Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 06:35, 9 April 2006

• WP:ANI
• WP:AN/I

This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems.

• Before posting:
  • Read these tips for dealing with incivility
  • If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page
  • Try dispute resolution
  • Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly.
• Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem
• Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight.

When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough.
You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.

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

• A request for adminship is open for discussion.
• Voluntary RfAs after resignation
• Allowing page movers to enable two-factor authentication
• Rewriting the guideline Misplaced Pages:Please do not bite the newcomers
• Should comments made using LLMs or chatbots be discounted or even removed?

User:Herschelkrustofsky

I would like to block Herschelkrustofsky (talk · contribs) for violation of LaRouche 1, LaRouche 2, and Nobs01, which placed him on indefinite probation and prohibited him from making edits related to Lyndon LaRouche.

He recently engaged in an edit war at Synarchism, deleting or modifying criticism of LaRouche six times over a couple of days. I left a note on his talk page warning him that his edits were a violation of the arbcom rulings.

wHe stopped editing the article, but yesterday left a note for another LaRouche activist, BirdsOfFire (talk · contribs), asking him to make the edits instead, which BirdsOfFire did a few hours later, even though he's only an occasional editor (90 edits in four months.) I see Herschelkrustofsky's use of BirdsOfFire, whether as a sockpuppet or meatpuppet, as a violation of the ruling and of his probation, and I'd therefore like to block Herschel for three days and reset the ban on LaRouche-related editing. Other input would be much appreciated. I've pasted the pertinent rulings below. SlimVirgin 03:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest getting an immediate ip check on BirdsOfFire because if it is indeed a sock (as the patterns appear to be the same and the infrequency of the BirdsOfFire edits seem to suggest) then indef. block... I would also suggest bringing this back up to the arbcom if this continues for potential re-evaluation of the ruling to see if an indef. ban might be needed for Herschelkrustofsky. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pegasus1138 (talk • contribs)

• CheckUser confirms both userids are using the same IP ranges. Jayjg 03:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Jay and Pegasus. I've blocked BirdsOfFire indefinitely as a sockpuppet and I'm going to block Herschel for three days and reset the ban. Cheers, SlimVirgin 04:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I've also banned Herschel from editing Synarchism in accordance with Nobs01 and Misplaced Pages:Probation. SlimVirgin 05:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, at this point it may be worth it to ask the arbcom to revisit the ruling since Hershcel has repeatedly violated the ruling and has created numerous sockpuppets to try to get around it, though for the love of me I don't see how anyone can be so obsessed about Lyndon Larouche to purposefully violate 5 or 6 major guidelines at a time trying to POV skew the article about him. Pegasus1138 ---- 05:47, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This is getting absurd. I don't mind spending time or conceding points to get articles right, but it ticks me off when it turns out that other editors are pulling stunts that make the job more difficult or that take advantage of the system. The aggressive POV pushing by HK and (what have turned out to be) his puppets is an abuse consensus and of our open editing. In previous ArbCom cases HK could argue that he aided the project on topics unrelated (or barely-related) to LaRouche, like classical music, but recently he has only worked on LaRouche-related articles. I don't think that anopther ArbCom case is needed - the previous cases included addtional enforcement procedures that we just need to follow. -Will Beback 06:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

1. I use one computer only. No one else has access to this computer. It automatically logs on to this screen name, and I never log off this screen name. SlimVirgin's accusations of sockpuppetry are an entirely fraudulent and dishonest vehicle for pushing her POV. As far as IP ranges are concerned, I access the internet from an AOL account in the Los Angeles area; there may well be a few dozen other Misplaced Pages editors who are using these IP ranges as you read this post.

I don't know what the IP addresses are, but I'm guessing they're the same ones that were identified during LaRouche 2 that seemed to have been used by you and at least one of the other LaRouche accounts. In my view, it's more than a cooincidence that another person using AOL in Los Angeles uses the same two IP ranges, edits the same articles from the same LaRouche POV, and even though he hasn't edited in days is there within hours to revert to your version after you ask him to on his talk page. Of course, that doesn't mean you're necessarily the same person; it could be another member of the LaRouche movement that you use as a back-up, but that counts as sockpuppetry for the purposes of LaRouche 2. I don't see what difference it makes, in terms of your probation, whether you're physically making LaRouche edits or asking someone else to. SlimVirgin 21:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

You have made accusations of sockpuppetry, and yet you "don't know what the IP addresses are"; you're "guessing." I would like Jayjg to come forward and reveal the IP addresses involved, in order to take the guesswork out of this. But then you say that it doesn't really matter, that BirdsOfFire is a "member of the LaRouche movement" anyway. Well, he says he isn't on his talk page, and you routinely brand anyone that gets in your a way a "LaRouche activist." You say that I "asked BirdsOfFire to make the edits instead"; my words on his talk page were "I wanted to call your attention to another article, Synarchism, which the Berlet crowd is attempting to convert into a soapbox." Since we are talking about further admin sanctions against my editing, I think that you ought to have the decency to come up with some real evidence, instead of a bunch of half-truths.--HK 23:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

2. The article Synarchism has not historically been regarded as a "LaRouche article"; it does not appear on the "LaRouche template," and I did not add material about LaRouche to this article. User:172, in collusion with User:Will Beback, began adding original research, in the form of gratuitous and irrelevant misrepresentations of LaRouche's ideas, to the article, and I objected. SlimVirgin and her cohorts designate articles as "LaRouche related" at their pleasure, just as they designate any editor who questions her tactics as a "LaRouche activist" (as SlimVirgin did BirdsOfFire in this instance, or as Will Beback designated User:Northmeister after that user disagreed with him on the talk page of American System (economics).)

What counts as an article closely related to LaRouche is up to the administrator, and these edits were about LaRouche. SlimVirgin 21:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

3. Likewise, re-setting my ban for yet another year, based on spurious charges of sockpuppetry, should be regarded as an example of SlimVirgin's underhanded Nacht und Nebel tactics at their worst. I will emphasize in closing that SlimVirgin and Will Beback are not disinterested Misplaced Pages admins, merely trying to bring order and make the trains of Misplaced Pages run on time. They are both impassioned anti-LaRouche activists. One of SlimVirgin's first interventions into Misplaced Pages was the creation of the attack article Jeremiah Duggan, which is basically a mirror for the Justice for Jeremiah website, created by Chip Berlet and the usual gang. Will Beback obsessively compiles lists (see User:Will Beback/LaRouche topics) of every article ever edited by myself, or by other editors that he has designated as "LaRouche editors." The two of them constantly compare notes, and they are generally comically misinformed about the objects of their vendetta (see this example.)The actions taken against me by these two, under color of enforcing ArbCom decisions, are POV warfare, scantily disguised as administrative action. --HK 20:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

You've tried many times to tar me with the label "anti-LaRouche activist." If that were true, I'd have rushed to the LaRouche pages to delete your pro-LaRouche edits as soon as you were banned, but in fact I've hardly looked at them. My interest is only in making sure you don't introduce even more POV, and that you abide by the terms of the arbcom rulings. SlimVirgin 21:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a division of labor here; slanting the LaRouche articles in a defamatory way (in violation of WP:BLP) is Cberlet's job, with some assistance from 172. Your job is to bite the newcomers, bullying them and threatening to ban them (or simply banning them outright, as you did BirdsOfFire,) combined with frequent reverts with no edit summaries. Will Beback wikistalks and harasses anyone who objects. However, your credentials as an anti-LaRouche activist were already established in your first month at Misplaced Pages, when you authored the attack article Jeremiah Duggan. Although I know of no Misplaced Pages policy that says you should recuse yourself from the use of admin powers in controversies where you play such a partisan role, I should think that common decency would dictate that you do so. --HK 23:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The 23:45, 3 April 2006 post on this page by Herschelkrustofsky (talk · contribs) (see above) is a personal attack on four longtime Misplaced Pages editors: SlimVirgin, Cberlet, Will Beback, and me. In summary, Herschelkrustofsky is accusing Cberlet and me of 'defamation' of Lyndon LaRouche, SlimVirgin of writing bad-faith "attack artilce" related to the tragic death of Jeremiah Duggan, and Will Beback of "wikistalking." The attacks violate Herschelkrustofsky's arbcom probation stemming from the Nobs and others decision. According to the most recent arbcom ruling, if Herschelkrustofsky is disrupting the functioning of Misplaced Pages by making the personal attacks such as the ones posted above, admins are supposed to note the following:

Herschelkrustofsky is placed indefinitely on Misplaced Pages:Probation. If in the opinion of any three administrators, for good cause, he is responsible for disrupting the functioning of Misplaced Pages, restrictions may be placed on his editing, up to and including a general ban of one year. Each restriction imposed shall be documented and explained in a section at the bottom of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and others. Should any period of one year pass without any such restriction being imposed, Herschelkrustofsky's probation shall automatically end.

Arbcom rulings are meaningless unless admins enforce them. If Herschelkrustofsky is causing disruption on the administrators' noticeboard, the arbcom instructs admins to block him for up to one year for disregarding his probation. 172 | Talk 02:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should propose an enforcement in this case, pursuant to the ArbCom's rulings. -Will Beback 18:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I would like to request a review (by unbiased, third party administrators) of SlimVirgin's actions in blocking me and re-setting the one year ban. BirdsOfFire is not my sockpuppet, and I would like to see some sort of evidence that would justify SlimVirgin's actions, other than her own POV agenda. I would likewise like to request a review of Will Beback's actions in blocking me and re-setting my ban on September 30 of 2005, after he had initiated an edit war at the article American System (economics). I had not added material on LaRouche or his ideas to this article since the time of the first LaRouche Arbcom decision, although other editors (including Will Beback) have subsequently done so. Will Beback professes to hold the singular point of view that the entire school of economic thought known as the American System is a "LaRouche concept" . Will abused his admin powers by misrepresenting my edits to this article; he insisted that a reference to the Centennial Exposition represented "material which relates to Lyndon LaRouche," a fanciful theory which I regard as an entirely illegitimate reading of the ArbCom decision. Since Will re-set my one year ban in September of last year on the basis of this theory, other editors have begun working on this article, and the section which was disputed by Will Beback has been restored, not by myself, but by consensus of those editing the article. --HK 00:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

HK, you have pushed an unusual POV into several articles recently in a disruptive manner, exactly the behavior for which you have been thrice-chastened by the ArbCom. Lyndon LaRouche has eclectic interests, and so many articles are involved that it would be ineffective to block each individually. Therefore, rather than blocking a small number of articles for a long period, I think that a shorter general ban is more apt. The ArbCom has asked any three admins to agree to parole enforcements, and authorizes bans of up to a year. In this instance I propose a general ban of one month. The community has decided repeatedly that it is not going to promulgate ideosyncratic ideologies on the same basis as common wisdom. -Will Beback 08:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Will Beback is now charging me with having "pushed an unusual POV in a disruptive manner." Even if this accusation were warranted (and made in good faith,) I believe that I would still be within my rights to ask that these accusations be examined by neutral administrators who are not party to the long-standing conflict between myself and SlimVirgin/Will Beback. I contend that these two are attempting to misuse the arbcom rulings as a tactic in POV pushing; if these accusations against me were coming from other admins with no ideological axe to grind, they would carry considerably greater weight. SlimVirgin/Will Beback are attempting to establish a tautology whereby I am designated a "LaRouche editor," therefore any article I edit becomes "LaRouche related" (this is the essential basis for Will Beback's list,) and consequently any edit that I make violates the arbcom rulings, ipso facto. Any editor who agrees with me then becomes a "meat puppet," and may be banned by SlimVirgin without warning or explanation. I hope that there are some admins reading this who can see how harmful to Misplaced Pages it can be, if these tactics by SlimVirgin/Will Beback go unchallenged. --HK 15:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You're a self-confessed LaRouche activist, and have been for, as I recall, 30 years or so. You're on indefinite probation and banned from editing LaRouche pages or making pro-LaRouche edits. You have continued to do so from time to time, ignoring that ruling. After repeatedly reverting criticism of LaRouche at Synarchism, I reminded you of the ruling and asked you to stop editing that article. Note: I asked you to stop; I didn't block you. You responded by asking another LaRouche editor (who has made only 62 edits to the encyclopedia, most of them LaRouche-related), and who edits from within the same two IP ranges as you, to revert on your behalf, which he did, though he'd never edited that page before. You must have known this was a violation of the spirit of the ruling, yet you felt confident about doing it, because in fact the LaRouche rulings have not been strictly enforced against you. In addition, the other editor hadn't edited in days, yet was able to revert for you within hours of your request. You were therefore blocked for three days (though it could have been much longer) and had your ban reset. You returned from that block making personal attacks and allegations of corruption, as you do at every available opportunity. Now you're wondering why you're being accused of disruption.

If you really want to settle down and become a decent editor, the simple solution is to stay away from any article (or part thereof) that deals with LaRouche or his ideas, and stop making personal attacks. For some reason, you find that course of action impossible. I would definitely support a longer block. SlimVirgin 17:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Again, accusations made against me by SlimVirgin and Will Beback should be evaluated in light of their shared and strongly held POV. Both of them have now sought out opportunities to block me and re-set my one year ban, on grounds which I do not believe can stand up to scrutiny by neutral administrators. However, no other admin has found fault with my editing. I have not received so much as a complaint, let alone a warning, from anyone other than SlimVirgin and Will Beback, since the LaRouche 2 arbcom decision. In the "Nobs01 and others" decision which they cite, there was no finding of fact against me. And, I am not alone in alleging that these two have abused their admin powers to further a POV-pushing agenda. There have been numerous other complaints against these two; see, for example, Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/SlimVirgin2,Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Cberlet & Willmcw (Willmcw being another user name previously used by Will Beback,) WikipediaWikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-02-17_Talk:Political views of Lyndon LaRouche, or Misplaced Pages:Requests for investigation/Archives/2006/03. The present accusations against me should be evaluated by neutral third parties. --HK 21:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Far from having "sought out opportunities to block" you, this is, I believe, the first time I've done so since the case against you 15 months ago. As for your having "not received so much as a complaint" from anyone other than Will and me, it was in fact 172 who asked me to look at your activities at Synarchism, and apart from Will and me, people who have complained to the arbcom about you, resulting each time in remedies against you, have been Snowspinner, Cberlet, Adam Carr, AndyL, and John Kenney, all good editors. In Nobs01 and others, you were placed on indefinite probation, which sounds to me as though the arbcom is tired of seeing the same behavior from you, so for you to conclude that you have "not received so much as a complaint" from anyone other than Will and me is a little misleading. SlimVirgin 21:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

My reference to complaints was with respect to other admins; the arbcom rulings that pertain to me are administered by administrators, not Misplaced Pages editors in general. My understanding is that 172 agreed to cease functioning as an admin after the second arbitration case against him. Snowspinner initiated the 2nd LaRouche case, but I have not heard from him since that time, and if you will take a look at my post above, what I wrote was "However, no other admin has found fault with my editing. I have not received so much as a complaint, let alone a warning, from anyone other than SlimVirgin and Will Beback, since the LaRouche 2 arbcom decision." This is in fact the case. --HK 22:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe your ban has been reset three times: once by Snowspinner , once by Will, and now once by me. The reason a small number of admins are dealing with you is that we're the ones who are familar with your editing pattern. As I said above, the full-proof way to avoid attention is to stop making personal attacks and to stay away from pages that deal with Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas. We have over one million articles, so that shouldn't be so hard. SlimVirgin 23:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The moment I edit any article, it goes on Will's list of "LaRouche-related articles." I don't recall why Snowspinner re-set my ban, but in the case of Will Beback, it was re-set because of an edit dispute at American System (economics) that had nothing to do with LaRouche. Will Beback and 172 have both adopted the tactic of crying "LaRouche!" whenever one or the other disagrees with me (see Talk:Privatization and Talk:Anti-Defamation League.) In your case, you re-set my ban because of an edit made by another editor, who you then claimed, without proof, was my sockpuppet. I would like this whole business reviewed by a neutral third party. If I were as "disruptive" as you and Will Beback claim, I am certain that other admins would have noticed, regardless of whether they were "familiar with my editing patterns." --HK 00:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

No, the list of LaRouche related topics is not the same as your edit contributions. The number of redlinks alone should make that clear. It is no coincidence that virtually all of your edits are to topics related to LaRouche. Adding LaRouche theories to unrelated Misplaced Pages articles is not permitted, but you have persisted in doing so in an disruptive manner. The linkage between Lyndon LaRouche and the American System is well-known, and the particular theory you were adding can be referenced only from LaRouche sources. You have never shown contrition or admitted any wrongdoing in your three ArbCom cases, and it has become characteristic for you to protest your innocence and claim a conspiracy against you. -Will Beback 00:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I reset your ban because you asked another pro-LaRouche account to revert to your version of a page, where you had minimized criticism of LaRouche, an edit you'd been told violated the arbcom ruling. You must have known that getting someone else to do it was as bad as doing it yourself.

As I keep saying, the way to ensure that Will has nothing else to add to his page of your LaRouche-related edits is not to make any. Don't edit LaRouche pages, or pages about LaRouche-related ideas, or any sentence or paragraph about LaRouche on an unrelated page. And don't encourage other editors to do it for you. Then you'll be abiding by the terms of the three rulings against you: LaRouche 1, LaRouche 2, and the Nobs01 probation. SlimVirgin 00:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I insist that the claims by Will Beback and SlimVirgin are disingenuous, and I ask that a neutral third party review the facts of the matter. --HK 06:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

What the Herschelkrustofsky rulings say

• (Nobs01) Herschelkrustofsky is placed indefinitely on Misplaced Pages:Probation. If in the opinion of any three administrators, for good cause, he is responsible for disrupting the functioning of Misplaced Pages, restrictions may be placed on his editing, up to and including a general ban of one year."
• (LaRouche 2)"Herschelkrustofsky is restricted to one account for editing. All other accounts showing the same editing patterns are to be blocked indefinitely."
• "Herschelkrustofsky is placed on POV parole for up to and including one year. If he re-inserts any edits which are judged by a majority of those commenting on the relevant talk page in a 24-hour poll to be a violation of the NPOV policy, then he shall be temp-banned for a short time, up to one week. Repeat deletions of text, similarly judged to result in a violation of NPOV, shall be treated in the same way."
• "Herschelkrustofsky is banned from editing any article relating to Lyndon LaRouche for up to and including one year. If he edits any LaRouche-related article, he may be blocked for up to one week by any administrator. Administrators may use their discretion in determining what constitutes a LaRouche-related article. The prohibition against inserting La Rouche material into other articles remains in effect."
• "If, in the judgement of any administrator, Herschelkrustofsky or any user who is considered a sockpuppet of Hershelkrustofsky edits any article which relates to Lyndon LaRouche or inserts material which relates to Lyndon LaRouche into any other article he may be banned for up to one week. Any ban shall reset the one-year ban on editing LaRouche related articles and the ban on inserting LaRouche material into unrelated articles ..."
• (LaRouche1) "Supporters of Lyndon LaRouche are instructed not to add references to Lyndon directly to articles except where they are highly relevant, and not to engage in activities that might be perceived as 'promotion' of Lyndon LaRouche."

Deleting the lolicon picture

After weighty consideration, I have deleted the inappropriate picture that resided at Lolicon. I put my justification on the mailing list: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-April/043119.html. As I say in that email, I am extremely reluctant to bypass policy in this way. Nevertheless, I make no apology for actually deleting the image when it was so clearly appropriate. Sam Korn 18:30, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Good move. People wanting child porn can look elsewhere than Misplaced Pages. --Ryan Delaney 18:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Are people wanting child porn really going to seek out, and be satisfied with, a Japanese cartoon rather than real pictures? *Dan T.* 23:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

You'd be surprised. Ashibaka tock 23:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

As someone who participated for a long time at Talk:Lolicon (but withdrew recently due to it causing me far too much wikistress), I say well done. The image is clearly inappropriate, there is an alternative and it would long ago have been removed had the "OMG WP:NOT censored" crowd and several self-admitted paedophiles not engaged in a concerted campaign to keep the image. Mikker 18:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, jolly good show. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

As someone who was vaguely in favour of keeping the image in the first place, I'm very happy with the deletion and Sam Korn's latest replacement image. --Fuzzie (talk) 19:06, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Free images should always be preferable to fair use. .:.Jareth.:. 19:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

My compliments, Sam. Your arguments are sound and reasonable, and this move has long been overdue. If this move means you are part of an evil pro-censorship cabal, be it known that I would be honored to become a member too. Kosebamse 19:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

You have my support. I regret my own mind was not so clear on this issue. Steve block talk 20:24, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The deleted image has been added to the article by an external link. It was soon removed, perhaps accidentally as editors reverted each other over the new image. If an edit war ensues and protection is done, could we protect with the external link gone? It made no sense to me that the article was protected for days with the image in the article. It was a clear copyright violation in that state, out side of fair use. This is a cabalish request, I know. But does it make sense? Several days ago I added a comment about this at Misplaced Pages:Protection policy FloNight 21:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Sam. If the link becomes a problem, we could request that a meta admin add it to the blacklist, which would prevent it from being added again. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

There is back and forth editing going on now about the external link with the deleted image and also the new image. It is a large group doing it on both sides so no 3RR (yet). FloNight 22:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure we can talk about issues of appropriateness when a couple of clicks takes you to a close up where you can clearly see girls of dubious ages, one shoving a refreshing glass of lemonade up her nether regions, another being groped (and unless Japanese smiles go the same way as their writing, i.e. backwards, she's not enjoying it) plus the usual masturbation, bukakke etc.

