22:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

There is no getting around the fact that, at some point, there has to be a decision about "what's correct" in terms of these hyphens and n-dashes and such. From the contradictory comments in the previous sub-section, it's not at all clear that there really is a "right" answer. Yet everyone involved "thinks" they have the one right answer. How do you fix that problem??? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:47, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Not repeatedly drive a semi through the discussion with mass renames, for one.

Kwami may be correct per MOS, but project naming guidelines and consensuses do matter too. It's not collegial or collaborative to enforce central style guidelines without respect to project consensuses (that have not yet migrated into exceptions or sub-policies off MOS).

I don't know that we need to take administrative or community action - but there is no lack of areas which don't have disputes on hyphenation or other topics which Kwami can work in instead of these. It would de-escalate the situation if he were to avoid ones without consensus, or engage only in policy discussions until a consensus among the project members develops. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Good luck with THAT approach, Mr. Herbert. I already TRIED that - I literally BEGGED him, and he told me to "shove off", more or less. Thanks for your concern, but nobody is going to get ANYWHERE with this dude. People have tried for YEARS - and that is one reason I'm so incensed. He's done this over and over and over.

I give up. You win AGAIN, Kwami, and I hope you are proud of yourself. My rant was removed, and I've been threatened with block. So you just go on ahead doing what you're doing, it doesn't look to me like anyone is going to do anything about it, no matter how many articles you "alter" *cough*, and no matter how many people call you on it. Thanks VERY much to Doc James, RexxS, WhatamIdoing, Axl, and all the other folks who wasted their time attempting to do something about it. i will always be grateful to you folks. Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go edit an article that will end up being called something like "large-cell$carcinoma@with#rhabdoid+phenotype" before its all over. Best regards:Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 17:21, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The rant was removed because it didn't meet our standards for reasonable discourse here, as I indicated on your talk page (someone else removed it, but I agree with it). We are listening. Action may come if necessary.

I know that, sir. I knew that. It was intended to draw some attention from bigwigs such as yourself, since the traditional "polite" way hasn't seemed to help over a few years time. And I appreciate your attention to this matter, but with all due respect, "action may come if necessary? I submit that, given the obviousness of his record, your comment is a perfect example of why I'm so LIVID over all this - at law, this would be a "slam-dunk summary judgment"!

The worst part of your having made it is that you caused a bunch of people to look at you and spend time trying to determine if you're the kook / abuser here, and it at least somewhat and temporarily discredited your complaint. Shooting yourself in the foot, as it were... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:44, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

There's ANOTHER big difference between myself and Kwami - I will ADMIT when I'm wrong, and when I'm a kook, but he won't, EVER. And again, I invoke the cart-horse analogy, sir. I was never a kook until he came along, throwing his weight around' messing up a bunch of stuff, and shoving it in peoples faces, being obstinate in the extreme. Take a look at his Talk Page archives, and do a search for links associated with him, and really check him out like I have. You will see what I mean quickly. And lastly, the medical folks around here KNOW where I'm coming from, and sympathize I think, they just have more class than me, and I respect them for that. My apologies for my behavior, but I'm not used to being pushed around by someone and having to just stand there and take it. No disrespect whatsoever intended to you, sir!

Oh, so now we go around throwing crazy accusations against a respected admin? What's your problem? Assume some good faith. BelloWello (talk) 06:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Crazy accusations? LOL! Well, BelloWello, perhaps you should try searching the Archives of complaints here for Kwamikagami and see if you don't come across about THIRTY similar problems. THEN come back and decide if its "crazy", or if a "good faith" assumption is warranted. Q.E.D.! Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 10:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I have left Kwami an advisory notice that I and others see this as unconstructive behavior and ask that he leave changes/renames in the disputed topic areas alone, until a consensus develops. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:57, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, many sincere thanks for your efforts. I'm quite sure that your notice, which is approximately the 5,435th one he's gotten, will no doubt turn the tide. Again, no disrespect intended to you, its just that myself and many others have tried that already. Regards:Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 18:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I left off arguing with him several days ago. He's adding content, so IMO we can leave him his foibles. — kwami (talk) 18:21, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

LOL, that was worse than the average Croatian nationalist rant that kwami has to put up with occasionally. Tijfo098 (talk) 06:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I have just read Uploadvirus' (deleted) rant regarding Kwamikagami. I am heartened by Georgewilliamherbert's measured response. Actually I (and several other WikiProject Medicine editors) agree with several of Uploadvirus' points. It is unfortunate that he chose he to express his opinion in this way, especially the personal attack. I have been wondering if a short block of Kwamikagami would help to prevent further non-consensual page moves and hyphenation; however I suspect that this would only delay the inevitable. In any case, in my opinion, Kwamikagami's edit-warring and contempt for consensus justify removal of his admin tools. Axl ¤ 12:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

De-sysopping should not be used as a method of punishment. If he were using the tools to gain an advantage here then it would certainly be considered, but I've seen no evidence of that. Likewise, a block is all very well to prevent ongoing edit warring on a given page, but a block several days after the fact doesn't do that. In the end RFC/U might be on the cards here, but it's not obvious that any direct administrative action (other than the warning and advice already given) is likely to have a correctional effect. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Moving a page sometimes requires admin rights – especially where there is an article or redirect in the target namespace that needed moving out of the way. If there is any evidence that such moves took place (i.e. where a non-admin could not have executed the page moves), that would suggest that admin privileges were used to gain an edge in a dispute. --Ohconfucius 13:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:AN3

Could I please have the community take a look at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Ohnoitsjamie reported by Pi (Talk to me! ) (Result: )? Thanks. Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:27, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I have closed the report (permalink) with a 24 hours edit-warring block for Ohnoitsjamie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Because the blocked user is an administrator, and blocks of administrators are at times controversial, I ask the community to review the block. In addition, Ohnoitsjamie has blocked the IP editor they were edit-warring with for 31 hours, which to me looks like an abuse of administrator tools in order to win the content dispute and the edit war. I invite comment about whether this matter requires escalation.  Sandstein  13:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

• Sound block on the 3RR - failure to engage in dispute resolution and use of edit warring by Ohnoitsjamie to "win" content dispute, dealt with as with any other class of editor. As for the use of admin flags to block the other party, there is no suggestion or evidence presented that this is a pattern of abuse by this admin and unless such practices come to light I suggest that this is regarded as a one off and the matter concluded with no further action. If evidence for such a pattern emerges, it can be revisited at that time. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:30, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• Reasonable block, but in my opinion, no escalation required -- the IP's first edit summary could be taken by an uninvolved admin as an indication of bad-faith editing. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:32, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• The block was correct imho, per arguments mentioned by LessHeard vanU. Escalation is probably unnecessary at this point but a huge {{trout}} is justified for Ohnoitsjamie's block of the IP. The IP might have edited in bad faith but an admin shouldn't block any IP they previously reverted over content disputes - even if the block was necessary. That just helps those who believe all admins are corrupt power-abusers. Regards SoWhy 13:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

When you begin your editing by deleting a whole section with the rationale of "This is an abomination and a disgrace to Jewish culture" and keep deleting it while making the same accusations, you're a vandal. Blatant vandalism is an exception to 3RR and to the involved-admin policy. Nyttend (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

True, but that only applies to the first edit by the IP. The subsequent four (, , and ) were not vandalism but reflected a content disagreement, and it is for edit-warring about them that I blocked Ohnoitsjamie.  Sandstein  18:28, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems like it was a bit stale, and although I understand it at least appears to be a content dispute I can kinda understand Ohnoitsjamie's reaction after that first edit. I wouldn't have blocked myself, but I'm not the admin; I'd say reducing to time served would be fine. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:13, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll repeat the comment I made at the 3RR page: "I thought "being right" (in the absence of reverting vandalism) wasn't a defense to edit-warring. Is that not right? Regardless of Jamie's reason for the revert (if it wasn't reverting vandalism) and whether or not he engaged in talk or left appropriate messages... didn't he break 3RR? If so, why wouldn't he being treated like any other editor breaking 3RR?" DeCausa (talk) 20:37, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't care if he's an admin, or whatever- we all have knee-jerk reactions sometimes, and shit happens. That's all; I wouldn't feel the need to block someone over an isolated instance. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:10, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Jamie's treatment of 69.116.44.219 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was definitely WP:BITE. I think that's a more serious issue than an isolated instance of edit warring (assuming it's isolated). I left a note on 69.116's user talk trying to explain the situation. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 22:13, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

There's a broader issue here about Jamie's behaviour connected to WP:BITE, WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. (See also WQA threads here and here.) The admin corps need to nip it in the bud before it gets to be really problematic. DeCausa (talk) 22:49, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

User Berean Hunter "hatted" this thread shortly after two users had indicated they wanted to see it more broadly discussed. "Hatting" or "closing" a thread to prohibit further discussion is a form of talk page refactoring, and our policy about that says, Refactoring should only be done when there is an assumption of good faith by editors who have contributed to the talk page. If there are recent heated discussions on the talk page, good faith may be lacking. If another editor objects to refactoring then the changes should be reverted. I've manually reverted Berean's hat; I object to it having been done. Please don't reinstate it.  – OhioStandard (talk) 15:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Using admin tools or status to prevail in a content dispute, or even threatening to do so, is a much more serious matter than edit warring. When an administrator does that, he demonstrates that he has misunderstood his role in relation to the rest of the community. We allow certain editors that "extra bit" so they can serve the community's interests, not so they can have extra clout in personal or content disputes.

Sandstein asks whether this needs to be escalated, and multiple admins have said "no". Perhaps not, but it's my opinion that a cute suggestion of a "trout" is not a sufficient warning. So I'll say this, on behalf of non-admin users who object to administrators using their status as such for their own interests, or who take advantage of their comparative immunity relative to ordinary users: If he ever does anything like this again, I'll be one of the first in line to support a request for sanctions up to and including a de-sysop via a Request for comment: Use of administrator privileges.

I sincerely hope this really was just a one-off lapse in judgment. But Jamie needs to understand that his behavior in this matter represents a very serious violation of the trust the community has given him. It cannot be repeated.  – OhioStandard (talk) 15:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we should inform ONJ of this ANI thread now that it is taking a separate life from the AN3 thread. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:12, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Surely you (as the originator of the thread) should have done that anyway? I agree with the comments made by OhioStandard. With the exceptions of Magog and Sandstein, I'm not sure the admin. group come out of this particularly well. The admin community should be making it clear that ONJ's conduct in this - not just, as OhioStandard says, simply edit-warring but effectively an abuse of the admin role - is seriously unacceptable. I had a minor wikiquette run-in with Jamie a few weeks ago and I've been following his Talk page since. What I see is that he spends a large amount of time vandal-fighting (and of course all credit to him for that) but it seems to have resulted (having looked at his interactions over the last few weeks) in a mind-set of ABF and "end justifies the means". The admin community need to have a word before something even more serious happens. DeCausa (talk) 20:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I've left the notification on his talk page. DeCausa (talk) 21:40, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

ONJ was notified of this discussion two minutes after he was blocked. Ebikeguy (talk) 02:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Right. That is submission for a review of the block...not let's continue to critique Jamie in a second AN thread. He has already been blocked. What further admin action is being requested here? He already seems to have been warned. It is kind of implicit in the blocking.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 03:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

User Berean Hunter has posted to his talk page (permalink) suggesting that some of us were interested in playing "let's trash an admin". I'm sorry that anyone should think that.

No one here wants to "trash" anyone. The community certainly owes Jamie a sincere debt of gratitude for the extraordinary contribution he makes. I wish we could send everyone who deals with vandals to a spa or something, every six weeks or so, to shake off all the bad vibes that come from so much exposure to one of the uglier aspects of human nature. That would be an appropriate way to say "thank you" for keeping the barbarians from the gate, and would help keep the stress levels from rising too high, as well. Further, I didn't like the IPs first edit any more than Jamie or anyone else did. I felt indignant at that; it's reasonable and understandable to suppose that Jamie did, too.

Comments here have not been intended in any way to diminish the extraordinary value of Jamie's contributions, and should not be taken that way. I merely wished to stress the point that however much we need and respect an administrator's other contributions, the community simply can't accept admins using their status to "win" disputes with non-admins. To respond to that when it occurs by refusing to recognize the radical erosion of confidence it causes, or by trying to shut down discussion of such instances when they happen, seems to me to threaten the basic trust that the user community must necessarily have in our administrative members if our governance model here is to work, that's all.  – OhioStandard (talk) 07:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I am not quite sure how I got into this or whether I should be here at all. If it is all a misunderstanding, please ignore or delete my submission here. (In my watchlist there was an item that said: “ANI Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at WP:AN/I regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. DeCausa (talk) 21:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)“ )

That said however, when I followed the link I found that it involved an internal disciplinary matter, something I would normally avoid. However, in checking the matter I find the likes of: “... blocked the IP editor they were edit-warring with for 31 hours, which to me looks like an abuse of administrator tools in order to win the content dispute...” nearby was: “Using admin tools or status to prevail in a content dispute, or even threatening to do so, is a much more serious matter than edit warring. When an administrator does that, he demonstrates that he has misunderstood his role in relation to the rest of the community. “

Well, I still have an outstanding dispute with ONJ. As you may see, that is not the point because I am following other routes to deal with it. You may freely skip the itemised bits here following; the point follows the NOW therefore line.