Nonetheless, a free picture always trumps a fair use, and I've been on the Internet long enough not to care the least about taste. Oh and by the way Sam, it's spelt "rouge". 212.225.66.153 (logged out for obvious reasons) 22:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Nope. "Rouge" is red makeup. Somebody who breaks the rules is a "rogue", just like Sam spelled it. --Calair 22:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC) (Unless that was a joke and I missed it, which is entirely possible. --Calair 23:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC))

The long term joke has been to use the mispeliing "Rouge admin." This came from a problematic editor who kept making accusations about "Rouge admins." JoshuaZ 23:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to Sam for his action. The image was, in addiiton to everything else, extremely divisive. -Will Beback 23:23, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of any reason why that had to be mailing list first, wiki second. -Splash 23:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the message on the mailing list first because it's good to have a single set of reasons that you can point to. Writing on the mailing list means I could point to it from various places on the wiki without pasting a long rationale each time. For everyone's benefit, there is an RFC at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Sam Korn. Sam Korn 23:56, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Diffs to, e.g. a talk page edit (on e.g. Talk:Lolicon) work in exactly the same way as a link to a mailing list post. A diff, however, has the benefit of having been posted to the relevant page in the first place. -Splash 00:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

True, but I find diffs illegible. I find it far, far harder to marshal my thoughts and I find that using the mailing list and linking there is clearer to understand. I apologise if you did not. Sam Korn 00:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

PfP Suboptimal

This is pretty fucking poor suboptimal behavior. The article has a talk page, it was getting used. There was a request for a protected edit, and we really didn't need cowboy antics. - brenneman 00:03, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Please, Aaron, do not dismiss my actions in this way. I spent a good deal of time considering what to do and writing a rationale for the mailing list, and have spent several hours after the fact discussing them. Please afford me a little respect. Sam Korn 00:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• I'm very very upset at how little respect you've demonstrated for those of us who were working towards a solution on the talk page of the article, and without falling back on force (deleting the image) and appeal to a higher power (the mailing list.)
  brenneman 00:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  I understand that you are upset. As I have explained before, I saw that this was the only method by which the issue could be resolved. As for the mailing list, I was not using the mailing list as an appeal to a higher authority. I was mainly using it as somewhere where I could place my rationale and link to it from different places. I apologise if people think this was a mistake. My attempt was to make this as calm and as flame-less as possible. I resent a great deal being labelled a cowboy when I have put a huge amount of effort into being as conciliatory as possible. Sam Korn 00:30, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  Conciliatory? That's simply insulting. You didn't even use the article's talk page, and the hurried archiving of all the old discussion where there was talking is odd, too.
  brenneman 00:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  This discussion does neither of us any favours. Sam Korn 00:39, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  I do sort of agree with Aaron in that people finally seemed to be discussing things despite the cry to jimbo - and for those who would bother the last image "proposition" that Sam did (the rack of magazines) was actually already discussed in archive 3 of the talk page. I'm just hoping it doesn't ignite an even bigger edit war. Oh well, I guess if that happens I can protect again thus starting the discussion cycle over again... Just another star in the night 00:47, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  Aaron and perhaps some others are presumably not aware that this problem had persisted for well over a year until someone had the guts to take action. --Tony Sidaway 08:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  It was just about ready for deletion under Misplaced Pages:Images and media for deletion/2006 March 29, due to Fair Use issues, imo (bit consensus-lacking, but it clearly didn't qualify for fair use, so). Several people in the talk page were discussing imminent replacement with a decent GFDL image (which has now happened). This is a lot further than it'd gotten before, and so trying to pull out "persisted for over a year" when the discussion seemed to be coming to a productive end within days is, I feel, misleading. --Fuzzie (talk) 13:59, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  There's no need to be dismissive of those who have tried before. <small&gt;Just another star in the night 11:17, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  Indeed, my point is that owing to the intransigence of some editors we had a clearly obscene and unsuitable picture on the site for well over a year. To suggest that progress had been made because the image was a copyright infringement is to completely miss the point. The picture should not have been uploaded in the first place, and when uploaded it should have been deleted at once. --Tony Sidaway 15:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  I'm kinda disappointed that he deleted it, because I had just logged on to delete it when I found out that he beat me to the punch. Damn you Sam for taking all the glory! ;-) --Ryan Delaney 17:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  "There is no road of flowers leading to glory" Jean de la Fontaine Sam Korn 20:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Possible advertising scam

Something suspicious has been going on with articles related to the Travolta family, specifically in relation to the article Rikki Lee Travolta and a book written by him My Fractured Life with the various users below adding Rikki (and removing other Travoltas) as members of the Travolta family and adding information to various articles in relation to this book. It is claimed that Rikki is son of a Michael Travolta, an Australian and supposedly a brother of John Travolta but I cannot any reliable source that lists a Michael Travolta as a member of John Travolta's family (this link lists only Joey, Sam, Ellen, Ann and Margaret as siblings of John).

These users seem to be involved: Special:Contributions/Icemountain2, Special:Contributions/DogStar123, Special:Contributions/Cokenotpepsi, Special:Contributions/Infinitytoday, Special:Contributions/ScholasticBks, Special:Contributions/Dramalover, Special:Contributions/Bostic5.0, Special:Contributions/Hardwoodhaywood, Special:Contributions/Paramountpr, Special:Contributions/Sonybmg, Special:Contributions/65.209.181.195, Special:Contributions/68.74.180.2, Special:Contributions/68.74.121.143. Arniep 19:47, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I have nominated the articles in question for deletion Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_April_5#Rikki_Lee_Travolta. Arniep 01:55, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The article should be indelibly flagged as advertising and, unless a user can document the herdity claims, also as unsubstantianted and probably bogus. But behind the advertising the article contains some encyclopedia facts. All I am saying, is give flags a chance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghosts&empties (talk • contribs) 16:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Well two users did try to flag it as advertising but it was removed every time by the numerous sock puppets listed above. Arniep 17:16, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I started the Annie Travolta page and have been a contributor to many of the Travolta family pages including Margaret Travolta, Rikki Lee Travolta, Annie Travolta, and John Travolta. Many of those changes are reverting vandalism. It is right there in the history. There is no way, shape, or form that could remotely be confused as being in an “advertising scam”. I have NEVER removed members of the Travolta family from listings. I have worked hard to keep the integrity in tact. I think upon closer inspection you’ll see there was an influx of attempts by an anon (66.121.40.132) to vandalizing different Travolta family sites (changing facts without providing sources or citations). When the anon seemed to be starting a revert war with different users I followed Wiki policy and contacted them on their discussion page to request documentation for the changes being made.

Its been noticed that you have made several repeated changes to the family elements of the John Travolta page and related pages. The policy at Misplaced Pages is to try to avoid revert wars going back and forth over the same territory. As follows are what we have confirmed as members of the Travolta family: Margaret Travolta, John Travolta, Ellen Travolta, Joey Travolta, Rikki Lee Travolta; Jack Bannon, Rachel Travolta, Nicole Travolta, Michael Salvatore Travolta, Helen (Burke) Travolta, Kelly Preston, Salvatore Travolta, Molly Allen Ritter, Jonathan Rau, Jet Travolta, Tom Fridley, Sam Travolta, Ella Blue Travolta, Valentino Travolta, and Annie Travolta. This is not an all inclusive list, but all those listed are confirmed. In respecting Misplaced Pages policy it is always necessary to approach differences of opinion in good faith. Although we have documented each of these individuals as relatives (of different levels of removal or closeness of course) within the extended Travolta family, ff you disagree with any person(s) on this list please provide the documentation and we should be able to come to a simple understanding relatively quickly (no pun intended). We thank you in advance for your cooperation.

The anon (66.121.40.132) did not respond. I assumed the matter was dropped but now I find out I am being lumped in some kind of witch hunt accusation by Arniep who seems to have some vendetta based on feelings and assumptions without citing any sources and discounting such sources as TV Guide and The Chicago Sun Times as "just sites used by agencies".

Firstly, the TV guide link says "There's also some kind of grassroots campaign on behalf of singer/theater actor Rikki Lee Travolta". A grassroots campaign led by who??? Secondly the Chicago Sun Times link is inexplicably not at the Chicago Sun Times website. Thirdly, the person you contacted had removed Rikki Lee Travolta from all the Travolta pages saying "Rikki Lee is not part of this clan" after you had added that name (see Special:Contributions/66.121.40.132). Arniep 20:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

If you look at Arniep's talk page you see a long history of jumping to conclusions and waging war on opinions that are different than Arniep's. Not the spirit of good faith that is intended and required for successful interaction. Sorry - one person's opinion shouldn't outweigh the facts. And Arniep is trying to make wide sweeping changes purely on opinioin without citing facts and ignoring the facts that do exist. The Rikki Lee Travolta page appears to (now) have good documentation. The other page named: My Fractured Life needs to be cleaned up and is so marked. This is nothing more than a witch hunt if you ask me and I'm offended to have been included in it because I was the one who tried to follow Wiki policy to avoid this kind of pointless McCarthyism. Paramountpr 18:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but we can only use reliable sources of information (see WP:RS). Arniep 19:59, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

• Rikki Lee Travolta is a real person and a relative of John per Daily Variety, the Chicago Sun-Times, Toronto Star, and others, per a Lexis/Nexis search. For example, from the New York Post in 2002,

THERE'S a strange postscipt to our item the other day about the Internet rumor that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have created a computer-generated actor called "Rikki Lee Travolta." A rather odd actor named Rikki Lee Travolta does in fact exist, and held a press conference in Chicago Tuesday to prove it. "It's good to be alive," he stated. "I am an actor. I am a human being." Travolta, who is of Italian and Native American extraction and claims some family connection with John Travolta, appeared in "West Side Story" on Broadway. He wrote a novel, sports a gunshot wound and claims a doctorate in religious studies. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Whether this person is notable enough for an article is another matter. Thatcher131 20:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

There is no reliable evidence that he is even related to John Travolta, see the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_April_5#Rikki_Lee_Travolta for further info. Arniep 23:27, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

• See analysis at Talk:Rikki Lee Travolta and Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Rikki Lee Travolta (although even if this is self-promotion by a non-notable person, hard to see why it should have been brought to AN/I). Thatcher131 00:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• I'm named in this "scam" and only just found out about it from another editor named in the "scam". It turns out (it looks to me) that this FALSE claim is all some well orchestrated attack by a vandal trying to delete a page about Rikki Lee Travolta for some personal reason. Trash. Absolute Trash. Total Abuse of AN/I and Articles for Deletion. A total Abuse of the System. 65.209.181.195 18:19, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• You are mistaken in naming me in this. Hardwoodhaywood 02:18, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Daniel Brandt

Daniel_Brandt (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) is making silly legal threats on his user page again, citing a new Federal law that almost certainly (1) doesn't apply to this site and (2) is blatantly unconstitutional if it does. (But IANAL.) *Dan T.* 03:39, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

He should never have been unblocked. But, what do I know, eh? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:10, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, am I the only one who finds it ironic that someone who claims to be concerned about privacy is essentially making a threat to strip other people of theirs? JoshuaZ 13:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC) And having just looked at his "hivemind" page, I don't see why he shouldn't be indef blocked until he takes it down. He has massively violated the privacy of many Wikipedians. If that isn't continual harassment, I don't know what is. JoshuaZ 13:15, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

--kingboyk 15:11, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Now he's claiming people are harassing him, he's threatening individual editors, he posted a legal threat on his user page, and now on the Misplaced Pages Review he's threatening to add to the hivemind page anybody who votes delete on the legal threat on his talk page. I'm permanently blocking this troll again and removing the threat. Gamaliel 18:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Good someone has taken actrion against a blatant legal threat, SqueakBox 18:24, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Somebody unblock him. I'm no friend of his, and I don't agree with his methods, but blocking him is not the way to go. Werdna648/_C\ 21:42, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree; we blocked people over less severe stuff as this. This guy, from the diffs I see above, is doing everything under the sun to bully his way onto Misplaced Pages. He has threatened other users too, and I am not going to stand by and watch this happen. User:Zscout370 23:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

He's not a vandal. There has to be a better way to solve this than to block him. Werdna648/_C\ 23:24, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

What do you suggest? He won't be happy until he has complete editorial control over Misplaced Pages. Shall we just give that to him? Kelly Martin (talk) 02:12, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict with message directly below) How would you feel if you were one of the people whose names he has posted on his hivemind page? His repeated threats, posting of private information and other behavior is so far beyond the pale that I'm not sure I'd support his unblocking if he came back on his hands and knees. And in any event, it is completely unacceptable to allow him to edit while the Hivemind page is up. JoshuaZ 02:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to negotiate a solution with him, although he is quickly running out of options and resorting to personal attacks about mine and NSLE's ages. I'm doing my very best, but I'm beginning to get the impression that he's very reluctant, if inclined at all, to negotiate. Werdna648/_C\ 02:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

although he is quickly running out of options What ARE you talking about? What options is he "running out of"? For what alternative? --Calton | Talk 03:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy with keeping him blocked for the time being. Might give him an incentive to negotiate. Although the hivemind page has become somewhat of a joke or rite of passage around here, I'm quite disappointed that he hasn't added me yet, but fingers crossed.. ;). Werdna648/_C\ 02:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Not very relevant, how will other users feel if they know that Misplaced Pages lets someone edit while he has a page containing the personal info of users he dislikes? If I cared about my privacy at all, I wouldn't be happy with it, and I suspect neither would most users. Just because Brandt is a clown doesn't mean he gets a free pass. JoshuaZ 02:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

If you don't want your personal information compiled by Brandt, don't release it. I don't have any info on my userpage that can be linked to me. If I get on the page, I'll probably laugh for a bit that Brandt is sad enough to put me on his list of people he dislikes, then I will get over it. This is the type of coping mechanism that you can see all the time. Somebody who feels rejected by general society puts together a "kill list", seeing this as a form of revenge. It can normally be seen in schoolkids who get bullied. I'm not worried in the least by it. Werdna648/_C\ 02:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

If you don't want your personal information compiled by Brandt, don't release it. What utter bilge. Misplaced Pages shouldn't have to bend to the peculiar whims of Brandt. --Calton | Talk 03:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I personally wouldn't care either, but other users will (I know at least once admin who became furious when a user used the admin's first name on a talk page) and the precedent it sets is awful. Given this, I'm highly worried about letting you negotiate. In negotiations, who are you representing and in what capacity? JoshuaZ 12:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm simply trying to get him to work out his problems with the article, rather than trying to have it deleted, and making legal threats, hivemind, et cetera. Werdna648/_C\ 14:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Scorpionman

I think thjis user needs some cooling down time. He started with this post , which he later admited that it was invented , which the continued insunuation that we think that way about him. I before that had asked him to retract his quote , and indicated that I would report him here if he would stand with it. I think he needs some thinking time on his role on Misplaced Pages, as he is continiously trolling evolution and related pages with repeated asertions of lacking NPOV etc, and he gets worse over time with now resulted in invented insults. KimvdLinde 03:50, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I dealt with him before on Talk:Evolution and it wasn't pretty. Every so often we get these anti-science creationist kooks. We just keep whacking 'em individually but more inevitably pop up. --Cyde Weys 04:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I admit the made-up insults were wrong and rather foolish. Really. But here you are calling creationists "anti-science kooks"! You'd consider it a personal attack if I said that about evolutionists! Scorpionman 20:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Scorpion, after making up those insults, you aren't surprised that he would respond that way at all? JoshuaZ 21:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

He's calling every creationist a kook. That's almost clarifying what I said in my invented insults! Scorpionman 15:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it isn't anywhere close. He said "these anti-science creationist kooks" which does not by any means imply that all creationists are kooks. In fact, given that there are creationists constantly on the evolution talk page, if he meant all of them he would not have said "every so often." Try reading things slowly and assuming a tiny bit of good faith. JoshuaZ 15:17, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Sam Spade blocked

I have blocked Sam Spade (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for 24 hours for what can only be considered as harrassment and threats against another user (in this case, Bishonen (talk · contribs)). See his recent edits to "Re:" on Bishonen's talk page for details. Sam Spade also has an ongoing RFC that is closely related to these issues. --Cyde Weys 20:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

He was also repeatedly warned on his talk page by Fuzzie as well as by Bishonen and he did not stop. --Cyde Weys 20:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's a link to the whole conversation between Bishonen and Sam Spade (she has since removed it from her talk page). --Cyde Weys 20:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Oops, yes, I just removed the entire thread from my page, I wasn't about to force SS to keep his personal family stuff up there. He was trying to make me remove my input from his RFC (I'd written the only Outside View that other users were endorsing), on pain of continued harassment, after I'd asked him three times to stop posting on my page. Bishonen | talk 20:15, 5 April 2006 (UTC).

I looked through that thread and nothing there warrants a block right now. Subjects of RFCs are permitted to contact those involved. They arn eiot permitted ot harass, but there was no harassment here. It was all, surprisingly civil. It was a discussion that, at times, got a little heated, but nothing over the line. If anything it was Bishonen who got more into it, but he/she is not blocked (nor should he/she be). But if Sam is going ot be blocked then he/she should be too. Please unblock.Gator (talk) 20:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Looking through the RFC in question...Clyde, you certified the basis for the dispute and are involved in that process. As such, you really shouldn't be blocking him and should have referred this to a neutral admin for his/her opinion. Please unblock or I, as a neutral party, will have to.Gator (talk) 20:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

This issue isn't really relevant to the RFC. And I did bring the block here for review by fellow admins. --Cyde Weys 20:29, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Gator here. (full disclosure I'm involved in the RfC and endorsed Bishonen's statement) Sam's comments while self-righteous, condescending, dramatic and unproductive, do not seem to have yet risen to the level that would constitute blockable harassement. 20:26, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Sam has contacted me, as an uninvolved administrator, and I agree that there's nothing worthy of a 24-hour block here. Perhaps a brief cooldown period, but I think it's been long enough for that. I don't see anything uncivil, a personal attack, or any rule violations. Therefore, I have unblocked Sam Spade. Feel free to address me on my talk page or by e-mail about this. Andre (talk) 20:27, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a basis for this claim? Can you point to a description of harrassment which this does not fall under? or is this merely your opinion? - Amgine 20:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The proper questions is not "what is the basis for the unblock". The proper question should be "what is the basis for the block?" Answer: none. Therefore, he was corretly unblocked. That is my and Andrevan's opinions as uninvolved neutral admins. I fully support it and will unblock any attempt to reinstate the block.Gator (talk) 20:35, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I am thinking (full disclosure, also involved in the Rfc) that Sam's clear implications that Bishonen cannot be spoken to "as a human being" and Sam's declaration that he "won't make that mistake again" constitutes a clear personal attack. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua 20:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Full disclosure: not at all aware there is an RfC. But read "three requests not to post on my page"... Did you also realize there is a policy regarding unblocking? - Amgine 20:42, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Sam) He should be given a big {{npa}} on his talk page, and if he does it again, give him a 24 hour block, his behavior seems to me to be not quite blockable. Also as a non-admin, may I ask you guys to please not have a wheel war over this? JoshuaZ 20:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

He was given one, by Fuzzie. He then questioned Fuzzie's authority to place one there, and continued to harass Bish. See his talk page. KillerChihuahua 20:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I guess I can edit now. I just want to say I never intended to harass or threaten bishonen (I'm not sure how I could threaten her, its not like I'm an Uberhacker or anything...). Quite the contrary, I hjad been led to believe by a mutual friend that she was a nice person. I thought that if I let my guard down, and spoke to her from the heart, she might change her mind about me. That obviously did not happen, and I apologise to everyone for the mess. I am going to avoid conflict for awhile, and see if things can simmer down. Sam Spade 20:39, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

A good way to avoid conflict is to not call editors who disagree with you "hoodlums". JoshuaZ 21:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Or "POV artists." FeloniousMonk 22:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't object to the quick unblocking of Sam Spade, even though I was glad he was stopped short by a block, since he seemed to be spinning out of controll, getting only more angry and more imperious and contemptuous for being warned and for being urged to stop posting on my page. A very brief block was obviously enough to make him catch himself up. But I feel quite let down by Andre's not seeing "anything uncivil" in Sam's attempt to scold me out of that RFC, or in his majestic personal remarks ("I am chastising you for your unfortunate involvement in the RfC in question...") Also by Gator's perception that all that happened on my talkpage was that the subject of an RFC "contacted" one of those involved and initiated a "discussion", "a little heated but nothing over the line", and in which I was the one who "got more into it". Certainly I got angry. I was making what I still think a very reasonable request that Sam take his flames off my page; the RFC does have its own talkpage, which would have been an appropriate venue. Well, if you can talk about any appropriate venues for "chastising" fellow editors. No disrespect, but are you guys who see no incivility sure you know what "chastise" means? The thesaurus Wordsmyth.net offers the synonyms punish, whip, discipline, slap, cane, cuff, smack, castigate, wallop, discipline, thrash, spank, whip, beat, lambaste, belt, tongue-lash, berate, rebuke, censure , excoriate, upbraid, take to task, scold, reprimand, and bawl out. Apart from the kinky stuff, where I wouldn't inquire of anybody's tastes, how's that for posting a comment on an effing Request for comments? (A perfectly civil comment, btw.)
SS insisted repeatedly that he would not stop unless and until I "removed myself" from "the situation", justifying himself by my "provocative action" of posting to the RFC. "I will stop posting on your page when there is no longer a reason to. .. a RfC is designed to provoke dialogue, and is to be engaged in only by those willing to communicate. If you are not ... I again ask you to remove yourself from the proceedings." And yet a couple of hours later SS is in victim mode here and on his own page, pretending that all he ever wanted was for me to remove his comments from my page (!) and to make it clear that I didn't want to talk (dear reader, if you've clicked on Cyde's link above, how soon was that clear to YOU?): ""She did what I asked by deleting the thread and making clear she didn't want to talk, so I have no reason to contact her that I know of." This is mere sleight-of-hand and misdirection after his attacks on me for daring to criticize him in an RFC. Bishonen | talk 23:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC).