The origin was a content dispute and the fundamental problems were:

1. When he did not like a small section I contributed, he deleted it without warning or notification. Simply for reasons of courtesy and encouragement of supporters of WP, that should never be done if there is any reason to think that the contribution might be in good faith, and that behaviour seems worryingly consistent with what I have read here.

2. I accidentally noticed the deletion (I had not watchlisted the article) and asked what the problem was. It turned out that it was NPOV, OR and Non-notable source or the like. Oh. Hm. Well, storm in bucket at most. The wording had not been intended to recommend anyone, but... Reworded it. But OR? There _was_ no research; this OR thing seems to be right out of proportion in WP IMO. When I asked it seemed more to do with wording than anything else. As for the Notability issue, the text had referred to a word used by a particular poet; the poet was not the subject of the article, nor even of the statement! It did not _matter_ whether he was notable or not – he was not the subject at issue; the point was how the _word_ had been used!

3. In fact, I then pointed out that the poet in question was R. P. Lister, who had had a full-time professional run of some 30-40 years contributing to New Yorker, Atlantic and Punch among others, had something like a dozen published books -- novels, poetry, travel etc, and was elected FRSL in 1970! But our friend simply sat tight and in the face of such evidence repeated without support that he was not notable, explaining i.a. that he had never heard of him and there was no Wiki page about him, and it seemed that my adjusted text was “too stilted”, which he seemed to think meant “using long words”.

At about that point things went off the rails and I asked him where I could contact the Better Business Bureau. He told me politely and I thanked him politely, and so far that has been that. Partly in reaction I am preparing an article on Lister (who, on closer inspection practically blew me away! I had had a very superficial knowledge of him.) and when I have it rounded off I shall post it and then have another go at the earlier page. I had intended to hold off any request for arbitration till I saw how that developed.

NOW, THEREFORE, etc...

The details of my case aren’t of interest in isolation, but in the light of the complaints I have been reading here about notability, arbitrary deletion, and the like, I think that something is festering. I am not picking on Jamie, though he was the one I fell out with. For one thing, he seems to have an imposing record of service and maybe I got him on a bad hair day, but I find it hard to convey how demotivating such behaviour can be. I have had three other contacts with WP people, and they have all been helpful and forthcoming. The sense of futility that the tone of the single ONJ exchange engendered, dealing with one little paragraph, overshadowed the pleasure of dealing with the other three people, plus the satisfaction of dozens of more constructive, larger contributions; (the item in question isn’t even in my line; it was incidental to an xref elsewhere). I do not demand that anyone must look at my writings and like them, but he should surely be able to tell at a glance that they were not ignorant or obscene, not selling anything or promoting anything that anyone sells, not misrepresenting anything, vandalising anything, or the like. Things like NPOV, “stiltedness” and so on could easily justify some editing on his own part if he chose (it is a Wiki after all...) It could justify a demand that I do some tidying up (which I did, slightly grumpily, but it makes no sense to start a war about every issue), but unilateral deletion without notice, and on his own authority insisting without justification on the contributor editing the text and the facts to his personal tastes and misapprehensions, is harmful to WP and to the interests of WP users.

The WP job is big. Its importance is HUGE – it might eclipse the efforts of the Encyclopédistes (not in scale; it has already done that, but in ultimate historical importance). It is so huge that I largely have refused to look at more than my own little corners and crannies of the coalface. I have serious concerns with some of its weaknesses, but I hope that with a bit of nagging and a few doses of reality the messiness of the birth will go away or transform into something edifying.

But arbitrary rejection, or even constructive negativity in general, isn’t enough; we need encouragement of positive contribution; polishing the final product can wait. I myself have edited and expanded far more material than I have produced from scratch, and if all this blows over, I hope to go on doing so. JonRichfield (talk) 09:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• - seems like there is general support for the block and some pointers for Jamie to consider going forward. It has been seen more than once when a vandal fighter gets jaded and needs a break from it, resulting in biting newbies and misuse of the administrative tools. Its not attacking and piling on to say , hey dude, write some content, take a break from vandal fighting. Off2riorob (talk) 10:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive editing at Science in medieval Islam

Hello. There's a lot of history here; I don't care to go into it unless I have to.

Bottom line, Science in medieval Islam was stubbed several months ago. I have just begun to rebuild the article, and User:William M. Connolley is reverting all my changes, complaining about the sidebar I added and the meaning of a word I used in the lead sentence. The problem is, the other editor is not just deleting the sidebar and/or changing the word in dispute, he is reverting all my changes - which are beginning to include cited material as well as formatting and other small changes in wording.

This article has lain untouched for some time. I discussed I was going to work on it and laid out a plan, at which time the OP went to the article and began making changes. Later that day, I began my work, which didn't involve his changes, and he has been reverting my changes daily the past three or four days since (once also by another editor). I am just beginning work on it. Every day I have to restore my changes and get through these tangential issues before I can get down to work. Then I have to be careful how I edit lest I get caught between revisions by an undo or something else. Now I have to come here to ask ANI for help.

In other words, I have been followed and singled out for attention by this other editor, and his actions are disrupting my editing. There is one other person involved, but my main concern at this time is the actions of User:William M. Connolley. My work would be easier, and the end result would probably be better, if I was not under siege for the duration of my effort. I would welcome serious criticism, but the amount of work to be done here is substantial and these revert attacks are pointless and destructive.

Thanks for your time.

Aquib (talk) 00:12, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

There's a bit of history on the talk page, for other editors who are not familiar with this case. While WMC's points do have merit and should be discussed, I find the wholesale reversion troubling, as well as the very prickly comments that he made on the talk page. On the other hand, Aquib, have you considered just making the non-controversial changes first without introducing the sidebar or the word "formally", which WMC opposes? Add the things you can both agree on, and discuss the other things on the talk page while you do that :-). Lankiveil 00:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC).

Thank you for your constructive suggestion, Lankiveil. I will defer these 2 changes for now in the interest of the article. However, I hope you agree the final result should not be influenced by the fact there is someone prepared to totally revert out all my work in order to gain leverage in content discussions. The article will suffer if such tactics are employed. Best regards -Aquib (talk) 00:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

As might be expected, there is a much bigger story behind this issue. Some background is at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup where evidence is available to show that there have been thousands of edits involving the undue promotion of Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements, with severe misuse of sources (misrepresentation; reporting only one side; quoting out of context; inventing claims). Attempts to cleanup the mess are hampered by editors who do not acknowledge the situation: Misplaced Pages is hosting plausible yet false material that is being mirrored to hundreds of sites, and the hard-to-access sources which seem to justify the material are often found to fail verification. Johnuniq (talk) 04:43, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I haven't looked very closely at the situation, but it does look as if Aquib's edits are reverted wholesale with edit summaries that only refer to tiny details that could easily have been changed directly. Full reverts with justifications that could only justify partial reverts is what I usually see when editors with no particular knowledge of a field try to prevent more knowledgeable editors with a fringe POV from distorting articles.

Islamic science is actually a mainstream topic. It's well established that at some time Islamic countries had a florishing scientific culture that had an impact on contemporary Christian countries. On the other hand it's also a topic that is attractive to fringe nationalists (similar to Indian mathematics).

I don't have the time to look at the content (and this is not a good place to discuss it), but one thing seems clear: If WMC and others at that article feel uneasy about Aquib's work because they can't check it, then that's a valid concern that must be made explicit to be resolved one way or the other. Full reverts that mention minor aspects as a pretext are not constructive at all. Hans Adler 09:42, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

@L: Aquib has a long history of disruption at this article, going all the way up to his failed arbcomm case. Meanwhile, I don't know what you mean by "prickly": do please clarify yourself. But I notice you have no problem at all with the bad faith of William, you seem to have a personal interest in disrupting my edits - can you explain your asymmetrical response, please? William M. Connolley (talk) 11:10, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Note also this kind of thing Does the Islam sidebar make you uncomfortable? implying a sort of facile, covert anti-islam sensibility on the part of WMC Johnuniq.Fainites scribs 11:34, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

In the recent update, Fainites has not provided Johnuniq's diff and appears to have misrepresented the content of that diff (why a second sidebar might not be helpful for the reader). Mathsci (talk) 11:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, the diff I provided above clearly shows the whole post from Johnuniq that Aam responded to, and the whole of Aam's response. How can that possibly misrepresent anything, let alone misrepresent the content. My "recent update" was to correct my earlier error by changing the name WMC to Johnuniq. I would expect anybody commenting here to read at least that whole section of the talkpage, if not the whole talkpage, to understand the context.Fainites scribs 11:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Fainites has subsequently indicated on my talk page that they were puzzled by my comment and guessed correctly that I had slightly misunderstood their own comment, which concerned the response of Aam to Johnuniq's fairly standard post. I am in complete agreement with Fainites that the reaction of Aam was not appropriate. Sorry about the confusion! Mathsci (talk) 16:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The declined arb request is here. Aquib's part in it doesn't look good at first glance, but I haven't checked into it closely. Tijfo098 discusses Aquib a little bit there. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 12:23, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Are "first glances" into involvement at Arbcom a justification for violating our principles? Then I would direct you to the other editors involvement there in connection with the topic of Climate change.

As for the remark regarding the Islam sidebar. The Islam project has a significant historic and scientific interest in this article. This exchange struck me as odd. There is no question this is a sensitive topic. I will agree we all need to keep AGF and stay focused on the content. But this all has nothing to do with whether wholesale reverts are an acceptable tactic in article development.

Aquib (talk) 13:26, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

No more sensitive than many other topics and I don't see what that has to do with the covert suggestion that WMC Johnuniq is being anti-islam because he objects to a sidebar. (I would find it odd if an article on medieval science in Europe had a Chrisianity sidebar).Fainites scribs 15:55, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

@Fainites, the remark I responded to was actually made by another editor, but your points are taken. Still, the question and answer seem outside the scope of this discussion. Briefly,

• To the "covert suggestion". Not sure how covert that was, how much was question, how much suggestion. Such are the vagaries of language. My question did not come out of the blue, it was a response to a statement made by another person. And asking someone if they are uncomfortable with a concept is not the same as suggesting they are against it. Rightly or wrongly, I interpreted the strong responses to the Islam sidebar as reactions to a perceived threat. Would I have received such responses if I had inserted either the Science or History sidebar? I am not the boogey-man. Being perceived or treated as such is not going to help me contribute to the encyclopedia.
• To the sidebar. This single word Islam describes a religion, a geographic area and a civilization. The appropriate comparison in this instance is not between Christianity and Islam, it is between East and West. In matters of Islamic science and history, the Islam sidebar is appropriate due to the cultural, rather than religious, significance. For non-Islamic topics, no Western sidebar is needed. Western is engraved between the lines of every article in the English Misplaced Pages, and enforced through the WP Manual of style.

I appreciate your input, and the opportunity to attempt to clarify my positions. If we got more of this on the article talk pages, it would be helpful. We can take this to a discussion page if you are interested in discussing these matters further, or continue it here if everyone else considers it appropriate.

Aquib (talk) 17:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

User Truthcon misbehaving on article Bo Lozoff

Hi, there is a difficulty with User:Truthcon, who may be the same person as User:Exconfan, on Bo Lozoff. The editor keeps removing the same bit of text that includes sensitive material which has previously been established through consensus. I do recognize after studying WP:VAN that Truthcon's edits do not count as vandalism as I stated in my edit summaries and that I should have exercised more patience with this editor than I initially did.

Truthcon is totally non-communicative. He or she has been asked multiple times to bring his or her changes up on the discussion page before changing the article again but simply keeps making them without even so much as an edit summary. I placed a welcome message and a warning on User talk:Truthcon Thursday which Truthcon did not respond to at all but deleted the same text once again this evening.