Sam Spade is classic passive-aggressive and a lot of editors, including admins, are being fooled by it. --Cyde Weys 23:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry you felt let down by my response, and I sincerely hope the insanity graphic in your user space isn't my fault. Keep in mind that I have the utmost respect for you (Bishonen) as a contributor, editor, admin, human being, etc. Also, I've tangled (unfavorably) with Sam Spade in the past (see the Talk:Atheism archives).

However, I do feel that Sam Spade's discussion on your talk page was not actually uncivil or mean. Rude would be a good word, I think, but rudeness is not a personal attack and it is not reason to block. Clearly Sam wasn't using chastise to mean "To punish, as by beating."/punish, whip, beat, belt, or wallop (after all, how was he doing these things? Can you whip someone over the internet?) but rather the second definition of "To criticize severely; rebuke." Sam Spade's discussion on your talk page was condescending, patronizing, and somewhat rude, but it definitely was not a punishment, in any sense of the word (and I also feel chastise was a bid of an overly strong word choice, because he really wasn't criticizing that much).

I felt the situation actually escalated to truly heated levels at your comment of "Get off my page and stay off it. Now." That's when Sam got passive agressive (still not a clear personal attack and not entirely unprovoked), and you rose to the bait and responded in kind. At any time, you could have merely ignored Sam's responses, or reverted them and/or cleared that section of the page, but as long as you continued to respond, Sam was not harassing you, merely engaging in the increasingly heated dialogue. You do have the right to stop the discussion, but you did not truly invoke it.

Once again, I mean you no harm, emotional or otherwise, and I just didn't feel that a 24-hour block was necessary for the mutual heat and rudeness that the exchange showed. I also think that the dislike many feel for Sam Spade and the (rightful) esteem many feel for you (Bishonen) contributed to the situation being handled as it was, in a way not entirely fair or just. Andre (talk) 00:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

And for you semantics fans out there, I'll add that I consider "uncivil" to be malicious or derogatory, while "rude" is lacking in niceties, tact, manners, or subtlety. Andre (talk) 00:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Andre, I'm pleased that I have always been able to speak to you "as a human being" and not otherwise (whatever that implies), still, I'm afraid that you are not so much drowning in semantics, but that this is more a case of selective reading, and dare I say, (seemingly) presonal bias. Incidentally, I will continue to support your RfB attempts, even though I do fear that with your rather consistent defence of SS throughout the years, bureaucrat status will render his misconduct all the more damaging (a measure of my esteem toward yourself is that I would still support you notwithstanding this). We already have members of the establishment who tend to similarly support SS (for example, Theresa Knott), and I feel that their efforts have also at times proved damaging to the project. Unfortunately, attempts to raise these issues have thus far failed, and I see little hope of improvement. El_C 02:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I'm assuming too much good faith? I'll think on it. Andre (talk) 18:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Reporting abuse to service providers

There's been persistent vandalism from an IP which has continually returned from blocks to vandalise - he has a very distinctive style, so it's definitely one person. {{test6}} for repeat vandals says "action could be taken against the individual who uses it". WHOIS says the address is registered to York County Council and gives an email address to send reports of abuse to. Would it be good practice to send an email to that address asking them to look into it? Is there generally any point sending emails to those addresses? Would I be overstepping myself contacting someone off-site on Misplaced Pages's behalf in such a way? --Sam Blanning 22:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I would do it personaly Admrb♉ltz (T | C | k) 22:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe the real part is "on wikipedia's behalf", that is like others you aren't employed by Wikimedia so pretty much anything you do is on your own account not wikipedia's per-se --pgk 22:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I made a point of saying that in the email I just sent. --Sam Blanning 22:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be some kind of system for this otherwise multiple emails could end up being sent? Arniep 23:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on just such a system, and hope to reveal it soon. My experience, however, is that email rarely works; phone calls, however, get very prompt attention. Essjay 23:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

My experience is that ISPs are relatively uninterested in complaints about their customers. Universities, on the other hand, will often hand you the head of the offender. Kelly Martin (talk) 05:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

A large amount of vandalism is from schools/colleges too so we should also be able to get them to take action against persistent offenders. Arniep 12:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

At least one repeat vandal is an instructor, not a student, at the college my daughter attends. He vandalizes articles as an object lesson, as part of his speech on "Misplaced Pages is not a RS." I only recently learned about this and have been mulling over how to proceed. Any bright ideas? KillerChihuahua 00:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I have slight sympathies for him. One should never cite Misplaced Pages(for that matter one should never cite any encyclopedia) one should always track down the sources cited by Misplaced Pages and cite those. However, deliberate vandalism to make such a point is not acceptable behavior. I would send a strong note to him that 1) If the prof's students need to be to told that Misplaced Pages is not an academic level RS then they sbhould probably be eliminated from the genepool. 2) Explain to him that many people are putting many hours into Misplaced Pages and his vandalism wastes there time. If he doesn't respond to that, talk to whoever is his superior. JoshuaZ 01:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think I'll pass on suggestion 1, but I am thinking at least he should revert himself and clean up his own mess, and will probably mention that to him. I'll see what happens then. KillerChihuahua 01:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh my. "His own mess?" Exactly how bad was the vandalism? JoshuaZ 01:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that it's vandalism of the worst sort: the subtle, hard-to-detect stuff. Blanking an article and replacing it with OMG GEORGE BUSH IS TEH SUXORS!!!!!111!! is easily detected by non-experts and quickly repaired. (In some cases, it's even fixed by a bot.) On the other hand, changing the date of the Battle of Arfderydd from 573 to 575 might pass unnoticed. A reference to a community named Forest Hill might easily be changed to Forest Park.

Encourage your daughter to critically evaluate the level of trust she should place in some dick that lies to strangers and schoolchildren just to make a point. Note also that many educational institutions provide some mechanism for instructor evaluation, and that it's always good to remember these sorts of things when you get to the 'any other comments' section of the form. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I've contacted a few professors after other Wikipedians have pointed out that the instructor made the "Misplaced Pages is not a reliable source" argument to students who were, in fact, Wikipeidans. I have a copy of my form response at User:Essjay/Letter. When I was head of my department, I certainly would have taken knowledge of such conduct into consideration, and I think similarly minded department heads/deans would as well. The young lady should make an appointment with the department head/dean/provost post haste. Essjay 04:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

(reduce)Thanks much to all of you. Yes, the vandalism was the subtle kind, the only specific article I knew about and checked had been reverted quickly anyway. My daughter is not precisely a child, she is at a university after all, and (being her mother's daughter) is extremely critical in evaluating information from anyone (trust me, I'm grilled about sources frequently.) And Essjay, thank you so much, I will avail myself of your effort. I am not certain whether my daughter will be interested in pursuing this herself, however, as in addition to being critical she is also careful about choosing her battles, and frankly if she weighs the benefits and possible repercussions she may determine it is not in her best interest to involve herself. KillerChihuahua 15:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I would say she's very wise not to pick a battle with an academic bureaucracy. --Sam Blanning 15:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Your daughter should probably not be the one to make this battle. However, there are plenty of us here at Misplaced Pages who have no academic career at her institution who would love to take on this rogue individual. We can probably identify the vandal with our own resources (with a little help from you or your daughter) and file a complaint with the college based on our "independent" discovery of the vandalism. Your daughter need not be mentioned. You can contact me confidentially by email to my gmail account or use the "email this user" option that appears to the side of my user page. Kelly Martin (talk) 17:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Libel

Brand new User:Johnyrocket1111 has today made some potentially libellous edits to Cosima De Vito. I just want to let everyone know that:

1. I intend to delete the edits from the page history, per our libel policy;
2. If the editor cannot be convinced to desist, I will block indefinitely. My justification for this would be that the material added is a potential legal and financial threat to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Snottygobble 04:25, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Johnnyrocket1111 continued with his libellous revisions, and responded to my compromise rewrite with a legal threat. He has now been indefinitely blocked, and his revisions removed from the page history. Snottygobble 05:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Received an email from Constantine Nellis aka Johnnyrocket1111 containing the following gems:

if this is not corrected or wiped immidiately i will be taking legal action against yourself and any parties associated.

apart from taking legal action i am also seeing my large network of media associated to see how far we can take this

and shortly afterwards another email with:

I have just spoken to my legal representatives and they are making direct contact with wilkemedia regarding your actions. expect to hear from them dirctly.

Ignoring the paper tigers, one of the emails did actually contain some terse facts without all the abusive bulls**t, so I have made some minor corrections to the article.

If this is the way Nellis does business, by bullying and threatening, the content of the article w.r.t him doesn't surprise me one bit. Snottygobble 23:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Grammar block

I have blocked Mike Garcia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for repeatedly modifying pages to change the words "is" and "was" to the words "are" and "were" in the case of collective noun forms for bands. He was previously warned to stop doing this but his solo attack on the English language has continued. He even went so far as to say "There's nothing you can do to stop me". He was saying that to another user; unluckily for him, I got dragged into this silly mess, and there is something I can do to stop him. --Cyde Weys 04:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course, that's perfectly standard English; it's merely "incorrect" for American English. But never mind. :-)

James F. (talk) 08:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This rings a bell. I reverted Cyde on The Yardbirds a while back, as for a British band "The Yardbirds were a band" was correct. I suppose the reasonable thing to do would be to use the prevalent form of whichever country the band is from. This isn't always clear though, CSN&Y anyone? Leithp 08:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

In that instance use grammar per the first substantial contributer to the article, as you would for spelling. If the article uses British spelling, use British grammar, likewise American or Canadian. Having just had a discussion over capitalising after a colon, which is American grammar but not British, I'll have to recheck that the MOS does make note of grammar as well as spelling in topics which are country specific. Steve block talk 09:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Where can I read more about these differences in grammar between British and American? Is there a Wiki article that covers this? --Candide, or Optimism 10:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The capital after a colon is actually more complicated than that in American grammar. First, many Americans(even educated ones) simply don't do it at all. Second, some only capitalize when the section after the colon can stand as a sentence on its own. So "blah, blah blah: list" would not have the first item in the list capitalized. I think American MOSes differ on what is preferable in such cases, but I haven't looked at the matter in much detail in a while. JoshuaZ 14:45, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a content dispute - it was irresponsible to block Mike Garcia. Furthermore, in most cases Mike is correct. I have discussed this at length and researched this thoroughly, and I am confident that it is grammatically correct to use were/are in instances where the band's name is a plural noun which represents the members. For instance, "The White Stripes are..." is the correct way to start the article. User:RJN continues to edit articles of bands and sports teams to insert this awkward grammar.

For those who support this awkward grammar, I have a question: Do you really believe it is correct to write "The Beatles was on the Ed Sullivan show"? Rhobite 14:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

See also , which explains the use of plural band/team names. Rhobite 14:45, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Grammar issues aside, I don't see that this was a useful thing to block over. It's a content dispute. Friday (talk) 14:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Cyde also blocked User:158.223.1.117 on March 24 in order to gain an advantage in a revert war on The Decemberists. Although it was labeled a 3RR block, this seems to be a pattern of overstepping the bounds of the blocking policy. Rhobite 14:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Rhobite, it appears that Cyde is using admin tools to gain an advantage in disputes where he is a party. Admin tools are not supposed to be used in a dispute by one who is involved in that dispute. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Ugh, I'm trying not to be involved in this thing. I didn't even touch any of these latest edits. I was just warned that this user was again disrupting many articles by enforcing his particular views on grammar on them. Also, there was a long email conversation with this user awhile ago which basically ended with him saying, "I don't care what you say, I'm going to keep reverting." That's not an acceptable way of solving things. The closest analog would be if someone were going through articles changing American spellings to British spellings, repeatedly, and continued even after being warned. --Cyde Weys 16:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

If they're doing something blockable, but you're involved in the dispute, the wisest course of action is to make a request here (or on WP:AN) asking another admin to perform the block. I think one of the few "reverts" being involved in that doesn't count as a conflict of interest for blocking purposes is clear vandalism, and Mike definitely didn't do that (I haven't looked at 158.233.1.117, so can't comment on that). --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Alright, in the future, I'll leave it up to other admins. Anyway, I asked this guy to file an RFC regarding collective noun grammar and he patently refused; basically, he was sure he was right, and he was going to continue editing things to his way. I strongly warned against this course of action. And then yesterday, he continued with the reversions, maybe thinking I had somehow forgotten or lost track. Nope. --Cyde Weys 17:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying that Mike Garcia's editing style is ideal - when there is a disagreement over his edits, he immediately assumes bad faith, accuses the other party of vandalism, and threatens to revert endlessly, no matter how small the dispute is. However, that doesn't give admins a license to block him, especially if they're on the other side of the content dispute. I think an RFC would be a good idea - not about Mike's conduct (or yours, mine, or RJN's), but about the grammar issue. I am almost positive that I am correct. Every media outlet I have checked agrees with using are/were/they/their when describing plural bands such as The White Stripes. The New York Times seems particularly authoritative: "In 2003, the White Stripes left behind the Strokes and just about everyone else when they released 'Elephant'" (The White Stripes Change Their Spots, The New York Times, May 29, 2005 Sunday, Late Edition - Final, Section 2; Column 4; Arts and Leisure Desk; MUSIC; Pg. 1, 1548 words, By KELEFA SANNEH) Rolling Stone says "The White Stripes are at a commercial and creative peak." It is very hard to argue that these publications are grammatically incompetent. I am going to have very little time this weekend, so if there is an RFC I would really appreciate it if someone pasted this comment into it, or mentioned the RS/NYT cites. Thanks. Rhobite 18:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, assuming bad faith, accusing people of vandalism, and threatening to revert endlessly are good cause for a block. But I digress. The last time this came up with this user I told him to file exactly the kind of RfC you and I are talking about. He refused and threatened to revert endlessly. Gahhhrr. And as for your examples ... the first one is using the singular they, which is an altogether different grammatical issue, and the second is from Rolling Stone, hardly a paragon of grammatical virtue. I think the end result is that either way is acceptable (much like British/American spelling of words), and general consensus on how to deal with that is to leave stuff alone and don't go through articles changing everything to "your" way. That's exactly what Mike Garcia was doing. --Cyde Weys 20:12, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Come on, I think you understand that I can find many more examples from reputable sources. Are you really going to attack each source I come up with? The NY Times is not using the singular "they", which is only used to refer to a person of unknown gender. It's obviously the plural "they" - otherwise the author would have written "when it released 'Elephant'", and "The White Stripes Changes Its Spots". Notice the plural verb "change their" as opposed to the singular "changes its" in the headline. Rolling Stone is a professionally-edited magazine and it's a little arrogant to say that you know better than them. Can you cite any American magazines or newspapers which support your usage? I don't see you providing any examples. As for your point about leaving articles in their original state, RJN was the one who went on an edit spree in the first place, in January, changing a great number of articles from "are" to "is". Rhobite 20:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Loom91 user talk page spamming

I have blocked User:Loom91 for 24 hours for disruption: user talk page spam. The edits (over 100) can be seen in Loom91's contribs.--Commander Keane 12:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Good block. I got one of those myself. —BorgHunter (talk) 12:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

You should not block someone right away, you should warn him first. Maybe he was not aware of the rule. ROGNNTUDJUU! 12:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe you. --Cyde Weys 16:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree; there was a sort of warning, but it gave no indication of a Misplaced Pages policy — it more or less said "stop doing this or I'll block you, because I think that it's disruptive" (is there a template for this warning, incidentally? With the rapidly accelerating template-creep I'm surprised that there isn't). Also, did you check to see how many of the recipients had voted in an earlier poll, and so deserved to be informed of a new poll on a revised propsal (I was one of those)?

Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy#Disruption makes no mention of sending messages about a poll to interested parties, notr am I clear why receiving such a message is disruptive. Unless anyone objects, I'll lift the block. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This was grossly disruptive behavior. In a current arbcom case, another editor has been found to be disruptive for trying to stack a poll in this manner. I strongly oppose lifting the block. --Tony Sidaway 15:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I object also: is this sufficient to keep the block in place? —Phil | Talk 16:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

There *was* a warning given , block seems justified. .:.Jareth.:. 16:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe this user messaged me because I'm a member of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Wikipedians_against_censorship, I think his edit to my page was completely justified. Please consider lifting the block - Serodio 15:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk page spamming is just a bad idea. The one time I think it's found acceptable is when a user is thanking people for voting on their RfA. At all other times it is highly frowned upon. Even during ArbCom elections people's talk pages weren't spammed; rather, a notice was placed in a highly visible place. If the anti-censorship WikiProject is having some kind of vote then placing a prominent note on their project page should be enough to get the attention of the users seriously involved. If there are users out there who aren't checking up on their WikiProjects even once a week, they simply aren't very involved with them, and it's probably okay if they miss a chance to vote on something. That's better than spamming up hundreds of talk pages, anyway. --Cyde Weys 16:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I hate getting spam thanking me for voting in an RfA. Last time I got one I just reverted it as soon as I saw "Hello, {{PAGENAME}}". Angr (talk • contribs) 19:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure, maybe it's a bad idea, but Loom91 was blocked without a serious warning to stop doing it. "Stop spamming user talk pages with this censorship stuff. You get blocked for disruption." seems more like a vague threat than a serious warning. Besides, as Loom91 was contending in his talk page, his actions are not prohibited by Misplaced Pages:Blocking_policy#Disruption nor Misplaced Pages:Spam#Internal_spamming. The block just seems rather extreme and arbitrary. - Serodio 23:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Lolicon and external links

Over at Lolicon there's dispute about the best way forward regarding external links to sites containing images which are of questionable legality. Jimbo suggested a way forward on the mailing list, as seen here ,which was to follow the precedent used at Last measure, and remove the hyperlink facility of the text, leaving only text which could be cut and pasted into a browser, and thus remove the accidental clicking of the link.

I put this into action, in this diff, however, I've already been reverted once, this diff. Obviously I'm in a content dispute so it would be a help top get some consensus on this matter and determine if re-instating the hyperlink is vandalism. It's entirely possible to click the wrong link on a page, I've done it many times myself. This suggestion by Jimbo removes the possibility entirely. Steve block talk 13:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism on Misplaced Pages:Introduction

Because User:Sandbot is not working correctly on the Introduction, vandalism has been staying longer. The latest time was a vandal edit at 11:21, 6 April 2006 that did not get reverted until 12:32, 6 April 2006. Since this is a high traffic page linked to in the header of the main page - some help to monitor it would be appreciated. I am also going to contact User:Tawker and User:Joshbuddy about having User:Tawkerbot2 help out on this page. Thx in adv Trödel 13:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Public thanks to Joshbuddy, and all blame to Tawker ;) for making the change. The speed of Tawkerbot's corrections is just incredible. When I tested it, by the time the page reloaded and I clicked history - the vandalism had been removed. My test 11:02, 7 April 2006, the correction 11:02, 7 April 2006. This will definately improve the likelihood that newcomers will see a useful page when they click anyone can edit on the main page. Thanks so much to both of these users and good luck to Tawker on his RfA Trödel 11:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

User:ROGNNTUDJUU! indefinitely banned

I have set an indefinite block on ROGNNTUDJUU! (talk · contribs) due to this user's persistently disruptive attitude, obsessive focus on the creation, recreation and defence of inflammatory/divisive (T1-criterion) userboxes, or copies in userspace. Has been combative and unwilling to cooperate in general; if you look at this user's contributions, the sole areas of interaction have more or less only been userbox DRVs, talk pages of his opponents to post rather caustic messages, and the creation of inflammatory userbox or userbox-like devices in both main template space and userspace. This user appears - despite having been informed by myself and others, and indeed this user seems to blank messages from his talk page he doesn't like - to feel that Misplaced Pages is solely a device for political campaigning, and that he has a "right" to do so on Misplaced Pages. Frankly I really don't see why we should waste further time on a user who is clearly of net negative value to the project; thus I feel a "community ban" is best in this scenario. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 13:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

He has about 900 edits, about 150 of which were productive mainspace edits, everything else seems to be political campaigning. Not an impressive ratio. JoshuaZ 14:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur with the above assessments. --Tony Sidaway 14:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Misplaced Pages's newest recruits are, unfortunutely misled in the goals of this fair site. No one owns any part of wikipedia, especially in the point of selfish views and usage. Take that nonsense to MySpace. -Zero 14:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep, yep, yep. His ridiculous whining and wikilawyering above has convinced me that this is necessary. Werdna648/_C\ 14:22, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, he was surprisingly civil to me when he pointed out that I had made an error. He also might be able to "see the light," so to speak. Perhaps an indef is too harsh? He might be able to grasp what Misplaced Pages is for, he just needs some time and patience. As the blocker, Nicholas, it's up to you if you want to grant him that. Is he reformable? —BorgHunter (talk) 14:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