Thanks in advance for addressing the situation. Floorsheim (talk) 02:10, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Should we report it to WP:SPI to see if they are sockpuppets or possibly block Truthcon for disruption and going against project consensus if necessary? Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 02:11, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

You could do both, although if it's that obvious, they might turn it down unless it's suspected there is a sockfarm. In any case, an editor with "truth" in its name typically has a short life at wikipedia, as it tends to be focused on righting some great wrong, and nothing else. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:29, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The first thing you should have done is notify Truthcon of this discussion as required. I have done so and asked them to explain why they're removing the content. Further deletions without communication can probably be treated as disruptive. --NeilN 02:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks and my apologies. -Floorsheim (talk) 02:51, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

After I asked Truthcon to stop deleting without discussing they've done so twice , the last after a final warning. The editor may have a reason to delete but it's impossible to tell with absolutely no communication. Can an admin please step in? --NeilN 23:17, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

And again --NeilN 23:58, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

This seems like it should be a really open and shut case to me. Has it been dealt with? ==Floorsheim (talk) 03:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it hasn't received admin attention yet. If it isn't handled here then I'll report to WP:AN3 if they revert again. --NeilN 03:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Given a week off. If it starts right back up ping me and I'll indef. If there's reason to believe this is a sock, please open a case for that. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Chris. --NeilN 13:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Persistent anon ignoring attempts at communication

189.5.159.86 (talk · contribs) has been primarily active in mixed martial artists' record tables. Most of their edits either add unsourced content (example) or contradict given sources (example). I've been trying to communicate with them for over half an hour (see this revision of their talk page), but they've been ignoring me so far. Should admin action be taken? —LOL /_C 03:47, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Block'em, that'll get his/her attention. GoodDay (talk) 04:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The user has hopped to 189.5.181.53 (talk · contribs) and continues to make unsourced additions and changes without any attempts at communication. —LOL /_C 23:19, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Admin accusing me of vandalism

We're generating more heat than light here. This is as resolved as it is ever going to get here and now, and further discussion is only leading to dragging the names of one or both involved users through the mud. This is not cool. lifebaka++ 10:57, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Resolved – Trouts all round Rich Farmbrough, 02:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC). User:MrDarcy, who claims to be an admin, is accusing me of vandalism because I redirected this practically unsourced and almost totally OR article to the article on the book. Nothing on his User or Talk pages identifies him as an admin, and when I gave him an nor1 warning for reverting me, since the version he reveted to was totally OR, he called my warning "cute". He also claims that "Deleting an entire article without discussion, as you have done, is tantamount to vandalism." (). Since there is nothing on his pages to indicate that he is an admin, and since his revert of my redirect (without so much as an explanation to me) reverted to the OR version, I felt my comments to him were justified. And apparently AGF no longer applies if an admin feels you're a vandal without any justification. Corvus cornixtalk 05:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Admin Tbhotch* 05:13, 24 April 2011 (UTC) That is as may be, but nothing on his pages lets anyone know he is, nor does it have anything to do with his ABF accusations against me. Corvus cornixtalk 05:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC) So, the category listing at the bottom of his user page didn't do it for you? Strikerforce 05:34, 24 April 2011 (UTC) He posted the admin template over 2 years ago. He's got the little admin world globe in the upper right corner of the user page - in addition to the category. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:08, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Both of which are completely meaningless. In the world that is Misplaced Pages, the only sure fire way of telling whether someone is a bone fide admin, is that obscure link above, which I would guess it takes the average user a year or two to learn about. And in this particular case, if you aren't aware of it, an admin whose user page soley consist of the admin cat, is likely to look a little sus. MickMacNee (talk) 12:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC) They can be used spuriously, but the OP's statement that "nothing on 's page indicates he's an admin" is false. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC) I would definitely call redirection of an article with valid references without any discussion to be vandalism. Close to it, at least. Silverseren 05:24, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Apparently there is no such thing as assumption of good faith? Corvus cornixtalk 05:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC) It has nothing to do with assuming faith at all. It has to do with your action itself. Now, maybe vandalism is the wrong word, but your action wasn't valid and was disruptive and was, thus, reverted. Silverseren 05:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Unless I am exonerated of the charges of vandalism, this will be my last day of editing on Misplaced Pages. Corvus cornixtalk 05:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Look, you were bold, he reverted, and next you should have discussed (see WP:BRD), but not with a stock warning template. No big deal - just move on. — Satori Son 05:36, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Okay, forget the vandalism. It wasn't vandalism, that's the wrong term. Let me ask you something. Do you believe that your action of redirecting the article is valid? Do you think the subject of the short story is non-notable? When in a simple search, I found critical commentary here (pg. 74) as the third result, the first two results being the book itself? Silverseren 05:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC) You weren't charged with anything. You were accused of vandalism. GoodDay (talk) 05:44, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Done. Goodbye. Corvus cornixtalk 05:47, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Seriously? One person accuses you of vandalism, and when they don't apologize, you take your ball and go home? Maybe Misplaced Pages isn't the best place for you... --Jayron32 06:05, 24 April 2011 (UTC) I think the lack of response by Corvus to my comment above kinda says a lot anyways. Silverseren 06:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC) I feel obligated to bring up WP:BOOMERANG. That is all. elektrikSHOOS 06:11, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Pretty much. Silverseren 06:13, 24 April 2011 (UTC) It appears that Corvus Cornix got very frustrated. It happens. I notice that this editor has 33,000+ edits over more than four years. I left a friendly message on this user's talk page. Perhaps others might consider doing the same. Kind words are never wasted. Cullen328 (talk) 06:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC) This is stupid. I'm really sick of the word vandalism being thrown around. You can package it any way you want, six ways from here to Sunday, but you've just improperly compared an editor to someone who replaces a page with "JOHN IS GAY AND HAS NO PENIS." See WP:HITLER - it's childish, people; find new terminology. Unless you really do lack the self-control to go name calling because of your biological WP:MASTADON reaction. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC) I think it's better to say that Corvus' actions were definitely not vandalism, but that they were disruptive. Silverseren 06:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC) MrDarcy is an admin but it's inppropriate to use terms like "vandalism" if some sane justification is given for the edit. I don't think the redirect was really warranted for that particular article, despite the admittedly skimpy sourcing. For other sorts of articles it would be appropriate. It's a matter of editorial judgment that (for me anyway) is based mostly on how contentious and/or potentially promotional the article content is. The NOR template was also inappropriate (WP:DTTR). Corvus Cornix, if you're stressed out about Misplaced Pages, taking a break for a while is good way to restore perpective. Come back when you feel ready. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 06:36, 24 April 2011 (UTC) The admin said it was tantamount to vandalism, and when someone chops an article unilaterally and without discussion, that's a reasonable conclusion to draw. Corvus copped an attitude, posted a gratuitious warning template, and falsely claimed that the admin wasn't identified as such on his user page. Hard to figure what's up with that. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:46, 24 April 2011 (UTC) With all due respect, "tantamount" means, in essence, "equivalent to," so let's not split hairs and pretend that he wasn't being accused of vandalism just because he was accused of something merely "equivalent to vandalism." It doesn't mean "almost" or "kinda, but not really." And while he chopped the article without discussion, he did offer a perfectly rational explanation in his edit summary that made it extremely clear that not only was this not vandalism but that this was the action of an experienced editor. That said, it's clear that Corvus acted improperly in this little episode, primarily in his followup actions after the redirect (the unfortunate warning template bit, etc.). Most of us have gotten carried away at one point or another and I certainly hope that this doesn't end with an editor with over 33,000 edits and no existing block log quitting Misplaced Pages! ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 07:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC) That's what I can't figure. It's really a minor incident. Why did the guy go ballistic? I'm guessing he needs a few days away from wikipedia. That can be good therapy when some situation gets too annoying. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:27, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Let me just make an overall comment that it is my hope that experienced users make an investigation of a subject before redirection or deletion nomination. In this case, as I showed in a link to a reference above, I find it doubtful that any research was done whatsoever. If it is believed that the article in question is non-notable, then the obvious course of action after that would be to also redirect the rest of the author's works as well, because the article is question is described as being the most famous, most well known, and most commented on of all of her works. It is for this reason, along with the references that were already given in the article before redirection, that it is shown that the action of redirection was clearly disruptive. Silverseren 07:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Actions taken in good faith are rarely "clearly disruptive". If you're not able to refrain from casting such aspersions on editors then you're best spending your time on a project other that Misplaced Pages. Corvus's resignation is an overreaction, but your participation in this thread has not been helpful. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:34, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Everyone makes mistakes; yes, there should have been more careful consideration before redirecting, there should have been a quick review of the redirectors contribution history before even thinking about using the term "vandalism", and there should have been a realisation that templating the other party was a bad idea, and certainly the response to the warning was non optimal. This is an example of how a cycle of bad choices has resulted in the potential loss to the project of a good contributor. BTW - are we sure MrDarcy is an admin? I do not recall any AN/I discussions demanding his flags... perhaps we should start one here, now, to ensure that they are properly noted as a sysop? LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:47, 24 April 2011 (UTC) LHVU, yes, MrDarcy is an admin since 2006, see my link above, also here. Is that what you are asking? 69.111.194.167 (talk) 11:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/MrDarcy -> -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 12:00, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Actually, the way I read LHvU's comment, he was referring to the fact that most admins would've been brought here by some disgruntled user calling for them to be desysopped, and as McDarcy apparently hasn't, added a sarcastic/joking remark that maybe such a discussion should start. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 12:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Whether the edit was performed by an IP, a brand-new user, or Corvus Cornix, it was not vandalism - it was an editorial decision, perhaps wrong, with which the admin disagreed. "Vandal" and "vandalism" should not be thrown around loosely: the practice debases the word while poisoning the overall atmosphere; it forces an editor to defend himself rather than address the dispute; it is a quick, lazy way to avoid real discussion and explanation; it bypasses BRD, arriving at anger rather than consensus. Users should be discouraged from making ill-founded accusations of vandalism. Admins should be admonished. Jd2718 (talk) 12:15, 24 April 2011 (UTC) 'very cute, but incredibly misplaced', 'completely out of line', 'tantamount to vandalism', 'This MUST be discussed here' ??? This is the supposed high standard of conduct we expect of admins? It's no surprise Corvus cornix believe this guy was an imposter (although his decision to redirect an article in this state stating "nothing indicates what makes the story notable", when it has four references supporting a very long Interpretation section, seems to me to be equally poor). In conclusion, Corvus, stop being such a drama queen, and MrDarcy, perhaps think about an Misplaced Pages:Administrator review. And no bed time stories for either of you tonight. MickMacNee (talk) 12:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Why an Administrator review? He has not abused his tools, he was simply a little foolish in his choice of words. No biggie - the trouts below are sufficient. GiantSnowman 22:23, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Comment. Maybe I'm missing something or our WP:V policy no longer exists, but removing unsourced material is nothing less then ideal. If anything amounts to vandalism, it's the continued reinsertion of unsourced content. Back in 2008, I also had a similar incident with Mr. Darcy and was upset over his choice of words. Looking at his edit history, it is apparent that he edits very little, but his editor interactions take up a disproportionate amount of drama. Perhaps as his user page notes, he should just stay retired. This project may be better off. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:45, 24 April 2011 (UTC) When I consider the stature and reputation that O'Connor and this story enjoy in the field of American literature, I almost think I would prefer to be accused of vandalism over the edit involved than to endure the implications that the edit reflected my knowledge and judgment. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC) Plenty of trouts to go around here CC starts by making the article into a redirect and clearly stating his reasoning. Valid editorial action subject to BRD. MD reverts per WP:BRD. Again a valid editorial action. A trout for CC for reverting the revert using the rollback tool instead of going to the talk page. A trout for CC for slapping a "welcome to wikipedia" tag on the talk page of an experienced editor instead of just saying his peace. A trout for MD for using the "V word" to describe CC's actions on the article's talk page. A trout for SS for throwing around the very same "V word" in this thread. A trout for me. The time I used writting is going to make me late for work :( --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:43, 24 April 2011 (UTC) (Non-administrator comment) CC, MD, SS and RR duly WP:TROUTed, following WP:RITZMAN --Shirt58 (talk) 16:14, 24 April 2011 (UTC) All involved are sentenced to one week of civility and kindness. I apologize for the harshness of the punishment, but the law is the law. Cullen328 (talk) 16:33, 24 April 2011 (UTC) And can Mr. Darcy go back to admin school for a little while? I am sure they are rusty. Drmies (talk) 02:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC) Addendum: How to tell if someone is an admin There are alternatives to hunting for that obscure link mentioned above as a method to determine someone's permissions. Go to the user's contribs page, and click on "user rights management." There you will see a list of their current permissions. Go to your Preferences, Gadgets; and enable Navigation Popups. Then, when you hover over a user's signature, a list of their permissions is instantly visible. Popups is a cool tool that has many other wicked uses as well. --Diannaa 17:45, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Non-admins don't have a "user rights management" link. ;) I wouldn't consider the "obscure link" to be too obscure; it's just at the bottom of the contributions page (MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer). Goodvac (talk) 17:56, 24 April 2011 (UTC) To easily tell if a user is an admin, add importScript('User:Splarka/sysopdectector.js'); to your monobook.js. Viewing the person's user page or talk page will then give you the information. EdJohnston (talk) 18:29, 24 April 2011 (UTC) importScript('User:Ais523/adminrights.js'); also works; it highlights links to the userpages of current admins in teal, so with the sigs of most admins it becomes obvious who is and isn't one. It does require overriding the local cache from time to time (just like when you first install a new .js), but that's not really a big deal. Cheers. lifebaka++ 18:47, 24 April 2011 (UTC) (edit conflict) Many admins include a userbox with a verify link - that's a big help, particularly for editors who are unfamiliar with checking users and logs (took me some time to figure it out when I first started). See, for example, User:Tide rolls.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC) The admin has also had the little admin globe in the upper right corner, and been listed in the admin category, since December of 2008. If Corvus looked at the user page, he didn't look very closely. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:21, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Well I guess my advice was pretty lame :) "Just become an admin, kid, and we'll teach you the secret handshake." Sorry --Diannaa 20:46, 24 April 2011 (UTC) "Secret handshake"??? Corvus comix has been here over 3 years and didn't know that (1) the little globe means "admin"; and (2) category admin means "admin"? 21:11, 24 April 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) Can't anyone go into "special" to see? For example: , , ? (Fearful of asking the naive question.) --Moonriddengirl 20:52, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Ah, the easy way: Special:ListUsers/sysop. Just type in the username, and Bob's your uncle. :) --Moonriddengirl 21:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Everything is "easy" when you know how to do it. And I'm not speaking for Corvus, but speaking as medium-level-experienced editor, I remember finding the Special Users page wasn't easy to do in the beginning. In fact, I bookmarked the page to "remember" it. And as long as I'm at it, the little globe on the upper right-hand corner - I didn't even know that existed until I started reading this section - talk about subtle - kind of classy looking, but still not very noticeable.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:13, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Also the category. And while many admins will have a userbox stating that they're admins. AGF, I suppose that's what Corvus was looking for; but there's no requirement to do that. But someone who's been here 3 1/2 years ought to know at least one method of determining if someone's an admin or not. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Another indication is to look at their logs list, and observe stuff that only admins can do. There are many ways to confirm that someone is an admin. I have to think that CC was sufficiently annoyed that his logic cells were in shutdown mode. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC) (edit conflict) Someone earlier said the category wasn't conclusive, which I assume means anyone can falsely state they're an admin by putting the category at the bottom of their user page. As for the globe, the same person said that was not conclusive, either, which I assume means anyone can add the icon. I haven't verified any of this personally. I do agree that someone who has been contributing regularly to Misplaced Pages for 3.5 years (it's not just time but also activity) ought to be able to figure out whether someone is an admin. And if they can't, they can ask at the Help desk. It's the kind of question that should get a very quick answer.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:26, 24 April 2011 (UTC) It's true that the symbol and the category aren't conclusive and that anyone can post them (as the admin did here, and as I just did on my own page - Yee-Hah!) but the OP griped that "Nothing on his User or Talk pages identifies him as an admin", which is a false statement. And even if he didn't think to look for those things, as you note there are any number of ways of verifying or refuting whether someone is an admin. If all else fails, go to a trusted admin and ask, "Is that guy an admin?" ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:42, 24 April 2011 (UTC) The greater question is: Why should it matter? Seriously, why should knowledge of whether someone is an admin, in this case, make any difference? It should only matter if a) you want someone to use the administrator tools or b) If you have reason to believe they are impersonating an administrator. Admitedly, MrDarcy's behavior has been less than ideal in this case (including throwing around spurious use of the word "vandalism"), however I don't see where knowing if he was or was not an admin should necessarily change how that should be dealt with. --Jayron32 02:56, 25 April 2011 (UTC) That's an excellent question. It's evident that the OP didn't do any investigation, as he really started the war of words by "templating a regular" (who also happens to be an admin), then comes here and yelps because the admin talked back; and raised the AGF card when he himself assumed bad faith by questioning the admin's credentials, which are easy to verify or refute, as any 3 1/2 years editor should know. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC) Why does it matter? Because MrDarcy, an administrator who one would hope knows that being an administrator doesn't mean that one is infallible, said that CC's vandalism warning was "incredibly misplaced (I'm an admin)" (this after the mocking "your warning was very cute" bit). That is why it matters whether or not MrDarcy is an admin. MrDarcy made it matter whether or not MrDarcy was an admin. I have been biased in favor of CC from the outset because of this particular contemptuous bit of chatter. Maybe it's just me, but when I see two guys acting like asses, and one of them is an Admin, I tend to side with the non-Admin ass, because Admin's should know better. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 06:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC) Have you ever gotten a template that suggested its poster thought you had just started editing yesterday? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:22, 25 April 2011 (UTC) No, but I think an administrator -- or anyone, for that matter -- holding up a badge and suggesting a vandalism warning is "incredibly misplaced" because of that badge alone is utterly misguided. Administrators should be trusted to, I dunno, respond better. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 06:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC) All's I know is that this is a story of a very experienced editor getting called a vandal by an admin, even though no vandalism took place. But, hey, let's start this thread off by crapping all over the very experienced editor who was falsely accused, and let's continue finding new reasons to do so! That guy's a monster! He didn't realize that MrDarcy is actually an admin! Because that's the real issue. It's not that an admin called a well-intentioned and highly experienced editor a vandal and then hid behind his admin-shield, it's that the editor didn't notice that the admin-who-wasn't-acting-like-an-admin was actually an admin. How dare someone not realize that they're dealing with an actual admin? ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 06:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Bangladesh Armed Forces