That is a good question, BorgHunter. Initially, I'd have agreed with you, since interactions with other members had been reasonably civil. However, his handling of my attempts to discuss the matter with him were not, and indeed he blanked my messages that I left him on his talk page (replying, admittedly, on my talk page; but it is nonetheless not the sign of one who is willing to improve). It was more my exasperation at trying to tell him his use of Misplaced Pages as a political soapbox was incorrect, and his impolite and uncooperative stance towards attempts to get him to behave, which lead me to ultimately decide there was no other choice than an outright ban. So no, at this time, I would say that the suitable avenues for reform have been well and truly exhausted. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 21:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid, while strongly opposing ROGNNTUDJUU's recent behaviour, I also oppose a cabbalist community ban on him. 150 productive mainspace edits is still 150 productive mainspace edits, and he hasn't necessarily stopped making them to wage a war for userbox campaigning. I think standard temporary blocks for personal attacks and disruption, if necessary, and seeking a ban from userbox-related editing from the ArbCom if that doesn't stop him would be preferable. If we can't find grounds for temporary blocks I can't see why a permanent one is justified. But I don't feel particularly strongly about it, and we do need a clear message that political campaigning is not acceptable. I'm just not sure it should be a swinging corpse. --Sam Blanning 14:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but note that for each of his edits outside the 150 it generates at least 2 other edits on average. from other users trying to deal with him. JoshuaZ 15:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

How about a community ban from creating, editing or deploying userboxes and making inflammatory political statements? This would enable him to function as an editor while making his problematic behavior blockable. --Tony Sidaway 14:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I would support that. JoshuaZ 15:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

::hops on board:: —BorgHunter (talk) 15:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Strong support. I believe he can be made a productive Wikipedian. Misza13 15:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, I support. Keep him away from userboxes, TfD, and DRV, and hopefully he can work on articles and not spend his time inflaming the userbox situation. --Cyde Weys 20:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

It is unclear to me why ROGNNTUDJUU has been banned. The cited behaviour, persistently disruptive attitude, obsessive focus on the creation, recreation and defence of inflammatory/divisive (T1-criterion) userboxes, or copies in userspace, does not seem in-and-of-itself a bannable offense. Could you clarify with some representative edits? If an obsessive focus on userboxes is somehow an offense, who here should 'scape wipping? StrangerInParadise 15:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, I would-I don't have any userboxes on my userpage- and Cyde would become some sort of saint. The real issue here isnt the creation of the userboxes but their persistent recreation and his whining about censorship and refusal to stop wikilawyering. All in all, I think Tony's suggestion is a good one, although I would suggest making that ban maybe not permanent but maybe given a trial a probation 1 month? JoshuaZ 15:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't you think that characterizing his expressions of concern as whining and wikilawyering is somewhat uncivil? StrangerInParadise 15:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

"whining" is uncivil and was probably uneccessary, "wikilawyering" is accurate and I stand by it. JoshuaZ 15:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

A ban for not editing enough in the main space is totally out of place. You may also note that the great majority of the template he ROGNNTUDJUU! created are just nice like "user plays in a band/the bongos/badminton/checkers/reversi/darts" or "enjoys hanggliding/ice skating/inline skating", and many others use them . He has not done anything wrong, he has all the right to express his opinion, and I am quite concerned of the persistent bullying of this user that I already noticed quite a while ago when a template he had created was voted to get deleted by some users in retaliation for him taking the time to ask every single one of them to withdraw a crossed out flag he found respectless. I would also like to point out that NicholasTurnbull who banned ROGNNTUDJUU! had yesterday deleted and blocked a subpage of ROGNNTUDJUU! and after he had been warned and apoligized for this he now seems to use the user block to go on with his bullying. This is unacceptable. De mortuis... 15:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to concur. This seems to be using procedure to silence a vocal member of the "keep" faction of the userbox debates, not because he's violating policies but because his opinions are not shared by older members. I've yet to see specific policies that this user has violated, and nothing that it's even been implied ROGNNTUDJUU! has done warrants an indefinite block. If he 3RRs, or if he is brash and incivil, put temporary blocks on. But this was overkill. I've unblocked this user. JDoorjam Talk 16:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur with BorgHunter's comments, as well as with those of Samuel_Blanning, StrangerInParadise, and De mortuis.... The idea of a ban on userboxes, etc., is better than nothing, but the ban was illicit in the first place (note the wording of the template: "This user has been blocked indefinitely from editing Misplaced Pages, per ruling of administrators, Jimbo Wales, and/or the Arbitration Committee." The nearest to one of thoose is the decision of one admin, which I don't think counts as a "ruling of administrators". Disruption warrants a block of twenty-four hours, increased if the behaviour continues, not a permanent block. If no-one else wants to, I'm happy to lift it. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't support the idea of a "community ban" from playing with userboxes either. This noticeboard is not ArbCom. We have neither the transparency nor the organisation to be throwing creative sentences around. --Sam Blanning 16:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

If you object to the ban because you think it's the wrong solution, that's one thing and I'm fine with it. But don't object to it on some sort of procedural grounds intended to preserve the authority of the Arbitration Committee. The Arbitration Committee is not specially empowered as the only entity allowed to come up with solutions. If the community comes up with a solution and wants to implement it, they don't need the ArbCom to endorse it. The only time that the ArbCom is specially required is when someone needs to be desysoped or debureaucrated, and that's only because of procedural requirements imposed by the stewards on Meta.

The purpose of the ArbCom is to make decisions for the community when the community is unwilling to make them itself. If the community is able to make up its mind without the ArbCom's involvement, great. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to support an indefinite ban, although I would compromise on a shorter ban duration and an injunction against getting involved with userboxes and other wikilawyering. Misplaced Pages is about writing an encyclopedia and some people are gaming us with their MySpacing non-encyclopedic userbox templates. The templates ROGNNTUDJUU! was arguing about were clear violations of Jimbo's T1 policy and did not help the encyclopedia at all; they were simply foolish, stupid, and divisive. We don't need scores of people hanging around questioning the motives of those of us who actually care about writing the damn encyclopedia. And I find it ironic that StrangerInParadise dares show his face in here, because he's on ice just about as thin as ROGNNTUDJUU!'s. And to those of you attacking this block saying that no specific policies were violated ... that's because of the wikilawyering and the gaming of the system. Although I would say that WP:ENC, which is the spirit of the project, was violated. --Cyde Weys 16:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I do not think the community at large has the authority to impose a non-total ban on a user against their will. This is not the Arbitration Committee, and it is for that purpose that we have such a committee. Also, this section looks quite distinctly like a straw poll. That's not how community bans work. They only work when there is 100% unanimity among admins. If any admin is willing to unblock, then there can be no community ban and the matter must go to ArbCom. I for one do not support an indef ban on the back of ROG...'s editing, although he is being tiresome for sure. I certainly do not feel able to support any more creative bans, as I do not consider that admins have the authority so to impose upon an editor. -Splash 16:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I think administrators have, and have always had, the power to indefinitely block accounts whose only purpose is to disrupt the encyclopeda, or which do not contribute to the encyclopedia in any way (there's ample precedent in the case of several users being banned for using Misplaced Pages as a personal file server). ROGNNTUDJUU! could end all of this right now by leaving the templates be and wandering back into the article space. That he persists in disruptive behavior is troubling. What is his purpose here? Mackensen (talk) 16:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

(After two edit conflicts)

The rules state clearly that idefinite blocks shouldn't be applied unless the named account has been used only for disruptive and vandalistic edits (see Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy#Expiry times and application, which this hasn't (as is indicated above). The ban is out of process.

(Incdentally, "ridiculous whining" isn't foul language, unless it has some meaning in a variety of slang that I haven't come across...) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Mackensen, that's not at all what I said. I agree that admins can simply remove nothing-but-trouble users as long as all other admins agree. What I said was, that I don't think we can go imposing 'creative' remedies such as those suggested e.g. limited only to userboxes. If people want to play at arbitration, there is a club they can join. -Splash 16:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

See my comments above about the Arbitration Committee. I fully disagree with the claim that the community lacks such authority, and I urge people to disregard objections to such solutions that are grounded solely in procedural arguments such as the above. Argue against the substance of the proposed remedy, not against the authority of the community to impose it. There is no division of authority on Misplaced Pages: al administrators act on behalf of the community and have the authority to use their powers however is required to serve the needs of the community. The Arbitration Committee's purpose is merely to break deadlocks when it is necessary to do so. Remember, the ArbCom is not your mother. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea why he is here, but shortly after JDoorjam lifted his block he turned up in ANI (see above) and argued against the blocking of a user who spammed over one hundred talk pages, saying that he should've been "warned" first. WTF?!?! It seems like he's just here to argue and rebel against "authority" on Misplaced Pages. --Cyde Weys 16:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually his comment in the other case was made prior to his own block. I don't think he has yet resumed editing since being unblocked. --Tony Sidaway 17:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Last I checked he has not. --Syrthiss 17:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

And many agreed with him, including me. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

That you yourself agree with his argument does not make his actions any less disruptive. --Tony Sidaway 16:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

My objection is not merely procedural. I do not think that a group of admins can impose arbitrary restrictions on an editor. If I must argue against only the substance, rather than the foundation, of the ban, then I would argue that all of the substance is wrong, because of the inherent problems. The community is not arbcom's mother, either, and there are some things that are only usefully settled by the committee -Splash 16:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

It is attitudes like this that (a) let problems fester in the community, sometimes endlessly (because there is "no procedure for dealing with that sort of problem") and (b) overload the Committee by forcing it to deal with problems for which there is an obvious solution but which a handful of dogmatic holdouts in the community prevent from being implemented. Splash, and others who think like him, I ask you to consider whether your doctrinaire attitude against community action to resolve problems like these is in the best interest of Misplaced Pages. You've said that "there are inherent problems" but not identified them. You're not making a substantive argument, beyond "I don't like it, and therefore I will oppose it." If that is the meat of your objection, the community would be well-advised to simply ignore you. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I've been involved in successful community bans on editors in the past and no doubt I shall in the future. You describe the restrictions in this case as "arbitrary" but far from it, they're specially targetted to stop his disruptive activities without interfering with his ability to perform useful edits. --Tony Sidaway 16:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

What is the argument being made here, that if a user has even a single valid edit to the encyclopedia that they cannot be banned indefinitely? That's ridiculous. --Cyde Weys 16:45, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

That an arbitrary restriction of the nature of "a community ban from creating, editing or deploying userboxes and making inflammatory political statements" is not appropriate for the community to impose. In any case, any kind of a "community" ban needs unanimity, and that simply isn't present. -Splash 16:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Normally I can at least see the point of the other side, but in this case, I'm disturbingly in full agreement with the people commonly regarded as hardline boxen deletionists. I see no reason to unblock this user unless he agrees to stop disrupting Misplaced Pages. Let us remember that if your bad contributions outweigh your good contributions, you shouldn't expect much quarter unless you make a good faith effort to improve. I stay away from meta issues these days, but even I've run across this user now and then, and every time I've seen him, he's been stirring up a ruckus. Unless he agrees to stop (or at least try to reduce such incidents) disrupting our operations which (lest we forget) aim to build an encyclopaedia, he shouldn't be permitted anywhere near boxen-space. The community has every right to impose a ban on someone it finds intolerable. The only question now is whether enough people support the ban for it to be tenable. (Community rulings are getting rarer and rarer these days -- an unavoidable effect of having a larger community, which in turn raises the threshold for consensus.) While I personally support the ban and would like to see more "community rulings" in the future, I have a feeling this will end up in front of the arbcom pretty soon. Johnleemk | Talk 16:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Why was ROGNNTUDJUU banned now that he wrote on WP:AN/I, and not before if he really was so disruptive? Lapinmies 17:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Good point. We should've banned him earlier. --Cyde Weys 17:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't need to be done as a ban, entertaining as playing at being an Arbitrator must be. All that is necessary is for ROG... to be made to understand that people are low on patience with him, and view his edits, particularly to userboxes as at best borderline disruptive. If people (admins, that is) decide that he is being disruptive, then they have all the latitude they need to block for e.g. 24hrs, and escalating as appropriate. Clearly, such blocks remain open to review as usual. There is no need to construct this as a ban. It can be done entirely decentralized. Again, if people wish to play at arbitration they should stand in the next elections. I should make clear that I fully agree that he is being a pain and that he needs to stop and that he has not been being constructive. I just don't think that a "hands up, who wants to ban him" approach is right. -Splash 17:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and have expressed the sentiments of Splash's first sentence to ROG. Escalating bans are far more warranted, as is communication with the user about Wiki values and a warning that a block is imminent. If the user still doesn't get it after having this explained (which it now has been), then blocking becomes more appropriate. And perhaps Cyde is right: if ROG's 750 non-mainspace edits have been largely disruptive, why hasn't he been talked to and progressively blocked before? This user could have used lessons in Wiki values and Wikiquette a long time ago. Hopefully ROG can still be made into a productive editor. If he can't, well, that's too bad and he'll end up banned. But let's at least give it a bit of a shot. JDoorjam Talk 17:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Strange that you say "why hasn't he been talked to and progressively blocked before?" Well he hasn't been blocked before, but looking at his talk page I see plenty of evidence that other editors have complained to him about his disruptive behavior with respect to userboxes. If he wasn't blocked before, perhaps he should have been, but that's no reason not to deal with the problem now. He must be aware by now that his trollish actions are not welcome here. --Tony Sidaway 19:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Still waiting for someone to post an example of edits so disruptive they merit a blockage of any sort. StrangerInParadise 00:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

In the meantime, I'm waiting for you to look further down the page. Your answer lies there. Granted, you've never understood why sockpuppetry is frowned upon. Mackensen (talk) 01:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

everybody need a second chance

Maybe he need a second chance. What do you think? However I support a second chance if possible. StabiloBoss 19:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Personal and private information added to pimp by Csbanks (talk · contribs) and Lildev92 (talk · contribs)

Today I reverted some very interesting vandalism committed by two young users having some fun on the pimp article. Normally, such innane nonsense would be no problem, but it contained personal phone numbers, real names, and an IP address that let me know exactly from where they were editing (a high school in Oregon. I deleted the article and restored in sans bad stuff (admin may want to take a look at the last ten or so entries), and blocked the two accounts for vandalism and adding personal information. All standard stuff.

It gets interesting here: always looking for a way to impress upon youths the need for privacy on the Internet, I looked up the number for the originating high school, spoke with the asst. principal, informed him that he had some students who needed to be educated as to the recklessness of their actions, and gave him all of the information (names, phone numbers, deduced ages). He was very grateful. :) – ClockworkSoul 16:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the story, ClockworkSoul :-) --HappyCamper 17:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I've always wanted to do that, too. They made it so easy. :) – ClockworkSoul 17:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I've restored all remaining 300~ versions bar the Lildev and Csbanks. (This isn't my first meeting with 13yo pimps on 'pedia before, either) Sceptre 17:39, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I had already restored all of the non-anon ones. I had already restored all of the non-anon ones, but it's definitely better to have the history. Also, note thae one of the most recent anons was the same kids, and it also inserted a phone number. That reminds me, we need a way to delete individual edits without having to delete the page and restore all X "good" edits. – ClockworkSoul 17:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Deleted. In the mean time, you should get the check all bookmarklet. Godsend :D Sceptre 17:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I should: that's a good start. The problem with that is by "checking all" and unchecking the ones you know are bad, one may inadvertently restore previously-deleted edits. Oh, well: to be brought up in another time and place. :) – ClockworkSoul 17:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

See also the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Deleting attacks in edit summaries. A technique is described which will remove the offending edit from the edit history entirely. -Will Beback 18:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

FYI: Some American school administrators are highly fearful of "the Internets" and are likely to use a complaint as an excuse to work out their phobias upon some hapless student. In the land of "zero tolerance" (== "nonzero cruelty") policies, it might not be such a great idea to turn over personal information to school officials. --FOo 05:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

True, but that isn't in the jurisdiction of the Wiki to decide. --HappyCamper 17:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Miskin

] ] Uncivil intervention on constructive editing in İzmir page by a Greek user and myself. In his wrath on all things Turkic, he also erased contributions made by yet another Greek user (see: last edit for the page). The man is a disaster zone. Marked down for 3RR last week. --Cretanforever 16:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Giati epitithesai amesws? perimene na deis pws tha xeiristo to thema. Kai min les 'a compromise between two users...blablabla hiding the truth'...den sumvivastika se tipota akoma! xereis polu kala ta edits pou exw kanei se diafora arthra, kai to mono pou den na me katigoriseis einai oti kruvw tin alitheia! Se ligo na deis to grammatokivwtio sou. kati tha exeis mesa --Hectorian 16:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Re sy den apeuthinomoun se sena otan elega auta, s'emena kai se auton apeuthinomoun (peri symbibasmous klp). Ok, opos nomizeis, se afino na to analabeis, ego tha kano ta reverts. Me exei thimosei omos epeidi blepeis poso diprosopos einai. Na anaferoume tis sfages tous apla prospathoume, oxi n'allaksoume to thema tou arthrou. Miskin 19:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Dwse mou eikositesseris wres, kai an den kataferw kati, analamvaneis esy. ok? --Hectorian 20:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This is the English Misplaced Pages. Please communicate in English on the WP:ANI page, you can communicate in other languages in your own Talk pages. User:Zoe| 18:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Prasi90

Consolidating this on WP:AN as suggested. --Tony Sidaway 20:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism by User:Kenwood 3000

Kenwood_3000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in a persistent pattern of vandalism against the Brand X article and albums released by Brand X. He has consistently attempted to insert nonsensical and untruthful information about the members of Brand X, including creating hoax articles at Ian Hart-Stein and Adeji Abeyowa. The sole reference I've been able to find about "Ian Hart-Stein" comes from a page at rockcrypt.com, which is a user-editable band site. User:Samuel Blanning banned him for 24 hours on April 4, but now that the ban is up, Kenwood 3000 is back at it. --Elkman - 20:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked him as a vandalism-only account. --Sam Blanning 20:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

User:ROGNNTUDJUU! is a sock of User:De mortuis...

De_mortuis... (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is the same user as ROGNNTUDJUU! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), per checkuser tracking by me and Kelly Martin (to doublecheck). He's been attempting to show fake consensus and being thoroughly disruptive. I've blocked the sock indefinitely and De mortuis... 48 hours - David Gerard 21:22, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Which is the sock and which is the master is never very clear, but yes, these two are one hand in two different gloves. And they talk to one another like they're not. Kelly Martin (talk) 21:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

For the origins of the names, see Gaston Lagaffe#The office co-workers and De mortuis nil nisi bonum - David Gerard 21:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

More evidence of disruption. · Katefan0/poll 21:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd call ROGNNTUDJUU! the master and De mortuis... the sock by virtue of the fact that ROGNNTUDJUU! is four days older. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I suppose both could be blocked indefinitely ;-p But at this stage, 48 hours is enough to give him thinking time IMO - David Gerard 22:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I still strongly suspect that both are socks of an as-yet-unrevealed sockmaster. There's lots of rocks I haven't yet turned over. Kelly Martin (talk) 22:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should check who used the userboxes that were created. That could give us a shortlist of who it may be. Werdna648/_C\ 16:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Given this, presumably all issues of whether to give ROGNNTUDJUU! an indefinite ban now shift over to De Mortuis, with the added hit of having a highly unpleasant sock. JoshuaZ 21:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Assume Good Faith until it's ridiculous to. If another new user suddenly shows up advocating the same stuff and the same userboxes, suspicion will be raised, and De Mortuis' slack has quite definitely run out - David Gerard 22:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Geez, it seems like everyone on the "keep" side of the userbox debates is a sockpuppet. I can't say I'm surprised. I'm just wondering who StrangerInParadise is a sock of. He's already admitted to it, he just won't say whose. With this in mind I think we really need to pay close attention to the likes of DRVs, TFDs, and policy polls. There are a lot of people out there trying to game the system and destroy Misplaced Pages by moving it away from encyclopedia and towards MySpace. By the way, I would support an indefinite ban on both of these users. Running two users concurrently to give the appearance of there being multiple people when there's really just one is way beyond the bounds of what's acceptable. --Cyde Weys 22:39, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, I must be a sockpuppet then. I never noticed before. Angr (talk • contribs) 22:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

You're an admin. I obviously wasn't implicating admins in that statement. --Cyde Weys 23:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Everyside of the UB debate had some puppetry involved, or shady deals, so one side is solely not to blame for everything. However, regardless of the eventual outcome, the debate has brought out some of the best and some of the worst of what Misplaced Pages has seen in the past few months. User:Zscout370 23:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell it's calming down now, and people are getting thwapped for being stupid and/or obnoxious rather than because it involves a userbox. Which is probably better, really - David Gerard 08:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

What? Admins aren't above suspicion just because a local majority decided to give them some extra buttons. I know I'm not. --Sam Blanning 09:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Robert Lindsay

Someone please take a glance at User:Robert Lindsay's user page; my inclination is just to ban him and blank it for general obnoxiousness, but perhaps I'm oversensitive. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆

• The founder of Ziopedia is a sleazy porn merchant named Jimbo Wales. Jimbo has deep links with powerful US militant Jewish interests. He is also a passionate Zionist. The vast majority of Wiki admins, arbitrators and top staff are also Zionists and Judeophilic. Charming. I've no objection really. I suppose folks prefer that this sort get a warning these days, but I doubt it would do any good. Mackensen (talk) 23:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

If you look at his edits they all consist of a bunch of POV edits to articles related to Israel. Combine that with his userpage and it's quite obvious why he's here. I think a ban would be in order. --Cyde Weys 23:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

He's now been blocked indefinitely (just thought it should be logged here). --Cyde Weys 23:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• yeah, the more I looked, the less I saw to stop me. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 23:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Pegasus1138 ---- 01:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales runs this fruadulent website with an iron fist - too bad that's not true.  :) User:Zoe| 18:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

please help: user out of control

Dear admins, if one of you could please check out User:Billcica and what he has done in the past 24 hours, including vandalizing pages with POV, vandalizing user pages, and modifying other users' comments on his talk page, I would really appreciate it. Another user has contacted User:NicholasTurnbull regarding this matter; please see his talk page for more information regarding the incidents. Thank you for your attention and (hopefully) quick blockage of this user. --Romarin 00:25, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

He does seem to be editing women's rights articles with a decidedly anti-woman POV ... Cyde Weys 00:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but I wouldn't call any of it "vandalism". This is a new user who doesn't understand our core policies here, but who's made some constructive edits, and probably has potential. -GTBacchus 00:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt response. However, I would urge you to look at what this user has done to his talk page, and to look more in-depth into what he has done to the talk page of User:IronChris. If these don't constitute as vandalism, I don't know what does. Also, if you will look in his talk page history (it is no longer on his talk page since he deleted all complaints that were posted against him) you will see that I responded to his original posts in a friendly manner, especially since I saw that it was his first day on Misplaced Pages. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and he came back with blatant personal attacks and user page vandalism. Please give this another consideration. Thank you. --Romarin 00:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I see no constructive edits among the sexist, POV edits. I also speedied an article he created, Weekly Musician which was just an ad to a website. He is also very insulting, calling me and Romarin hypocrites, biased and narrow-minded. He deleted all the messages that were posted to him giving him advice on how to make wiser contributions (see the history of his talk page), I'm pretty sure he didn't even read them as the deletion occurred just seconds after I posted my last message. I wrote to Nicholas Turnbull to ask for advice, you may see a longer description of the problem on his talk page. The latest contribution of User:Billcica was to belittle and make fun of Romarin on his talk page by making a collage of several of her sentences, which are quite insulting when removed from context. He also deleted parts of the messages on my talk page. These personal attacks cannot be tolerated as per WP:NPA. Regards, --IronChris 01:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

A big Thank You to admin Nicholas Turnbull for taking the innitiative and blocking this user. Thank you for taking the time to look things over carefully enough to see the extent of this user's vandalism and personal attacks. Much appreciation. --Romarin 01:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Amorrow sock puppet?

Iheartdrann (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) suspicious edits. , , and FloNight 00:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Can this article be speedy delete instead of Afd. Started by Iheartdrann Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Holly Tannen --FloNight 00:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Done, but too tired to work out how to close this properly. Can some friendly admin do it for me please? And thanks, FloNight. AnnH ♫ 01:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Closed. -GTBacchus 01:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Cookamunga

Cookamunga (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) I have blocked this user for 24 hours for vandalism/nonsense edit summaries/disruption. (Please see also deletions: Template:PantsText and Category:Articles containing Pants). I think there's a good case for an indef. block as a disruption-only account (he also seems to have found his way around remarkably well for a newbie). Please review and extend if necessary. --kingboyk 01:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I blocked it indefinitely as a vandal/harassment account. Antandrus (talk) 01:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, up to no good. -Will Beback 08:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Death threat?

24.171.16.151 (talk · contribs) posted this; looks like a bit too close to a death threat to me. What is the best course of action here? Guettarda 02:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to have a lot of constructive edits in the first place... --InShaneee 02:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any threat here. However, I agree with InShaneee, and this IP has been previously blocked several time sfor violating 3RR on Aryan Nation-related articles. --Golbez 02:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Since it's not a shared IP, I went ahead and put on an indef block. This stuff is un-called for. And yes, it is a death threat, here's the quote: "Look you need to stop harrassing me, if you have a problem with the Aryan Nations you state it but if you are a friend or follower of this williams fraud you will reap the same demise." --Cyde Weys 03:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I just blocked him for a week while we all figured out what to do. But I don't disagree with an indef block since it seems to be a static IP; I'll rescind the shorter block and reapply Cyde's. · Katefan0/poll

He is definitely a problem on the Jonathan Williams AfD as well. Apparently there was a split in the Aryan Nations when somebody important died, and 24 thinks Williams is not a "Real" Aryan Nations pastor. Its astonishing that he would be resorting to this since the AfD is actually going his way, despite the massive sockpuppetry. A short ban for incivility and disruption was warranted anyway. Indef is too long for a first offense, though. AGF that he will learn from the experience. Thatcher131 04:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that a death threat, even a vague one, is so poisonous that it requires an indef block. Guettarda 11:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately it's not his first offense; he's been causing trouble across multiple articles for a couple of weeks now. · Katefan0/poll 16:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:POINT AfDs by Dhanks

Dhanks (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in a series of revenge AfDs on articles started by people who voted delete for his article Enterprise Audit Shell. This is after he engaged in a series of reversions of the AfD tag on his article. He has added AfD tags to Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, Sprint William W. Hoppin and a few others. JoshuaZ 04:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

He has also engaged in general attacks on "ignorant" Misplaced Pages editors which he has repeatedly reverted back into the top of the Enterprise Audit Shell article. JoshuaZ 04:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• I added the aFDs because I felt the articles didn't meet the WD standards. If you feel they meet the standard, please use the discussion to prove why it should not be deleted. Dhanks 05:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

People aren't concerned with your feelings. They are interested in your arguments (if you have any). As is clearly explained here and on related pages, anyone nominating an article for deletion must say which standard(s) they believe that article fails to meet. If you don't follow through after adding AfD templates, these additions are likely to be viewed as pointlessly disruptive. -- Hoary 05:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• I'm new to adding aFDs so excuse me if I didn't complete the process fully. I will add my reason next time. Dhanks 05:26, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • WP:AGF The AfD process is quite tricky the first time, as I can attest from personal experience. It may help to open multiple browser windows or tabs, such as in Firefox, so you can have the instructions available while you are working on the process. Thatcher131 05:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I am going to remove the incomplete AfD templates from the articles per WP:SNOWBALL that they would actually get deleted following a legitimate AfD discussion. However, if yoeu wish to renominate them, carefully follow the procedure. Thanks. Thatcher131 05:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• As of late the user in question has added some templates to the page which I would find as a reasonable compromise. If the AFD vote should result in deletion, I would hope that Dhanks would abide by that decision. I would have no problem with Dhanks adding a brief paragraph mentioning Enterprise Open Shell as a fork of sudosh on that article's page. I think it is more likely at this time that a user of sudosh, the current established product, would enter the query sudossh to find more information about enhancements, future versions, or information on competing products. Since Open Enterprise Shell claims to be sudosh version 2.0, in the interiem it should be best that it stay in the sudosh article. If in the future various open source unixish distros decide to include open enterprise shell, it then should get its own page in a more abbreviated form than it is now. Personally I think that Dhanks energy should be promoting his fork of sudossh to be included as a package with various unix/bsd distributions which would be greatly more important to his market share than a mere wikipedia article. Bige1977 07:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Deuterium

This user's userpage, , is basically just an attack on group of editors that he has a problem with. I think this is rather inappropriate. Also this user has twice placed this propaganda website in the The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy article. I think he may just be unfamilar with wikiquette so I think he should just recieve a warning, but since I have been involved in a conflict with him I'm sure I would appear to have ulterior motives if I warned him.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 07:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Heh. Only the vandals and the admins try to use policy, and he's certainly no admin. But Jayjg was perfectly justified in using WP:RS to delete the blog link, so I can't see what Deut's real problem is Sceptre 11:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

24.68.240.0/24

I've blocked the 24.68.240.0/24 range for a week as checkuser reveals it was being used exclusively by Lightbringer sockpuppets. Hopefully, this will bring us some rest from the constant sockpuppetry, but I'm not going to hold my breath. In the meantime, if there are any reports of collateral damage, please unblock, and let me know so I can investigate. Essjay 09:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

User:ManiF

I've just received this message on my Talk page. As I'm involved in a dispute with User:ManiF, I don't want to get involved with this, but a quick investigation indicates that there is some substance to the complaint (note, on the other hand, that there are also editors who are engaged in the opposite abuse: trying to insist that Persians were actually Arabs... see Al-Karaji, for example). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Mel Etitis,

I want to report the fanatical patriotism behaviour of a user User:ManiF. The following are only recent examples.

Geber, although he was born in Iran(part of the arab empire at that time), his ethnicity is with most certainity arab: Columbia Encyclopedia , Ancients & Alchemists , Britannica Encyclopedia, Encarta Encyclopedia .

In the articles, where his ethnicity is not important, In good faith I removed info regarding his arab ethnicity, but this user inserted "Iranian-born" infront of his name to make the impression that he was Iranian.

• Hydrochloric acid
• Sulfuric acid
• Citric acid
• Alembic
• Alchemy - he removed Geber (arab) and replaced him by al-Razi(persian), although all discovires muriatic, sulfuric, and nitric acids, soda, potash) described were done by Geber.

• List of Arab scientists and scholars - wanted to rename List of Arab scientists and scholars to List of Muslim scientists and scholars, although ofcourse the List of Iranian scientists should stay. (I was blocked 24H because of this).

If I am wrong on this than please let me know. If not, then I ask you please to do what ever in your hands is to stop the fanatical patritiosm of this user, which is a threat to the success and credibality of Misplaced Pages.

Thank You. Jidan 11:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

There is no substance to this "complaint". I've not violated any policy either, and nor would I take any action that is not in conformity with Misplaced Pages rules and regulations. User:Jidan on the other hand, has been breaking wikipedia rules regularly (3RR, sockpuppetry, false accusations, personal attacks as per above), and the one who originally removed the term "Iranian-born" from those articles despite the fact that Gaber, regardless of his Arab ethenicty which is itself disputed by contradictory sources , was infact Iranian-born, born in the city of Tus, according to all the sources. I just restored the term. --ManiF 11:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

As someone who has interacted with both User:ManiF and User:Jidan (and several other) over long period of time at Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, and having looked over several of their other disputes, I can say that there is some thruth to Jidan's accusation, but that it applies to himself as well. Both (and several others) are using Misplaced Pages as a battleground, and in their little nationalistic war over the etnicity of several ancient scienetist have caused/are causing a signifinct amount of "collateral damage" to the articles they edit. I find this such a problem that I'm, as a third party, seriously considering starting a RfC or even arbitration against them. —Ruud 18:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I heartily agree with Ruud, and would be more than happy to support any wide action to settle this ethnic war. While I do agree that Jidan's concerns are not without merit, suffice it to say, speaking as someone who's been investigating this entire matter for some time now, Mani is easily the best of these users. A cursory look at what's been going on here and at a variety of related pages shows a broad spectrum of personal attacks, ethnic slurs, and ingnorant head-butting galore. While I certainly hope some other users/admins do look into the above topics, I firmly believe that only a case that looks at the situation as a whole, and all those involved in it, will end this fighting with some permanency. --InShaneee 19:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

There's currently an RfAr against User:Aucaman, instigated by ManiF and friends, which will go to the heart of the matter. It has been my suggestion for a while to widen that case to the whole Iranian group (at least User:Zmmz, User:Khashayar Karimi and User:ManiF). I'm not sure if all their opponents should also be collected in the same case. We're dealing with one central faction of Iranian editors here, but they battle on several fronts with several other groups (perceived as representing Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic and Jewish POVs against their monolithic Iranian national POV). Lukas 22:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, there is currently an ArbCom case involving me, as a concerned user, and user Aucaman who was reported for disruptiveness. Lukas, please refrain from constantly tagging me, or perhaps others as some sort of a gang, or nationalists etc. It is considered uncivil, so take time and please review Misplaced Pages:Civility. The mob you speak of does not exit; but, sporadic editors, concerned with a few unreasonable users, do. You yourself are involved in other fractions with other users in other articles, yet, I do not feel it is appropriate for to comment on it. However please know that, constant finger pointing, and accusations to take attention away from some users who operate more on a political platform, rather than academia is not looked upon kindly by most admins. Refrain from making frivolous allegations and allow the system to investigate the ArbCom case properly. Zmmz 22:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Rather than a 'concerned user', the arbitrators have actually said they are accepting the case to view your behavior, as well. And speaking as an admin, I don't see anything wrong with Lukas' concern; after all, you have been blocked more than once in the past concerning the aforementioned issues. --InShaneee 22:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I did initiate the case as a concerned user, and the committee did accept to review my contributions as well, which is welcomed, and frankly fair. I was blocked once for a few minutes for Wikistalking, which was a misunderstanding from my part, since I had left a comment in the talk page of a certain user, requesting help from an admin, yet, you then unblocked me minutes later. And, in the beginning, I was blocked for the 3RR, as well. None of these, however, were blatant attempts to manipulate the system, rather they can be attributed to inexperience with Wiki policies. As some of the admins may attest, I have tried very hard to compromise with numerous editorszmmz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Considering the kinds of edit warring and ethnically motivated personal attacks I've seen lately, I'm not entirely sure we aren't dealing with multiple groups here. Thusly, I do think that both sides of the issue should be put together in one case; it might take some time to sort out, but it would present a more balanced view of the issue, and have the advantage of being able to address innapropriate practices on both sides all at once. --InShaneee 22:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

User:132.241.246.111 disruption

The user, a suspected sockpuppet of User:Grazon according to the talk page, has made a lot of edits in the last couple of days (I haven't looked back further yet), virually every one of which has been reverted or should be reverted (I'm working my way back through the contributions list). Most of the edits are removals of conservative external links with no explanation, but a few are subtle vandalism, changing one character in a URL to link to a different, unrelated article. -- Donald Albury 12:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

He's still at it, deleting the external links I reverted back in this morning. Except for the blatant vandalism he ocassionally commits, I'm not going to edit-war with him. He is on a campaign to remove any external links to NewsMax.com, and has now vandalized NewsMax.com twice today. -- Donald Albury 01:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Swatjester disruption

I'd like an opinion on this. Not sure what to call it. Could be gaming, trolling, general disruption, or nothing at all: Talk:Pro-choice#Problem_with_Formatting Pro-choice history Immediately after Swatjester ran up against the 3RR wall, Freakofnurture jumped in. Then, I left a talk-page message that did not get a response, nor was the revert undone: User_talk:Freakofnurture#Pro-Choice_revert

At the same time, Zoe made a citation request and content deletion ("rm nonsense") to the Anal Cunt article that I provided cleanup assistance to moments earlier. Zoe has no history of ever editing this article. I have since provided the citations and rewritten the content because the quotes didn't match exactly. Despite Zoe's Anal Cunt expertise, however, no citation request was placed on a nearly identical paragraph that appears in Seth Putnam's article (which I have not edited), where Zoe also has no history editing the article.--Pro-Lick 13:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You'll notice that, since you provided a citation on the article I put the fact tag on, I have not edited that article again. I didn't read the Seth Putnam article, so I didn't put the tag there. Are you saying that you don't need to provide citations for your allegations? I do see that you're trying to make backhanded claims of sockuppetry, but seeing as you have disagreements with just about everybody around here, everybody can't be sockpuppets of just one person. Maybe you could learn how to edit constructively instead of continuing to heap abuse and innuendo on people, then you wouldn't have so many people reviewing what you're doing. User:Zoe| 19:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Block of User:MonMan

MonMan was suggested as a sockpuppet of me by User:Mais oui! (a user that disagrees with me). It was proposed on Misplaced Pages:Requests for CheckUser on 08:47, 7 April 2006 and blocked indefinitely a mere 4 hours later at 12:51, 7 April 2006 by User:JzG (an admin who supports Mais oui!s PoV). There has been no evidence produced and no evidence asked of either myself or MonMan. This is clearly a malicious block and should be reversed as soon as possible. Owain (talk) 14:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Is MonMan actually a sockpuppet of yours, or do you refute the claim? CheckUser evidence is not open to the general public anyway. —BorgHunter (talk) 14:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The discussion is here; he refutes the claim, asserting MonMan is a friend but a different person. Essjay says meatpuppetry rather than sockpuppetry cannot be ruled out. Angr (talk • contribs) 14:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Why has the sockpuppet MonMan (talk · contribs) been blocked, but the sockpuppeteer Owain (talk · contribs) has not? Kind of a waste of everybody's time if we uncover sockpuppetry, but then do nothing about it? What kind of message does that send to the massed ranks of vandals?--Mais oui! 15:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

As Owain strongly denies the allegation put before him, I think there should be no further action taken until all sides have been fairly heard and all evidence and discussion has been seen. Blocking a 'sock' only 4 hours after it was alleged to be one and not giving its supposed user a chance to respond or defend himself strikes me as a very unfair and one-sidedt action, and a breach of admin powers. Mais oui! has had numerous content disputes with Owain and his characterisation of events should be acknowldged to be somewhat one-sided. Sysops, on the other hands, should be at pains to be even-handed, and this has not, so far as I can see, been the case with the blocking of MonMan. Stringops 16:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I must admit too, I would have looked better if the block had been applied by a third-party admin; given his past history with Owain, JzG should have recused himself and referred it to a third opinion. Can anyone suggest a way in which Owain and MonMan could prove they were different users, to the satisfaction of everybody involved? Does there exist a prescribed method that can be used? Aquilina 16:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I am concerned about Mais oui's intent to have both accounts blocked. Even if it is a true case of sockpuppets don't we usually allow one account to edit if it does so productively? I also wonder in general, if 2 friends both edit wikipedia and have similar interests, what's wrong with that? It is certainly a problem if they coordinate their activities to be intentionally disruptive, how can one fairly distinguish between coordinate disruption and simply a case of similar interests (especially when the editor they are in conflict with pushes for them both to be banned). Thatcher131 16:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC) withdrawn Thatcher131 02:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Not being involved with the conflict, I think this could certianly be the case. I'm afraid that while I do trust JzG's judgement often, I don't see this as cut and dried as him and Mais oui feel it is. If there was meatpuppeting going on, one vote isn't going to swamp many discussions here on Misplaced Pages. Both accounts have a long history at Misplaced Pages, so its not like someone was recruited just for that vote. So, in this administrator's opinion we should unblock MonMan. If there really is disruption planned from some collusion we can always reblock. --Syrthiss 18:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Only just seen this has make ANI. I am conserned by the block on User:MonMan as I believe we should AGF and take Owain at face value on this; i.e. MonMan is a friend, but not a sockpuppet. The checkuser was not fully conclusive. I also agree with Thatcher131, and request that a third-party admin looks at this block. See also this on my talk page. Thanks, Petros471 17:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• MonMan has only 30 or so edits but Owain has over 4000 and has been a wikipedian for 2-1/2 years. I suppose it's possible that Owain created a sock account or recruited his friend for the specific purpose of defeating Mais oui in a vote on renaming UK counties. It's certainly not typical puppetmaster behavior, though. Thatcher131 18:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC) withdrawn Thatcher131 02:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• While he only has 30 or so edits, his account was created ~mid 2005. Thats a lot of forward thinking for a puppetmaster or meat recruiter. --Syrthiss 19:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments after further analysis I withdraw my defense of MonMan (talk · contribs). See below at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Block of Owain (talk • contribs) Thatcher131 02:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Haham hanuka

Although he is blocked, user Haham hanuka keeps on evading his block from various IPs. I suggest banning him for a much longer time now, or indefinitely as the Hebrew Misplaced Pages has done, because clearly this user does not care about our conventions. He hardly makes a constructive contribution and mostly disrupts. He is very time consuming, time that we all could spend differently here. I have left a request at WP:RFCU. I hope we can change our muddling through method to a root approach this time. gidonb 15:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Poche1

• User:Poche1 has been continually removing comments from his talk page that are germane to an ongoing User Conduct RfC, he's been warned multiple times, but simply doesn't listen to me. Note that he's also a suspected sockpuppet. pm_shef 15:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I also believe that he's a sock, and I'm watching him. FWIW I'd suggest you trying to minimize contact with him, since the vaughan-socks/meats/whatever seem very polarized by you... It might reduce your personal stress as well. --Syrthiss 18:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Another across-the-pond spelling crusader (Erebus555)

Would someone else see if they can stop Erebus555 from making wholesale changes from American to British spelling (meter to metre and story to storey) in articles on structures in the U.S.? See Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#National varieties of English. I left him a message, as did EurekaLott, but he continues to make changes a the rate of more than one per minute. -- DS1953 16:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

(combined two concurrently written and intimately related threads — Apr. 7, '06 <freakofnur_xture|talk>)

I've blocked Erebus555 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) for 24 hours for making numerous apparently automated/semi-automated edits like these:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=BellSouth_Building_%28Nashville%29&diff=prev&oldid=47419291
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=AmSouth_Center_%28Nashville%29&diff=prev&oldid=47419266
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Riverside_Plaza&diff=prev&oldid=47419250
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Rand_Tower&diff=prev&oldid=47419238
• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=J.P._Morgan_Chase_Tower%2C_Dallas&diff=prev&oldid=47413172
• etc., etc.

After specifically being cautioned not to, here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Erebus555#Monadnock_Building_and_other_American_buildings

However, I noticed that he has apparently been using identical edit summaries for performing a set of otherwise unrelated edits, such as this:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Minneapolis_City_Hall&diff=prev&oldid=47419201

In earlier edits (identified as "using AWB") he has used an identical edit summary for edits such as this:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=900_North_Michigan&diff=prev&oldid=46605759

Where he adds a new paragraph of text (good), and this:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Federal_Reserve_Bank_Building&diff=prev&oldid=46599414

Where he changes from "meter" to "metre" in an article about a building in Boston, Massachusetts (very bad). Also, this edit, amidst his more recent edits to U.S. buildings articles, he curiously makes this edit with a deceptive summary, where he unicodifies the &sup3; and &cent; entities (arguably good):

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Minneapolis_City_Hall&diff=prev&oldid=47419201

I saw from the title that this was an American building, making the change described in the edit summary an inappropriate one, so I reverted the edit, but I looked at the diff and saw that he clearly brought that error on himself.