I have been engaged in a somewhat frustrating dialogue with User_talk:113.150.9.211, which has not been helped by that user exercising his right to remove content from his talk page. The dialogue has extended over several articles but with reference to this one it originated with this series of edits made by him.

I regarded those edits as being potentially POV pushing and also potentially libellous, as well as clearly being uncited and possibly a copyright violation. Consequently I reverted them here and left a {{uw-unsourced1}} warning on the user's TP. The user blanked that warning and replied with a threat to block me here. The IP user also said that I had not given him enough time to cite, although the bulk of the disputed content appeared to have been inserted as a copy/paste.

I then explained my position with regard to issuing that warning in a series of messages here. These were also blanked and the situation at present stands with a message from me following a further insertion of the material by the IP user, again without citations. It is now over 2 hours since that last insertion of the material into the article and it remains uncited.

To summarise my concerns:

1. at least some of the material may be a copyvio, although I have yet to prove this
2. it appears possibly to be part of a campaign by the IP user to push his point of view across various articles, for example here at Kader Bahini (in this instance, reverted four times by three different users (including myself). I note that one of the IP's responses to a message left by me included the statement that "I understand your reason's for deleting anything that implicates India's wrong doings, that is fine", which seems to suggest a recognition of possible POV (and also does not assume my good faith - I'd never heard of this group before etc).
3. the additions are uncited
4. it may be libellous, if any of the named participants are still alive: an accusation that someone is/was a war criminal is an extremely serious matter, especially if they were not prosecuted. I have no idea if they are alive or were prosecuted, but did refer this to the IP user and got no meaningful response. I don't know enough about the subject to confirm/deny myself and past experience with articles involving the India/Pakistan/Bangladesh area have shown me that searching for named people can bring up more irrelevant hits than relevant ones due to the personal naming conventions in those countries. I appreciate that these events happened quite some time ago.

It is because this is such a wide-ranging sets of concerns that I have brought the matter to this board. I would appreciate thoughts on this issue.

Note: above originally posted at Misplaced Pages:Content_noticeboard but moved here - I was in two minds regarding the most appropriate board, sorry. - Sitush (talk) 06:53, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted it as it clearly needs reliable sources. I was reporting on that here when Chrome froze my edit page (which it does at times when I click on the tildes at 'Sign your posts on talk pages: and then I got distracted. I note the IP threatened to block Sitush which is mildly amusing but I also see they removed (as they are allowed to do) a copyvio notice here , Sitush, I think this should be left open to allow the IP to respond. Dougweller (talk) 13:58, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the revert. I was on the verge of a war elsewhere with the IP yesterday (he exceeded 3RR, I held back) & so didn't want to push my luck. The copyvio notice was issued by another contributor in relation to that particular incident. Let's see what happens next, as you suggest. There has already been another edit by the IP but it is harmless and merely replaces one uncited "fact" with another. - Sitush (talk) 15:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Urgent: article with NPOV tags on main page

Sathya Sai Baba, an article with multiple NPOV-section tags, has just been added to T:ITN because of overwhelming consensus in support at WP:ITNC. However, as the article contains these neutrality and dispute tags, it's not suitable for the main page and should be pulled post-haste until the tags are resolved. I've already left a note for the posting admin, but on the off chance that they went offline, could another admin handle it? Thanks, Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 12:48, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

It was removed, then reposted, by Fox (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), who gave the reasoning that the person's notability meant it outweighed the NPOV and factual accuracy tags to post on the Main Page. I strongly disagree with this and feel we shouldn't be displaying problem articles on the main page regardless of the person's notability. Requesting further admin input. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 12:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The NPOV tag can go FWIW, unless anyone raises new concerns. Once a dispute is expired it is supposed to be removed because otherwise it can be misused as a badge of shame. I took a look over the section and removed one of the worst paragraphs. The rest looks marginal but fine... mostly needs some TLC and rewriting. --Errant 13:36, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Disputes .. expire? I thought they were resolved? (Or not.) Rich Farmbrough, 02:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC).

Dispute tags should only be used where there's an active debate. They're there to attract attention to the discussion as opposed to simply flagging the problem; they're quite different from cleanup tags in that respect. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Failure by User:LemonMonday to assume good faith.

Proposed discretionary topic ban

In light of the inability to disengage from the dispute I propose the following topic ban which can be imposed by an uninvolved admin on any participant in the BISE/British Isles dispute if deemed necessary to avoid disruption. The wording of the ban would be as follows:

<editor> is topic banned from commenting on the subject of British Isles, changing article text in favour/opposition of "British Isles" or engaging with other editors within the BISE topic area, broadly construed.

A list of editors to initially impose this on could also be discussed below. --Errant 20:17, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll add myself to that list, provided all known deletors are also there (there are two currently active). LevenBoy (talk) 20:26, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Define disruption in this area. 2 reverts doesn't generally cover it. Massive levels of TE doesn't either. We've had editors make it their mission to seek out the term for attention, part time and full time, and they're still at it. If it was that easy for uninvolved admins, in this area populated by experience wikilawyers and tag teamers, and determined 'long game' civil-POV pushers, it would already be all but over. Take a look at any editor who was reverting that page out of their fervent belief they were correct in policy, behavioural and content, and tell me now which one of those was being disruptive? If you only come up with Lemon Monday, then we can archive this topic ban proposal now as pointless. MickMacNee (talk) 20:33, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't see a suggestion above that it only be LemonMonday - as he is already banned, I assume you were making a rhetorical remark Mick? On the suggestion, it's along the right lines. In fact, we already had a community sanction agreed - that all add/deletes of the term must first be agreed at the BISE page. This was well supervised by an admin who gave up after a while - the page then drifted and people returned to battling it out at the local article level, which has proven to be both unproductive and unhelpful. BISE had its drawbacks, the most serious of which was a tendancy towards repetition and continued rehearsal of the same arguments. The only other alternative (my preference) would be to replace BISE with a definitions discussion + a moratorium. Without either, the battling will simply continue, as has been repeatedly proven. I don't think that "disruption" is completely the criteria for removing editors from it either, unless "disruption" is also taken to include undiscussed serial BI add/deletes. As stated above, one or two editors are perennially engaged in deletes and there is the nub. Personally I think that must now be stopped and attention go to defining a ruleset. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 21:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

By a ruleset do you mean guidelines or MOS? If so, I don't believe it would work. As noted, it would merely give users the excuse to rigorously implement it, like the case now with Londonderry. I would just cuase yet more grief. LevenBoy (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

If a sensible guideline could be developed then that would be a stellar outcome. I suggest that someone builds a page with the relevant arguments, then everyone involved in the BISE dispute is "topic banned" from the page and you let it loose on uninvolved editors to form a consensus on which is the right way. Then you are all bound by it. Ends the ceaseless arguments. Ultimately, this probably needs to be decided by uninvolved editors. --Errant 21:21, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

We've pretty much gone down that route before and it was unsuccessful. That's not to say it can't be tried again but the divide between the two views is so great that it's just impossible to get agreement. LevenBoy (talk) 21:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

As Snowded says in the thread above, it was only "unsuccessful" in that when well-thought out agreements were close, they were rendered inoperable by the usual manouvering from those determined to see them unsuccessful - I very much include you in that category LevenBoy, but you weren't the only one. Clearly if you start from the position that compromise is impossible you have no role to play other than a blocking one. I don't find that helpful and neither I suspect would most uninvolved editors. I quite like the proposal put forwards by ErrantX. The uninvolved do somehow need to involve themselves in this and the uncompromising need to uninvolve themselves. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 21:57, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I think Scolaire produced the last version and most of us agreed to it. Maybe pull that out and test the waters again - single statement per editor, no counters and let a couple of uninvolved admins resolve any differences. Given that version did have a lot of agreement its a good starting point. --Snowded 22:05, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

It was too BI restricting, which is why most of you agreed with it. The deletors have always outnumbered those trying to maintain thr status quo. The problem would not go away with this, in fact it would make it worse. The trawling would continue apace and the deletors would use any guidelines justification for removal. I'm convinced the problem would escalate dramatically. The only real solution is to remove POV warriors from the equation, and if you want to include me in that category then that's your choice, but remember, I don't seek to insert BI anywhere. LevenBoy (talk) 22:17, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

A 1-year ban on the addition/deletion/replacement of British Isles on any article content. With a 3-strikes you're blocked 'per' article. GoodDay (talk) 22:56, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Why the 3-strikes rule? That would just contribute to the creation of more short-lived SPAs. If we are going to have a moratorium, it's got to be immediate and global. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, automatic blocks. GoodDay (talk) 13:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support Fainites scribs 11:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
• 'Query - is this meant to apply to any usage of "British Isles" even if it's in the first addition of information to an article? I write in the subject area that occasionally includes the usage of the phrase "British Isles", would I be sanctioned for adding content to an article and including the phrase "British Isles" (properly sourced, of course) in my additions? A simplistic reading of the proposed ban would seem to indicate that... Ealdgyth - Talk 15:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I think that this ban is meant to apply to certain editors for whom this seems to have become a recurring problem for. I would definitely oppose it being laid on editors who randomly stumble into it with no prior involvement in the issues. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Wtshymanski failing to work collaboratively

Wtshymanski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an established and knowledgable editor whose valuable contributions are regrettably overshadowed by his inability to work consensually. There have been many discussions with and about him on his talk page and at Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts but the behaviour continues; we are now at the point where admin involvement is needed.

Background information:

• User_talk:Wtshymanski
• Special:Contributions/Wtshymanski
• Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette_alerts#Wtshymanski_and_the_transistor_AfDs

The background information shows a pattern of removing articles by all means possible. I first initiated discussion on his talk page soon after I first encountered him: he mass-nominated many semiconductor articles for deletion; the proposals were resoundingly rejected, but despite this he went on to try removal by other means:

• AfD for BC548
• Following closure of AfD: pare article down, tag for notability concerns and suggest merge of much-reduced article:

This behaviour, repeated often, led to:

• Me initiating discussion on their talk page
• Another editor initiating discussion on Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts.

Both of those discussions (linked to in the Background information) give considerable detail of the editing patterns and the many attempts of editors to reach a consensual resolution. Wtshymanski acknowlendges that he cannot accept the consensus but rather than learn to live with it or move on, he continues to do all he can to delete content he finds inappropriate.

The pare-and-merge behaviour is particularly concerning, best illustrated by articles on batteries:

• Pare and tag merge proposal at N battery. Note that although the article was tagged for merge, no rationale was given on the talk page as required by Help:Merging
• Redirect without any discussion
• Reversion by me and discussion (part of same initiated discussion linked to above)
• Repeat of redirect
• Suggestion by me to propose merge correctly
• Reversion of redirect by another editor
• Edit warring by Wtshymanski to restore redirect
• Reversion by a third editor
• Tag for merge proposal and talk page discussion (also for two other batteries, plus C battery was tagged for merge and linked to the same discussion but not mentioned in the discussion).
• Responses to merge, exclusively in opposition
• Merge against consensus

This merge was reverted and discussed at WP:Wikiquette_alerts#Wtshymanski_and_the_transistor_AfDs. I hoped it could still be resolved, however more recently we have:

• Redirect of C battery with no consensus

Can an admin look into this all this? Thanks! RichardOSmith (talk) 17:05, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) One thing that leaps out at me when I review the user's contribution history is an extensive list of edits that remove content from articles, attempts to delete or merge articles, and other similar activity. What I do NOT see is work that adds material or otherwise clearly improves article content. Further, the actual article edits pare content back to the point where context is lost to someone who is not conversant with the terminology or jargon, all in the name of getting articles to conform to IEC "standards". I'm used to writing tersely for some audiences, but the history described calls me to remind the editor that there's a huge difference between a precis and an article, and Misplaced Pages's goal is to provide informative articles, not terminology-laden precis that refer the reader to manufacturers' specification sheets or the IEC (if the IEC can be found online for free...which I doubt, although I haven't gone looking for it). Just my 2p worth. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 19:00, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Not to get technical here, but this sort of problem is the exact reason that WP:RFCU exists: What we have is a user who is asking for an assessment of another user's behavior, which is EXACTLY what a Request for Comment is supposed to do. Generally, admins need to see evidence that the problem is a problem for more than just one person before issueing any sanctions; unilateral requests by User A to sanction User B, with no corroborating support, don't get anywhere. I would try RFCU and other aspects of WP:DR before coming straight to admins; at least it shows you have literally exhausted every avenue before requesting formal sanctions; and that makes sanctions a more reasonable conclusion. --Jayron32 20:40, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

"evidence that the problem is a problem for more than just one person"

Did you read any of the linked pages? 8-(

WQA is a pointless exercise. RFCU is an excuse to attack the person posting there, not the person complained of. ANI, for all its faults, does sometimes do somethign useful. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks for your comments, Jayron. For clarity: (a) See the Wikiquette link: bringing the subject here for Admin attention was discussed in advance because that forum seemed to have reached its limit; this is not a unilateral User A vs User B issue; (b) I made no request for sanctions - just for admin eyes on the issue. I have always hoped this could be resolved amicably and an admin's comment may well convey the wisdom and authority needed without the need for sanctions. RichardOSmith (talk) 21:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm also concerned with his edits to Salsa (dance), where he merged the content of Lady Styling into the article. The editor didn't notice that Lady Styling was originally a promotional article whose only references were to the website of a professional dancer. These references were removed as spam leaving a completely unreferenced article, and no wonder: a quick Google search shows that the phrase "lady styling" has no specific connection to salsa dancing. The editor should have made sure before merging that the content had some basis in reality and wasn't the invention of a PR hack. It's obvious to me that he didn't do this; when challenged after the merge, he admitted that he didn't know much about salsa, then told the editor challenging the merge to "fix it" "if" there was a problem. (He also structured the merged content in a way that made it look like "lady dancing" was a specific type of salsa, like New York and Cuban.) It's not other editors' jobs to fix poorly thought out merges; editors should not merge articles until they have consensus and unless they know enough about the subject to avoid this kind of error. The editor should have PRODed or AFDed Lady Styling instead. --NellieBly (talk) 20:51, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that W has been a continuing pain in the butt, at 2N7000 among other places. He's got a real negative attitude and behavior toward articles and editors that he disagrees with. Failure to work collaboratively is a good term for it. On the other hand, I'm not sure what can be done about it. It's probably not a blockable offense to be a jerk and hard to work with. An RFCU might be a chance to give him some community input, but it seems that he has had plenty of that, and just doesn't care what others think. Dicklyon (talk) 21:42, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. We aren't going to change him, and he is a net positive. The way we deal with disruption is a bit of a blunt instrument. We cannot make him play well with others, and his faults are less than his positives.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

How about a WP:PRESERVE parole. If he removes info (other than obvious vandalism, BLP/copyvios, etc) from an article he should transfer it to the talk page so other editors can decide what to do with it. Most of his editing that I've looked at is plain destructive, removing useful reference info indiscriminately. He's intelligent but seems to have an MPOV problem. It's possible that he's a net positive and that I just haven't looked closely enough to see that, but I think some changes are necessary. Note: I commented on some of the transistor afd's when they were going on. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 06:57, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Links to "plain destructive" actions?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Uncivil Behavior by Ultimate Koopa

The issue is regarding User:The Ultimate Koopa. He continues to act in an uncivil manner regardless of how many times or people ask him to calm down. He is constantly attacking others, writing in all CAPS, swearing, etc. Not only that, but he has been brought here, and blocked for this very thing, in the past. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:The_Ultimate_Koopa#AN.2FI and right below it the result http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:The_Ultimate_Koopa#Blocked , so he is aware that what he does is wrong, and continues to do it.

Examples include:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:List_of_The_Simpsons_DVDs#Season_20_Region_2. (Majority of the conversation under "Season 20 Region 2".)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=List_of_The_Simpsons_DVDs&diff=prev&oldid=424941306
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=List_of_The_Simpsons_DVDs&diff=prev&oldid=422090709
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=List_of_The_Simpsons_DVDs&diff=prev&oldid=411891281

It goes on and on, but you can get the picture. He's mostly worked up over whether or not this particular DVD set was released in a certain region or not. I really don't know for sure either way, all I know is that his rationale is "I can't find it, so it's not out", so I've undone his edits because his personal experience isn't a valid reason. But I'm not here about that, it's about the general way he handles things. I'm just throwing that out there for context. If he's in the right as far as the article goes, so be it. I just want him to stop ranting and being so rude to anyone who opposes him. Sergecross73 msg me 21:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Let me point out that this gross behavior isn't limited to Talk pages, it is also frequently in his edit summaries, as seen here. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 21:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, as proved by the bottom three links above. (There's more, though.) Guoguo12--Talk--  22:10, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

• I have blocked Ultimate Koopa for 2 weeks, as a "wake up and smell the coffee" final warning. I have indicated that I would support an immediate unblock once they confirm they will temper their language - with a note that reverting to such practices will possibly lead to an indefinite block. I am hoping that this action will result in a valuable contributor amending their behaviour going forward. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Thank you. Sergecross73 msg me 00:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

User Cooldenny spamming

Cooldenny (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

I just wanted to make Wiki administrators aware that User:Cooldenny has been messaging, IMHO "spamming" hundreds of Wiki users in the past 48 hours asking participation in some survey he's working on. If its an "official" Wiki project thats one thing, but something he's doing all on his own strikes me as an entirely different mattter. I didn't think that sort of thing was allowed. Check his user discussion page and you'll see I'm not the only one irritated by it. If nothing else maybe a warning to him is in need? You folks are the brains of the operation and I'm just a peon in the boiler room shoveling the coal (lol) so I'll leave it up to you. Have a great Wiki kinda day! Sector001 (talk) 23:57, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

• I looked into this and found that Philippe Beaudette of the WMF is asking questions of Cooldenny so unless people want to comment on this I'd say admin involvement is moot, but thanks for your understandable concerns. Jusdafax 00:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I had also left a note on his talkpage (User talk:Cooldenny#Has survey spam been approved by the community?) inquiring about his methods; by doing so, I was hoping to avoid bringing this to ANI, however. I referenced him to a discussion I saw last month (Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive222#Researchers requesting administrators’ advices to launch a study) and asked for his response. Since User:Steven (WMF) closed that thread, I left a note on his talk page (User talk:Steven (WMF)#Research survey) requesting he steer Cooldenny in the same direction. I note that Cooldenny's edit count has 0 article edits and 89% talk page edits. BUT, he has not edited in the 12 hours or so that people have been questioning his spamming. So if the talk page discussions pan out, then admin intervention is unneeded. The only reasons for admins to get involved at this point is to monitor his edits; if he makes one more talk page spam before this is settled on his talk page, then a block is required to stop the spamming. (Dynamic IP, will change when I log off.) --64.85.216.246 (talk) 00:49, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Talk page discussions indicate that the spamming has stopped and Cooldenny has contacted WMF via the proper means. He created a meta project page and is apparently in contact with Dario Taraborelli. So for now, I believe this thread can be marked resolved. (Dynamic IP, will change when I log off.) --64.85.221.143 (talk) 12:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Apparently random threat

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

I have never met User:Ceoil, and have never interacted with this user in any way. Nonetheless, Ceoil left this threat on my talk page, apparently referencing an innocuous content dispute, in which he was not involved. I have not commented on Truthkeeper88's talk page in over three weeks. I have never reported a threat before, and I'm not certain if this is the correct place to do so. --Gyrobo (talk) 00:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) WP:WQA is the place for "impolite or uncivil communications", but this seems much more serious than that. GiantSnowman 00:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's what I thought. I mean, I also wondered if it was said in jest, because it's sometimes hard to tell when someone you don't know very well is joking – but this came from nowhere and there were no emoticons or anything for me to judge the tone. --Gyrobo (talk) 00:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) also, but this crosses the line, in my view. That's a threat of violence. An admin should issue an indef block 'till this gets sorted out. Jusdafax 00:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

While searching for something on google today for an article I'm reviewing at FAC, the search returned a post I'd made. I then randomly plugged in my username and found that someone has been tweeting posts from my page, with doesn't make me happy, at all. I posted (and then removed that fact) - basically because I'd been chatting with Ceoil who has been on wikibreak, and I had mentioned to him personal plans such as travel plans etc, but won't anymore if my stuff gets tweeted. None of this is hard to find, but I won't be posting it here. Ceoil saw that I was upset, and reacted. That's all. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

If he gets indeffed you'll have to go ahead and indef me too. But in the meantime consider the implications of women being wikihounded here. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know exactly what is going on here, but the user conduct involved seems absurd. Could people seriously think before they type, whether on or off wiki. I'm not convinced any further action is required here, unless problems continue, which they really shouldn't. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree with most of that. And please note that human beings are not physically capable of coming out of computers, unless the computer is very large, which most aren't.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:59, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Being warned not to carry on off-site harassment. Running off to notice boards for help. You should think more. Ceoil 00:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that Gyrobo (talk · contribs) has been Tweeting your Misplaced Pages details? And even if he has, there's no need for threats of violence - we have proper ways to deal with stuff like this. GiantSnowman 00:54, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You have to accept snowman if most editors feel that the people who hand around here totally, utterly, unsuited to dealing with these situations. I wouldn't trust most wiki admins with a spoon, much less the privacy of a close friend. Ceoil 01:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I haven't been tweeting anything, I don't even have a Twitter account, and I haven't had anything to do with Truthkeeper88 in over three weeks. --Gyrobo (talk) 00:57, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

@NYB - my post got lost in endless edit conflicts. I'm not happy to have found that posts from my user page are being sent out on Twitter, and no it's not good user conduct. I've never been to AN/I; I've contributed significantly to this place; if contacting Arbom is the thing to do, then I'm happy to do so. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

So you say Gyrobo is tweeting your personal information (I'm not sure why you'd put personal stuff on Misplaced Pages, but that's a separate question) and Gyrobo says she isn't? It would really help to have a link to this twitter account, and some information about how you determined that it was Gyrobo who created it. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Posts from userpages should not be sent out (by other people) on Twitter; that seems fairly obvious to me, so I didn't think it needed to be said expressly. To whoever is doing that, don't. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To FisherQueen - I thought Gyrobo was being accused of being the Tweeter, not Ceoil? GiantSnowman 01:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I searched twitter and couldn't find Truthkeeper88's name. Did I do it wrong? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

More edit conflicts Here is the thread that's being sent out on Twitter. No, Ceoil has absolutely nothing to do with it. I posted on my page that someone was sending the tweets, he saw. We collaborate. On Featured articles. Sometimes we need to know when the other is around. I should be able to do that without finding people are taking stuff of my page and sending out. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

@ FisherQueen - I don't even have a Twitter acct. I don't know why it showed up, but it did. Won't say any more. I am not lying. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

After the original "Vagueness" discussion, Truthkeeper88 left substantial comments on the relevant FAC, which I attempted to address. When I had things to take care of offline, I asked the FAC delegates to close the review in a way that didn't make the reviewers feel as though they'd wasted their time. I never held any kind of grudge against Truthkeeper88, never had any desire to tweet anything about her, and I didn't even know she or Ceoil were women until this discussion. --Gyrobo (talk) 01:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• Question to Truthkeeper88 - nobody here disagrees that fellow editors shouldn't be Tweeting your information. However, where is the evidence that Gyrobo has been the one doing this? GiantSnowman 01:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

@FisherQueen again - a.) I've been subject to on and off wiki harrassement before and it's not nice; b., it's no one's business why I post when I'll be around and not; but basically when people collaborate, it's good to know who's doing what when. That's how content gets built; c., no I will not post the what I found on Twitter - you'll have to AGF or not. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

@Snowman - now it's my fault. Great, Just great. Tonight I was to copyedit someone's featured list & instead dealing with this. Wonderful. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

If you have evidence that's of a sensitive nature, I recommend that you e-mail your most trusted admin and clue him/her in, on what's up. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Is this it? It looks like a bot to me, republishing random links. What made you think that User:Gyrobo had anything to do with it? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Truthkeeper88 - Nobody is saying it's your fault at all; but if you accuse fellow editors of harrassing you off-wiki, but refuse to back up such allegations with evidence, then there's nothing that can be done. GiantSnowman 01:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I think they assumed it was me because I write about New York's Hudson Valley, and that Barrington Nixon person/bot who has been tweeting says they're from Kingston, New York? --Gyrobo (talk) 01:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Its a bit more than that Gyrobo and you know it. The very fact that you opened this goes to show you a, well, prick. Snowman can you not see the irony in your requst to know more. Ceoil 01:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's a hacked Twitter account, controlled by a bot, which spams random web links - nothing more. Can an admin please step in and deal with the original issue at hand i.e. threats of violence made by Ceoil against Gyrobo? PS Ceoil, remove that personal attack please. GiantSnowman 01:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I have not accused anyone of anything. I've noindexed my pages. That's all. I don't understand how the victim turned into the perpetrator. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

And why am I being shouted at? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ceoil, I just repeated what I read at FisherQueen's link. I keep telling you I haven't done anything, I'm not involved, and I don't have a Twitter account. --Gyrobo (talk) 01:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm quite concerned that, knowing that personal attacks are a problem and that there seems to be no evidence supporting her belief, User:Ceoil has gone back to add a personal attack to her recent comment. And why is Truthkeeper88 so carefully avoiding explaining herself more clearly? This is all very strange. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Spectacturaly missed the issue, and point and just rule read. Block me so (Personal attack removed). Ceoil 01:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

This is not strange. You too are turning me into the perpetrator. Ask the questions clearly and logically and I'll answer. Don't make accusations, because I haven't accused anyone of anything. All I've said is that I found my posts on Twitter, hence will be more careful in the future. That's it. What more do you want. Blood? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

oh for god's sake block both of us. then two or three more pages won't be written tonight, but who cares about that. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Could you please let someone know why you think I was involved in whatever it is I'm supposed to be involved in? And when this happened? Because I'm telling you right now, unequivocally, that I have not had contact with Truthkeeper88 in three weeks, and that I have never tweeted anything. --Gyrobo (talk) 01:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• Truthkeeper - why are you getting so wound up? Nobody is having a go at you, nobody is accusing you of anything. You weren't involved with, or even mentioned in, this thread until you joined in saying somebody on Twitter has been posting links to your Userpage. It is obvious that the Twitter account which posted a link to your Userpage is an automated bot merely regurgitating web links. This thread isn't about that - this thread is about Ceoil's (unfortunately now repeated) attacks on Gyrobo - not you. Please take a step back and calm down. GiantSnowman 01:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

This is absolutely unfair. I make a post on my page, a friend reacts and gets blocked. Can an admin please block me too. Apparently I'm the liar here. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:49, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

YOu shout at me and ask why I'm wound up. Go ahead and block please. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I don't live in Kingston. --Gyrobo (talk) 01:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No one has shouted at you. Your friend is blocked because she won't stop making personal attacks against another user, and it appears, from the evidence that we have, that that user is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing. If that's wrong, and User:Gyrobo has done something bad, we'd love to see the evidence and hear what he's done, so we can deal with it, but that won't make it okay for your friend to make personal attacks. Yes, I do think you are lying, but only because you're really, really acting like you are lying. If I'm wrong, I'm sure that, eventually, you'll reflect on this conversation, see where it went wrong, and explain yourself more clearly. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me - you blocked and then you're going to bed, but first you accuse me of lying. Please tell my what I am lying about. Clearly. This is the height of incivility and ABF in my view. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:59, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Truthkeeper, you & Ceoil have ABFed to the nth degree by accusing Gyrobo of Tweeting about you. Please provide evidence if this is the case - your failure to do so, despite multiple requests, is highly suspicious. Maybe an admin should close this thread - it's turning into a circus, and it's pretty much resolved anyways. GiantSnowman 02:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I have not accused Gyrobo of Tweeting. Somebody tweeted, that's indisbutable. I mentioned the tweeting on my page. Ceoil saw it & I suppose based on the thread tweeted assumed whatever he assumed. And now he's blocked. Because someone tweeted Gyrobo's post from my page. That's the bad faith. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what? What exactly is "bad faith" about blocking an editor who has threatened violence, and insulted, another editor? GiantSnowman 02:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Apparently random break

Can each of the unblocked participants please give a succinct statement of what they believe should happen next in this case? Jclemens (talk) 01:59, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to hear whatever evidence there is to tie me to this Twitter incident. --Gyrobo (talk) 02:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

None, obviously - we have made multiple requests for such evidence to be presented, which Truthkeeper has tellingly ignored every time. The accusations are clearly baseless. GiantSnowman 02:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

At first, I thought this was just a grossly insulting comment based on a three-week-old discussion, but if there are editors who believe that I've done something unseemly, I'm more interested in disproving that than I am in seeing anyone blocked. --Gyrobo (talk) 02:12, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The simplest plans are always the best ones, in my experience. GiantSnowman 02:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Can everybody please calm down. Ceoil was defending his good friend Truthkeeper88 against what he believed to be a serious threat to her, and sometimes he gets carried away; - at the same time Gyrobo has felt wronged and/or wrongfully accused and now Fisherqueen has suggested that Truthkeeper88 is lying, which also looks like a personal attack. Please everybody calm down and WP:AGF...Modernist (talk) 02:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Could you please send me the same information, so that I can see why exactly this involved me? --Gyrobo (talk) 02:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It did not involve you. Your name has never come up. But, your posts were tweeted - that's the connection. What I've emailed is exactly what I've posted here four times, with the exception that I've been cooking this Easter (didn't think all of AN/I needed to know that). Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

All sarcasm aside, Ceoil wasn't blocked for some kind of threat that only exists in old bad sci-fi TV shows. He was blocked for continued personal attacks , such as going back into one of his comments to call another editor a "prick." We'd gone far past the "punch you through the computer" part of the discussion by the time he got blocked. Dayewalker (talk) 04:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Naive. This report was started because someone considered an absurd statement about punching another editor through a computer screen to be a physical threat; everything escalated from there. But in a site run by kids what else can you expect. Malleus Fatuorum 04:12, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank God Malleus is here. Everything will calm down now. Dayewalker (talk) 04:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you consider that to be a civil response to my observation? You do abide by all the blue links do you not? Malleus Fatuorum 04:22, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It was the "And that's a promise." part that I found threatening. This was the first time I received such a response on my talk page, and from a user I had never met. I wasn't sure which dispute resolution process to go to, so I came here. --Gyrobo (talk) 04:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you seriously claiming that you believed Ceoil could punch you through a computer screen? Malleus Fatuorum 04:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I believed that it downplayed the comedic nature of the first part, and that the gist of the message was that I should either avoid another user's talk page or face some kind of harassment. --Gyrobo (talk) 04:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

What's the point of your observations Malleus? Just stirring up more drama? Can someone please archive this? Arbcom is looking after the issue. --NeilN 04:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

And now the root cause analysis

After investigation, it appears that some sort of bot attached to a rogue Twitter page was harvesting diffs from Truthkeeper88's talk page, in amongst hundreds of other similarly random links. The reason that it was able to do that is that at present neither user nor user talk pages are automatically flagged NO_INDEX. Truthkeeper88 has been provided with the information to make requests of Twitter to remove those specific posts (and to encourage them to look at that Twitter account's behaviour overall) and some IAR deletions have been made to her user talk page to try to disrupt the URLs that were posted on Twitter, and to encourage Google to remove the Twitter page from its search results.

However, anyone who's ever done a google search on their username will know that we have tons of bots crawling through userspace and creating mirrors in weird places around the internet. Google itself doesn't crawl talk pages (or if it does, it doesn't include them in the search results), but lots of other bots do. I've dealt with several complaints about "draft" BLPs in userspace, as well - and Google *does* crawl user pages and subpages, so a page that hasn't even made it to article space can be the first g-hit for little-known people or topics. This is a net negative for the project, since so many users work in their own space on incomplete/unsourced articles in development or to store random bits of information that might one day become an article. It's past time we talked about asking the developers to make all userspace and user talk space pages NO_INDEX by default. Risker (talk) 04:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds impressive. Probably is correct. But what if someone a hundred years ago got a letter in the mail that said all that?Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:54, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

If it had today's postmark, they would know it was from the future, and of course would ignore it. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Note that noindex stops well-behaved bots like google's, but it doesn't stop obnoxious bots that don't respect the noindex tag, which might include whatever was making those twitter posts. Does anyone know if only Truthkeeper88's page was being twittered, or is it lots more userpages (maybe even all of them)? I agree with you about increasing noindexing in any case. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 05:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Responding to the above: Given the massive number of tweets on the page (it took forever just to load this week's), it was really impossible to tell; I expect that once Twitter is alerted to the page, they'll probably just take the whole thing down. As to the earlier comment about the letter, I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at; however, a letter is a physical object that is normally only seen by one or possibly a handful of people, and it requires an additional step in technology to make it more widely accessible; it's also generally viewed as copyrighted material, so takedown orders are more easily implemented. Information gathered through a simple Google search is potentially viewed by thousands (if not more) people, and in the case of Misplaced Pages user pages, is released as CC-BY-SA, so a takedown is extremely difficult. I agree that "evil" bots are harder to deal with, but many of the bots that regularly crawl our pages and post to outside sites do indeed obey noindex flags. Risker (talk) 05:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

If such a bot is merly copying stuff from user talk pages - stuff which is fully accessible to the public - then it behooves us not to put personal stuff on talk pages. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Just what I was saying to my wife Melinda and my kids Heather and Barnaby on our way to drop off the family dog (Happy) at the animal rehab clinic yesterday, but my girlfriend didn't agree -- and neither did my therapeutic masseuse. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Kudos. In general, it's a good idea to tell the world where you live and when you expect that no one will be home, especially if it will be for a number of days or weeks; and where the money, jewelry, and baseball card collection are hidden. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No way, Bugs, no one could find the mint-condition baseball cards hidden under the fifth step of the back stairway, they'd have to be mindreaders to do that! Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You only think that's where they are. >:) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 08:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

So how did Gyrobo get roped into this?

I assume that as neither of the two Arbs who were sent details on this have taken any action against Gyrobo that he's completely innocent here? If so, why are these two so insistent on making out that he's the culprit? And are we sure that's not going to happen again? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

First off, Truthkeeper88 did not make any accusations vis-a-vis Gyrobo; that was Ceoil, he was appropriately blocked for it, and he has now apologized on his talk page (he's still blocked but I will leave that to other administrators to address). Secondly, the strange link from the Twitter account led to a rather heated discussion between Gyrobo and Truthkeeper88, and the Twitter account coincidentally shared some non-public characteristics with Gyrobo. Truthkeeper88 was mainly concerned about her talk page being tweeted by *anyone*. Both Truthkeeper88 and Ceoil have come to realise that what happened here was part of a larger issue, and that it was likely not personally directed at all. As to whether or not it's going to happen again...well, I hope not. Risker (talk) 12:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The only thing I have to add to what Risker has said is that "no action taken" and "completely innocent" do not correspond, although they do overlap. The evidence, as Risker just related it, was circumstantial and not compelling. I don't recall the last time a Misplaced Pages process found a person "completely innocent", although "no evidence to support a sanction" happens relatively frequently. Jclemens (talk) 15:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

IP removal of birthname and ethnicity for Ayn Rand

Three IP addresses, 67.49.60.120 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 166.205.136.246 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 166.205.139.194 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), have been repeatedly removing the subject's birth name from Ayn Rand, along with material that mentions that she was Jewish. (Diffs: , , , , , ) In one instance they went even farther and deleted an entire infobox, but mostly it has just been the birth name and ethnicity. Per the duck test, I think this is one editor using multiple IPs (they all geolocate to California). They've been reverted by three different editors (myself included) and a talk page discussion was initiated, but the IPs just keep removing the info with no explanation and no discussion. Given that it seems to be one editor and there are other IP editors who contribute valid edits, I'd prefer not to ask for semi-protection if it can be avoided. If the IPs could be blocked for edit-warring (again, assuming they are the same editor), that would be better, but if they are dynamic then that might not be effective, so any help or suggestions would be appreciated. (Note: I am an admin but won't be doing any blocks or protections related to this, because I'm very much WP:INVOLVED on that article.) --RL0919 (talk) 05:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, one thing we can all do is define this as vandalism and revert it as soon as we see it, every time, as I have just done. Defining it as vandalism removes any concern over 3RR on the part of the reverters. HiLo48 (talk) 05:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it's disruption, not vandalism. Given the very specific and repeitive nature of the edits, they are being done with a purpose in mind, and that purpose is not "make Misplaced Pages worse". It may be misguided, it may be disruptive, and it may be plain wrong, but something doesn't become vandalism simply by fiat. I still think its fine to revert this sort of disruptive editing on sight, but there's no need to further abuse the term vandalism to do so. The person has never engaged in discussion, so I don't see any need to deal with them beyond reverting their disruption. But it isn't vandalism. --Jayron32 05:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Some of the IP's might be objecting to what they might see as an "overemphasis" on her Jewish background. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, or it could be any number of issues. But vandalism is simply "actions which intend to make Misplaced Pages worse"; not "actions I do not agree with". Insofar as this user has a purpose that (in their own misguided way) they likely believe themselves to be making the Ayn Rand article better, we shouldn't call the edits vandalism. It has no ultimate bearing on how we treat the edits, but we really must stop with the massive overuse of the term vandalism (see some threads above where this has gone massivly awry). --Jayron32 05:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. What some are calling vandalism might be good faith edits for the reason I stated. However, at this point, how much new information is likely to emerge about Ay Rand anytime soon? That is, might a short-term semi-protect be worthwhile? Or is this liable to be a never-ending problem?←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Rand is a very polarizing figure. I would suspect that 90% of the American population has little or no knowledge of her or her philosophy, but the other 10% care a whole lot one way or the other. The articles at Misplaced Pages about her are a continuous and never ending source of petty edit wars, and I tend to agree with you that semiprotection may be the best way to go here... --Jayron32 05:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

What about this, in which an editor removed the term magnum opus, possibly seeing it as a "peacock term", and HiLo put it back? Who's more in the right with that edit? (Not that it's such a big deal - just an example.) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Surely my Edit summary said it all - "Reverted unexplained removal of content". The absence of any Edit summary from the IP, and nothing relevant around that time on the Discussion page, makes the removal unexplained. We cannot make assumptions about why an editor does something. We weren't told. We cannot just accept random, unexplained deletions just because they MIGHT be well intentioned. HiLo48 (talk) 06:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I observed your edit summary and the lack of one by the IP. But before you restored, did you ask yourself, "Is this magnum opus comment appropriate in the first place?" ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Only long enough to decide that it was none of my business, I had no idea anyway, and it would have been original research on my part. I'm an inclusionist. I feel pretty strongly about unexplained removal of content. If there had been any attempt at all to justify the removal, by Edit summary or on the Talk page, I would not have reverted. HiLo48 (talk) 06:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I note that the magnum opus bit was added by a red-link back on Christmas Eve, replacing "best-known work". The latter seems like the more appropriate term to use, as it can be measured, whereas those who find her philosophy to be wrong-headed might say that the term "great work" is an oxymoron in her case. "Best-known work" solves that problem. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Now all we need to do is get other editors happy enough to document their thoughts as much as you do on Talk pages. Oh wait, that could somewhat overload this place! ;-) HiLo48 (talk) 06:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeh, yeh, yeh. Anyway, I put the more neutral term back in the lead. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:54, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I would not have reverted that, and really there hasn't been a lot of edit warring on this article in the last couple of years, though there have been editorial disputes. This appears to be one person with an agenda of some kind and no apparent interest in discussing it. --RL0919 (talk) 06:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• I considered the protection route, due to the ... ummmm ... for lack of a better term, "edit-waring" over the last couple days. (Note: I do agree with Jayron on it not being vandalism; but, rather mis-guided efforts. Or perhaps "unguided" is a better term) However, due to the PC tag placed on that article, I've decided I am not up to speed enough with WP:PC to hazard the task. If anyone has better info, feel free to protect away. — Ched :  ?  06:12, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
  • "Edit-Waring"? He might be confusing it with "Fredit-Waring". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
    • (Non-administrator comment)Considering the fact, as stated above, that there is a mix of both constuctive and unconstructive edits coming from IPs, this article might benefit from WP:PC more than from WP:SEMI. Ashanda (talk) 07:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
      • There has definitely been some edit-warring over the last couple of days, which is why I started this thread! My suspicion is that the new movie is drawing more edits to Rand-related subjects, for better or for worse. Anyhow, pending changes would make a lot of sense for this article, if we are still doing that. --RL0919 (talk) 13:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

User:99.56.123.165 using edit summaries for Spamming

99.56.123.165 (talk · contribs) seems to have a mix of useful copyedits and such, but throws in a few edits that spam some organization in the edit summary. Of course, they could be several different editors on the same IP address, but I doubt it, since they're mostly on global warming and extinction. My issues are with the following edits: here, here, and here. Some of the editor's other edit summaries seem to be used as a soapbox for and against things. Maybe it's appropriate. I placed a warning, but I could be wrong. Unfortunately, I'm watching lots of the articles he/she are editing, so they suddenly popped onto my watchlist suddenly a few minutes ago.OrangeMarlin 05:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Have you advised the IP of this discussion? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Notified. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 06:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I never remember to do that. The IP guy above did it for me. Thanks. OrangeMarlin 06:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The edit summaries are odd and most edits that I have seen are trivial (mostly linking the words climate change). I haven't noticed any that are related to an organisiation, and it certainly doesn't look like spamming in the usual sense of advertising something. Could you be overreacting to the edit summary of this edit? It seems to be the only one that comes even close to your description, and I am not even sure that "read about in " is meant as an imperative. In this general context it might just as well be short for "I read about in ", since the user's edit summaries in general convey to me a desire to tell us about his or her state of mind, even when it's not relevant to the edit in question.

Let's keep the categories right. So far it looks like eccentricity rather than spamming. I will leave the user a note that edit summaries should be used for comments on the edit, not for general chat about the article's subject. Hans Adler 08:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be a similar editing style to that of 99.119.129.3 (talk · contribs) Often only a wikilink has been added, so the edit summary is unhelpful. Mathsci (talk) 08:56, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

And this IP 99.19.41.7 (talk · contribs). Seems to be the same person. Mathsci (talk) 09:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

In addition to many IPs in 99.0.0.0/8, it's probably the same person as most of the ones in User:Arthur Rubin/watch#Global warming / climate change. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(Copy/paste is out of order on my computer at the moment, or I would have copied those 5 IPs.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Or indeed here 99.54.138.81 (talk · contribs). On this IPs talk page, several IPs are communicating through the medium of wikilinks. Mathsci (talk) 09:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

As Arthur Rubin writes, the editing involves other IP ranges: "99 anon (and 97.87.29.188 and 209.255.78.138, 108.73.115.71, 216.250.156.66 and possibly 24.11.21.141) adding easter eggs, inappropriate #See also and {{seealso}} links, and clearly inappropriate categories to many global-warming-related articles. Although "it" is clearly a single person on a floating IP, it seems not subject to 3RR." Mathsci (talk) 09:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting offer by socking IP

See where 121.220.8.72 (talk · contribs) says "Hey, I have a propositon for you: if you don't revert my legitimate edits and put that template on my i.p talkpages, I'll stop vandalising pages you edit. what do ya say? --121.220.8.72 (talk) 7:40 am, Today (UTC+1)". If you scroll down Redthoreau (talk · contribs)'s contributions list to April 22nd you will see a list of what seem to be the IP addresses being used (see also User talk:124.181.112.12. Dougweller (talk) 07:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you could ask him for some examples of his legitimate edits? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

For a breakdown of the situation and previous 13 ip addresses, see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/60.230.156.127/Archive. I had requested a range block, and this ip just came off another 31 hour block for harassing me, but now it seems that have their 14th ip but from the same computer. What options do I have? Is it even reasonable to try and "negotiate" at this point?  Redthoreau -- (talk) 07:22, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Have you asked for semi-protection for your page? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Baseball, my user page was semi-protected recently because of this. Is that what you mean?  Redthoreau -- (talk) 07:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

That's the user page. If you're being harassed on your talk page also, then do this: (1) create a sub-page that anyone can edit; (2) add a link to that sub-page from your regular talk page; and (3) get your regular talk page semi-protected. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Baseball, I see, the overt vandalism really hasn’t spread to my talk page yet (just mostly minor random reverts by this sock ip of my own edits to it). The bigger problem however, has been that this sock IP has followed my contributions and then just started hitting revert endlessly causing me to continually use rollback in a never ending spiral until some admin sees what is going on and blocks the ip temporarily for a day or so (this is what recently occurred with the most recent block). Although he uses different IP’s, when he has been blocked for a day or so, he hasn’t gotten on during that time, leading me to believe that perhaps when one of his ip’s are blocked, they all are since they are from the same geolocation – is this possible? If so, then you would only need to block one of the ip’s for several months.  Redthoreau -- (talk) 07:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You mean "rollback"? Since when do IP's have the rollback feature? Or is it the "undo"? Anyway, so it's not just your own page that's being targeted. You probably need a friendly admin to keep a watch out for you for awhile, to issue the block whenever it happens. If the guy actually has to go through a process every time he gets blocked, he might lose interest after awhile and turn his attention to a more "deserving" website. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Baseball, yes he uses "undo", while I counter with rollback (which I have).  Redthoreau -- (talk) 07:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps User:Dougweller who started this thread, could act in that role if he would be willing to? For instance, I could contact him the next time the reverting occurs.  Redthoreau -- (talk) 07:59, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Dougweller (talk) 08:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks.  Redthoreau -- (talk) 08:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Dramatica .ch fork, proposal to blacklist link

I'm not sure exactly where to put this (Village Pump: Proposals?), so i'm just going to put this here as an incident report. Since the unprotection of the Encyclopedia Dramatica article earlier today, IP addresses have almost immediately been re-adding links to the .ch fork that is a copyright violation of ED itself and falls under WP:ELNEVER. Linking to it on Talk pages in discussion has, thus far, also been redacted under similar pretenses, in order to avoid any legal reaction. Because of the continued spamming of this link by multiple IP addresses, I believe that we either need to permanently full-protect the Encyclopedia Dramatica article (the not so good option) or blacklist the .ch fork link, so that it cannot be added anywhere on Misplaced Pages whatsoever. I see that as the only way to properly resolve this issue. Silverseren 07:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Whose bright idea was it to un-protect it? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It was only protected until the 24th as it was. Thus, it has expired. Silverseren 07:56, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like it needs to be "un-expired". If someone doesn't do it just from this, then the OP needs to ask at WP:RFPP. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks like an admin saw this thread and already did it themselves. Article is protected again, but that doesn't fix the issue of this link. Silverseren 08:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) The article has just been indef semi-protected, which I think is a good idea, so I think nothing more needs to be done here. Lankiveil 08:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC).

User talk:Thivierr blocked for violation of 3RR

Thivierr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) I blocked User:Thivierr for 24 hours for edit warring under the 3RR. It may be that he was within the letter of the law as one edit was outside the 24-hour window. My understanding of the rule is that the spirit was violated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

3RR is not an entitlement, and the guy was edit-warring. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It is clear that User:Hawkeye7 is a WP:INVOLVED editor and should not be blocking anyone in conjunction with this content/reliable source dispute. Perhaps someone should take another look. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 10:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

User:Thivierr was edit-warring, yes, but User:Hawkeye7 was also involved in the content dispute and, in my view, should not have used admin tools here -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

How is Hawkeye involved? Oh, I see in the content dispute, so he should not really have used the tools should he... Off2riorob (talk) 11:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

In terms of the back and forth, diff, and diff. In terms of the background of this article, it dates back to August 2005, and has over 1,400 different editors working on it since then. One editor began working on it in February 2011 with the announced goal of making it a FA. She nominated it for GA and recruited a particular person to review it. They did not work well together and she requested a substitute reviewer, and got me. A number of serious problems were detected including POV and sourcing and on one point she asked for a second opinion and we got you. Shortly after you did not agree with her views, she demanded that the GA review stop with the issues unaddressed. She then quickly renominated the article and Hawkeye7 quickly became the reviewer and passed the article Talk:Netball/GA2 without any comments. The next day it was nominated as a FAC and was quickly shot down. Given that Hawkeye7 has taken the view that the article meets all of the GA criteria and does not have any flaws worth noting, I don't see how he should ever take any administrative action on the netball related articles. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 11:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

User: Tbhotch

Since April 2010, Tbhotch has continued to vandalize Lady Gaga articles by not conforming to the general consensus that the songwriters must be attributed to the album booklet details, e.g. Lady Gaga and RedOne, instead of Stefani Germanotta and Nadir Khayat, and as a result he has changed these without a reliable source - BMI/ASCAP is not a verifiable site. Also, he has vandalized other song articles by chnaging the genres without a given explanation and has threatened other users on the site by admitting that he will have their accounts indefinitely blocked. I think it's only right that Tbhotch should be banned from the entire Misplaced Pages community. 11:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.231.10 (talk)

This is a content dispute, and Tbhotch has not vandalized anything. Work it out on the article talk page. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, you're required to notify the editor you're complaining about, and you haven't done that. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It would be a reasonable guess that the OP here is a candidate for Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/CharlieJS13/Archive. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It boggles the mind that people keep doing this when the outcome is guaranteed to be a gunshot wound in the foot. Who teaches people that the best way to get a content dispute sorted out is to send a sock onto ANI with it? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I am definitely boggled. Here, the IP brags about his intention to get Tbhotch blocked because he's "evil". Might that qualify as a personal attack? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:47, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I remember Tbhotch once saying about CharlieJS13 and his IP range (8x.xxx.xxx.xx). In my opinion, that can be considered a personal attack. Novice7 (talk) 10:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Don't tell them not to, socks coming to ANI is one of the most efficient ways of catching them! ;). Lankiveil 11:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC).

Welp, this IP just got 31 hours for shenanigans, including userpage vandalism. I imagine the SPI will add to that, if and when. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 16:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

"This should be obvious to a semi-lobotomised chimpanzee"

Remind me again why we allow insults and badgering in AfDs? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 12:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Insults and badgering - are blockable, even in AFD discussions. User:TreasuryTag has made thirty eight comments to that Doctor who AFD and already has a Wiquete report about it, which appears to have resulted in no improvement of civility - I notified the user that one of his contributions has got a mention here. Off2riorob (talk) 12:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Say, just out of curiosity, is notification of a user being discussed here necessary when the username is not mentioned explicitly? Guoguo12--Talk--  13:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I mentioned his name so I notified him. Off2riorob (talk) 13:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

But what about before you mentioned his name? Guoguo12--Talk--  13:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It was clear for everyone about whom the initial complaint was concerned. He should have been notified. I agree that this is a civilty problem - AfD's can get heated enough without people acting like that.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Guoguo12--Talk--  13:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, I should have notified him, and have apologized on his talk. Thanks, O2RR. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:49, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Replying to everyone in a debate is not necessarily "badgering". We generally disapprove of it in RFAs, but at AfD it can be the case that while only one person passing has a reasonable argument there are plenty of people with poor ones. And if anyone can find an AfD on a fictional subject which doesn't have at least a half-dozen terrible arguments to keep I'll be amazed. Nevertheless, TT went overboard here. I've left a note on his user talk. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Your friendly note does not appear to have addressed and warned the user about the civility issue raised here? Personally I am of the position that the time is almost upon us to ask the question of this user due to continued repeat patterns of incivility, disruptive ANI reports as mentioned recently and general rudeness, is the user under current levels of contributions a net positive to the project? Off2riorob (talk) 13:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I like my ANI discussions to be short and to the point. The point here is that an AfD is being disrupted by OTT comments from one user. My proposed solution was to ask him to drop it. If there is a wider problem with TT's conduct then so be it, but that should be addressed separately (in a new section, or at RFC/U or the like). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:47, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sigh, it appears that subtle hints are not taken to heart here. I'm not sure what the huge deal about deleting one page is, but I consider it a possibility that the continued arguments to so many "keep" votes could persuade even more people to vote "keep" just out of spite. Perhaps my original suggestion should have been phrased a bit stronger. Agree with Chris that it's OTT. — Ched :  ?  13:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Well I thank Sarek for notifying me. My 'semi-lobotomised chimpanzee' comment explicitly did not refer to any Misplaced Pages editor. Taken out of context, I agree it looks incivil. But the second half of the sentence, "...let alone to anyone of your intelligence," shows that it was being used merely as a hypothetical comparison. ╟─TreasuryTag►person of reasonable firmness─╢ 13:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

As experienced contributors to the project we are requested to help other contributors to move in beneficial directions and as such not pointing out to you that multiple users are seeing repeat issues with your contributions would be a rejection of our responsibilities, as would your not accepting that there are issues with your contributions that are in need of correction. Hypothetical claims or not users have real time, not hypothetical issues with your current contribution patterns and you would do well to address rather than reject those good faith comments. As such - in lieu of an editing privilege restriction, keep your hypothetic lobotomized monkey comparisons to yourself in future. Off2riorob (talk) 14:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Given that you have a significant (and almost notable!) history of cropping up to object to things that I do, Off2, you'll excuse me for completely ignoring you and your hollow threats of blocking me. ╟─TreasuryTag►Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster─╢ 14:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(Undent) "This should be obvious to a semi-lobotomised chimpanzee let alone to anyone of your intelligence." This says to the other editor that, although he has higher intelligence than a lobotomized monkey, the other editor is for some other reason neglecting to behave better than a lobotomized monkey. As such, it is a serious insult.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, let me apologise for posting after having "officially" retired. I can assure you it will be the last. I filed the WQA mentioned above against TT after a series of personal insults and attacks levelled against me and others at this AFD. Read it if you like -- apparently nobody there cared about TT's egregious incivility, which he has continued after snubbing my attempt at resolution, and which is the subject of the present disciussion, and so I decided to calm down and take a break. TT actually had the gall to ask an admin to caution me because he said he felt upset by the message I left explaining the break, (I don't believe that, and certainly at least one other statement in that post is demonstrably untrue.) The admin concerned didn't oblige, I'm glad to day, but advised that I ought to "learn to be tolerant". Well, I decline to learn to tolerate insults, bullying, bad faith, provocation and dishonesty. Do what you like with this person, it won't bother me any more. There is something badly wrong with the Misplaced Pages culture. Goodbye. Hyperdoctor Phrogghrus (talk) 16:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Bot editing logged out?

– ╟─TreasuryTag►belonger─╢ 14:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Bot with strong opinions, it seems. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 14:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Following the edit summary's link to the FAQ, the supposed bot hasn't edited since June 2, 2009. There are some scripts or some such on the toolserver (linked from the FAQ) that do the same thing, and I'd assume that they leave the same edit summary, too. So, the IP is probably using these. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

User:Oakshade making uncivil comments despite multiple requests to stop

notified user

User:Oakshade likes to call people childish. Normally not an issue and just a sign of an immature editor, but this user is being persistent, and continuing the behavious despite several requests to stop.

Instead of acknowledging these requests, Oakshade choses to call out those requesting them to stop as harassing, stalking, and threatening them (the threat being to open a case here if they continue to be uncivil).

In the past I've had issues with this editor insisting that absolutely trivial information be included, using poor quality sources to back it up. Even when presented with a better, more reliable source, the user ignores it and continues to do things their way or the highway.

In this situation, I happened to notice a discussion happening on Oakshade's talk page regarding a freeway (roads, music, and places are my three major areas of contribution). I walked in and called out Oakshade's actions, only to be called childish myself (and thrown back into a completely unrelated incident).

Despite this, I reiterated, more clearly, "Stop calling editors childish", or I would open a case here for incivility. The response was to continue on about the irrelevant discussion, ignore the request, and deem it as "wasting his time".

I was then accused of "barging in making insults", to which I xplained that my fist comment is not an insult, it is a simple statement of fact. To this I was accused of harassing, and threatening, and once again called childish. By this point I figured the editor was purposefully trying to egg me on to get a negative response out of me. I explained my statement again, and then got my clear indication that this editor is trying to be uncivil and bring me into the fray, by changing the section title, accusing me of stalking them (in my own area of interest) and calling me childish some more.

So can someone else please explain to this editor why we don't call each other childish? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  _¢ 15:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason that you can't just try to ignore each other? Oakshade seems to have gotten into quite a few personal disoutes recently judging from his user talk, but ANI isn't really the best place to deal with low-level hostility. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Normally, yes. I stick to my areas of editing and rarely wander outside of that. However, one of the goals I have for this year on wikipedia is to improve or remove every single stub on Ontario highways. This editor likes to go through afd and add keep votes to almost everything (and ignoring the discussions where they'd be inclined to say delete). His steamroller initiative of inclusionism is detrimental to articles he works on, so much so that I've abandoned working on several hundred articles because of the inherent need to keep unsourced trivial directory-like information even after its sat as unsourced for 4 or 5 years. I want to improve the encyclopedia and not let it degrade into a pile of rubbish. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  _¢ 16:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Seems to me this is the sort of situation RfC/U was designed to handle... --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 16:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't necessarily see that this means you have to engage him, at least outwith standard article talk discussion. With the exception of the first diff (which led to what appears to be an active and productive conversation on the article talk page), every one of those diffs is to Oakshade's talk page. You don't need to go there. As for his being a battleground inclusionist, the project has plenty of those; most of the time people notice pretty quickly that they're battleground inclusionists and stop wasting their time arguing with them. Keep calm, ensure that any disputes are taken to article talk pages, and stop getting drawn into bickering with him. If you find that he continues to follow you around making life difficult for you, bring evidence to that effect here. Right now, the evidence doesn't suggest that any immediate administrative action would be appropriate, as we're not in the habit of blocking people for moderate rudeness on their own talk pages. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

User:Floydian has had a bizarre obsession with me ever since his failed multiple AfDs () that I was involved with in February. Since then User:floydian has demonstrated stalking behavior showing up at discussions I was involved with that he had nothing to do with . In the latter, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Carol Shaya (2nd nomination), I politely asked the nom of an AfD who they were a sockpupet of as it was clear this person was a sockpuppet and was almost immediately blocked for being a sockpuppet . Apparently Floydian is still mad that I asked if the sockpuppet was a sockpuppet. And while user Floydian feels the need to start this case for using the word "childish", Floydian had no problem with attacking users for being "childish" himself and to solidify his hypocrisy, called me "thick.". The most strange aspect of Floydian's behavior is coming to my talk page out of blue into a discussion I was having with an different editor that he had nothing to do with and leaving non-stop messages on my talk page. I mean just look at this. . The guy just wouldn't leave. I'm sorry the community here had to be subjected to this guy's obsession with me. I trust the community will deal with this with much more maturity. --Oakshade (talk) 16:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Issues with disruptive editor

All right, this really hurts to bring forward as I have tried really hard to resolve this situation with a positive solution. Yomiel (talk · contribs), a good faith editor who has been active since January 2011, has been engaging in disruptive editing and edit warring at the Silent Hill (video game) article if one can go through the article's history page. The discussion on that article concerns about the word count in the plot summary, which should not include original research (including the word "presumably had a hand in faking her death as well" in the plot section), WP:TRIVIA, and extraneous detail per WP:NOT#PLOT. (see the user's discussion page). Based on this long discussion, we decided to remove the wording unless a reliable source can be found, but it still continues on the article and has consistently ignored consensus (see this edit). Golden Sugarplum (talk · contribs), a significant editor to this article, has been trying to improve it, but Yomiel has constantly reverted these edits. In Yomiel's comments on his talk page and the Wikiquette alert report filed by Golden, he unjustly accused Golden of vandalism, when he was clearly not (see also this discussion at Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette_alerts/archive102#Disruptive_editing.2C_personal_attacks_and_ignorance_of_consensus). This counts as a violation of no personal attacks.

During this dispute, Yomiel has been continually notified of his disruption but he continually denies them and continues his disruption on talk pages by saying that Golden Sugarplum was lying (). I tried contacting an uninvolved administrator about this situation, but Yomiel accused it as nonsense, and I tried to assume good faith with this user at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Video games#Silent Hill issues, but given the nature of these edits and the heated discussion there and on the article's talk page, I have decided to post this issue here since my WP:AGF bar might have run out in this case. Please help resolve this situation. Thanks, Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 16:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks pretty clear-cut. Editors don't get executive vetoes on articles they work on, and the material in question is a disputed personal interpretation of a primary source. Without a secondary source to back it up it's inappropriate, and continually reintroducing it against consensus is edit warring whether it takes place over 24 hours or a month. I've warned the user that if he does it again I'll block him; feel free to ping me if that happens. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

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