Somebody more bored than myself should look through all of his edits and make whatever changes (or un-changes) are appropriate on a case-by-case basis. People take offense to being called "bots" no matter how similarly to a bot they act in terms of functionality and responsiveness. "Cyborg" maybe? Fuck, I don't really know. I do know that use of automated tools for MoS (and/or personal agenda) pushing needs to cease and desist, because people either don't pay attention to what they're doing, or they simply don't care. — Apr. 7, '06 <freakofnur_xture|talk>

It's the British vandal! --Cyde Weys 16:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I looked over some of his edits and they were very, very characteristic of someone using AWB, but with a changed edit summary to not reflect that fact. I revoked his AWB privileges on the AWB Check Page since he obviously cannot be trusted with it. --Cyde Weys 17:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

He seems to be apologetic on his talk page and an inspection of his history shows a bunch of other good edits using AWB, so I'm not sure what to do at this point. Maybe we should leave it up to the person in charge of the AWB CheckPage? Anyway, I think this user should have a sanction levied against him: all edits made using AWB must reflect that fact in the edit summary. --Cyde Weys 17:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll go you one further, and say that his edit summaries must reflect the actual change(s) being made, to avoid "ha ha, fooled ya" false positives in rolling back his edits, as seen in cases above. — Apr. 7, '06 <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Yes, please let's assume good faith here. He has been advised of the appropriate style guidelines. He has acknowledged his actions may have been inappropriate on his talk page and offered to revert them. He also seems to have many other good edits. Characterising him as the British Vandal is entirely inappropriate. I think his AWB access should be restored to assist him in his reversion. In the absence of objections here I will restore it shortly. Let's not whack people unnecessarily. --Cactus.man ✍ 17:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, if he has agreed not to make more of these kinds of edits, yes, go ahead and unblock for the time being, and he can participate in this discussion. I would hold off on restoring his "AWB" privileges as he has used the tool for inappropriate edits, and because his edit vague edit summaries make it very tedious to determine which edits are which. Being able to do this is an especially critical concern so many edits are performed so rapidly. — Apr. 7, '06 <freakofnur_xture|talk>

And because we're not even done cleaning up the current situation yet. — Apr. 7, '06 <freakofnur_xture|talk>

I was also under the impression that AWB always included "using AWB" as part of its edit summary. I don't believe it is configurable to not display that...so removing his awb privleges may / may not prevent excesses / repairs. --Syrthiss 17:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I just downloaded the latest version of AWB and confirmed that it no longer forces the "using AWB" tag in the edit summary. I don't know why this would be :-/ Cyde Weys 17:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

That's correct, the default edit summary can be overridden. But let's not lose sight of the point here. This appears to be a genuine misunderstanding by a good faith user. Nothing to see here, move along etc. --Cactus.man ✍ 17:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Another note, he was warned about this by User:DS1953 at 15:22, April 7, 2006, and he continued making the edits until 15:50, April 7, 2006 (28 minutes later), at which time I blocked him. — Apr. 7, '06 <freakofnur_xture|talk>

<edit conflict>OK, I have unblocked him as freakofnurture acknowledged. I will leave a note on his talk page suggesting that he undoes the inappropriate edits he has done with AWB, reviews the relevant guidelines again and exercises caution in the future. Access to AWB would help him achieve that, so what is the current thinking? --Cactus.man ✍ 18:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Erebus555 has e-mailed me confirming that he'll work his way through his edits to undo any damage he's caused. This is a good faith user who made a genuine mistake so I'm going to restore his AWB access to help him get this done. --Cactus.man ✍ 06:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Block of Owain (talk · contribs)

Why has the sockpuppet - MonMan (talk · contribs) - been blocked, but the sockpuppeteer - Owain (talk · contribs) - has not? Kind of a waste of everybody's time if we uncover sockpuppetry, but then do nothing about it? What kind of message does that send to the massed ranks of vandals?--Mais oui! 15:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

1. Do you need to put this on both ANI and AN (sorry... its above here, I knew I had seen it at least one other place)?
2. The RFCU response was likely, tho meatpuppetry wasn't ruled out.
3. There was at least one objection on AN

--Syrthiss 16:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• We are also still discussing this above at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Block of User:MonMan, where you also posted this comment. Why are you so anxious to block both accounts? Thatcher131 16:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC) withdrawn Thatcher131 02:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

If you had just uncovered a sockpuppeteer would you not wonder why the sockpuppet was banned, but not the pupeteer? It just seems very, very odd, considering what a menace sockpuppets are. I note that you have not answered my question. --Mais oui! 17:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The next time Owain is losing a vote, is it OK if he "asks his friend" to sit down in front of his computer, log in, and support his agenda? No? Yes? I'm honestly asking this as a question, not rhetorically, because as you have left it, anyone can log in under a different account, vote and comment and edit away in their own favour, and then when uncovered walk away totally without even a rebuke. Totally unbelievable! --Mais oui! 17:26, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If the two accounts were coming from the same computer then the Checkuser evidence would not have been "difficult to determine". I notice you have done some vote recruiting of your own. Assuming that Owain and MonMan really are two different people, how is what they did different from what you did? Thatcher131 18:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC) withdrawn Thatcher131 02:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The massive differences are:

• these people are not me, and have no connection to me other than being Scottish Wikipedians
• these notices are open, public and above-the-board, and standard Misplaced Pages practice

Sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry are the opposite. The MonMan account is only used as a back-up to Owain's agenda - just have a look at the impressive accounts of those other Wikipedians I messaged. --Mais oui! 20:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

"these people are not me". How is that a difference? MonMan is not me either! You should not be talking about above-the-board Misplaced Pages practices, given that this debate was started because of your unilateral moving of a page and then deliberatedly editing the redirect so it could not simply be moved back. Your derogotary treatment of MonMan is completely without substance - just because he agrees with me and disagrees with you he is categorised as "the MonMan account" and his edits are "only used to back up my agenda". It is also telling that an admin who shares *your* agenda had MonMan blocked within four hours of the initial request, with no evidence requested, in the middle of the night US-time so he could not defend himself. I have offered on my user page to have an admin give us both a telephone call to prove we are different people. If every friend I have is automatically blocked as a sockpuppet or meatpuppet after making so few edits then that is not a very friendly introduction to Misplaced Pages is it? Owain (talk) 08:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments after further analysis I withdraw my defense of MonMan (talk · contribs) and agree that he is a likely sockpuppet of Owain (talk · contribs). I believe it is possible for two people to know each other off wiki and have the same interests without being meat or sockpuppets. However, I am no longer prepared to defend Owain (talk · contribs) and MonMan (talk · contribs). MonMan's first edit back in July, 2005 was to a talk page to support Owain's argument about traditional naming of UK counties . Of MonMan's 30-some edits, the only edit to an article that Owain has never edited was to list Newport as a sister city of Kutaisi . MonMan appears to back Owain up in contentious discussions such as . He cast a vote alongside Owain here . Most seriously, MonMan reverted an article after Owain had reverted it 3 times, thus saving Owain from a 3RR violation.

There is something Pythonesque about having a revert war over the issue of how English counties should properly be named. (I can understand abortion or GWB but come on, people). I also agree with Aquilina (above) that JzG is too involved in the same debate and should have asked for comment before placing the block. Consider this my (final) comment.Thatcher131 02:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Had to grin at your Pythonesque comment. What is worse is that the "ABC war" (ABC = Association of British Counties, the common link between people pushing this POV) has been going on for years on Misplaced Pages. 80.255 started it off, later ably assisted by Owain, and now others. And boy do these guys have stamina. Check out their talk pages archives (and the talk pages for lots of British places) for the number of people who've tried to work with them. Pcb21 Pete 10:01, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

May I ask what is happening with this case? I am not a frequenter of this page and do not know the procedure. --Mais oui! 15:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Indef block of WAREL/DYLAN LENNON

WAREL (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and his sockpuppet DYLAN_LENNON (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a Japanese user contributing mostly to mathematics articles. In the last two months and a half WAREL has been inserting unsourced, inappropriate or sometimes incorrect information in mathematics articles, and has been involved in lenghty edit wars to get his contributions to stick. He has antagonized the entire mathematics community, and refuses to follow any consensus, preferring to always revert to his own version. An excellent summary of this is at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Statistics on User:WAREL. This behavior got WAREL indefinitely blocked at the Japanese Misplaced Pages, and he lied about the reason for block when confronted about it, see User_talk:WAREL#A_genuine_suggestion.

Short blocks had no effect on his behavior, neither a petition on his talk page, see User_talk:WAREL#Petition. He ignored the request for comment, Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/WAREL, and in the several days since, in spite on a note on talk page that he will be indefinitely blocked if he continues, he still keeps his reverts, this time at field (mathematics) hist and finite field hist. While it is true that recently he (finally!) started using talk pages every now and then, his approach now is to make is point on talk, and then regardless of the fact that everybody disagrees with him, he keeps on putting his changes back in.

Hereby I blocked both accounts indefinitely, and plan to do so for any new account should he start engaging in the same behavior. Any comments on this action are appreciated. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I support this block and it is my impression that this is largely the will of the community as well. -lethe 17:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I fully support the use of admin tools against WAREL/DYLAN, but I think an indefinite ban is too strong at this point. There are faint signs that this user may yet change their ways, and also that they might one day have useful contributions to make. My preference would be for a 1 or 2 week block, renewable immediately on any signs of continued misbehaviour, lengthening to one or several months if several of these in a row have no effect. I think this would be a good compromise between avoiding wasting people's time, and giving WAREL/DYLAN a chance to think about his/her actions, away from the bright lights of the computer screen. I don't have any problems with permanently blocking one of the accounts. Dmharvey 18:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I shortened the block to the WAREL account to one week. But should he come back and behave as if nothing is learned, I think it will be reasonable to block him again at least several days each time. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I doubt it's a question of "learning". I don't think he has any intention of becoming a useful contributor; I think the adversarial interaction is his entire goal. If I'm right about that then doing things a few days at a time seems like wasted effort. I'd go ahead and make the block permanent next time, with the understanding that at some later date (say, a year) he can apply for reinstatement under parole, provided he hasn't tried to evade the ban in the interim. --Trovatore 00:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Offering WAREL a last chance sounds very fair. His actions will indicate unambiguously whether his aim is to be confrontational, or to contribute to a collaborative effort. Elroch 20:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

WAREL has had a host of last chances. I think the fact that he didn't bother to defend himself in his most recent last chance is rather telling. Isopropyl 20:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

WAREL's actions under different names are screaming out that he wants to be banned permanently. I am of the opinion that this wish should be complied with. Elroch 00:26, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

{{Baiting}}

I'm afraid I'm having a hard time getting the point of Misplaced Pages:Avoid self-references across at this template; help would be appreciated. Or am I wrong and links to WikiProjects are okay in encyclopedia-space templates? Enlighten me, please. —Nightstallion (?) 18:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe Nightstallion is correct, and have said so on the template's talk page. I've also noted that both Nightstallion and SirIsaacBrock (talk · contribs) are close to 3RR and have warned them there as well. --Sam Blanning 19:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Please remove a request for investigation

There's a long request for investigation on me at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_investigation#New_requests Requests for information. Please could it be removed as (1) I wasn't warned and (2) this is a content dispute and no RFC has been made. JASpencer 19:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Accusations of Xtra (talk · contribs) being a homophobe

Xtra, over the past few days, has had been accused by various IPs ( 217.207.14.187 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 218.111.124.49 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) are two) of homophobia. There's suspicion that this user is PSYCH due to PSYCH's leaving note which takes a jab at Xtra and various similarities in interests and patterns (IPs in Australia, support same-sex marriage). Early morning today, the two IPs above started to vandalise further with more vulgar content, making various reference to cunnilingus and carrying the act out on the elderly. What should be done with these IPs and the edits? Sceptre 20:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Offhand, I say drop a very long block on them. Whether or not Xtra is a homophobe doesn't give folks free reign to vandalize. The two ips you linked at the least don't have any other contributions so its unlikely that there will be collateral damage (and we can always cross that bridge if it comes to it). --Syrthiss 20:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Both were blocked indefinitely already this morning UTC. Angr (talk • contribs) 20:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting to note that PSYCH's PA parole expired a few weeks ago Sceptre 20:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Accusing someone of homophobia is another sort of personal attack. Warn then block for WP:NPA. --Ryan Delaney 20:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I have suspicions that User:Lefty on campus may be related to PSYCH. He/she has similar opinions to PSYCH, claims to live in the same area, and has also made personal attacks on Xtra. Andjam 04:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Request

I request deletion of my username. Inanna 21:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Nice try User:85.100.15.243. Log in first. --kingboyk 21:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If i log in, i cannot write as you can see. Inanna

Since you are an indefinitely banned user, I see no reason why this request should be actioned. --Golbez 21:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I said that my username would be deleted.I guess it's clear enough. Inanna

And I see no reason why it should be. --Golbez 21:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

...... shouldn't we be blocking User:85.100.15.243 for dodging a Wiki ban? JDoorjam Talk 21:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Because i want so...That doesn't work because my IP chances all the time...Inanna

IP ranges can be blocked however. See Category:Misplaced Pages:Suspected sockpuppets of -Inanna-. --Khoikhoi 21:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Beat you to it! Blocked 85.100.15.0/24 for an hour; checkuser shows no other users in that range. Essjay 21:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Heh, you win this time... ;) --Khoikhoi 21:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

How about Misplaced Pages:Account deletion: Accounts on Wikimedia wikis will not be deleted. Essjay 21:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Userpage of Latinus was deleted by his request.So mine will also.I can use millions of IP, Kokosh......Inanna

Anyone want to look into sock-blocking of this user? --InShaneee 22:06, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If you delete my username, i promise i will never join again. Inanna

I've deleted your talk page, the history of your user page and File:An2.jpg. This is about as much as what can be delted and should have removed any persoanl information about you. —Ruud 00:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Spambot

Looks like we have an IP hopping spambot. See the recent history of Phentermine and Obesity for details. I've semi-protected both articles and blocked several open proxies, but it has been switching articles as I semi protect them. He's also encoding the URLs, so I'm not sure if the meta blocklist would work. Any advice welcome. --GraemeL 21:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Now moved on to Weight loss. --GraemeL 21:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I've s-protected weight loss, but we won't know where he'll pop up next. I've added it to m:Talk:Spam blacklist in the hope that someone will add the site there, I hope I made the request correctly. --Sam Blanning 00:01, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

He's back--latest 220.124.184.138 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), blocked as a proxy. Antandrus (talk) 05:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

He has also been hitting Kakapo pretty hard. --Hetar 09:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

When do requests at the meta spam blacklist usually get dealt with? Since front page articles can't be protected it seems to be the only way to stop him. --Sam Blanning 10:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

His URL (occasionally disguised via % escapes) is http://atswindev.doit.wisc.edu:8000/Playground/10 ... perhaps someone could contact the network administrator at this university to let them know that their webserveer has been hacked to host a spam page. -- Curps 10:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikistalking

I recently discovered that User:Gnetwerker has posted information on his own page speculating as to personal facts about me, eg, birthday, location, email address, etc. ], bottom of the page. I believe that my prior suggestion that he had a business relationship with a page he was editing enraged him (he was cautioned by arbcom regarding discourtesy towards me) ] and this might in some sense be "payback." Whatever measures you think appropriate to halt this would be appreciated, in addition to deleting the speculations about my personal information (which has no bearing on any of my edits). IronDuke 23:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi ID, I've removed them from the page. I may also be able to remove them from the history depending on when he made the edits. I don't want to explain more here in case the information helps troublemakers, but I'd be happy to elaborate by e-mail if you want me to. Cheers, SlimVirgin 23:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

At a developer level? Remove them from the admin history? Prodego 23:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

There was only his one edit, so I deleted the page, then recreated it minus the personal details. SlimVirgin 23:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for getting on this so quickly. I would love it if they could be removed from the history, yes. I would also love it, and maybe this is beyond the scope of what you guys do here, if someone could at least drop him a line telling him to lay off. It's already been so unpleasant dealing with him, I just want it to be over. IronDuke 23:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes..., I did that once, but what does that have to do with time? Prodego 23:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

A message has already been left on Gnetwerker's talk page. Prodego 23:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The details can now only be seen by admins, ID, i.e. they've been deleted from the regular page history. If you want them to be deleted entirely so that admins can't see them either, you'll need to contact a developer. I've left a note for Gnetworker asking him not to do it again, and I'll keep an eye on the situation. SlimVirgin 23:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Many, many thanks, Slim. I was going to post this on your talk page, but saw he was already there. Sorry to have wished this on you, hope it won't last too long. IronDuke 23:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If anyone is used to harassment, it's SlimVirgin, I'm sure this will be no problem ;-) Happy editing. Prodego 00:03, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I cannot believe that you made this change without at least notifying me first. It is User:IronDuke who has repeatedly and very publicly threatened to publish information about me. IronDuke has harrassed me by repeatedly calling for my removal from a page because of my personal affiliations. None of the information present personally identifies IronDuke, and the IP address (162.84.209.3) and email address are available in his own edit history. So the page of mine that you deleted reveals nothing about IronDuke that isn't already elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, whereas his accusations of me have been much more revealing. This administrative overreach is an outrage. -- Gnetwerker 00:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Gnetwerker, not only did I not threaten you, I specifically said that revealing your identity would be a serious breach of wiki etiquette. I can get the diff for you, if it's that important. I didn't know the email address was available in my own edit history, and I'll give you a genuine thank-you for pointing that out. Can you tell me where it is? That way, I can get an editor to remove it. IronDuke 00:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The relevant Misplaced Pages policy says:

"Posting another person's personal information (legal name, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, regardless of whether the information is actually correct) is almost always harassment. This is because it places the other person at unjustified and uninvited risk of harm in "the real world" or other media. This applies whether the person whose personal information is being revealed is a Misplaced Pages editor or not."

The information deleted did not contain a name, address, phone number, or any contact information except for an email address and IP address already available in IronDuke's edit history. How the information in my notes constituted a threat of harassment is unclear to me. Is IronDuke claiming harassment now?? -- Gnetwerker 00:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Stop wikilawyering. You posted his DOB and when I deleted it, you linked to it. If you post or link again to anything similar, there's going to be even more outrageous administrative overreach, this time in the form of a block. SlimVirgin 01:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

First it was "wikistalking" -- but without any claim of harrassment, and any personal information. Now it's "wikilawyering"! I didn't know that was a blockable offense. What exactly can I keep in my notes pages without an admin tramping in and deleting it without notice? Will you delete anything in there that User:IronDuke claims is his personal information? -- Gnetwerker 02:01, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

In this edit User:IronDuke posts personal information about me, but admin SlimVirgin will not remove it. I have been through IronDuke's harrassing and pointless ArbCom case, and now he is snooping in my personal pages and getting credulous admins to tinker with them. There are numerous other harassing edits as well. But the central point is and should be: don't go messing with (hidden) personal pages without asking first! If there was something there that, after due consideration, was considered personally identifying (I think not), I would have happily removed it. Instead I got a hair-trigger admin action without notice. -- Gnetwerker 02:06, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Quit the personal attacks. I could have blocked you for posting the link after I'd asked you not to post anything else, so I'm clearly not as hair-triggered as I should be. There is a technical reason I can't delete the post you've linked to, which I'll explain to any admin who e-mails me. In any event, it doesn't identify you. I've offered to take a look at the links you're most concerned about, but instead of working with me, you prefer to waste our time posting complaints here. SlimVirgin 02:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

SilmVirgin, I don't see any birthdate information posted by Gnetwerker and how are the non-admins to know whether you could remove information or not if you won't explain the problem unless an admin contacts you? "Wikilawyering" is not a term to be tossed around lightly. It is akin to "trolling" and is a near personal attack. Justforasecond 17:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Admins know what SlimVirgin is talking about, and WP:BEANS prevents her from revealing it. User:Zoe| 22:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Gator1

Recently promoted to Admin, Gator1 has deleted his user and talk pages after a series of harassment emails were sent by a range blocked editor who had been doing repeated vandalisms to the Phaistos Disc article. IP used a series of dynamic IP accounts and was POV pushing...possible lobbying attempt or similar in late March. Gator emailed me the following:

The vandal stalker with the blocked IP range of 80.90.38.0/80.90.39.149 found out who I was and where I worked and sent a letter to the firm implying legal action and asking the firm if I blocked him as a member of the firm or my own and complaining about freedom of speech in a blatant attempt to frighten me and get me in trouble at work. It freaked them out and I had to look like an ass explaining myself. So I'm done dude, forget this.Please feel free to post this on a noticeboard and see if anyone has ideas. I don't want to have anything to so with this guy as I am afraid of what he'll do next.

Series of blocks: , , , , and so on. Anyone have any suggestions?--MONGO 00:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Head to Canada? Actually there is no right to free speech on a privately owned website, so there is not much this person can do, at least legally.... But they can harass you, which is probably illegal anyway, so... Prodego 00:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, so...anything more helpful than suggesting an exodus?--MONGO 00:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Not really. Ask BDA? Anyone else have a more helpful suggestion? Prodego 00:19, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Email the ISP? NSLE _(T+C) at 00:20 UTC (2006-04-08)

I was going to him (Abramson), but he's away for the entire month of April. Well, I just wanted folks to see this and to remember to be leery of giving out too much personal info and to see if aside from the six month range block on this IP range, if Misplaced Pages itself has any kind of recourse. Emailing the ISP is a fair idea.--MONGO 00:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Send emails in support of Gator1 to his company, telling what great a guy he has been, and we support his actions? --LV 00:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Blackcap (talk) 00:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I would definitely support that, but where does Gator work? (And how did the vandal find out?) --Sam Blanning 01:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Look at BDA's contribs, he is not really away. Prodego 00:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you...I sent him an email. Lord Voldemort has a decent suggestion too, but interestingly I have no idea where Gator works...I wonder how the vandal found out.--MONGO 00:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Fuckin hell, that's awful. Not much we can do, though. This is of course the reason to try to keep complete anonymity. -lethe 00:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

We definitely should contact the ISP. They're supposed to deal with abuse complaints like this. And real-life stalking is definitely abuse. --Cyde Weys 00:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I've emailed Gator and linked him to this conversation, he may not be readin it now, but it will possibly be of help to him in ths matter, and I appreciate all the advice. If anyone has any other suggestions, they are welcome of course. This is not a situation I deal with much.--MONGO 00:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Really I am on a break (or at least trying to be - compare my editcount from this month to last if you don't believe me. Frankly, I think we should call Jimbo on this one. I'm in a similar situation to Gator1 - if someone were to contact my work about something that happened here, they might freak out as well. Jimbo, of course, is immune to such ministrations. I am not particularly familiar with cyberstalking statutes, although I know they exist. I'd advise Gator1 to get a copy of that letter (if he has not already got one) and peruse it for any claims that would amount to defamation. I do not know that there is any precedent to look to, but a Misplaced Pages admin might be considered a limited-purpose public figure for the purposes of defamation and invasion of privacy, meaning that someone making a public complaint about an admin's conduct as an admin would have to be shown to have actual malice for a cause of action to exist. If this person is making any untrue statement while advocating that Gator1 should lose his job or suffer some similar consequence, that might be enough to show actual malice. BDAbramson T 01:51, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• Silly lawyer speak. Kill all the lawyers. ;-) --LV 02:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Probably not the wisest of comments at this time and in this context, to be frank. --kingboyk 04:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

BDAbramson has contacted Jimbo on his page. I hope that Jimbo takes this personaly and gets involved. As the collectors of human knowlege, we can NOT let our users, especially ones who are protecting information to the highest degree, to be intimidated. Misplaced Pages is a community, and hopefully a community that will respond to this grave breach of privacy. --Mboverload 04:03, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Very well said. Concur wholeheartedly. --kingboyk 04:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I am hoping that someone is looking into how they figured out where Gator1 worked and who he was? KillerChihuahua 02:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hm, a quick look at the linked logs shows it's probably Rose-mary (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and the focus of the dispute is Phaistos Disc (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (I see also some edits to Proto-Ionians (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)). It might be interesting to watchlist these. --cesarb 02:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Based on the harassment, it might be wise to protect Gator1's user page and talk page. I suspect that stalker will try to add more messages. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 03:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It has just been added to the protected against recreation list by an alert admin. --Mboverload 04:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone put this on the mailing list yet or told Jimbo? very disturbing situation, perhaps Jimbo or someone at the Foundation would be able to help Gator out here.--Alhutch 03:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I sent it to WikiEN, but it's still awaiting approval. —BorgHunter (talk) 03:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, I just sent it to the mailing list too. Cabalstrike!! --Cyde Weys 03:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Why am I being moderated, as you appear not to be? I know I'm new there, but I'm a fricken sysop! :-P —BorgHunter (talk) 03:52, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Just saw that BDA posted it on Jimbo's talk page too.--Alhutch 03:48, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually Gator's a lawyer himself, iirc. He's dropped enough information that a determined person could figure out where he works. Things like this make me think that the identity of the blocking admin needs to be hidden - instead of saying "you have been blocked by..." say "you have been blocked, click here to contact the blocking admin". A person would still be able to track down the block via the block log, but it makes it harder to draw the ire of the person blocked. Guettarda 03:52, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Ugh. This makes me sick. · Katefan0/poll 03:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes it does, there have been several times over the last couple months that blocks I've done resulted in scary reactions via email. Not sure what's to be done but it makes me wonder, I feel for him. Rx StrangeLove 03:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

My thoughts are with Gator1, I hope nothing of further disruption occurs in his personal life. I would like to suggest two things, though. I recently had an incident similar to this whereas I posted personal information on Misplaced Pages and was threatened to have it removed immediately, thus did everything I could to eliminate it. In Gator1's case, I noticed two things that should be done to complete Gator's complete removal from Misplaced Pages, its mirror sites, and other archives, for his personal safety. (1)—I noticed his talk page archives are still intact, and believe they should be immediately removed given the original talk page is deleted. (2)—A major problem I had with my incident was Google's cached versions of the personal information I published. A quick review of Google search revealed that both Gator1's user page (which contains personal information) as well as his talk page and its archives are completely intact in their pre-deleted form, under the Cached versions of these pages. I recommend someone visit Google's "AUTOBOT" which would immediately remove the cached versions from their site, or wait a few days for their automatic removal..thought it may take up to 4 weeks. Sorry for the difficulties, Gator1, and I'm sorry you are leaving Misplaced Pages for good. Good luck and I hope you can perhaps make a new user name and visit. Cheers, . — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 04:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

thanks for pointing this out, Happy Camper has just deleted the talk page archives and other subpages.--Alhutch 04:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad to be of any service I can, I completely understand the situation Gator1 faces, and only hope to aid in ensuring his personal info. be eradicated as much as possible. I have taken the liberty of visiting Google's cached-page removal site, where I am using a previously created account with Google to personally request the deletion of the cached versions of both Gator1's user page and talk page using their automated system. Last time I requested the removal of the article I created (User:1929Depression/R...) —censored for privacy—, it took about 2 days for complete eradication. I hope it's that soon for Gator's pages as well. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 04:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

thanks very much for your help with a bad situation.--Alhutch 04:52, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we go further and do a checkuser on those IPs and make sure there aren't any more sockpuppet accounts related to this incident editing on Misplaced Pages. --HappyCamper 04:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Good suggestion, HappyCamper, however I have run into an obstacle concerning the Google cache pages that I was planning to request for deletion from the Google archive. It is a problem that only a Misplaced Pages administrator can fix, and I was hoping that you or perhaps User:Alhutch could assist me. While I was at Google requesting the removal of Gator1's user page and his talk page, the automated system noted that User:Gator1 and User talk:Gator1 did not have the appropriate META tags required for deletion of the cached pages. With my previous experience on the matter, I am sure of the fact that the only way for a page to acquire these tags is either to delete the pages completely at Misplaced Pages, whereas the tags would be entered into the HTML automatically, or to contact Jimbo Wales and request that he alter the HTML codec himself (he being the only person with access to this). Since the first option is easier, I suggest an administrator do so now so I can complete my request for the cached page removal. You'll note that both User:Gator1 and User talk:Gator1 have this template : {{deletedmiscpage}} rather than the pages just being removed, as traditional, so I suggest they just be removed. Thanks to the administrator who does this, I'm sure Gator1 would appreciate it as having your personal info. accessible on Google is less than desirable. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 05:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The only real option is to completely blank the pages. Technically, a deleted page cannot be protected, and I do not want to remove the protection if the stalker is going to come back. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought that they were protected anyway? Regardless, this is a difficult tradeoff, but I would be inclined to help Gator1 have is stuff removed from the Google cache first. If another administrator wants to restore that single edit, (or simply add another tag again), please feel free to do so. However, I think a better alternative is to keep very vigilant for a little bit, while hopefully in 2 days the Google cache clears out. After 48 hours, we can replace those tags. At least, doing so will give this google cache clearing a chance. We can accomodate this I think. --HappyCamper 05:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree with HappyCamper on this one, I successfully processed the requests through Google to remove the cached pages immediately, and they should be gone within a couple of days. I think we owe it to Gator1 to play it safe and keep these pages deleted until the Google cached versions are eradicated. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 05:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Protection is automatically removed once you delete the pages. However, it does prevent anon IPs from starting the pages. The problem is that an established user can still leave a message on Gator1's talk page (or even the user page). So the best way now to deal with this issue is that we still can put the pages on our watchlists. 10qwerty 05:21, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I wish Gator1 were here to comment on the best course of action, but personally I think it's best to assess the Google caches first, because that's where a stalker could pick up on his personal information. Restoring the User:Gator1 and User talk:Gator1 pages would result in Google's BOTS to ignore the requests to remove the cached pages, thus they (including their prominence as the top search results when someone searches for "Gator1") would continue to be available through Google for up to 4 weeks. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 05:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Right now, I have the pages on my watchlist. If I do see someone leave a msg, I will delete it. But I have not option to protect it because it is in fact delete. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how Google handles this request and so take your (CrazyInSane's) word for it. Or anyway I try to. But I don't fully follow the logic. More broadly, any statement here that it would be better for X not to happen will I presume be avidly read by our friend allegedly in the vicinity of Luxembourg, who will then do his or her best to make X happen. Further, I of course know nothing of the content of any email (and don't want to know it), but I did do a little looking around in the user and talk page history and found very little information there about Gator. I learned one thing about Gator that I (perhaps naively) find entirely innocuous, and I saw considerable evidence of the user or users of several IP numbers being obnoxious or worse. I am not versed in law, but I wonder whether it might actually help if these obnoxious messages were, if not in plain sight, at least accessible via the history tab. But I defer to others, and particularly to the wishes of Gator. -- Hoary 06:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

RIPE Whois database query results - allocated to some people in Luxembourg. NSLE _(T+C) at 05:10 UTC (2006-04-08)

Gator disclosed more to me in his email than I can share (my decision, not his) but the situation is not good apparently. Gator did tell me he thought that IP was originating from Belgium or Luxembourg. I do believe he has definitely left the project, and expressed his great disappointment that he has had to do so. I have directed him to this section and hope he is watching and reading all the excellent contributions everyone has posted. On his behalf, I want to wish all of you a very fond thank you.--MONGO 05:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I think we all understand his difficult decision taken, personally I'd like to wish him the best. NSLE _(T+C) at 05:48 UTC (2006-04-08)

This situation must be taken very seriously as the project is doomed if excellent editors can just be driven out by people who obviously have no interest in building an encyclopedia. When I was a sys admin (in the "real" world) I had a normal user account and did all my work requiring special access from a separate "system manager" account. For me it was primarily so I had an unpriviliged account I could use to check if I'd messed up but this harrassment of Gator1 does argue for a division of the admin duties from normal editing. Maybe an admin forum for discussing blocks etc could be created which would not be visible to anons and new editors? Whatever something must be done to stop this happening again and I can only hope that Gator1 can find a way of returning safely. Hope he's reading this as I'm sure he needs a boost at the moment. Gilraen of Dorthonion AKA SophiaTCF 07:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to read all this, and hope to send Gator1 a supportive e-mail later today. AnnH ♫ 07:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Gator is one of an increasing number of admins who've been threatened, stalked, or abused on Misplaced Pages, on other websites, and in real life, because of their admin actions. I agree witih Sophia that it's time to do something about it, but it's hard to know what. A few people tried to set up an admin-only board a few months ago (where non-admins could read it, but not post to it), but it was quickly shot down as unwiki-like, so a board that non-admins can't even see likely wouldn't work, although there's an admin-only IRC channel I believe (or there was: I've never used it, so I don't know whether it still exists). Even with such a board in place, users would still get to know who blocked them, and we're often called to account and have to post here about blocks anyway. I can offer no solutions, except that the lesson for people who want to become admins in future is to make sure that your screen name is not connected in any way to your real-life identity. SlimVirgin 07:48, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion after I took a quick glance at the deleted history, Gator unfortunately gave away too much information on his user page – enough information that a determined person with enough time could easily look up on Google and other online directories. That is another thing future admins have to watch out for. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 07:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this is just ridiculous, what is wrong with a person when they find it neccesary to email some poor guy's boss and complain. However, I'm not sure that other people emailing his boss in support of Gator would be the best course of action. The only way I think it would be beneficial would be if the person was influential enough that Gator's boss would recognize the editor's real-life work.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 07:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

What an awful situation. This suggestion may be totally out of line - if it is, please forgive me - but I infer from what Mongo has suggested that some of the clues to Gator!'s identity may be found in article talk / other user talk spaces. If Mongo (or another informed editor) knows where these clues are to be found, could they be expunged to prevent anyone else who may think that it would be amusing to 'copycat stalk' Gator1? Colonel Tom 08:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm concerned that reopening to delete areas that may have personal information may offset the google cache as described above...admittedly, I am completely ignorant of these issue. I have watched Gator almost since he first started editing, and I don't recall him making any comments aside from what he does and in what State he does it. I never remember him posting his Email, home address phone number or using his actual name...maybe he accidentally responded to an Email from this vandal and that gave up his real name, which I have gotten from him when he Emails me. I set up a "bogus" Email account for Misplaced Pages, that does not give my actual name, and the Email is through Yahoo...I highly recommend others do this as well, through whatever service they use. I don't want to alarm people but just trying to emphasize the importance of privacy if indeed you work a potentially sensitive career or have a particular need for animity. Gator did ask me to block this editor before...I just retrieved a lengthy email from him dated 3/28/06 and am scanning it to see if posting it here is any help.--MONGO 09:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Looking over the email, it is actually a long comment sent to Gator by another editor in regards to this IP vandal. Gator wanted my feedback on whther I thought his six month blocks were fair, and sent me the Email he had received from another Wikipedian. Apparently, Gator has run afoul of a particularily resourceful and hostile Usenet veteran with a nack for privacy invasion. I may ask the original emailer if he minds if I forward the information to Jimbo or the Foundation...because this means there is actually not one but two people who may have been forced out from editing due to threats in real life by this vandal.--MONGO 09:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Same situation as posted in early March, prior to Gator's involvement...--MONGO 09:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

One way may be to advise new editors to keep their real ID's private and warn/delete personal information on sight. Maybe a wiki project on editor anonymity is needed to see what the community thinks. Also WP:BOLD could be modified to make it clear that whilst you need to be bold with article information and editing you should not be so with revealing your true identity. We need to warn users when they start as most breaches of privacy are likely to happen when they are new and keen and by the time they are established and want to go for admin status the damage will already be done. The e-mail idea by MONGO is a good one and should be recommended too. Most kids are now taught about internet security/anonymity at school (at least in the UK) but anyone out of their teens is unlikely to have learned about this and may not realise the potential problems. Gilraen of Dorthonion AKA SophiaTCF 11:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

This will mean totally re-writing Misplaced Pages:Username, which currently says "The best username is typically either your real name, or a longstanding Internet pen name." Since that page is policy, it can't be changed lightly, but will require a good deal of consensus. Angr (talk • contribs) 11:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I've thought that that should be changed for a long time, and would certainly support a change to something that emphasized the risk of making your real name public on a project like this (or the internet in general, really). As an aside to Sophia, I would say WP:BOLD doesn't really need to be amended, as it's entirely about updating pages, and not boldness just all around the place. Blackcap (talk) 15:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

As one of the editors of Phaistos disc, which was routinely disrupted by User:Rose-mary until Gator1 imposed a six-month block (for threatening to contact the employers of another editor), I would like to express my thanks. I hope he will see this. I hope this can be resolved. Septentrionalis 15:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Anything that encourages people to make their real identities visible in a project that attracts strong POV's must be reconsidered. As for WP:BOLD I'm aware it's about articles but thinking like a newbie user it could give the wrong impression. Gilraen of Dorthonion AKA SophiaTCF 15:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• Latest email from Gator...he doesn't want to mention it at his workplace again, hoping they will put it behind them:

I really don't want to bring it up with them again. If I can get through this week without being fired, I'm happy. I am watching the AN/I page and I did give you the IP range, to do with as the community feels is appropriate. To clarify: this nutcase sent an actual snail mail letter directly to the firm, not an e-mail. Which only made it worse I think. It stated that a made up committee in Luxembourg had nominated me for some sarcastic award for blocking the IP range, that the committee was going to go to court and make a stink about it in the papers and wanted to know if I was acting as an associate of the firm or by myself (which freaked them out the most). Anyway, I'll lt you know what my job does with me. I'd just like to know how he got my name. Thanks, G

--MONGO 18:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I had a similar situation where a blocked user threatened to contact my employer, because I was occasionally editing from work without logging in (work doesn't allow cookies). I have since stopped editing from work. User:Zoe| 22:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I am very sorry to read all this. The stalker, as you will see on the Talk:Phaistos archives, has long plagued Usenet as "grapheus" and has actually managed to sue his nemesis there (although he didn't press charges in the end). Gator has blocked him on WP for making threats of real-life harassment to another editor. I think that yes, now would be the time to contact the guy's ISP and ask them to terminate the guy's account. Tell them that their entire range is blocked from editing en-wiki because of that one bad egg. The stalker has shown extreme resilience on Usenet, pursuing his single cause with manic determination for years. Gator was brave to apply the block single-handedly, but I think the lesson from this should not be to hide your identity because there are mad people. It may mean you should be extra careful when editing on company time, but I have a hard time imagining a reason why Gator's employer should be concerned about some guy from Luxemburgh complaining about him having performed an administrative action on a private website where he is authorized to perform such actions. I do hope you will be fine, Gator; in the meantime, if Jimbo can be bothered, he could lift Gator's block and re-instate it himself, so Gator's name will not continue to show up as the blocking admin and there will be no doubt whatsoever about the wiki-wide agreement on blocking the stalker. dab (ᛏ) 00:28, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I wonder whether we should create a list of admins willing to take on blocks of extra-difficult people such as this guy. The list could comprise admins who know there's nothing to link their Misplaced Pages identities to their real-life ones, or who don't care if there is. In that way, other admins who are worried about being tracked down, or who've already been threatened, could discreetly contact one of the admins on the list and ask him/her to take over. There are drawbacks to this (because it creates a list of perceived tough and not-so-tough admins), but it might still be better than the current situation. SlimVirgin 00:53, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

That seems like a very good idea. I'd been trying to think what might or should be our answer to this problem, and such a list of Misplaced Pages:Admins willing to handle off-wiki disruptive editors seems like a good answer. JesseW, the juggling janitor 01:33, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Might it not be better to have someone at the Foundation issue blocks in these cases? (There's a fella called Danny I believe?) I don't think any admin should have to risk "real word" strife on behalf of Misplaced Pages for whom we serve, lest it not be forgotten, as volunteers. --kingboyk 01:39, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Directing all the difficult blocks to Danny would mean he'd end up being targeted, and he's identifiable. A group of completely anonymous admins, on the other hand, would be more or less immune. SlimVirgin 01:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Two posts from User:71.139.190.74 have been removed, you'll have to check the history if you want to read them. I'm not sure if it's somebody trying to be helpful or (more probably) the "complainant". In the process of removing edit #2 I accidentally reverted SlimVirgin (who removed edit #1), sorry about that, I think I fixed it :) --kingboyk 00:57, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

MyNomenclature (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) originally posted here claiming to have done it (pretty incoherently) and was reverted and blocked. They then left this message, and this; looks like the same person as just posted here. They seem to be trolling; note that MyNomenclature was banned as a sockpuppet. Shimgray | talk | 01:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The above could be User:Amorrow aka User:Pinktulip, given that he links to Amorrow's webpage. He's the one who's been harassing a number of female Wikipedians, on and off-site. SlimVirgin 01:11, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Sean's conclusion was that it was Amorrow, and "MyNomenclature" is beyond reasonable doubt the same person as the IPs - but it's bizzare they changed their line of argument. Clearly trolling, rather than the actual person responsible, in my opinion... Shimgray | talk | 01:13, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Trolling aside, I feel they fail to distinguish between Gator's career as an attorney, and his actions on Misplaced Pages as an administrator and as a member of the Mediation Committee. These actions are paralegal, but not judicial. Misplaced Pages is not a court of law. I agree that Gator should look to his colleagues for legal advice; however, what we discuss here concerns actions on Misplaced Pages. It should not be construed as legal advice, but may still be helpful. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTCF 01:36, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

"MyNomenclature" and 70.231.180.4, who left message on my page and Sean's are Amorrow for sure. I don't think User:71.139.190.74 is Amorrow. But I don't know that it matters. FloNight 01:46, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked IP range 71.141.0.0/24 for trolling MONGO regarding the Gator1 case. NSLE _(T+C) at 01:44 UTC (2006-04-09)

Oh. I just sprotected MONGO's pages, I might as well unprotect them, then, I guess. Bishonen | talk 01:47, 9 April 2006 (UTC).

I blocked the IP range three months, but a WHOIS returns a San Francisco (!) ISP (Abuse contact abuse(at)swbell(dot)net). NSLE _(T+C) at 01:48 UTC (2006-04-09)

Are you sure that the /24 is the right netblock? The earlier stuff on MONGO's page was from 3 different subnets; 71.141.1, .30, and .224; the proper size would be a /16 netblock ... and, clearly, this is someone hitting DHCP'ed address space, and that's a mighty big block to block. Georgewilliamherbert 05:47, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Was told in IRC I'd blocked a bigger range than needed, but I'd rather err on the safe side (and honestly, I didn't really take a look at the exact IPs). I defer judgment of a smaller range/shorter block to another admin. NSLE _(T+C) at 05:57 UTC (2006-04-09)

The /24 will be ineffective against any of the 3 addresses they used so far, and against 255/256 of the possible ones he'd come up with in the future out of the same sized parent netblock, unfortunately. What's the policy on DHCPed addresses within large netblocks? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?. Georgewilliamherbert 06:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks everybody...lots of good comments on this matter and I thank those that helped watch my talk page. I think I will sign on as a "tough" admin...no problem, and I don't care if my identity is known. Does the foundation need to take care of contacting the ISP of this harassing editor? I am not familiar with this.--MONGO 05:44, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages: Admins willing to make difficult blocks

I've created the page I mentioned above and I've added my own name. SlimVirgin 02:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Please, do

Please,_do (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked by me as a sock of Jason Gastrich about an hour ago. He's placed an {{unblock}} on his page. I request other Admins examine his contributions and assist in determining the best course of action. I wish to note that he made a few non-Gastrich edits, then voted Keep on Afd for an article with edits only by another Gastrich sock. I had blocked that sock earlier today. Gastich is known for making a few non-typically Gastrich edits, presumably to camouflage his identity, before moving on to more typical behavior. KillerChihuahua 01:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• its beginning to look like I've blocked an innocent party. I am going to unblock and watch, and leave the name on the suspected list on the ArbCom page for a bit. KillerChihuahua 01:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, I don't think that one is quite so cut and dry. Probably best to unblock and keep an eye, and request a checkuser if any more fishy edits arise. --kingboyk 01:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• I've lost count of the times I've blocked Gastrich, and this is the first one that complained. That's my main rationale. But that his third edit was a vote to keep yet another Gastrich nn LBU grad bio is fishy. KillerChihuahua 01:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• Expansion: he voted on an unrelated Afd, then made one-word edits to his user and user talk pages prior to voting keep on the Gastrich article, Jack Eggar. That's classic Gastrich: he makes an "innocent" edit, adds something small to his user and talk pages so they won't be redlinks, then moves to Gastrich editing. I'm still suspicious. KillerChihuahua 01:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• I think there's reason to be suspicious certainly but let's give the benefit of the doubt (and/or the opportunity to slip up, which of late hasn't taken Jason long at all)? --kingboyk 01:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• Judging by the contributions, the account is obviously a puppet. Whether it is sock or meat, I don't know, but this matter should probably head to WP:RFCU for clarification. Hexagonal 03:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, definitely one to keep an eye on. --Cyde Weys 03:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I wish he'd go get a hobby. --Woohookitty 05:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
    • WooHoo... we are the hobby. KillerChihuahua 16:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Have you asked for a User Check? User:Zoe| 22:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Results were inconclusive. So apparently although opinion differs as to whether this is likely JG via sock or meat, my decision to unblock and watch seems to have been the correct choice. KillerChihuahua 23:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the checkuser folks are tired of cleaning up Gastrich puppets. I made a perfectly reasonable checkuser request that got denied for a bogus reason. Apparently its already been investigated, even though this new batch of socks hasn't been checked for sleepers or non-disruptive (yet) puppets. How do I appeal the declination of a checkuser request? Hexagonal 03:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Collateral damage when blocking an account that uses AOL, advice needed

I blocked Arbustoo (talk · contribs) for 3RR on Bob Cornuke last night. I've since had three four people message me on my talk page saying that the autoblocker has blocked two IPs and is preventing them from editing (or at least hindering, given that they still managed to post on my talk page).

What should I do? Unblock the affected IPs? I don't see blocks in the IPs' logs, so would that even work? Unblock Arbustoo - in which case I also obviously have to unblock the other side of the edit war for reasons that have nothing to do with their editing? Is it possible to stop the autoblocker from working, since I'm sure Arbustoo wouldn't use shadowpuppetry to circumvent his block?

How was I supposed to know Arbustoo was on AOL anyway? --Sam Blanning 10:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

What I do in cases like these is load the Ipblocklist to 500 entries and CTRL+F search for "NSLE" (or in this case, "Samuel Blanning"), and unblock the autoblocked IPs (begin with #'s). NSLE _(T+C) at 10:07 UTC (2006-04-08)

Thanks, that's useful advice. I tried that just now though and couldn't find Arbustoo's entries in the list, though I could find the blocks set up on the accounts and the autoblock on the other side of the edit war - was that because I just unblocked Arbustoo's IPs? --Sam Blanning 10:17, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The thing to do is to ask them to tell you the IP address. If you go to the unblock page and put in the IP, it will unblock it, even though the IP number does not appear on Special:Ipblocklist. For example, if 12.34.56.78 is autoblocked as #1234 (this is the way autoblocks appear on the block list), it can still be unblocked as 12.34.56.78. Anytime someone is blocked, thier IP is listed in the block message they receive (see Mediawiki:Blockedtext) so it should be no problem for them to tell you what the IP address is, and you to unblock it. Essjay 01:52, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

WAS 4.250

Based on http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Brandy_Alexandre_%28porn_star%29&diff=prev&oldid=47412622 I have blocked WAS 4.250 indefinitely. The edit made deleted a request by Jimbo which has been honored. WAS_4.250 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been engaged in trolling in a variety of contexts; always taking positions which degrade Misplaced Pages. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wikipedia_talk:Censorship&diff=47432420&oldid=47432080 seems designed only to disrupt.Fred Bauder 13:01, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I object to this block. As far as I can see he has contributed and continues to contribute in good faith to the encyclopaedia. The deletion of Jimbo's comment is unhelpful, but not grounds for an indefinite block in my opinion. Blocking of any kind should only have been considered if he did so repeatedly and after being warned. Maybe he missed Jimbo's name at the end - I myself deleted an Arbcom-mandated notice in good faith a few days ago and don't seem to have been blocked yet. His opinions on the inclusion of child pornography on Misplaced Pages aren't grounds for blocking either unless they reach the level of disruption or illegality. --Sam Blanning 13:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The lack of any other edits on Brandy Alexandre and related pages, or anything else that would suggest a campaign to reveal her name, makes me more inclined to believe that the deletion of the notice was an accident of the sort I made. I'm open to correction. --Sam Blanning 13:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I object to the block as well. No warning, no discussion, just bam an indefinite block. And the discussion he started at Misplaced Pages talk:Censorship was entirely good-faith and reasonable. Fred, please unblock him immediately. Angr (talk • contribs) 13:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm familiar with this user mainly because I keep the Evolution article on my watchlist. WAS 4.250 is a good faith contributor there, so I don't think a summary indef. is in order. –Abe Dashiell 13:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

But how do you explain how he got to the Brandy Alexandre page and and why he thought that edit had to be made? Fred Bauder 14:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

While I am generally of the opinion that we treat vandals, trolls, kooks and those who are just out to disrupt the project far too leniently, I would ask you to reconsider this block. I have seen WAS 4.250 making lots of useful contributions to Influenza related articles and think a stern warning with the understanding that Jimbo's word is effectively law would be more appropriate here. If he continues with such actions after being warned, I would then go for an indefinite block. --GraemeL 14:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

If he continues with such actions after being warned, I would start with a 24-hour block and progressively work up from there, same as for other people who are disruptive after being warned to stop. Surely indefinite blocks are only for pure-vandal accounts, proven sockpuppets, and ArbCom rulings to that effect! Jeez, you see something like this block and it's no surprise that some people write "This user is pissed off about admins ignoring policy" on their user page. Angr (talk • contribs) 14:21, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not an admin, but WAS 4.250 and I are disagreeing (Misplaced Pages talk:Censorship) in a manner that indicates he is willing to try to understand the other side of the debate. I'll put in a good word for his reinstatement. If one wants to know why he did something, asking him seems a good start. Even if it was WP:POINT indefinite seems a bit harsh. Robert A.West (Talk) 14:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur, discuss with WAS. I am neutral on the subject of unblock at this time. If it was POINT, it was a fairly blatant one, which requires serious examination. KillerChihuahua 14:52, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Random article? RC patrol? Former Latter-day Saints? I've come across and edited weirder articles than that one. I'm not going to speculate on his motives, but I still believe it could have been a mistake. --Sam Blanning 15:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I have unblocked him. Fred Bauder 14:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

from my talk page

I have blocked you indefinitely based on this edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Brandy_Alexandre_%28porn_star%29&diff=prev&oldid=47412622 Deleting an administrative request made by Jimbo is not acceptable behavior. I have characterized your recent activity as destructive trolling. Another example, http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wikipedia_talk:Censorship&diff=47432420&oldid=47432080 seems designed only to disrupt. Fred Bauder 13:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

After discussion I have unblocked you. Your edit remains inexplicable. The lady in question has tried earnestly to move on. Fred Bauder 14:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Doggone it, now I don't have an excuse for getting a new hobby. I had just finishd convincing myself it was a blessing in disguise. Oh, well.

The second example was me discussing the issue of censorship on the talk page of a guideline proposal on censorship. The proposal is currently undergoing a poll. The poll already reveals the proposal does not have consensus. So the question arises, do we need a guideline dealing with people shouting "censorship" or people shouting "porn". Maybe. So I was illustrating the issue with a relevant recent incident.

Concening the article on the lady in question, I deleted two things in the article.

One thing I deleted was the factually inaccurate statement that her real world identity is unknown. That is both factually inaccurate and provably so with public accessable court documents. In this deletion I deleted the word "unknown" in the template on her.

The other thing I deleted was an out of date comment (in the article space, not the talk space) by Jimbo on 31 December 2005 saying:

As a courtesy while we discuss the issues surrounding this article, please don't add Brandy Alexandre's real name to this article. And please treat SavvyCat with particular respect and understand that if she seems a bit touchy about this article, she has every right to be: it's about her. As a person with a biography about myself in Misplaced Pages which is frequently used as a place to attack me, I can say that Assume Good Faith is absolutely necessary in a case like this. --Jimbo --

It is clear that it is out of date because:

• it says while we discuss the issues surrounding this article,
• the discussion in question took place from 31 December, 2005 until 22 January 2006 with no further changes until 3 March 2006,
• the talk page says In private email to me, Jimbo stated that he only originally removed the info pending proper sourcing, and only asked that the name not be re-added to the article while discussion was on-going regarding this issue on this talk page (see the hidden comments at the top of the article itself for Jimbo's request).,
• and the talk page has not been edited since 24 January 2006.

Does that explain things? 4.250.198.204 15:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

An edit summary and/or an explanation on the article's Talk page were surely in order? User:Zoe| 22:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

please treat SavvyCat with particular respect and understand that if she seems a bit touchy about this article, she has every right to be: it's about her. As a person with a biography about myself in Misplaced Pages which is frequently used as a place to attack me, I can say that Assume Good Faith is absolutely necessary in a case like this. is a restatement of our policy on living persons and could be added to the top of every page of a living person and so I did not believe was meant to be permently at the top of this specific biography and thus claim more fairness for one person than another. It reads to me like a tempory comment meant to be removed as a whole at the appropriate time. So I did. I deliberately did not add her real name, as I thought it best for one bystander to declare the discussion over, and someone else to act or not act on that. 4.250.198.204 15:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Ultramarine

I request enforcement of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ultramarine, which applies only to Democratic peace theory and one other article. This single editor has been consistently removing sourced statements, despite protests. Some of the material in question has been defended by multiple editors.(See Talk:Democratic peace theory#1. This practice was expressly deprecated by ArbCom; which required that we edit by consensus, without establishing private versions.

That these edits also suppress the majority of the work done in support of DPT in favor of three scholars who uphold an extreme position, and also criticism of that position, is, I suppose, merely a coincidence.

Previous removals:

• 18:47, 2 April 2006
  • See Talk:Democratic peace theory#1 for a discussion of the issue here; this is also editing against consensus.
• 22:55, 3 April 2006 **shorter than the others, but in the process he attached the footnotes to the wrong sentences.
• 04:17, 4 April 2006

• collective diff 5-7 April
• edit of 03:59 8 April
  • He has been defending this mutilation by claiming that he is removing ancient papers; these are from 1995,1999, and 2003
• Collective diff of further edits: as of 04:23
  • These do not contain the promised restoration, and insofar as they are drastic moves, are contrary to the repeated requests of Salix alba 2 April 19:36 and myself 18:03 April 3 Septentrionalis 14:48, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
    • False, these and many other arguments for the theory added.Ultramarine 15:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Septentrionalis seems to think he owes the article and that he decides the content. His version is selectively including mostly very old studies as a straw man for the theory. While excluding recent supporting research, see User:Ultramarine/sandbox5. It was Septentrionalis who started doing edits again after Salix Alba asked for a slow-down, and yesterday he did a massive revert of many carefully explained changes. The article needs to be trimmed from excessive details from irrelevant studies done in the 70s and 80s, which also Salix Alba agrees on. However, since Septentrionalis resists this, I have now only added the recent research. As this recent research is the by far the best documented advantage of democracy, documenting the role of democracy in preventing wars, mass murder, and human rights violations, it is important that Misplaced Pages represents the current status correctly.

• I have never claimed ownership of anything. Removal of sourced statements of fact without consensus is deprecated, and is a violation of the ArbCom decision in this case. Ultramarine's additions are (while it will take some time to look at them), welcome. Septentrionalis 15:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• Ultramarine has, as in the example above, been removing sources from the 1990's. The common element is not their age, but that they disagree with the three authors he chooses to support. Ultramarine claims below to be increasing the diversity of the sources by these removals; this is bizarre. Septentrionalis 15:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

My general point is that views of most researchers and their studies and arguments are not farily represented. It should also be noted that Septentrionalis has on several other articles constantly tried to exclude well-sourced advantages of democracy and related research. See for example this, where he deletes every sourced advantage of liberal democracy while keeping many claimed unsourced disadvantages. Or this, where he completely deletes the painstakingly made table regarding world-wide democracy from Freedom House.

• Freedom House, like several of Ultramarine's other edits, is a collection of cut-and-pastes. Most of the paragraphs are taken directly from various pages on FH's website. This is plagiarism, even where it is not copyvio. Septentrionalis 15:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Septentrionalis only supporter, Robert A West, he is real-world friend or relative of Septentrionalis. See their extensive collaborative editing of numerous Baron West and Earl De La Warr. They have extremely deep knowledge about this particular aristocratic family. Ultramarine 15:06, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• Only supporter is a falsehood; almost all the editors who has looked at the article have remarked on Ultramarine's PoV. Scaife objects to it more than I do (See Talk:Democratic peace theory#35.
  • He has not supported you for a long time now.Ultramarine 15:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Scaife has taken a break from the article for reasons stated in his talk page. Several editors have ceased attempting to edit after finding the experience of Ultramarine's POV-pushing frustrating. That is not good for the project.Robert A.West (Talk) 16:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• Ultramarine has made this portentous statemtent before. Does this have a point? What offense is he suggesting? (A question he has never bothered to answer.) Btw, the "extremely deep knowledge" consists of comparing the standard sources. Septentrionalis 15:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Ultramarine is repeatedly speculating about the real names and relationships of two demonstrably distinct editors. So far as I know, collaboration is not forbidden, it is encouraged. I saw no pledge to avoid working with friends (or relatives for that matter) when I joined. Could someone please clarify whether Ultramarine's conduct is consistent with both the letter and spirit of Misplaced Pages:Harassment? Robert A.West (Talk) 16:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Pazuzu413

We have a real problem with this editors uploads. Most are unsourced, or have no appropriate fair use rationale. See his upload log for more details. At the very least all his/her uploads should be reviewed. - Ta bu shi da yu 15:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a Rachel Brown sockpuppet or appendage. — Apr. 8, '06 <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Why do you think that? I had dealings with them last year. I suspected they had a sockpuppet Special:Contributions/The Belgain which I informed Mindspillage of on October 24th . Arniep 23:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

There was a user with a similar name Special:Contributions/Pazuzu1990 who was a troublemaker but the edits were pretty different. Arniep 23:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

User:RJII

I've moved this request to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement for two reasons: a) that page is intended to reduce the number of requests here, and b) RJII is banned from editing this page, and thus cannot comment on the request if made here. Essjay 01:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Evan Lee Dahl Article

Evan Lee Dahl is an Award Winning Actor. 1.) 2006 Young Artist Award. 2.) 2006 MethodFest Award. Please allow me to add him to your 💕. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Just Me (talk • contribs)

Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Evan_Lee_Dahl --pgk 19:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

If Just Me were really interested, he could list the article at WP:DRV, but he should read WP:SNOW first. User:Zoe| 22:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Repeated bad faith violations of WP:NOT Crystal Ball

• An unreleased album (tentatively scheduled for June 2006) was added to the discography of Cheap Trick in March.
• The entry was then very clearly commented out (diff) like this:

<!--http://en.wikipedia.org/WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_crystal_ball
 * (2006) '']''
 -->

• User:136.244.54.69 deleted the comment and Crystal Ball URL to put back the album. (diff)
• His action was reverted (diff) and a note put on his talk page (it's a static IP since at least February).
• User:WNTTM (possibly the same person) deleted the comment and Crystal Ball URL again (diff) to put back the album.

Related: He also created in March a full article about this Crystal Ball album, Rockford (album).

-- 62.147.39.77 19:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk Page Blanking/Vandalism

• User:Eyeonvaughan continually blanks his own talk page, and has been warned against doing this numerous times, especially since he is currently the subject of a User Conduct RfC, most recently is here. As well, I archived my extremely long talk page today and he decided that I had actually blanked my page and decided to revert it. If I tell him to stop, he'll just continue doing it, I'd appreciate if someone else could step in. Thanks. pm_shef 21:53, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Eyeonvaughan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) just came back from a block for personal attacks. It looks like Deckiller gave him a 48 hour block for blanking. Thatcher131 22:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Users are entitled to blank or archive their talk pages at their discretion, CVU's insistence to the otherwise notwithstanding. Kelly Martin (talk) 02:24, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Larnue the dormouse

• Wow....seems like an awful lot of trouble for a "new" Misplaced Pages editor to go through. Larnue the dormouse (talk · contribs) is probably just another Zephram Stark (talk · contribs) sockpuppet. Please see Category:Misplaced Pages:Suspected_sockpuppets_of_Zephram_Stark, Misplaced Pages:Long_term_abuse#Zephram_Stark, and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Zephram Stark for details. The edit at Shock and Awe he is refering to was a revert of a previous sockpuppet Peter McConaughey (talk · contribs). --JW1805 (Talk) 04:01, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• Larnue the dormouse (talk · contribs) confirmed as sockpuppet of Zephram Stark. All edits reverted. --JW1805 (Talk) 05:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I fully realize that I was duped by this, and I'm not happy about that, but I stand by the honest edits elicited to Shock and awe. --James S. 05:49, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

IP 128.171.138.XXX

Repeatedly inserts allegations of child abuse against James Levine (history) based on nothing more than Usenet posts. Has been warned repeatedly. Grover cleveland 02:13, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Two blocks related to Islamism

I blocked Kyaa the Catlord (talk · contribs) for disruptive edit warring on Islamism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). He has asked to be unblocked. Please review; if anyone thinks 24 hours is too long, or the block is unwarranted, reduce or remove the block.

Related to the above, I blocked MuslimsofUmreka (talk · contribs) for 48 hours for personnal attacks, specifically . Again, please review and change if appropriate. Tom Harrison 02:36, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

User:StarHeart adding insults and personal remarks to Police state

Could someone please look into User:StarHeart's conduct on Police state? He has added a few condescending personal remarks to the article, including this one:

"Note: This may come as a suprise to you adolescents living sheltered lives, but books should be based on REALITY, not the other way around. If you ever spent more than an hour away from your invaluable keyboards you would know that. Yes, boys and girls. Factual statements can ACTUALLY be based on EXPERIENCE, rather than just being based upon a BOOK (which appears to be the case in your pathetic life)."

See diff: Rhobite 03:23, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

He's also been quite liberal in making them directly. Not satisfied in placing his offensive rant to me on his talkpage (Apparently I'm an expert on video games. Who knew?), he also took the liberty of sending it to me directly via wikipedia email. siafu 05:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Will Beback harassing myself, wiki-stalking me

User Will Beback is harassing me and wikistalking not to mention disrupting normal editing to make a point; he is now doing the same at the Laissez-Faire article (see my contribs and his, and see how he has negatively engaged me in the past and continues to do so now in violation of Misplaced Pages Harassment policy quoted below).

I need help here. He has stalked me to Ross Perot, Reform Party, Mixed Economy, American System, Privatization, etc. etc. and now with Laissez-Faire. He engages in an Inquistor style in a relentless campaign of harassment, even after I provided numerous citations and references beyond the standards and norms of wikipedia.

The harassment policy is: Harassment is defined as a pattern of disruptive behavior that appears to a reasonable and objective observer to have the purpose of causing negative emotions in a targeted person or persons, usually (but not always) for the purpose of intimidating the primary target. The purpose could be to make editing Misplaced Pages unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to encourage them to stop editing entirely....Harassment is sometimes described as a violation of don't disrupt Misplaced Pages to prove a point...Following an editor to another article to continue disruption (also known as wikistalking) The term "wiki-stalking" has been coined to describe following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor.

I need someone to look into this and block this user for what he is doing. Harassment is a very serious offense here at wikipedia and I ask that it be enforced. --Northmeister 06:35, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Admins willing to make difficult blocks

I've set up a new page in response to the increasing number of admins who are being threatened or harassed off-site by someone they've blocked, which is usually possible because they've inadvertently left enough information in their contributions or on their user pages for abusive editors to be able to piece together who they are. Misplaced Pages:Admins willing to make difficult blocks is a list of admins willing to step in to take over a case where another admin is being threatened or is worried about being identified by an abusive editor. Feel free to add your name if you're willing to administer these difficult blocks, for example if you know there's nothing to tie your user name to your real name, or because you're prepared to deal with the consequences regardless. SlimVirgin 03:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you SlimVirgin. I foresee that your contribution will be of great assistance for many editors. Kudos. Daniel Davis 04:48, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Cryptic death threat

I have no idea what this means, but I figured I should say something about it. --Allen 04:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards