Misplaced Pages

• Winkelvi has withdrawn his promise to stay out of articles where he has had disputes, and it is being argued out now on his user talk page. If I follow his argument correctly, he is upset that his promise did not result in an immediate unblock. He says, inter alia, I just feel duped, taken advantage of, and like a complete fool for doing what was asked. I believed it to be an actual agreement that would lead to being unblocked sooner. I don't like being made a fool of nor do I like being lied to. Because the other side of the agreement never materialized (and looks like it probably was never going to), I no longer feel obligated to follow through with my side of the agreement. Coretheapple (talk) 00:58, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

• While it's tempting to do color commentary, there's enough eyes on the problem now. As the blocks expire, it might be better for everyone to give these users a wide berth and let WP:ROPE take precedent. Viriditas (talk) 10:39, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

• Well yes of course, but if Winkelvi agrees to the very topic bans we've been discussing ad infinitum, then it surely needs to be noted in this thread. Ditto any changes in that. Coretheapple (talk) 15:26, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for Clarification: Was There a Topic-Ban?

I am trying to see if the moderated dispute resolution of Meghan Trainor can be resumed now that the three editors are off block. My understanding is that Winklevi, Lips Are Movin, and MaranoFan were all blocked for 48 hours for edit-warring. There have been repeated statements about a formal or informal topic-ban on Winklevi, but I see no evidence that any topic-ban was ever formally imposed or informally accepted. Is that correct? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

A topic ban was informally accepted yesterday, during his block. Winkelvi promised to abide by a voluntary topic ban from all of the articles in which he'd been involved in disputes, but then reneged after a few hours. Coretheapple (talk) 00:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Then there is no topic-ban, so he may participate in moderated dispute resolution. Okay. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure. But I would suggest reading all of the foregoing before diving into this pool. Coretheapple (talk) 00:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

As the substitute volunteer moderator at the dispute resolution noticeboard, I did a general close of the dispute resolution of Meghan Trainor. The article is still currently protected. Discussion at the talk page can continue, as can an RFC either at the talk page or at a project page. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Closing discussed here. Coretheapple (talk) 05:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Way past sell by date

Could someone else close down this twenty day old thread? If you can't get something to stick on an editor in one-third that time, it's time to gently set your stick on the ground and find something else to do. Note Coretheapple has been keeping the thread alive (see post above) and then claiming there's a "new" viewpoint and canvassing others to comment NE Ent 20:09, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh please. User:J. Johnson posted without anyone "canvassing" him, concerning disruption at 2014 Oso mudslide, an article nowhere else mentioned in this topic, commenting on Winkelvi's behavior there . I posted a note on his page after he did that. You ought to know better than to make such an accusation, or to take it upon yourself to archive an ANI topic in which you vigorously side with the subject. The discussion has gone on a long time because of the subject's behavior and long record of disruption, most recently by behaving tendentiously at DRN I know you like him and side with him, and that's great. I think that it would help the project a great deal more if you helped him, rather than shut down discussion about the serial problems he causes. Also I think that you're not quite correct about nothing "sticking" on this editor, whatever that means, as you may be aware that he was just blocked for 48 hours for edit warring, and made a promise to adhere to a topic ban and then reneged on it. So no, this ANI topic has not exactly been an exercise in wheel-spinning. Coretheapple (talk) 20:35, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Disruptive editing on Soka Gakkai page

This concerns editor Ubikwit. On the page Soka Gakkai. The Soka Gakkai is a lay religion based on the Buddhist teachings of a 13th century monk. It was originally aligned with – though a separate entity from – a clerical sect called Nichiren Shoshu. The latter excommunicated the Soka Gakkai in 1991, and there has been no connection since.

At issue, currently, is the content of placement of the “Beliefs and Practices” section of the entry. The administrator, Shii, along with 4 other editors (plus myself) agree, at least to some extent, that there is sufficient scholarship supporting the independence of Soka Gakkai belief; and that, as a consequence, it’s “Beliefs and Practices” subsection can precede the “History” subsection, in which its former relationship with Nichiren Shoshu is covered.

This would be consistent with Misplaced Pages’s treatment of other newer religions.

Editor Ubikwit reverts every attempt to change the content of the positioning of this subsection. He does do with nodiscussion of the issues, and has been asked numerous times by various editors to refrain from doing so – to no avail. The last time he reverted with no discussion (January 18th) I undid his revert and asked him point blank on the Talk page to discuss before he reverted again. He did not discuss, but once again reverted and left me a "warning" on my Talk page.

He is accusing me of advocacy, but the Advocacy guidelines indicate that advocacy can mean hoping to portray something in either a positive or negative light. The Soka Gakkai entry was, at one time, heavily negative. What I (and some other editors) have tried to do is achieve balance, using acceptable and credible academic sources. The information that reflects negatively remains, but positive information has been added. Ubikwit seems to be of the opinion that negativity is "neutral" while positivity is "advocacy". However, the administrator has expressed satisfaction with the changes that have been made in recent months. I have tried to discuss this with Ubikwit, but have received no response, other than his insistence that my sources are being self-promotional.

The current discussion of this on the Talk Page is in the subsection “Citation Has Gone Missing”. An earlier discussion of the same topic is still active in the subsection “Another major reversion”. In the Archives (18), here, there are two subsections on the issue: ”, in which, btw, the administrator states “We already had a discussion about this and I believe Ubikwit is in the minority. There is no clear format among religion articles, for example, Bahá'í Faith and Christian Science have beliefs sections first, while Scientology has it otherwise. In the SG article there is a good argument that SG beliefs are unfamiliar enough that they can be explained first and may help provide context for the History section. Shii (tock) 19:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC”. But it had to be addressed again in the sub : started by still another editor.

It was also addressed here (17) in ”; here (16) in “”. And ] (15), I think, is the first attempt, on August 26th. You will see in all that discussion very little of Ubikwit, and many mentions of his un-discussed reversions.

We have a consensus among a vast majority of active editors. We have sources that support what I am trying to do. We have made arguments for the changes, and there have been no academic arguments made against the changes. Yet Ubukwit keeps reverting the changes. He ignores others’ comments, and he doesn’t seem to care about what the consensus is. He just keeps reverting, over and over, with no regard for what research has been done, what other editors say, what arguments are made on the Talk page.

What can we do to ensure the best Soka Gakkai page we can? Can we stop this disruptive editing?

Here ] are the changes I made, starting with "Soka Gakkai believes..." Here ] is the current entry after Ubikwit's latest reversion - nearly half way down the entry.

Thank you for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daveler16 (talk • contribs) 00:59, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

What is a "lay religion"? Is that not a contradiction? BMK (talk) 02:19, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Close, but not always. In this case it more or less means that the group was founded in a schism from the ordained priesthood, and that none of the members are necessarily priests or clerics. John Carter (talk) 02:22, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Learn something new every day. BMK (talk) 17:10, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken (talk · contribs) Actually, the schism didn't develop until long after the founding of the group as what is known as a Hokkeko. There is no such thing as a "lay religion", only lay groups associated with an established religion.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 00:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

This is a huge mess that will not see resolution and I doubt any of the overworked admins here want to step in. If anyone wants to understand what the problem is, I left a message at Misplaced Pages:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_79#Dorje_Shugden_controversy about why these kinds of articles are likely to decrease in quality over time owing to a lapse in academic standards. I won't be repeating that here.

Ubikwit and I, the two long-term editors involved with this page, are basically no longer engaging with the large-scale rewrite by SPIs that uses academic but incomplete sources. Indeed, I don't think there is anything we can do about this article within the policies and guidelines of Misplaced Pages. Ubikwit has simply resorted first and foremost to revert warring, and I have basically absented myself from editing. RIP Misplaced Pages Shii (tock) 21:45, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it is bit of a joke to accuse Ubikwit of disruptive editing. I do engage on the talk page just like on the Ikeda page … I do no large edits unless SGIists go ab bit too far. I said often enough that on the quality scale the article is deteriorating big times. The sock puppet issue does need to get tackled. As soon as debates and controversies get heated some editors vanish and a new one appears out of the blue. Strange indeed. --Catflap08 (talk) 22:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think I would refer to reverting the attempts to restructure the article in a wholesale manner so as to promote the SG to Misplaced Pages refers as "revert warring", but I have reverted such attempts, twice now, to preserve NPOV, etc. It should be noted that there was a discussion after the first attempt, but then Daveler attempted to go against consensus and try to restructure the article in exactly the same manner, and subsequently reverted my restoration of the consensus status quo.

There are a number of advocates operating on the article, attempting to promote SG in an outreach manner, appropriating Misplaced Pages to that end. I would be in agreement that there is sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry going on, but like Catflap, the amount of time I have to devote to this article is very limited.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 00:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Should the problem continue, I really think that this case, and the other one Shii mentioned, and maybe a few others could all be presented to ArbCom for if nothing else discretionary sanctions. The biggest problem areas we have, at least to my mind, are, pseudoscience, new religious movements (broadly construed), and modern scientific or minority scientific views of early history and religion. John Carter (talk) 02:45, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

No doubt. I wouldn't mind seeing a boomerang for the preemptive strike Daveler16 has attempted here, though. The statements he makes above about consensus, for example, are diametrically opposed to the facts. Not only is he pretending not to hear, he is misrepresenting the state of affairs in an attempt to unduly influence the content dispute.

In my opinion, he should have been topic banned long ago.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 11:00, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

If you want to more clearly propose sanctions in a subsection below, maybe particularly indicating the specific nature of sanctions proposed and the reasons for them, such a proposal may get enough input to generate some sort of positive results. Personally, I have to agree that some sort of boomerang is possibly called for here, but am not myself sure just what terms should be applied. John Carter (talk) 15:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the major problem with this group of SPIs is that they are adding large amounts of reliably sourced (by strict WP standards, although lacking in a bigger NPOV perspective) material that supports their bias, which has led to an overly long, messy, and barely coherent article. The material is not bad per se and they are not generally removing critical material, as an earlier, far worse editor did. Nothing they have done merits a topic ban or block, although this continues to be a contentious discussion with too much reverting. Shii (tock) 15:49, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be excusing the blatant attempts to convert the article into a promotional pitch for the Soka Gakkai that the "group of SPIs", as you call them, are engaged in. I certainly hope that you are not referring to my reverts of the multiple attempts to place the "Beliefs and Practices" section before the "History" section.

Moreover, there have been continual attempts at obfuscation and deletion of critical material over the past several months, including the reference to "brainwashing", for example. To counter that I had to order two out-of-print books in Japanese online and post text from them. And it currently appears that a similar effort may be underway at the Daisaku Ikeda page about the Ogasawara incident ("Raccoon dog" priest incident), which Catflap informed me of. I posted Japanese text related to that under the relevant Talk page discussion, because there appear to be sourcing issues, though I don't have time to go through that material in detail.

Who knows where all of these SPIS SPAs come from, but they certainly have much more free time than I do, and there appear to be multiple distinct groups of SPIS SPAs covering different but related articles, such as those on the Soka Gakkai article and those on the Ikeda Daisaku article. Who has time to investigate such ongoings? Apparently that is not something that admins are tasked with, and regular editors like myself and Catflap do not have the time to engage such a large "group of SPIS SPAs".

It is clear that Daveler16 and Brandeburg have been continually engaged in advocacy, and in some cases going against consensus; here, accusing me of violating consensus is an underhanded tactic that I would think should amount to some sort of violation. It was totally retaliatory after I left a warning about WP:ADVOCACY on his Talk page. It's a false accusation about my conduct made with the intention of getting the upper hand in a content dispute, which they have lost (i.e., consensus is against them) and refuse to acknowledge. They haven't started any RFCs, etc., and are simply trying to game the system.

For any uninvolved admins looking at this, here, for example, is a list of five freshly minted SPIs working on one of the articles at issue, since December

Elemential1

Basicallyyes

Findemnow

TokyoSunrise

LovLove

Daveler16 along with BradenburgG are the two main SPIS SPAs working on the Soka Gakkai article, while BrandenburgG has been editing the Daisaku Ikeda article as well, but has made 90% of the edits on the Soka Gakkai article since December. Daveler16 recently attempted to carry out a major refactoring of the article against consensus by slipping it among the recent flurry of incremental edits by BrandenburgG. That had been reverted before and discussed, and consensus was clearly not for such a refactoring.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 16:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. I continue to hold that these SPIs are acting in good faith and simply don't realize that they the article that results from their efforts is an imbalanced and essentially biased one. If I were being paid hourly to edit Misplaced Pages I would happily engage with them and formulate a new policy in order to get this article under control. But we do it for free... Shii (tock) 17:41, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Shii may well be right. The reason I mentioned pseudoscience, new religious movements, and modern politics and economics as being among our most problematic areas is that those seem to be areas where WP:TRUTH, in one sort or other, most often arises. People who are, sometimes for good reason, very, very interested in something in which they have very strong beliefs, of whichever sort, and want to tell the world about how wonderful it is, are among the most frequent newer editors at such topics, and, in those cases where they have read everything published by (for instance) SGI but nothing from any independent sources, they also tend to think that they are among the most and best informed on the topic. Convincing them to the contrary is often extremely difficult, if not impossible in some cases. John Carter (talk) 17:49, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

arbitrary break

While I don't doubt that those areas are problematic for the reasons mentioned, there are policies, and some of those have been referred to repeatedly.
That is partly why, unlike Shii, I don't see all of the editing at issue as being done in good faith.
This issue started way back in early October, and much discussion had taken place before the most recent repeat of major refactoring and subsequent revert, which was a replay of October. The following is a collection of some of the representative moments and comments pertaining to the content dispute and conduct, starting with October.
Way back in October, Daveler16 revealed a plan
My comment in response
Followed by Shii
first reversion of BOLD major refactoring of article (moving Beliefs & Practices to top) without consensus
1st Talk page discussion following BOLD edit and revert
relevant comment by John Carter
followed by WP:OR comment by Daveler16 revealing his overall disposition
Daveler16 removes RS-sourced material, replaces it with POV promotional text
Daveler16 misrepresents source in trying to decontextualize Beliefs & Practices section
Discussed here on talk page Daveler16 failed to address misrepresentation
Then he leads one to believe that he didn’t read the edit summary in which I state the page number, even after I challenge him on the evasion
from “Another major reversion” Talk page section, all of which should be read
BrandenburgG makes a comment providing historical context to refute me
I reply
Finally, this section “Big Problem?” should also be read
--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 19:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with some of the statements above. I believe Daveler's description and complaint are 100% valid. I don't think Ubikwit and Catflap recognize the extent that their personal lenses affect their contributions.

Let me get personal here because I've been mentioned several times. I consider myself a new editor to WP, about a half year. I am being accused of being a SPI or a SPA and frankly I don't know what they mean.

I've been working hard on this article and I believe I deserve some credit for my time and efforts. I consider myself to be sincere, hard-working, reasonable and honest. I recognize my biases and faults. I believe some of the descriptions of my work above are mean and discouraging.

However, my motivation for working so adamantly is traced to when I came across the SG article. Frankly speaking, as a SG member I was horrified. It was not NPOV by any means!

• For example, the accusations that the SGI was a cult appeared 4 times in a single article, starting from the opening paragraphs. This is quite horrific especially when the entire scholarship about cults has discredited the notion that there is any such thing as a cult.
• People like Toda and Ikeda were treated in ways that ignored their contributions and grossly exaggerated their faults.
• The beliefs and practices of the Soka Gakkai were explained in ways that were unrecognizable to SG members.
• Scholarship from the 1960s and 1970s was predominating and used to describe the current organization; recent and emerging scholarship was being ignored.

As was mentioned above, I have added sources and have not deleted anything to the best of my knowledge. I believe the sources I have used are excellent and complete. Where I have used scholarship improperly please notify me and I will immediately apologize and edit.

I do agree with the above editors on two points:

1. I admit to working too fast and furious. This was only pointed out to me by Catflap a couple of days ago. I recognize her point here and understand that such a pace makes it hard for others to critique and I apologize. I must tell you that my wife fully agrees with Catflap on this point.
2. I agree that the article is too long and has many stylistic issues.

The solution that I would like to propose is drawn from conflict resolution techniques. I recommend that two and only two editors work on condensing the article and making sure the resulting article is balanced. This work could take place on someone's Sandbox. The two editors should represent different points of perspective to assure balance. BrandenburgG (talk) 00:22, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no "blatant attempt to convert the article nto a promotional pitch for the SGI". For a very long time, the article was little more than a hatchet job on the SG, with nearly every other paragraph containing phrases like "brain washing cult" and "fascist" and "cult of personality" In fact, this is an international, widely respected movement(with critics, yes, which no one is denying) that has established educational institutions in various countries, has partnered with the U.N, the Simon Wiesenthal Museum, Morehouse College, and others, on various projects. None of that would be possible were the SG as sinister as Misplaced Pages formerly made it out to be. The SG's honorary president has carried out dialogues with Arnold Toynbee, Rene Huyghe, Aurelio Peccei, Linus Pauling and others - people who are not easily duped or brainwashed. To introduce balance - reflecting that, perhaps, some writers have perceived the movement as positive is not "self-promotion" or "advocacy".

Likewise, until a few months ago the Beliefs and Practices of the SG were depicted solely in terms of how they relate to other secyts of Buddhism - especially Nichiren Shoshu. Just a little research found that the SG has beliefs are separate from Nichiren Shoshu's, and always have been, and that these separate and original beliefs are what motivates its practices. There is no reason whatsoever that the B&P section should begin "Until the 1991 split with the Nichiren Shōshū, Sōka Gakkai existed within the Shōshū framework...", especially since about a fifth of bthe "History" subsection is taken up with the former association - and it's constant history of disagreements.

"Advocacy", remember, can also be negative, and that is what seems to be going on here. There seems to be a faction that wants to ensure that the overall impression of the Soka Gakkai gleaned from Misplaced Pages is that it's sinister in tactics annd derivative in doctrine, and that's why reverts continue in the face of scholarship and consensus.--Daveler16 (talk) 00:30, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Uh, this is a content issue rather than a conduct issue, but one of the odd things about this case is that any sect claiming to be the "true Buddhism" ideally should be "derivative in doctrine". Soka Gakkai, in contrast, has a large number of interesting new doctrines aimed towards turning lay believers into practitioners. Hence the confusing term, "lay religion". Shii (tock) 02:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I will like to agree on what you said and this falls on cultural and education movement of Soka Gakkai. I will like to provide my view on this moement.

If Soka Gakkai is an "brain washing cult", "fascist" or "cult of personality" organisation, why did Singapore and Malaysia approve SOka Gakkai to establish the school in the country.

Please bear in mind that Singapore had one of the most restrictive law when it come to human right. They have managed to ban many extremist organisation as well as terroist in their countries. Among them are Jemaah Islamiyah, Falun Gong, ISIS. How come Soka Gakkai was not charged under Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act for being "brain washing cult", "fascist" or "cult of personality" in Singapore. Instead why did the Singapore government every year keep inviting SGI to participate in the National Day Parade performances.

There is a reason why there are too many citation in Soka Gakkai as well as Daisaku Ikeda. It is because there are some editors who like to reverts all the contribution which do not have any reliable source at all. One of them is Scandiescot (talk · contribs).

There is one more editor who also refute Catflap and Ubikwit quite a lot of time previously and the person is Margin1522 (talk · contribs). Kelvintjy (talk) 04:03, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Might also point out that Ubukwit has participated more here in 2 dayys than he has for a month on the relevant Talk page. Catflap earlier mentioned Ubikwit on the NPOV Noticeboard, and this was one of the replied: "Looking at the article, I am seeing a considerable amount of verified content being deleted and then restored (1, 2), as well as a good bit of discussion on the talk page. Questions about sources should be taken to WP:RSN. I only see one comment on the talk page by the above editor, but many comments by User:Daveler16; this causes me some concern.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:17, 8 November 2014 (UTC)"/ That's ], btw. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daveler16 (talk • contribs)

Since my name has been mentioned, maybe I could give my perspective. I arrived at the article by chance, answering a request to fix an AGRL on the talk page. I was rather shocked by article, which struck me as a blatantly POV attack page. Readers were complaining. After fixing the AGRL, I made one edit trying restore some balance to the description of the organization’s founder. It was immediately reverted (diff), which was one indication of where the problems were coming from.

As background, this is an organization with many political and religious enemies in Japan, especially on the extreme right-wing fringe. There is an anti-Soka Gakkai industry with its home in the tabloid press – about as far as you can get from reliable sources. To the extent that the article uses those sources, it’s going to be biased and not up to WP standards. For a while, while I was contributing to the article, my main focus was trying to get rid of the worst of those sources, by explaining on the talk page how bad they are and replacing them with better ones. It was like pulling teeth. Once, in the only time that I have ever resorted to dispute resolution, I asked for a third opinion. The decision (here) was to remove the source. Since then the source has been restored, as if the 3O had never happened, and we are back to where we started. But I’ve left it as it is and haven’t pursued it further, because I think there are bigger problems.

The biggest, IMO, has been edit warring and reversions. Especially by Ubikwit, who must have dozens of reversions in his edit history, usually with nothing more than a curt edit summary. However, it’s better than it was. I’ve spent a lot of time arguing on the talk page that all editors should be allowed to contribute, and in fact all participants are now able to contribute. I don’t support any kind of ban on Ubikwit. He has shown many times that he will accept edits and suggestions as long as the sources are good enough.

Nor do I support any kind of boomerang against Daveler16. Thanks to his contributions, the article is far better balanced than it used to be, and complaints are down. The point of this discussion is whether the section that he contributes to should come first in the article. He’s argued for that many times on the Talk page, and tried to execute it, and been reverted every time. My own opinion is that I’m not against it, although it would require a major rewrite of the article. IMO this kind of major restructuring needs consensus on the Talk page, which may never come. So my advice is to just accept that and concentrate on making the "Beliefs and practices" section as good as it can be. There are many other associated articles and no lack of work that needs to be done.

As for the content, I agree with Shii that the article is getting very long. Although the contributions from the new editors are welcome, I'd like to ask them to realize that they may not all survive, as is, in some future version that will fairly represent all of the many points of view that exist about this organization. – Margin1522 (talk) 06:50, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: This ANI filing seems a bit like a content dispute. And would people please for heaven's sake wikilink the wiki acronym WP:SPA and spell it correctly, rather than making people, including new editors, guess what it means? Just glancing at the article, I find it mind-numbingly long, especially the History section. It would do well to try to summarize and be concise throughout. That said, my understanding, if I'm not mistaken, is that Nichiren (and by extension SG?) are the largest religions in Japan, so maybe some length is justified. It is concerning if there are a lot of WP:SPAs bloating and skewing the article, and that should be watched out for and WP:NPOV preserved. On the other hand, we need to avoid having the article be overly critical, or having WP:UNDUE weight placed upon the criticisms. I do find it a bit odd that the word "cult" is in the lede three times, which seems a bit prejudicial. Also, I think the article needs to differentiate better between SG in Japan and SG outside of Japan. Right now it doesn't do that well, and most of the criticism stuff seems to be about SG in Japan, which to my mind shouldn't be conflated with SG in the rest of the world. Softlavender (talk) 06:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

It is probably the case that most of the material in English relates to SGI, not SG. Breaking the present article down into two separate articles might be something to consider.

The word "cult" appears three times for sound reasons. The first mention documents that is a frequently found attribution; the second is a recent attempt to describe the group in related terms and deny the attribution (included per NPOV at the insistence of pro-SG editors); and the third relates to the role of Ikeda as a charismatic leader of the group(s). I don't see anything prejudicial there.

The article is not "mind-numbingly long" because Nichiren is the largest religion in Japan (a spurious claim), it is too long because it has been bloated with fluff that has been inserted in a manner such as to obfuscate central points and subvert the encyclopedic quality of the article for the promotional purposes.

Here is a concrete example of recently added text that could easily be removed from the article, and has a promotional bend.

Ikeda promoted the Soka Gakkai as an institution promoting culture through his own personal initiatives, the Min-on Concert Association, and massive cultural performances. The emphasis on participatory culture underlies the idea that by improving oneself, one also improves the world. In 1971 Ikeda began publishing his poems including an ode to mothers entitled "Mother," the nature-themed "Pampas Grass," and "The People," a Whitmanesque tribute to the common person. Many of these poems were included in a 1978 volume translated by Burton Watson. His essays and addresses moved from doctrine to contemporary themes and using Western references. in the 1970's Ikeda claims he took up the hobby of photography.

Clearly, a single sentence would be more than is merited by the material as part of a "History" section, and the entire section could be retitled "Buddhism Humanism", but there seems to insufficient RS material on that, as the pro-SG editors have been challenged on the Talk page to produce it in the past when trying to assert that "Buddhism Humanism" was a doctrinal "belief" or the like. For that discussion on that one has to start with Archive 15.

In that section, called "Beliefs and Practices", because it addressed material being inserted into the corresponding section in the article, there was the following exchange.

1. Daveler16 asserts that I didn’t explain why I undid his edit, which implies he didn’t read the edit summary
2. I post excerpt of relevant passage in reply to Daveler16’s assertion
3. Daveler16 replies
4. I reply to Daveler16

So the insertion of the above-quoted passage and section seems to be an attempt at a workaround simply with the aim of ADVOCACY. The above-passage itself, which is part of a section that was created in its entirety by BrandenburgG over a period of a couple of days starting with this edit from January 17 is WP:UNDUE, and what might merit being included in the article should be integrated elsewhere, even in the preceding section, for example. I hope that this illustrates an aspect of the problematic.

This problematic relates to a conduct issues falling under WP:ADVOCACY, WP:NOTHERE, WP:IDHT, etc., and not a content dispute.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 07:33, 09:51 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I have to say "ugh" at that vacuous, almost meaningless and promotional passage, and if that is an example of what the WP:SPAs have been adding to the article, and if they are the cause of the mind-numbing length of the article, then I would support a WP:BOOMERANG to the filer(s) of this ANI, and some serious admin intervention and oversight of the article and the WP:ADVOCACY, WP:NOTHERE, WP:IDHT editors and editing that are occuring there. I salute Ubikwit and Shii for having had the stamina to deal with it this long. It's time they got some support, especially admin support, whatever form that takes, which might include topic bans for the worst offenders. Softlavender (talk) 10:41, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, I learn something new. I just read about single purpose advocacy and I plead guilty. My focus on WP has been on SG-related articles. I see the need for generalized participation as an editor and I agree to abide. Through my participation editing I have come to see the significance and responsibility of editing and I want to promise a long-term commitment.

Secondly, I need to explain the rational for writing "that vacuous, almost meaningless and promotional passage." Two editors have advocated consistently for prominent use of the "C" (cult) word. There has been extensive discussion continuing with Ubikwit's posting above. But his sourcing is quite questionable and this was raised over and over again. He refused to budge on his position. Let's look at two of his sources Furukawa and Yanatomi. Such a serious charge--"cult of personality"--and all Ubikwit cites are two Japanese sources that no other editor can refute because of language barriers. Also, let me mention, one author's work is almost 30 years old!

He also refused to alter the citation of Macioti, a noted Italian sociologist, whose entire book explores the SG in depth and comes to the conclusion that it is not a cult. (page 124: "It should be clear to all by now that Soka Gakkai is not a "sect." It is not a small, two-faced cult, characterized by obscure and hidden agendas. Rather it is a movement that has given life to varied associations, all of which are engaged in promoting culture, and raising interest around the theme of values—and a movement that demands to be examined more closely by using scientific methodologies and instruments of evaluation.)

He also refused to budge on using the Lewis citation to somehow legitimate "brainwashing cult." Lewis write, "For over half a century, one of the most controversial new religions in Japan has been Soka Gakkai. Although this group has matured into a responsible member of society, its ongoing connection with reformist political activity served to keep it in the public eye. Until relatively recently, it also had a high profile as the result of sensationalist and often irresponsible media coverage. Apparently as a direct consequence of the social consensus against this religion, some scholars have felt free to pen harsh critiques of Soka Gakkai--critiques in which the goal of promoting understanding has been eclipsed by efforts to delegitimate Soka Gakkai by portraying it as deluded, wrong, and/or socially dangerous....Soka Gakkai also spread to the United States and Europe, where it aroused controversy as a result of its intense proselytizing activities. Although it was never as controversial as groups like the Hare Krishna Movement or the Unification Church, Sokka Gakkai—which in the United States went under the name Nichiren Shoshu of America after Soka Gakkai broke with Nichiren Shōshū—was not infrequently stereotyped as a brainwashing cult, particularly by anti-cult authors."

This is highly problematic and misleading. The entire Lewis chapter tries to delegitimate the SG as a cult. This is in fact the thrust of Lewis's work as an "anti-anti-cult" scholar. The one phrase Ubikwit holds on to is about the US and not Japan or worldwide. It is full of qualifications noted by Lewis.

So the opening paragraphs, which are all that many WP readers look at allege cult and brainwashing on the flimsiest of evidence.

My efforts as an editor of the "history" section have been to show that even if the movement had incidents of cult-like behavior in the 50's, by the 60's these had started to change. By the 70's there was a radical reassessment and swing toward a movement of "peace, culture, and education." Is this just promotionalism? I don't think so. I think it is essential given the serious charges of cultism. And if I show the peace, culture and education literature, don't I have to document it with sources.

So show me how to write it better instead of trying to cut off my hands. BrandenburgG (talk) 16:00, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think BrandenburgG's comments might be a little hard to follow if you don't know the history of the article, so I'll try to explain it a bit here. (1) The greatest source of friction in this article has been the term "brainwashing cult". If you scroll down the bottom of the same talk page as the exchange that Ubikwit quoted above, you'll find the section titled Brainwashing cult and James R. Lewis. That's where I make a 7-point argument for getting rid of it, as the most offensive term in the article and also one of the most dubiously sourced. The response, mainly from Ubikwit, is essentially WP:IDHT. If we're going to consider that a conduct issue here on AN/I, then we need to know that we have two sides here, both quite entrenched in their opinions, so WP:IDHT is going to happen. (2) About WP:ADVOCACY, please note how BrandenburgG framed it, as a reaction to the perceived POV in language like "brainwashing cult". If we can make progress on the language that provokes the reaction, then we can also make progress on the advocacy. BrandenburgG has indicated that he's aware of these issues now, so I think that they can be handled without topic bans or oversight. (3) As to whether Daveler16's contributions are WP:ADVOCACY or WP:NOTHERE, and generally about civility, I'd like to take another look at the exchange that Ubikwit quoted above. First, please look at our article on Buddhist humanism. You'll see that this term has considerable currency in the literature. It's not nonsense, by any means. But nonsense is what Ubikwit calls it – twice, once in his edit summary and once in the exchange on the talk page. It's an aggressive and confrontational style of arguing. It's not impossible to deal with, but it does generate a lot of heat. So what this suggests to me is (one) that Daveler16 is not engaged in any egregious special pleading or untoward WP:ADVOCACY in that passage, and (two) that everyone needs to calm down, be polite, and listen to what the other side has to say. Let's try that first, before talking about boomerangs and topic bans. – Margin1522 (talk) 17:40, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The post by Margin1522 requires this to be taken even further back into August of 2014.

In the same Talk page archive to which Margin1522 refers, there is a thread preceding the one Maring1522 referenced that addresses the use of “brainwashing cult”, but I guess that Margin1522 didn't read that.

response to inactive SPA (2 NRUs) FetullahFan that they take it to RS/N

With respect to Margin1522 attempts to dismiss RS based on its publication thirty years ago, see the following comment, which was made prior to Margin1522’s comment in the aforementioned preceding thread.

replied that date of Yanatori publication was largely irrelevant regarding attempts to dismiss it

I subsequently acquired both the books by Furukawa and Yanatori in Japanese, and posted the relevant portions on the Talk page here

Margin1522, who also can read Japanese, responded somewhat glibly with basically dismissive comments referring to “hyperbolic language”, and goes so far as to misrepresent what Yanatori says regarding Ikeda's encounter with Zhou Enlai (Yanatori basically relates the opportunistic photo op, etc., as having been used in SG educational/recruitment material for brainwashing purposes (i.e., for inculcating adulation for Ikeda in the minds of SG adherents)) here.

In short, with respect to the "brainwashing cult" characterization, as the current lead shows, there are at least 7 cited sources, including English and Japanese from the 1960s and 1970s. Obviously that represents a notable POV that must be represented in the article according to WP:DUE, WP:WEIGHT.
--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 18:38, 19:11 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I feel inferiority here as a newcomer, I see a steep learning curve about WP terms. Albeit, I think Margin1522 frames my opinion well. The "brainwashing cult" accusation in the opening paragraphs is harsh and insulting. It is a nuclear option given that the entire science about "brainwashing" has been discredited (see "https://en.wikipedia.org/Mind_control#Legal_issues.2C_the_APA_and_DIMPAC" for a start) and that the references are so skimpy. Ubikwit, perhaps you and Margin1522 can read Japanese, but 99% of we WP editors on the English site can't. Your source belongs on the Japanese WP page where it can be fully vented and analyzed for accuracy.

I want to address Shii now. I have had several candid interchanges with you on Talk pages. I respect your dedication and neutrality. I have always given careful consideration to every one of your suggestions and I think I have followed through each time. If you felt I was too OCD, I believe a mention of it would have served me well. Further, when there was a lot of debate on the opening paragraphs--and I think this was right around the time I started editing--you were the one who gave wise counsel to start with the article and then return to the opening paragraphs. I've been merrily doing that ever since and I should have been cautioned that I was going too fast. As a lead editor I feel that was your responsibility to do so then and there instead of publicly questioning my sincerity on this administrator's noticeboard.

That's all I want to say for now. BrandenburgG (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

BrandennburgG (talk · contribs) If you feel that RS characterizations of the Soka Gakkai being a "brainwashing cult" are "harsh and insulting", perhaps your emotional attachment to the subject prevents you from editing in an objective manner according to Misplaced Pages's content policies.

I'm fairly certain that you have been warned about WP:OR and WP:SYNTH on the Talk page, but you appear not to have read the relevant policies/guidelines. That is evident from your assertion above about "the entire science about brainwashing" being discredited. That is not an acceptable manner in which to attempt to dismiss reliable sources.

While I don't have a problem with editors trying to add balancing material demonstrating positive aspects of SG, that must be done in a manner according to the relevant content policies. Moreover, ADVOCACY is prohibited, and there have been numerous warnings on the Talk page regarding advocacy and promotional material.

I think that you and Daveler16 need a long break from editing in this topic area.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 19:32, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@Margin1522: Your statement at the beginning of your "7-point refutation" bears quoting here

On the question of whether to take this to the WP:RS/N notice board, I don’t think that’s the right place for it. Lewis uses the word "stereotyped", so I think it's pretty clear that he doesn't agree with this idea. But the dispute here is about whether reliable sources are being used responsibly, and that's not what WP:RS/N is about. Personally I don't think "brainwashing cult" belongs in the article at all, much less the lead.

As pointed out above with respect to your addressing of other issues, you appear to adopt a strategy of side-stepping facts in order to promote a POV not in accord with the sources. The simple fact here is that there are a total of 7 sources cited for the statements in the lead. I don't see where your attempts to dismiss any of them is based on policy. In fact, your statement that

"Personally I don't think "brainwashing cult" "belongs in the article at all"

sums up your emotionally biased predisposition toward the sources.

Like Daveler16 and BrandenburgG, it is obvious that you have an emotional attachment to the subject, and probably should abstain from editing it. Since you can't seem to resist the temptation to do so, maybe a mandatory break would be in order.
--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 20:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Another Break

This is, actually, about conduct; but I think content disputes explain the conduct and that's why so much has been written about content. For instance, the Lewis book says, essentially, "SG gas been accused of being a cult, but it is not" - but then is cited to support "SG has been accused of being a cult". Similarly, an L.A. Times article evaluates both sides of the Ikeda-as-cult-leader question, and actually contains these words from a religious scholar : "He is not a cult leader". But an editor made a choice about which argument to cite that article to support, and again, it was "It's a cult". This indicates an advocacy, or at least a prejudice that colors the eidting.

So to the matter at hand. Since August there have been 6 sub sections on the Talk page concerning "Beliefs and Practices" Here are some excerpts: ]; Suggestion is first made, Catflap08 and I have a discussion about, and the only time Ubikwit's name appears is when it's noted that he reverted with no discussion. Later, he writes: "The reasons were explained in the edit summary".

Edit summaries are not really conducive to discussion. Also, by definitiion, they do not precede the revert, as discussions of reverts are supposed to do.

Later in that thread, I note that Ubikwit, on the one hand, supports the Lewis reference Mentioned above to affirm what it actually refutes, but does not think a statement about SG practices he does not like can be used to explain that practice. Again - evidence of bias, evidence, perhaps, of an agenda.

]: Administrator Shii wrote: “One way to address Daveler's concern could be to move the "history" section lower in the article, which might coincide with a larger rewrite. Up until the rewrite began I understood SG to be the result of a fierce split with NS. I now understand that post-1991, SGI thinks of its history primarily in terms of its three leaders, and its relationship with NS is something that is in the background and not as important to self-presentation (since SG was always keeping the faith when NS supposedly lost it). Accordingly, the messy "beliefs & practices" section should be rewritten to explain why people come to SG and the message it gives to its members.”

The next day he wrote: “There is no need to be so petty about this. First, I have already said, simply elaborating Misplaced Pages policy, that SGI sources are acceptable for self-description of religious views. They are not acceptable to define the narrative of SGI's history; we do not allow any religious group to determine history." I should point out that no one (to my knowledge) was trying to use SG sources in the History sub section. But there was objection to allowing SG to define its own doctrine. I think this is resolved, but, again - bias displayed against SG.

On October 20 Ubikwit was told: Let's not be overly historicist. If the major question people ask about SGI members is "what do they believe today?" then the answers to that should reasonably come first. Shii (tock) 23:38, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

And Margin1522 wrote, on another but related topic: “I also think the article is better than it used to be, and that we can start thinking about removing the neutrality tag. The obvious thing that still needs to be done is the words that some readers find offensive, especially "brainwashing" and "cult". There is no difference between "Ikeda-centric ethos" and "cult of personality", except that one is an insult and one isn't. Not that we can't mention this language, but we need to make it clear that this is language used by SG's enemies, whatever their agenda may be, and that it isn't endorsed one way or the other by Misplaced Pages. That in itself will make it less offensive and less likely to trigger allergic reactions."

Margin and I duscuss: He says "In principle I'm not opposed to having this section first. But the way it is written now presumes that a lot of information has already been introduced. The first sentence is "Until the 1991 split with the Nichiren Shōshū, Sōka Gakkai existed within the Shōshū framework as a hokkeko, a form of lay organization." None of that has been introduced yet. If we are going to go this way, I think we had better start with a summary of the basic tenets of Nichiren Buddhism and only then introduce what is specific to SG."

To which I reply "You're right" and say I'm undertaking that task. And after I do, there is this exchange: Margin 1522: "Well. You didn't get a chance to rewrite that paragraph, did you? I must say, you've displayed admirable patience through all this. As for me I'll leave it for another day. Better not to write in anger. – Margin1522 (talk)" Me: "Easily fixed. I see that, once again, for the umpteenth time, a major change is made without discussing it.--Daveler16 (talk) 15:56, 8 November 2014"

To summarize all this: As you can see, I'm not the only one who thinks it's a mistake to portray SG beliefs through the lens of another sect, and to bury that sub section after History. You can see also that there seems to be a rather strenuous effort to prevent this from happening, and in general to keep the entry negative.

A number of solutions have been suggested. May I add another? The "Beliefs and Practices" secti0on of the Soka Gakkai entry should be written to reflect the beliefs and practices of the Soka Gakkai, not of another sect, as they are now and have been for years. Then, let Ubikwit edit what I (or someone else) may write on that basis - not on the basis of reverting, or inserting the views of another sect. As I (and others) have found academic sources - of recent vintage, not the 60s - to verify the independence of SG doctrine, Ubikwit could find recent academic sources to argue that SG beliefs are derivative of Niichiren Shoshu - if that's what he wants to do. That would be so much better than merely reverting, and could (and should) lend itslef to productive discussion that will vastly improve the Soka Gakkai entry. --Daveler16 (talk) 04:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Incidentally, I'm not sure why Shii (talk · contribs) made those comments, the actual diff of which is this as they seemed somewhat out of bounds, particularly the point about only recounting the SG's beliefs as per the SG since 1991, presumably ignoring the history from 1930 to 1991. Misplaced Pages is not primarily concerned with how SG conducts its "sellf-presentation. Misplaced Pages has policies/guidelines including WP:Primary etc., that pertain to the use of primary sources. In fact, Shii goes on to say

  For example, here's a really dumb question: the five concepts on this page seem to be key to SG's social message, but none of them are on this Misplaced Pages page. Has anyone seen a source out there that explains this? It would be way better to start the article with this religious message than with the history of the group.

The fact that the so-called "five concepts" and details about the writings of any of the leaders are missing from the article is a glaring flaw indeed, but I found Shii's statement about starting the article with the self-presentation of the "religious message" of the group to be highly unusual. And I will point out that Shii never objected to the reversions of the refactoring, nor was there any collaborative rewrite.

His comment was also way out of character considering the email he sent me on August 19, 2014, which I am prepared to post here (assuming, that is, that doing so wouldn't violate policy) or in a provide to Arbcom, whichever is appropriate. As an "Admin", one would expect Shii to be a little more circumspect and not to make statements on sourcing that appear to be prejudicial and possible contravening WP:RS as well as WP:NPOV.

My sole comment in that thread, in reply, has remained consistent.

That would not be encyclopedic, and Misplaced Pages is not intended to serve the aims of proselytizing for religious organizations. Furthermore, the beliefs and practices have developed over time.

So, Shii, what have you got to say in response to these questions? You've been fairly quite during this discussion, with the possible exception of opposing BOOMERANG.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 14:43, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe that the issue here is not an NPOV one but simply about which subject heading serves readers more. There isn't a policy about whether history is more important than ideology, or what should come first in article sections. BTW, I won't be voting in these proposed resolutions unless if more than one uninvolved admin weighs in on this whole thing. Shii (tock) 17:00, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The issue of "which subject heading serves readers more" is likely something that should be determined according to the prominence of views in reliable secondary sources. With a group as controversial as SG, and with a history that is obviously intimately connected to the controversy as well as the beliefs and practices, the issue should be relatively straightforward. It has nothing to do with how the SG decided it should conduct its "self-presentation" starting in 1991, though that in and of itself is a part of the groups history.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 17:15, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Alas for this POV, there are a large number of religious studies sources (currently being added to the article by BrandenburgG) that describe SGI as a primarily new, present-day phenomenon where beliefs and practices are more important than history. Now, I view this as scholarly approach being irresponsible, in slightly the same way that pre-1995 scholarly support for Aum Shinrikyo was irresponsible, but my POV doesn't matter Shii (tock) 19:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Alas? Did you just say, "Alsas"? Give me a breask. There are several holes in your reply.

First, any new sources that have been added were not there when you made the above-quoted comments in September.

Second, Those sources have not been evaluated.

Thirdly, as you point out, the sources relate to SGI (Soka Gakkai International), not Soka Gakkai.

Why haven't you mentioned the email you sent me in August? Do you think doing so will make it go away? Mr. Harvard Admin?

I'd advise you to measure your statements carefully, because this is going to Arbcom, and you're already sunk.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 19:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@ ShiiHold on – define the term “new”. Japanese new religions? Definitely one of them. Where in the time line you set “new”? SGI dates back to the 1930’s so there is quite a bit of history. --Catflap08 (talk) 19:36, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

To recap, there has been continual and unabated ADVOCACY through the insertion of promotional text and attempts at whitewashing any RS material critical of the SG or its leaders. The pro SG editors have consistently refused to engage in processes such as taking sourcing related questions to RS/N. Instead it can be seen with respect to two issues that they exhibit the same pattern of editing conduct repeatedly: first, there is the attempt to perform a major refactoring of the article against consensus and on the sly; and second, there is the attempt to promote SG as a promoter of "Buddhist Humanism" as a belief or practice without any concrete sourcing and in a manner that violates WP:ADVOCACY. There is also the third point about the two iterations of "cult" used to describe the Soka Gakkai by various sources. I take that to be a sourcing issue, and that the POV in both cases ("brainwashing cult" and "cult of personality") is self-evidently a POV that needs to be in the article based on the sources. Though the mention of those points is not made in an UNDUE manner, there have been continuous attempts to whitewash it and a refusal to take sources to RS/N. I would go so far as to suggest that the above-quoted promotional text posted by BrandenburgG itself demonstrates the type of adulation for Ikeda that is representative of the cult of personality surrounding Ikeda discussed by the sources, but this is not something that BrandenburgG has been able to recognize.

I'd like to suggest a WP:BOOMERANG topic ban for Daveler16, and also for BrandenburgG, the main offenders. While Margin1522's disposition doesn't reflect a willingness to engage processes like RS/N, for example, at least he has not tried to flood the article itself with promotional material, so I will forego suggesting a topic ban for Margin1522.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 06:15, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I guess I escaped nomination because my work on the article itself has mainly been confined to busywork in the footnotes. About RS/N, sure. This might be difficult for the other editors since two of the books are in Japanese. But if it would help I would be happy to translate the two passages that you were good enough to post, and we could see whether third-party editors consider those to be reliable sources. Lewis I think is an interesting case. When an academic quotes strongly POV sources, to what extent do we need to include the academic's own analysis and conclusions? That's a question that should be settled if it hasn't been already. (Note: these are all sources for "brainwashing cult".) – Margin1522 (talk) 16:10, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No need to thank me. The purpose is to halt the disruption to Misplaced Pages caused by the promotional conduct, which violates numerous policies, as described in this thread.

The two Japanese sources are undoubtedly reliable sources, as they are by well-known authors, both investigative journalists, etc. They are both used on the Japanese Misplaced Pages article as well. Regarding Lewis, etc., that should have been taken to RS/N long ago, before FettulahFan disappeared.

Mind you that I would imagine there are other Japanese sources for the "brainwashing cult" description, but I haven't bothered to look--or even read the Japanese Misplaced Pages article (I just confirmed that Furukawa and Yanatori are used there). You have to realize that the writers in English that address the issue are picking it up from somewhere, and that somewhere is most likely Japanese texts. It is not clear that some of the authors writing in English are actually writing about SG as much as SGI, which probably encompasses the scope of their exposure.

At any rate, this is a Talk page discussion, not AN/I.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 16:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Once again I have to Ubikwit on his poor behavior. He sidesteps every point I make and then excoriates me on being an unworthy editor for other reasons. He refuses to acknowledge my charges that cult and brainwashing are extremely serious allegations (especially in opening paragraphs!) and should be substantiated by qualified sources. In order to move forward nothing else should be discussed right now besides the quality of the four sources used to substantiate the allegation: Lewis, Macioti, Furukawa, and Yanatori. A clip of Lewis was used to substantiate "cult" even though the entirety of his statement disproves that fact. A clip of Macioti was used to substantiate "brainwashing" even though the entirety of her book disproves that fact. Given the extensive literature on the SG the use of Furukawa and Yanatori is insufficient to justify a claim of brainstorming. I repeat, use them in the Japanese Misplaced Pages article where they can be publicly vetted; to substantiate this claim Ubikwit should be charged with finding other sources.

I feel bullied by Ubikwit. WP should be a safe place to work. I am making a very precise claim about sources and he responds to viciously attacking my capability to serve as an editor. To me this is killing the messenger because he doesn't like the message. BrandenburgG (talk) 11:11, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Topic bans proposed for Daveler16 and BrandenburgG

Indefinite topic ban for Daveler16 from all articles related to the Soak Gakkai

• Support As proposer.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 12:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - The above discussion is too long and difficult to read. I won't support a topic ban based on walls of text. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: It is that. The incidents have there origins back in August, and are at least threefold. For an easy to grasp dimension of the problem, please read the comment in which the ce represented by this diff occurs.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 15:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support. May need topic bans for (possibly all) other SPAs as well. I also recommend SPIs be filed against all the apparent sockpuppets (not saying they are his sockpuppets, but sockpuppets of each other) involved in editing the article. Possibly also a page semi-protection. And also reverting the page to a version before all the SPA POV bloat got added in. Softlavender (talk) 10:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Indefinite topic ban for BrandenburgG from all articles related to the Soak Gakkai

• Support As proposer.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 12:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - The above discussion is too long and difficult to read. I won't support a topic ban based on walls of text. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support. May need topic bans for (possibly all) other SPAs as well. I also recommend SPIs be filed against all the apparent sockpuppets (not saying they are his sockpuppets, but sockpuppets of each other) involved in editing the article. Possibly also a page semi-protection. And also reverting the page to a version before all the SPA POV bloat got added in. May need topic bans for other (possibly all) SPAs as well. Softlavender (talk) 10:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• No longer necessary - BrandenburgG has recused himself from the article. Shii (tock) 23:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Although I have recused myself from this article, let me point out procedural problems. I think they are important because I believe WP would want to narrow the gap between new editors and more experienced ones. In my case I never heard of Single Purpose Advocacy. Yes, there were discussions about advocacy and biases but they were among a million words, some threatening, that were going back-and-forth. I don't recall WP:SPA came up on talk pages. And I did not receive warnings from the page's administrator that my editorial privileges could be revoked for my behavior and what this all entails. Therefore there was no chance to reflect and/or learn. I received only one warning from Catflap08 that I was editing too quickly and I quickly responded and agreed to slow down.

Regardless of the outcome my situation, I think senior editors should take more time, care, and patience in pointing out to junior editors how things work here. Otherwise there will be collateral damage: well-meaning editors who sincerely want to learn and grow will get pushed under the bus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrandenburgG (talk • contribs) 16:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure if the topic ban will be of much use, the process to investigate sock puppetry is not an easy one either. In both cases the effects may only be temporarily. I would prefer WP:PCPP--Catflap08 (talk) 19:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

The fact that I am now on trial is ominous and Kafka-esque. I have worked hard and sincerely to create a BALANCED article. As a new editor I have shown a capability to grow whenever my faults have been shown. I cannot express myself yet through WP:THIS or WP:THAT so I have to use plain language. In casting your votes please answer the following Yes/No questions: ·The article before my entrance was seriously flawed and unbalance. YES/NO ·Since my arrival the article's balance has improved to the point that administrators removed it "article in dispute" categorization. YES/NO ·The description of an organization as "brainwashing cult" is serious and should merit the highest sourcing. YES/NO ·The four sources listed (Lewis, Macioti, and the two Japanese sources) were being seriously misused or are not accessible to English readers. YES/NO ·Ubikwit has been unprincipled and unrelenting on this matter. Furthermore he has sidestepped this specific issue whenever it has been raised (including right here) YES/NO ·All of my postings have been backed by highly regarded sources. YES/NO ·Bias is OK as long as it is controlled (i.e., Catholics can edit articles on Catholicism, Muslims on Islam, etc.) YES/NO ·WP readers right to a balanced article supersedes all other charges if an editor demonstrates an ability to grow. YES/NO

Therefore I am proposing that my rights to edit continue.

Is this real? I know it might take an entire weekend to read this whole thing, but I would like to hear from an administrator who has done so. Did I suggest a ban on Ubikwit? I don't think I did, and that is certainly not my intention. When did Brandenberg? I just want a stop to his disruptive editing. He has evidently chosen a very aggressive response, which does not involve any serious attempt to understand the problem, or to suggest a solution other than "my was or the highway".

I just posted on the SG Talk Page that other editors might want to check out this discussion, but now I regret doing so: is anyone who may think the SG entry is being kept deliberately negative going to be "banned"? If anyone disagrees with U*bukwit, is there going to be a "vote" on whether or not they can edit any more? Could we return to civility and try to solve the original problem?--Daveler16 (talk) 16:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Alternative proposal: Before everybody bans each other from editing. Why not close the article yet again for a period of one month? The most problematic issue here is that we do have editors working on the article that are adherents of SGI. I keep my own editing on the two, in my opinion, most problematic SGI related articles to a bare minimum – unless certain tendencies resurface to whitewash certain critical issues or discredit sources. It should also become policy that only registered editors, no novices and IP’s, should be able to edit the article. This would be a measure bearing fruit only in the future though. In the end the only solution is to raise certain protection levels indefinitely and have the article(s) more closely watched by admins. Yet again I have to repeat something I have been saying for years now – the fierceness with which editors with a more or less close affiliation to SGI agitate reaffirms some critics who say that SGI cannot take criticism full stop. I cannot see how the article is overly critical of SGI --- even the criticism section was binned by someone. --Catflap08 (talk) 17:00, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Catflap08's proposal is not a terrible idea (though a shorter period seems more appealing to me). However, editors have to face that there is such a thing as "negative advocacy", and that certain editors are guilty of it. I have seen no effort - none - to purge the history of criticism from the article. All I have seen (and done myself) are efforts to restore balance. It is that - saying something, anything that is in any way positive, or that cancels out the criticism - as "advocating" and "promotion". It only appears that way to you if you are advocating the other way - for negativity. --Daveler16 (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I sometimes get the impression that some believe the article is only balanced when criticism is absent. I do longer want to go on about that … but rather see an admin closing the article. --Catflap08 (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@User:BrandenburgG: Please go to the Special:Preferences page and fill in an email. Shii (tock) 20:03, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Shii Have you just made public my email address to logged in users?--Catflap08 (talk) 20:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't be able to do that if I wanted to. Not sure what you mean. I just want to contact BrandenburgG privately about the tone of his posts on this ANI page. Shii (tock) 20:31, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I have to apologize for some rash behavior. I just withdrew my request regarding Ubikwit. I was overly and needlessly emotional. Thank you to Catflap for coming up with some positive ideas.BrandenburgG (talk) 02:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Catflap08: I have no idea who may have advocated all mention of criticism being "absent" before the article is balanced. Meanwhile, I'm going to heed Shii's advice below, and hie myself to the Talk page. --Daveler16 (talk) 02:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This is completely absurd

This is an article with few editors, all of whom are familiar with what collaboration means. Indeed, if you look at the talk page right this second, you will see there is very little disputation going on there at all, and a lot of good-faith collaboration. Most of the arguing at this point has started because this ANI was posted. It is exasperating to hear threats to raise this to Arbcom; it's like threatening to call the police when your kids argue with you. Let's use the talk page first and discuss specific issues for the article moving forward. Shii (tock) 20:24, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I have to disagree the conflict within this article fills the respective archive(s). I have been around for quite a few years and due to my own former affiliation with Soka Gakkai have stayed clear to edit the article, and the one on Daisaku Ikeda, too much. I was always clear of that and now and again since we are as you said dealing with an “article with few editors”, I would actually like to know who is an adherent of SGI – funny enough quite a few editors have been silent about that. And as soon some fall silent other appears out of nowhere – focused on SGI and Ikeda. There is one guiding motive in the article in the last past moths and years – get rid of critical remarks and if unsuccessful negate the integrity of sources being critical. This worries me big time – and no I did not file this to Arbcom.--Catflap08 (talk) 21:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

But the question is, have other methods of dispute resolution failed? I say no. If everyone will agree to allow each other to edit, I think there are some big questions to look at which can be resolved in an open RfC. Shii (tock) 21:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Active SGI adherents will gain the upper hand on the article and if that is Misplaced Pages’s purpose so be it. --Catflap08 (talk) 21:42, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Good grief. I thought we were editing - didn't realize it was an "upper hand" proposition. I like Shii's comments, ad will be seen next back on the Talk page. I started this is hopes of putting an end to disruptive editing and reversions; I had no idea it would turn into a book length jumble. I still hope that we can get a resolution, that I be allowed to edit as research leads me (and of course the same for everyone) and that consensus will be honored.--Daveler16 (talk) 02:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Disruptive editing can occur from various angles. It may result in an article that is promotional and there are clear guidelines on that. Please also note WP:SPA --Catflap08 (talk) 06:01, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Apologies and self-reflection

I want to apologize for my lengthy and sometimes angry words on this board. I wish I could say that I acted with rashness because of my ignorance about dispute boards. Unfortunately, I've been dealing with the same self-victimization and anger issues in my entire non-virtual life. I'm aware of it and keep chipping away. I think I should do here what I do in real life: apologize, back-off, and self-reflect. In real life such action has helped me repair and usually strengthen relationships.

Therefore I have decided to not edit the article for a month or two. (On occasion I might drop a word or two in on the talk page.) As I had promised I will also involve myself in helping other articles, thereby learning more about WP processes. If you have any suggestions for WP volunteer work I could do, please let me know.

I wish the remaining editors my best. Overall I think we have done important work and I respect everyone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrandenburgG (talk • contribs) 13:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Request template namespace topic ban for Sardanaphalus

I have been increasingly concerned about Sardanaphalus (talk · contribs)'s template editing lately. His template editing was recently mentioned in an ANI thread, after which I removed his template editor right. However, I've found that the problems aren't limited to protected templates. While most of his template edits are fine, a significant minority have problems, and given Sardanaphalus's fast rate of editing and tendency to not get consensus on template talk pages, this has resulted in quite a large build-up of templates that need to be fixed. I have noticed the following patterns in Sardanaphalus's template editing:

• Logic errors and bad parameter names that could have been spotted with better testing. For example, a wrong parameter name at infobox company and a missing includeonly tag in infobox shopping mall.
• Creation of template redirects and large-scale editing of articles to use the redirect name, bypassing the requested move process. (This is the matter that was discussed in the previous ANI thread.)
• Formatting errors, making text or tables bunched up or unreadable.
• Creation of unnecessary template forks, for example Template:Semisub (TfD) and Template:End&startflatlist (TfD).
• Adding unnecessary subtemplates and parameters to templates. This makes processing templates slower, which in turn increases the time taken to save pages. For example, see this edit to Template:Collapsible option, the corresponding edits to Template:Mono, and several additions of the {{{1}}} parameter to navboxes to use the parameters added to Collapsible option. Sometimes increases in complexity are fine, but I'm concerned that this is being done on a large scale without any discussion.
• Changing the function of parameters based on other parameters in the template, e.g. and the edits to Template:Mono linked above. Once such a parameter scheme is added, it is hard to fix, as you need to go through every transclusion of a template and check that it doesn't use the new scheme, or add a special tracking category to find the transclusions that need changing. Again, schemes like this can be useful sometimes, but Sardanaphalus tends to add them without discussion in places where they aren't needed.

All of this wouldn't be such a problem if Sardanaphalus took on board advice he was given after problems with his template editing were brought up. However, he tends to revert rather than using the talk page, and sometimes resorts to edit warring to keep his changes in templates. Most importantly, advice on his talk page doesn't seem to have resulted in any change of behaviour. For example, after this thread that I started on his talk page last week, he is still making edits with the exact same problems. I don't see much improvement after other recent threads either, and I see quite a few complaints going back in his talk page history.

I'd like to propose a topic ban from the template namespace for Sardanaphalus, to prevent further bad template edits and to allow us to start cleaning up the old edits without having to worry about cleaning up new edits at the same time. — Mr. Stradivarius 06:24, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

1. I understand that its removal without warning is a prerogative, but, given that our interactions before January were<aside>if I recall correctly</aside>of a friendly, fruitful and collaborative nature, why did you choose not to contact me before revoking the template-editor status  during  the ANI thread you mention<aside>a thread that was about  another  editor's actions</aside>? And then, despite my attempts to reach out to you about the situation, why did you choose not to contact me (privately, if you'd felt it more appropriate) before launching this proposal<aside>especially after this allusion</aside>?
2. "While most of his template edits are fine..."
    This seems to be the single, passing acknowledgement as regards my template contributions overall. Do you realise how one-sided your characterisations and proposal might otherwise appear?
3. "...given Sardanaphalus's tendency to not get consensus on template talk pages..."
    Before, during or after some editing..? And attempts to work toward consensus elsewhere<aside>i.e. less publicly; when, for example, I'm trying to handle incivility</aside> don't or can't count..?
4. "Logic errors..."
    Given the examples you provide, do you not also make the occasional mistake<aside>yes,  occasional</aside>?
5. "...bad parameter names..."
    Such as<aside>in the context of templates such as {{Navbox}}, {{Sidebar}} and {{Infobox}}</aside> some of those provided for e.g. {{hlist}}, {{flatlist}}, etc..?
6. "Creation of template redirects and large-scale editing of articles to use the redirect name, bypassing the requested move process. (This is the matter that was discussed in the previous ANI thread.)"
   1. Why is your interpretation that of a desire to bypass process? Does it strike you as good faith to choose such an interpretation?
   2. Given tools such as Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser, what do you take as "large-scale editing"?
   3. The matter discussed in the previous ANI thread was  another editor's  actions.
7. "Formatting errors, making text or tables bunched up or unreadable":
   1.   I agree that this was a mistake – which is why I (tried to) correct it (), but was given this.
   2.   I see no bunched up / unreadable material here (and at 1024 by 768).
   3.   Ditto (ii) (if the deleted template still existed).
9. "Adding unnecessary subtemplates and parameters to templates. This makes processing templates slower, which in turn increases the time taken to save pages. For example, see...":
   1. ...this edit to Template:Collapsible option...  As indicated in this edit's summary, this was a response to a talkpage request: "Update from sandbox (parentheses per talkpage request (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Template_talk:Collapsible_option&diff=prev&oldid=636681846))".
   2. ...the corresponding edits to Template:Mono... 

• Support topic ban. I had noticed that Sardanaphalus has the wrong approach to editing templates before this report. A minor example is seen in the history at Template:Hegelianism where Sardanaphalus is editing the live template as if it were a contentious article which requires edit warring and pointy edit summaries to overcome POV pushers. Bold editing is one thing, but templates really do require care and collaboration. Johnuniq (talk) 08:43, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

1. Hello. I don't believe we've interacted before. I suppose it's a pity that here has become the first time. Given your first statement, did you decide not to say hello and indicate your concern because you thought my approach was "wrong" but not that "wrong" / "bad" / etc; and/or because you felt I wouldn't respond well; and/or...?
2. Do you believe the example you give (Template:Hegelianism) represents my usual nature, activity and interactivity?

• Support - Sardanaphalus can seem quite productive, but he has trouble collaborating. He has very strong ideas about how things should be done and as such, he doesn't take ctiticism very well. That makes it very hard to fix his mistakes. When he does acknowledge an (obvious) error, he will often revert to his own established methods. His layout always based to fit on his own screen (1680 wide), and in such a way that it becomes illegible on smaller screens. He uses and creates templates like {{!-!}} and {{!-!!}} that are completely redundant to wikimarkup and make table/template editing exponentially harder, yet at the same time acuses experienced template editors of "thinking like progrmammers". I would be a good thing if Sardanaphalus would experience Misplaced Pages more as a reader... on small screens. Or at the least, he could do with some coaching. -- ] {{talk}} 09:21, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment. Please take a look at User talk:Tryptofish/Archive 24#Template:Aquarium. Not too long ago, I reverted an edit by Sardanaphalus at that template, and they reached out to me at my user talk, and our subsequent discussion was very collaborative and improved the template. As a single anecdote, it seems to me to be contrary to what I'm reading here. I do however recognize that Sardanaphalus does an awful lot of template editing and that this is something where consensus is very important. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
  • He used to inquire about my reverts, and I would answer best I could, even though he should have brought up any issue on their respective template talk pages instead. However, any advice I give him is simply ignored or very soon forgoten. -- ] {{talk}} 17:00, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support Sardanaphalus has a habit of reformatting template code in such a manner that makes comparison by diff very difficult. Consider this edit from earlier today: the effective change is the addition of two {{{colheaderstyle|}}} but whilst the first of those is obvious, the second is disguised by the newline wrapped in <!-- --> markers which makes it look like some code has been removed and some very different code has been added. It has reached the point where I have refused to process their protected edit requests because it is so difficult to determine if their desired "minor" change truly is minor. More at Template talk:Shortcut#Protected edit request on 4 December 2014, Template talk:Information#Navbox version and Template talk:Div col#Code layout. They also nag me for not processing edits that I disagree with, see User talk:Redrose64#Template:Information, User talk:MSGJ#Advice, please..? and (by proxy) User talk:Edokter#Template talk:Div col. Sometimes it seems that a strange effect somewhere is the result of a Sardanaphalus edit - but it takes some time to trace it, see Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)/Archive 132#Linebreaks in infoboxes. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:57, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
  • You may also note from today's editing that his use of the sandbox is not very effective; he seemingly moves every edit to the live template immediately, negating the purpose of the sandbox. If the transclusion count is high, this will unnecessarily strain the job queue, and in cases where he does not use the sandbox at all, may introduce disruptive errors on live articles. -- ] {{talk}} 17:00, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment. Sardanaphalus has asked some questions at both my user talk page and Mr. Stradivarius' talk page, and I would prefer that no final decision be made here until Sardanaphalus has responded here at ANI. At the moment, I'm neutral about the ban proposal, pending what I might hear subsequently. One possibility that I think we might want to put on the table is a topic ban from editing templates, but not from editing template talk pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  I agree that editing the template talk namespace should be allowed. Thinking about it, I would extend that to allowing the editing of template sandboxes as well, as without editing template sandboxes it is hard to make effective template edit requests. I'm also wondering whether editing /doc pages in the template namespace should be allowed, but I note that there has been some controversy about Sardanaphalus's editing there; see this section on his talk page, for example. — Mr. Stradivarius 23:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  I looked at that discussion you linked to, and before I say what I think, I had better stipulate that I'm mostly ignorant about the technicalities being discussed there. However, just as a matter of two editors communicating with one another, I'm not seeing anything that bad about the way that Sardanaphalus replied to Edokter. After reading Edokter's reply to my first post just above, I wondered why the two of us had had such differing experiences, and it now seems to me that it takes two to tango. Anyway, I'm receptive to a more limited ban that prevents editing templates and template documentation, but permits template talk page edits and edits of draft templates in sandbox space – but above all, I'm eager to hear back from Sardanaphalus. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

  I should clarify that I never intended my proposed topic ban to include the template talk namespace - while it's related to the template namespace, technically it is not a part of it. Regarding Edokter, I agree that he could have handled that interaction better. I have noticed Edokter becoming increasingly frustrated with Sardanaphalus over the last few months, and this frustration is clearly evident in his recent interactions with him. It is not surprising to me that Sardanaphalus has reacted negatively to Edokter's complaints. However, Edokter is very knowledgeable about MediaWiki technical matters (much more than I am), and the technical points that he has brought up in discussions with Sardanaphalus are sound. I would say that his frustration is a symptom, rather than the cause. — Mr. Stradivarius 00:47, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

  I've been thinking about the proposed topic ban scope, and I've come to the conclusion that we should allow Sardanaphalus to edit /doc pages for templates that have been updated due to edit requests that he makes, but not in other circumstances. The reason is pretty simple - after a template has been changed, it is often necessary to update the documentation with details of new parameters or new functionality, and it seems overly bureaucratic to require Sardanaphalus to do this on another page and then have another editor copy the documentation over. However, I don't think that this should be extended to allowing editing of all /doc pages unconditionally, as Sardanaphalus has been known to go systematically through /doc pages and change the formatting, and some of those edits have been contentious, as discussed above. — Mr. Stradivarius 00:42, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment)Template:Cue I've had concerns about this user's ability to edit templates for some time as well but would only support a topic ban if the following is considered: I've seen some of their edits to templates, and they certainly have the logical ability to figure out how to properly do it and only lack the patience of making sure that it is right in the sandbox and making sure the changes are what the community wants in cases where a change might be objected to. As many may know, I've had issues and struggled with some of these things myself in the past and some would argue on my behalf that I have grown from them. Telling this user they can't talk about templates at all may very well drive a capable editor away, and that's harmful to the encyclopedia. I'd suggest that the closer of this discussion consider allowing Sardanaphalus the option of obtaining a mentor that is knowledgeable in templates and code and willing to be a middleman / filter for Sardanaphalus' ideas and changes. I'm fairly certain that the community would not see me fit for the job, and I respect that opinion despite not entirely agreeing with it, but I ask they give him a chance to find a mentor that is suitable to the community if he wishes to not be entirely topic banned from templates. Thank you for hearing me. — {{U|Technical 13}} 21:45, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Now I say this with some regret. I am convinced Sardanaphalus is a good faith editor with intelligence and technical knowledge. But I am also convinced that he is sloppy in his work, has difficulty collaborating, and has technical blindspots, particularly with resolution. While I support this TBAN I would like the following provisos to be considered: to only be restricted from templates not created by him, to have no restrictions to template talk or sandboxes, and to be allowed to collaborate with Technical 13 to suggest changes which are then carried out by Technical 13. --Mrjulesd (talk) 11:47, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• I largely agree with what Mrjulesd just said. It seems to me that it has been long enough for Sardanaphalus to post a substantive response, and I take the fact that it has not happened yet as reason for me to not wait any longer and Support a limited ban. Because templates appear on multiple pages, edits to templates require a reasonable amount of care and consensus. An editor who has this much difficulty responding here needs some boundaries with respect to editing templates, but it does not have to be a "punishment". I, too, trust Technical 13 to serve informally as a mentor; for that matter, I would also trust Mr. Strad. I would like the ban to apply only to edits of templates (created by anyone) and to template documentation. No edits there. But edits would be unrestricted at template talk pages and draft/sandbox templates, and any editor in good standing (not just the mentor) could agree to implement changes to templates and documentation. And I sincerely wish Sardanaphalus happy editing going forward. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Working toward an alternative outcome

Hello. I have been trying to work out a promising way to contribute to this thread, so I apologise if this initial post appears belated. Mr. Stradivarius endorsed the idea that linking/copying the conversation I started on his talkpage should be a good first step, so, with the exception of its Template:Tnfs, I've quoted it below. Thoughts, please..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 21:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

== Request ==

Regarding your proposal: Though I've found a certain amount of information about this situation, I've yet to divine or find advice as regards what's considered an effective way for the... indictee? to proceed. I'd appreciate, therefore, your advice/assistance.

Sincerely,
Sardanaphalus (talk) 19:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

As Tryptofish advised you, you should post a comment at the ANI thread. If you don't comment there, it will probably lower other editors' opinions of how well you collaborate with others. For things to go as well as possible, you need to a) show that you understand what the complaints about you are, b) accept responsibility for the issues brought up that are your fault (apologising helps here), and c) show that you are committed to improving your actions in the areas that you accept responsibility for (an action plan will help here). Though I started the thread about you, I don't actually want to see you topic banned if it can be avoided. I started the thread because I thought that a topic ban might be the only way to get you to change your behaviour after you seemingly ignored advice from myself and others. Perhaps this is all just a communication problem and can be sorted out through discussion - if that's the case, then so much the better. — Mr. Stradivarius 13:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for this message. In short: yes, I feel there's been an accumulation of misunderstandings, misinterpretations and unfinished conversations, some of which<aside>perhaps many of which</aside> have been prompted, I think, because of my attempts to take advice on board. I'm heartened to read that you don't want to see me topic (namespace?)-banned if it can be avoided; this is what the question at the end of a follow-up to the above that I'd been drafting had addressed ("...is there any kind of outcome other than the one proposed that you'd prefer to see / like to see..?").

Do you think, therefore, that linking and/or copying the contents of this thread to the ANI thread<aside>to see if/how anyone following it responds</aside> is a good initial post for me to make there..?

With my thanks again, Sardanaphalus (talk) 09:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

PS Despite, for instance, LT910001's own userpage, this may also be timely.

Yes, I think that linking to this conversation as part of your initial post would be a good idea. You should also try and address my points a, b and c above. But you shouldn't make the post too long - the thread will go smoothest if it is a conversation rather than a series of walls of text. Also, you should comment there soon, preferably today - the longer you leave it, the more it looks to other editors like you are ignoring the thread. — Mr. Stradivarius 10:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'm required elsewhere for a while now, so will make the post sometime later today. Thanks for your confirmation. Sardanaphalus (talk) 11:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

There's really nothing for the rest of us to add here. What is needed is for you to say whatever you are going to say. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm still not confident about what's best for that to be. Given Mr. Stradivarius's points (a) to (c) above, I'm thinking I should work through what's been said in the main part of this thread in order to demonstrate, I suppose, that I don't "understand what the complaints about are"<aside>more accurately, to demonstrate that I feel their basis isn't as clear-cut or perhaps as well-founded as it may otherwise seem</aside> but I think that's likely to generate one of these "walls of text"...? Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The general sense I get from this comment is that, in essense, you do not agree with the complaints. In other words, you feel you are doing nothing wrong. That is unfortunate, because that may indicates there is no intent to change on your part. What we are asking of you is to adhere to some basic principles that we expect from anyone editing Misplaced Pages. One of these principles is to take advice from others instead of fighting them and perceiving criticism on your edits as personal attacks. You have been given lots of advice on technical matters, but it appears to have fallen on deaf ears, as you generally do not show any change in editing. Also, if you feel you need a 'wall of text' to address these complaints, that is also not a good sign. So at this point I think a topic ban on Template:-space (meaning live templates only, not including template talk pages, /sandbox and /testcases pages), combined with some other technical restrictions, and coaching, is what is needed to improve the quality of your edits. Accepting a coach would be the only way to lift this ban in the future. Before deciding this, we'd like to hear your view (as concise as possible) on these complaints on your edits. I emphasized "edits" because I want to stress we are not discussing you as a person. -- ] {{talk}} 16:40, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Does anyone endorse the train of thought in this message's first half..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

It all boils down to...

...this, I think: no more than a handful of editors<aside>and one in particular</aside> thinking, I guess, that I understood something, or that they'd explained something to me<aside>or "advised" me</aside> while, in fact, I didn't understand something, or they hadn't explained something, or mistook statements<aside>or assertions</aside> for explanation. And, as a consequence, despite "most of his template edits fine", it looks like these few editors will have someone banned<aside>not blocked or whatever, but banned</aside> from a namespace – not a topic within a namespace, but a namespace. Does all this mean I've made mistakes and/or misjudgements? Definitely. Do I apologise for doing so? Absolutely. I hope that's not too concise or robust. Sardanaphalus (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Disruption and possible trolling

Research888 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Despite being asked for sources a number of times, , , Research888 continues to make unsourced statements on talk pages. Given the subject matter, I suspect there's some trolling going on. --NeilN 22:44, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Further exchange. --NeilN 22:59, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

What obligations does an editor have to source statements they make on a Talk page? BlueSalix (talk) 10:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If they continuously make the same type of assertions on a variety of talk pages, and occasionally foray into article space doing the same thing, even after being asked to stop is that not disruption? --NeilN 16:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Talk pages? No. Article space? Yes. Your above note is the first time you mentioned anything about article space. BlueSalix (talk) 21:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Add something like, "The human race likely originated in Antarctica" to a variety of talk pages without sources and see how long it takes for someone to tell you to knock it off. Anyways, the editor has stopped so I guess there's nothing further to be done here. --NeilN 03:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Hasteur disruptive behavior.

Despite being specifically directed to not close the WP:BON discussion of his misuse of the bot flag on his bot (in this revision by Xaosflux), Hasteur has insisted upon doing so anyways (in this revision). As such, I'm requesting that both him and his SOCK/Bot accounts be blocked to prevent any more WP:DISRUPTIVE behavior that is stemming from his WP:FUCKYOUIMRIGHTIS WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude. Since he has banned me from his talk page, and has requested an interaction ban with me, I'm requesting that someone else please notify him of this discussion on his talk page. Thank you. — {{U|Technical 13}} 01:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Guerillero has blocked T13 and removed his Rollback user right. I think it's fair to expect their comments/explanations in this thread shortly, especially since T13 already lodged an unblock request. At the very least, Rollback was not used at all ("undo" was), so that user right should be restored immediately. I will await Guerillero's comments here to avoid any wheel-warring issues. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:51, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  Edit warring is a behavior and not based on the number of edits. This isn't the first time that T13 has edit warred over this and `(Reverted edits by Hasteur (talk) to last version by C.Fred)` is the exact edit summary created by using rollback. --Guerillero | My Talk 02:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  After testing on my sandbox, it appears correct that this edit summary is generated by Rollback (and not undo), contrary to T13's claims. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  That same edit summary is also generated by Twinkle, though with "(TW)" appended (but not, as you say, by undo). Squinge (talk) 09:51, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  • I'm curious, which of the following diffs was created by use of rollback: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6? I'll note that I haven't had a rollback link on any page for a very long time. I disabled it about a month after getting in the usergroup with the code I had offered to other editors who requested the same thing in Phab:T48412 using greasemonky in my Firefox browser to prevent accidental clicks since the purpose of my requesting the group wasn't to use the rollback link (I could, and prefer to use the TW ones when I need that), but it was instead to have access to WP:Huggle and WP:Stiki. I've never had time to get past installation of those, but I hope to someday have the time needed for that. — {{U|Technical 13}} 21:19, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  I am going out for a bit, but,right now, I do not see any reason to unblock --Guerillero | My Talk 02:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I left the thread open for an extra week to see if some other editor besides ones who have a vendetta for causing me trouble. Nobody responded in over a week so I closed citing IAR due to the fact that rule of "closing a thread you are involved in" is a rule that would prohibit me from improving wikipedia by closing the vindictave complaintant. Hasteur (talk) 02:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I fail to see how closing the thread improved the encyclopedia. Better to let someone else close it or even to let it just fade into the archives. Back in the old days most discussions were not closed.T13 it hardly is something to block over . Chillum 03:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Xaosflux

• Well what a mess we've got here, my thoughts on this:
  1. Anyone except for Hasteur or Technical 13 should review Misplaced Pages:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#Possible_Bot_Issue and determine if it warrants further action or close it.
  2. The summary above supports that Technical 13's reversion was misguided and that he should have used another method of reversion and supplied an edit summary to explain his reasoning.
  3. After reviewing T13's last several thousand edits, this appears to be an isolated issue of the rollback tool, whereas multiple instances of productive vandalism reversion are present. I support T13 having the rollback right restored.
  4. Blocks being preventative (including the aspect of an enforced cool-down period), suggest reducing T13's block period from 48h to a maximum of 24h - I don't think additional time is needed.
  5. Asking that @Guerillero: review #3,#4 above.

• — xaosflux 02:57, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

With respect, T13's laser focus and multiple reversions of closure is indicative that he cannot put down the stick and walk away from the corpse of the horse. I indicated that because having such a thread open longer with still no updates does not help Misplaced Pages. The issue was identified, contrition was made, promises extracted to not do it again, yet T13 still wants even more punishment. I do not think lowering T13's block length or restoration of rollback is warranted as this is not the first time that they have taken hasty improper action. Hasteur 03:13, 25 January 2015‎

Hasteur, given your multiple reverts it might be wise to keep quiet. Your own conduct is equally unacceptable. —Sladen (talk) 03:21, 25 January 2015 (UTC) And please don't falsify the timestamps on your edits either…

What part of WP:TALKO are you cititing as your NEED to undo my failure to get it 100% perfect on the first try? Please keep your hands OFF my edits. Is it a reasonable assertion to let my timestamp accidentally reflect a little later? Hasteur (talk) 03:24, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Much as I fear that the conversation may get side-tracked, the relevant policy is WP:TALKO Attributing unsigned comments ("append attribution … if they have failed to sign it"), and Signature cleanup ("…an attempt to fake a signature … edit the signature to the standard form … or some even simpler variant"). I appreciate your further attempts to try to fix the signature are most welcome, and it would be really appreciated if you'd be willing to apply the remainder of WP:SIGCLEAN and self-correct the timestamp in order to avoid any more accidental edit-wars. —Sladen (talk) 04:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Further: 1 change, 1 revert, and one reasonable "Concensus could change action". Definitely not multiple reverts. Hasteur (talk) 03:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Note I have declined Technical 13's unblock request, my full reasoning can be found on their talk page. I would be more willing to consider a change in duration if T13 showed any indication they understood and accepted the reason for the block. Chillum 03:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• I see that @Shii: declined a T13 unblock request with the reason "The point of a short-term block is to give you time to cool off. You clearly are not nearly cool enough yet, so take this as an opportunity to stand back and reevaluate your life priorities. Shii (tock) 08:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)". How does this tally with WP:COOLDOWN, which appears to directly contradict Shii's assertion? Squinge (talk) 10:01, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I was completely unaware of this guideline, which must have been added some years after I became an admin. In that context, since he has agreed not to continue anything like disruptive editing, an unblock is deserved. Apologies Shii (tock) 10:08, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
    • An honourable response. Squinge (talk) 10:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
    • I agree. — {{U|Technical 13}} 00:38, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• My current concerns with the bot have been dealt with by Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 9. I'm very disappointed in Hasteur's inability to deal with this in a WP:CALM and WP:CIVIL manner, but am thankful that this situation is over. I'd like to have an administrator remind Hasteur that his repeated personal attacks, battleground mentality, incivility, threats, and generally disruptive behaviour is inappropriate and request of him to work on those things and when issues arise to simply focus on resolving the issue. I expect this request will be laughed and and ignored, but I'm getting tired of these battles and it is becoming more and more clear to me that the community is either incapable of dealing with or unwilling to deal with the severe, repetitive issues that have been raised about this user. Thank you for your time, and I apologize to those that feel like theirs has been wasted. I realize also that I'm not perfect and have things I need to work on as well, and look forward to growing in those areas if the community will allow it. — {{U|Technical 13}} 00:38, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Not a good unblock

Technical 13 is right back at it . Based on a WP:NOTTHEM "Not my fault attitude" - see for a discussion of how a) his canvassing an ANI thread was because the instructions at the top of this page are inadequate and b) how his marking edits as minor is Twinkle's fault, it's my expectation that unless they rapidly get clueful we're looking at someone between six to eighteen months before they will be no longer welcome to edit Misplaced Pages. (I understand this is a "pile-on" comment, but with WP:RFCU dead where am I supposed to point it out otherwise? NE Ent 00:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In addition to this, I would like to request a involuntary interaction ban be imposed as only last week my bringing the idea was laughed off the board and boomerangs were threatened. Since then we've had T13 edit war with administrators to keep a scarlet letter present, We've had T13 have their rollback revoked (and restored), We've had T13 blocked for 48 hours (and released early) because they claimed it was not edit warring. I have attempted to disengage from T13, they have decided to continue and enlarge their accusations of high treason in wikipedia when a generous application of WP:IAR would have prevented a significant amount of this disruptive editing. Hasteur (talk) 00:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

And we can see that, the very WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive268#Request for Interaction ban with Technical13 was flatly turned down, with not a single voice of support for it. I am grateful to see that as a result of this charade we finally have a filed and authorised WP:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 9. This is a good thing and neatly confirms that HasteurBot and the behaviour of its owner is not faultless. …We can also observe that it was not even T13 who filed the original bug report that started this mess. And we can observe that the report was responded in pretty-much the same problematic argumentative manner and allegations of hounding.

All you in all you can avoid the "interaction" by playing by the rules, and dealing with bug reports (in a constructive manner). If that is done, consistently, and there still turn out to be the problems then we can deal with them—but I doubt there will be. Finally, I hope you will take the time to fully digest Slakr's long and thoughtful reply from last night which warns of the future, based on the past. —Sladen (talk) 08:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support interaction ban between Technical 13 and Hasteur. I have seen a bit of this and Technical 13 needs to be stopped now. Let's say that Hasteur has broken every rule in the book and is the worst bot operator on the planet—that still would not justify the relentless and pointless harassment from T13. Operating a bot is hard work and operators should be protected from silly sniping. Sure, raise an issue—raise it twice if wanted. But after that, let the bot people deal with it. I would support whatever it takes to get T13 off Hasteur's back—block, one-way interaction ban, topic ban, site ban—any of these would help the project. I write this in full knowledge of T13's above comment at 00:38, 26 January 2015 where yet more misguided crap is poured on Hasteur. Johnuniq (talk) 00:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• I requesting an interaction ban with Hasteur months ago, and was ignored. I'm also tired of attack after attack after attack from Hasteur. If Hasteur was willing to WP:DROP his insistence that I'm out to get him, and just deal with the legitimate concerns that arise there would be no conflicts. I haven't initiated any direct contact with Hasteur in a very long time, and will continue to not do so. I'm very careful to not mention him in my reports of issues. I raised an issue once, as a bot person myself, and there was no reason for Hasteur to keep reverting the BAG people who told him explicitly not to close the topic as he was involved. I was then blocked and had a userright that I've never used for undoing the improperly closed discussion and reporting the situation here for the larger community to deal with. I completely understand the situation and I have more important scripting work to do before WMF1.26-7 is released and 0 JavaScripts on this wiki become nonfunctional. Hasteur, as a final plea with you, please stop your personal attacks and threats. — {{U|Technical 13}} 01:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Technical 13 Your behaviour hasn't been enamouring either. Yes, focusing on Javascript (or anything else) sounds a great idea. If there's a bug report, please do so, but please keep it minimal (with diffs) and avoid piling on afterwards—if necessary this can be done by other editors. —Sladen (talk) 08:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Wait; long multipage arguments are great fun and all, but if @Hasteur: wants an interaction ban, and @Technical 13: wants an interaction ban.... I hereby wave my magic wand, and *poof* there's an interaction ban. EFFECTIVE NOW. Enforceable by blocks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

pinging @Technical 13: again because I messed up the ping the first time. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• I feel rather obliged to comment here as the thread in question was started by me. First T13 shouldn't be punished for following Misplaced Pages policies and attempting to get action on a user who has admitted himself to have violated policies. Second, Hasteur is in the wrong, he violated many rules and seems to have no care or remorse for his actions, other than quickly filing a bot request to back him up. While I admit his bot is quite useful, the way he used it against me in a debate about G13 (debate here) was unacceptable. He should get off his might horse admit he is in the wrong at the base of this issue. _{Just my two cents.} EoRdE6 02:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Timbouctou vandalism and POV

This user keeps removing valid reference from the Magnum Crimen article, tags the same text with , alters the quoted text in the same article, refuses to discuss the article changes on the talk page

Issues with article

• Vandalism

My attempt to put back the text that is referenced is prevented by this user.

Referenced test:

According to O. Neumann, Novak was a Croat by birth, and he has been, since 1924, active among the Serbs. "He was Chair of Croatian History, which was founded at the University of Belgrade in order to promote mutual understanding between the two kindred peoples".

was replaced by Timbouctou and tagged with

Viktor Novak, a Croat by birth, has been, since 1924, active among the Serbs. He has held the Chair of Croat History which was founded at the University of Belgrade in order to promote mutual understanding between the two kindred peoples

Earlier text with correct quote

"Some passages have been written by a scholar in a dignified academic gown, in other parts of the book the author assumes the role of public prosecutor."

was altered by inserting while

"Some passages have been written by a scholar in a dignified academic gown, while in other parts of the book the author assumes the role of public prosecutor."

To verify online the quotes, see here and here.

• Logical fallacy

In Timbouctou inlined comments there is statement rv published on http://magnumcrimen.org/ and COPYRIGHTED to "Magnum Crimen, 2015" which makes no sense. The Misplaced Pages Magnum Crimen is copyrighted at least six years before http://magnumcrimen.org/. It is obvious that http://magnumcrimen.org/ copied over most of the Misplaced Pages's Magnum Crimen article. The revert excuse is obviously false; for details see here.

• POV

Further, the same user added these two sentences to this article which are a blatant POV

As reported by the Serbian daily Politika, the publication of the English language edition was financed by a friend of Milorad Ekmečić, a Serbian nationalist historian', who also wrote the foreword to the edition. According to the same article, the publication of the English translation intentionally coincided with the start of the trial for mutual lawsuits in the Croatia–Serbia genocide case before the International Court of Justice, so that "the world would be informed about Ustashe crimes against Serbs during the Second World War".

Both sentences are referenced by „Magnum crimen”, ipak, putuje u svet.

Whoever reads and understands Serbian language can see that there is nothing in that reference saying Serbian nationalist historian', or intentionally coincided with the start of the trial for mutual lawsuits in the Croatia–Serbia genocide case before the International Court of Justice, so that "the world would be informed about Ustashe crimes against Serbs during the Second World War".

For details see here.

References

1. Oscar Neumann: Novak, Viktor, Magnum crimen. Pola vijeka klerikalizma u Hrvatskoj (A Half Century of Clericalism in Croatia). Zagreb, 1948. Pp. 1124 in Journal of Central European Affairs - Volume 10 - 1950, Page 63.

Issues with request for comment

• Harassment and vandalism

I tried to address these issues on the article talk page here. My attempt was ridiculed by

"User:Milos zankov, I'm afraid you are going to be more specific than that in order for your comments to be taken seriously", "Simply saying that other editor's contributions are crap and reverting ad nauseam will hardly help your case." The last two offensive statements came from Timbouctou

Timbouctou inserted his comment in the body of my Request for comment, which I moved in the Comments section and updated my Request for comment. Timbouctou put back his comment inserted into the request comment and removed my request updates. For details see here

Soliciting admin support

Timbouctou keeps publicly soliciting (here, here, and here) his Croatian compatriot, Misplaced Pages administrator Joy contrary to WP:CANVASS which intervened on behalf of Timbouctou , see here --Milos zankov (talk) 02:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I took a quick look at it, and there really was a problem with Timbouctou reinserting a text which has a tone not at all supported by the source. I made the changes so the text reflects what the source really says (diff). Timbouctou should really not missuse sources the way he did, neither add POV content such as calling a historian "nationalist historian" just by his personal opinion (diff when he first time added the text). FkpCascais (talk) 04:43, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@FkpCascais Thank you for the correction you've made. How about removing the valid reference and requesting where I provided the online verification of the referenced text, then how about claiming baselessly a copyright violation? How about removing my comments from the talkpage?--Milos zankov (talk) 17:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

First off, this is not an appropriate venue to discuss article content. Secondly, you clearly have WP:COMPETENCE issues regarding the way discussions are led and the overall cooperative work needed to build this project. Thirdly, the text you want to see in the said article (about a pretty controversial political book) was lifted verbatim from http://magnumcrimen.org/, a website which serves to promote the said book, and which has copyright on its entire contents. Fourth, you are lying through your teeth with claims that I misrepresented an article in a Serbian newspaper about the book, and fifth - this is the second time you copy pasted the entire thread to ANI after your previous attempt ended in it being archived. Sixth, there were at least five (5) other editors who left negative comments on article talk and your own talk page about your edits and who questioned your good faith in launching an RfC. Seventh, I have no desire to waste my time on debating actions of a single-purpose account which is here solely and exclusively because he/she has a political axe to grind. You should have been indef blocked by now, but it's not my call to make so I guess you'll have a lot more copy-pasting at ANI to do. Cheers. Timbouctou (talk) 22:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment you are lying through your teeth with claims that I misrepresented an article in a Serbian newspaper about the book!! No need to comment it, see just the latest fix of the article. Now about non-existent copyright issue:

(cur | prev) 14:04, 17 January 2015‎ Timbouctou (talk | contribs)‎ . . (19,891 bytes) (+2,402)‎ . . (rv published on http://magnumcrimen.org/ and COPYRIGHTED to "Magnum Crimen, 2015")

(cur | prev) 13:42, 17 January 2015‎ Milos zankov (talk | contribs)‎ . . (17,514 bytes) (-2,377)‎ . . (Undid revision 642753012 by Timbouctou Misplaced Pages article is copyrighted too and 6 year older than "www.magnumcrimen.org")

(cur | prev) 11:28, 16 January 2015‎ Timbouctou (talk | contribs)‎ . . (19,891 bytes) (+2,377)‎ . . (rv text copyrighted to "Magnum Crimen, 2015" and published on http://magnumcrimen.org/)--Milos zankov (talk) 23:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry Timbouctou, but regarding your edit, you did gave a bit of your own tone to the edit which clearly defends one POV over the other and which is not backed by the source. Regarding the rest, unfortunately I am a bit limited with the time and this matter is complex, but I am afraid that Milos zankovs inexperience here becomes used to push one POV in the article. I hope that doesn't happened. FkpCascais (talk) 03:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• In case somebody is still having problems getting the picture, Milos zankov's purpose here is to censor other people's edits at Magnum Crimen to keep the article content verbatim identical to the one published, non-attributed and copyrighted, at http://magnumcrimen.org/. This a case of WP:PLAGIARISM, WP:COPYOTHERS, WP:AGF, WP:OWN, WP:DISRUPT, WP:NOTADVOCATE and WP:NOTMIRROR all rolled into one, plus quite possibly WP:CONFLICT. Timbouctou (talk) 12:59, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

70.190.111.213: repeatedly reverting biased, inaccurate edits on current events portal; refusing constructive dialogue

Good day all,

First, I apologize in advance for any breaches of protocol I may myself have unknowingly committed, as I am a new user.

User 70.190.111.213 has, at least ten times, insisted on biased and to varying degrees inaccurate renderings of headlines on the Jan. 21 mass-stabbing in Tel Aviv. He has reverted edits by myself (Slvofjstce, previously 70.114.220.115, 72.182.49.254, and 128.62.31.0), FourViolas, 2605:e000:aa0c:f200:443a:c372:b7d9:a32e, 174.88.203.17, and Snowball359:

His current version reads:

• A Palestinian man from the West Bank, Hamza Muhammad Hassan Matrouk, illegally crosses into Israel for the express purpose to stab (sic) people attacking over a dozen Israelis on a bus in central Tel Aviv. Security forces capture the assailant as he continued to indiscriminately stab people in the street. (The New York Times)

As I've pointed out in my edits, and on his talk page, his headline is overly long, openly biased, and contains two pieces of information either not present in, or contradicted by, the article he provides. My suggested version reads:

• A Palestinian man from the West Bank stabs up to a dozen Israelis in Tel Aviv before being apprehended. (The New York Times)

Once I had familiarized myself with Misplaced Pages's editing protocols, I decided to reach out to 70.190.111.213 to hopefully end the annoying cycle of reversion (see: User talk:70.190.111.213, January 2015 ). I apologized for the preceding back-and-forth, and explained my concerns with his edits, as well as the rationale behind the changes I had suggested. I requested we engage in productive dialogue before any further edits be made; to that end, I agreed not to change his headline for over eight hours, in that hope that we could open dialogue before then. I received no response during those eight hours, then went ahead and made the edit I had previously suggested. Three minutes later, he reverted the edit. He has since done so two more times, once for FourViolas and once for me. He has not responded to my request for dialogue, but has referred to me as a "sockpuppect (sic) created just 4 days ago for block evasion."

Especially given that 70.190.111.213 does seem to be a fairly prolific and generally productive contributer to the current events portal, I'm not quite sure what action I would suggest be taken. But I do feel that he is acting unfairly and unreasonably, and I hope we can finally bring this matter to a just conclusion.

I apologize again for any inadvertent breaches of protocol, and thank you for your attention. Slvofjstce (talk) 06:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

elegent speech too bad this guy is a sockpuppet for a banned account and he just keeps changing his ip and registering new accounts to do whatever he pleases. This current account is just 3 days old (Slvofjstce) yet he already knows to come to this area to try and contrive a scam to an admin.--70.190.111.213 (talk) 11:11, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

he attempts to contrive an arguement that he has consensus by naming various account all of which are just today's new sockpuppet anon ip or account such as (70.114.220.115) a single edit was made under this ip to the what do you know the item above and absolutely nothing else.--70.190.111.213 (talk) 11:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

another such as (72.182.49.254) a single edit was made under this ip to the what do you know the item above and absolutely nothing else.--70.190.111.213 (talk) 11:20, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

such as (128.62.31.0) a single edit was made under this ip to the what do you know the item above and absolutely nothing else.--70.190.111.213 (talk) 11:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

such as (2605:E000:AA0C:F200:443A:C372:B7D9:A32E) a three edits were made under this ip to the what do you know the item above and absolutely nothing else.--70.190.111.213 (talk) 11:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

such as (174.88.203.17) a double edit was made under this ip to the what do you know the item above and absolutely nothing else.--70.190.111.213 (talk) 11:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

As for the "wording" of the above edit to the daily events section - the exact item can be viewed at the citation given and although paraphrased (which is exactly what we are required to do) is what the any and all citations on the internet say that i could find according to google - that "A Palestinian man from the West Bank, Hamza Muhammad Hassan Matrouk, illegally crossed into Israel for the express purpose to stabbing people attacking up to a dozen Israelis on a bus in central Tel Aviv. Security forces capture the assailant as he continued to indiscriminately stab people in the street" and that HE ADMITTED TO EXACTLY THAT UPON QUESTIONING BY AUTHORITIES--70.190.111.213 (talk) 11:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I'll depose that I'm not a sockpuppet, and that I reverted 70.190.111.213 for what appeared to me to be WP:NPOV problems. Misplaced Pages should strive to be dispassionate, even in extreme cases.

I propose a temporary WP:Block of the IP for edit warring and refusal to engage in dialogue, and an admonishment to all involved editors to be aware of WP's Arab-Israeli sanctions, particularly the 1RR. I think User:Slvofjstce does not need to be blocked, because they have shown themself willing to make repeated good-faith efforts to resolve the content dispute. FourViolas (talk) 14:50, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

almost certain that this is just another sock of the above person - how do i know this? - this person also says they just started at wiki (the acct was created just 3 months ago) and yet they are now giving advice to admins??? Further they dont address the issue of the rotating anon ip adove as if they are a magician - "watch this hand please" - no the endelsssly rotation of anon ips is irrelevant - yeah right?!--70.190.111.213 (talk) 15:02, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

further i see no possible way they could have known that this discussion existed and yet they are now following it--70.190.111.213 (talk) 15:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

further i have just looked through all 1000 of this supposed new persons edits since the three months ago creation and yet HERE IS THE BEST ONE YET they have EXACTLY ZERO edits to the daily events page (except the one edit they made there in support of the sock above) and yet suddenly they are an expert about what belongs there to such a degree that they, again i say, are ready to give advice to admins about blocks!--70.190.111.213 (talk) 15:28, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

If you believe you have credible evidence of WP:SOCKpuppetry, please open a discussion at WP:SPI. (Note that Slvtojstce already claimed most of the IPs you mention above.) On this page, please WP:KEEPCOOL and respond to Slvtojstce's specifically enumerated concerns about your edit warring and refusal to discuss the problem. Your contribs demonstrate good faith, but edit warring is simply not a good way to generate consensus. FourViolas (talk) 17:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Greetings, all. By Wikipedian protocol, would I be unreasonable to make my (repeatedly) proposed edits now? I don't want to unduly pour gasoline onto a fire, but I also strongly believe the current headline to be unacceptable to Misplaced Pages's standards. I hope we can move forward (whatever form that takes) by 13:00 GMT. Peace. Slvofjstce (talk) 02:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate your discomfort with the present version, but I think it would be better to wait either until 70.190.111.213 agrees to discuss or until they are blocked for refusing to do so. WP:There is no deadline, especially because very few people look at "current events" more than a few days old. This noticeboard is for the resolution of WP:User conduct problems, not content disputes, and in this case it doesn't look like we can reach content consensus until we resolve 70.190.111.213's reverting-without-discussion behavior. FourViolas (talk) 05:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for admin action: 70.190.111.213 has been active recently, but has chosen not to add anything to this discussion since their spurious WP:Socking allegations (a characteristic attempt to deflect criticism: ). This has gone on long enough, and if 70.190.111.213 doesn't want to offer apologies or assurances that they will stop edit warring, or attacking other editors, they should be prevented from doing so. FourViolas (talk) 18:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC) I've never been involved in an AN/I discussion, and looking around I realize incidents usually take a while to resolve. Sorry to sound pushy. FourViolas (talk) 02:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Lynctekrua and AfCs

User:Lynctekrua has a short and curious history on this website. He or she (I'll guess he and say "he" for convenience's sake) seems to enjoy administration and probably means well; but his zeal has included repeatedly describing himself as an administrator (see the history of his user page), and making Articles-for-Creation decisions that have at times been so bizarre that three experienced editors (two of them administrators) have recently asked him to lay off (see the recent history of his talk page). One of the latest of these decisions was to accept a draft for "Vivek Kumar Pandey" -- pretty much a re-creation of what has already been deleted numerous times; see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Vivek Kumar Pandey (2nd nomination) -- to article space as Dr. Vivek Kumar Pandey (itself the title of at least one deleted article). Did he do this because of inexperience or some mere brainfart? (We all have them from time to time, or anyway I do.) No: in a message on my talk page, he shows familiarity with the word "salt", and implies that he is above such trifles as the "deletion review" process: "I am within my rights to do what I'm doing".

Lynctekrua points out that I am "not the sole administrator that decides who is worthy of contribution". This is very true, and I am one of three editors (the others being User:Kudpung and User:TAnthony) to have invited him to direct his considerable energy toward article content. He continues: "AFC is NOT a admin only task". I agree again, but suggest that competence is required, competence that I don't see.

I suggest a ban on involvement in AfCs, until Lynctekrua's other edits demonstrate the necessary degree of care (and respect for others' considered opinions). -- Hoary (talk) 09:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• I will just add that according to these edits, there is a distinct lack of knowledge of even the basic principles of page patrolling, plus the fact that he rarely signs his posts. The level of English is at times that of a non native speaker, but Lynctekrua understands well enough when he tries his Wikilawyering. User only has 50 edits to mainspace but claims to have enough when counting his 'other account'(?}.

• wrong page and unsigned
• CSD tag on wrong page
• masquerading as an administrator on Misplaced Pages and Commons
• Claiming to have made over 100,00 edits
• clear misunderstanding of the CSD tagging process (blanking article and placing user talk page template on it)
• inappropriate CSD tagging
• inappropriate CSD tagging.
• There's also giving himself an AfC barnstar.

See also his comments at User talk:Kudpung#Removal. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposed indefinite ban on AfC involvement by User:Lynctekrua

• Support, as nominator. -- Hoary (talk) 09:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support Flakey AfC decisions simply defeat the purpose of having an AfC process. Shii (tock) 09:56, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support The (unsigned) reply at Hoary's talk (diff) shows that Lynctekrua (talk · contribs) (created 13 January 2015) should not be reviewing anything, let alone AfC. Johnuniq (talk) 10:15, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. As I understand it, the purpose of AfC is for experienced and competent editors to assist those with lesser experience in the article creation process. Lynctekrua clearly does not possess sufficient experience or competence to do so, and appears to exhibit an unacceptable stubbornness when offered sage advice. And deliberately bypassing the salt was just horrible - you shouldn't use an unacceptable title just because the correct one is salted, you should ask for the protection to be lifted. Squinge (talk) 10:36, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support (as quasi co-nom who has attempted to rason with the user), and extend the ban to patrolling pages and tagging for CSD/PROD/AfD, etc. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:42, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • In retrospect, I wish I had proposed this. But I didn't, and people have already agreed to what I did propose. So I suggest limiting the ban to AfC involvement for now. I'm sure that a number of editors would thereafter be looking at Lynctekrua's edits. These may improve; but if incompetence (or worse) continues, the ban can and should be extended. -- Hoary (talk) 11:24, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Snow! I mean support, obviously; the next editor with administrator WP:UAL please snow close this, cause you just know it's gonna pass. NE Ent 11:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. He was claiming that he is an admin and he edit warred for labeling himself as an administrator of wikipedia. He also wanted https://en.wikipedia.org/Localytics to be deleted. He should be also banned from any other new page process because after Afc ban he will go and disrupt any other new page patrolling. Delibzr (talk) 11:31, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  To be fair, at the time Localytics had nothing in it but a few links, and someone did subsequently move it to Draft for development. I think the deletion request was just a bit hasty after only 7 minutes, that's all. Squinge (talk) 12:01, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I moved it to drafts on request of the editor. After which I continued to answer her questions — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lynctekrua (talk • contribs)

• Support. Lynctekrua came to my attention when he tagged an article for speedy deletion about 7 minutes after I had started creating it (an edit conflict between my subsequent adds and his tagging alerted me). I went to his talk page to ask him to give me a few minutes and ... saw several disgruntled editors doing the same. In watching his talk page since, I expected to see a little more "oops sorry, I'll tread more lightly" but he's instead been a bit dismissive and defensive. I've independently tried to give as positive commentary/constructive criticism as I can on his talk page, but it just seems as though he has moved from one form of disruption to another rather than actually make an effort to improve. This is definitely not some kind of organized "witch hunt": as he suggests, just the expected reaction when a rogue editor cuts a (albeit small) swath of disruption across Misplaced Pages ;) — TAnthony 18:50, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Per Lynctekrua below, and WP:IDHT. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 15:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Response

Aright... Let me Just restate my reply as to not leave you with the slightly twisted paraphrasing of Hoary..

"I found that article to comply with Misplaced Pages policy so I bypassed the salt. Lets make it clear that I am within my rights to do what I'm doing. You are not the sole administrator that decides who is worthy of contribution. I hope that you will realize that Misplaced Pages continued success depends on independent editors such as my self. AFC is NOT a admin only task, you may put policy around your script, but not around the task itself. If you have a issue with that I suggest you seek the creation of a new usergroup"

First: note that I do not know half these people and have never interacted with them. They simply rush to the aid of experienced and well known wiki editors. With that said, administrator who reviews this, try avoid bias given the fact that it's well known editors who have mounted this siege.

Second: I do admit to adding a admin banner on my page which for obvious reasons is unacceptable, however, following the subsequent warnings I have fully removed them.

Third: Despite the impressive list of editing flaws you have mounted against me, I see 252 successful edits. Note that is account was created with the intent of preforming moderation tasks. If that's how I so chose to contribute, then so be it. Time will only improve my practices.

Forth: While you may all think your arguments are compelling, you all more or less say the same thing. Well let me tell you, a relatively short list of short comings does NOT justify banning. Behold the Misplaced Pages bully's.

May I just add, I also expect this ban to take place. Not because of proven causality and effect, but because 10 well known editors have gone on a witch hunt. If you do the math, more then 90% of my edits are valid and successful. And for the edits that were problematic, they occurred at the very beginning of my editing venture. I would respond to reply's and take into account what the editor suggested, unless of course the advise was "stop editing".

Lynctekrua (talk) 14:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC) Lynctekrua (talk)

• Let's just get some facts straight, Lynctekrua: You are still at the very beginning of your editing venture. You only have 50 edits to mainspace and a total of 268. That's nowhere near enough to get you enrolled at the Counter-vandalism school where you can begin to learn about one of the easier maintenance tasks. In spite if claiming on my talk page that you have experience from your 'other account' you still have not mastered the basics of posting on discussion pages. There are no witch hunts and nobody is bullying you, but it's plain that experienced members of the community have decided that you are not ready to be doing any 'moderation' tasks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• I'd like to clarify that this isn't a proposal for an indefinite site ban for you, but a ban from involvement in Articles for Creation reviewing for now due to your lack of experience. Sam Walton (talk) 15:56, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Lynctekrua, I hope you don't mind that I added a sub-heading for your Response and I've formatted your reply to me above correctly. It's just to keep the layout easier to follow and easier to respond to. Squinge (talk) 16:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Lynctekrua is now reviewing AfC drafts in defiance of this ANI at the rate of one a minute using the helper script to which he theoretically has no access. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • This is completely absurd. The "one a minute" behavior is exactly why he is being considered for a ban. I have blocked him for a week so that he stops doing this while the ban is being considered. Shii (tock) 17:35, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
    • I looked through the AfCs reviewed in the past day. Most look acceptable, but one of the pages, Draft:Kirill Chernegin, has a mysterious-looking denial reason instead of an actual explanation of WP:BIO. Shii (tock) 17:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
      • Worse than that. Seeing your comment, I looked at this particular draft, and thought it mildly promising. (But I wasn't in a mood to accept it, mostly because the claimed sources are in Russian, which in itself is unobjectionable but is problematic for my linguistically challenged self.) I therefore simply reverted Lynctekrua's edit to it. And what did I read at the top of this earlier version? After bold-stripping: Draft article not currently submitted for review. / This is a draft Articles for creation submission. It is not currently pending review. ¶ Hate to say this, but I think a lot of Lynctekrua's edits need reexamination. -- Hoary (talk) 00:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)  PS  Uh, hang on. There's some weird shinola going on. Yes, I really did read that at the top of the draft. The history of the draft shows that my reversion of Lynctekrua's edit is still the most recent edit (ie the draft should be just as I left it). However, a few minutes ago the draft showed no such header template. Indeed, it showed no header template at all. Instead, it showed a footer template; and this said: Review waiting. / This may take several weeks, to over a month. The Articles for creation process is severely backlogged. Please be patient. There are 2,002 submissions waiting for review. The template in question is "{{AFC submission|t||ts=20150124102738|u=Netnikogda|ns=118}}". Now, "{{AFC submission|T}}"is supposed to trigger "{{Template:AFC submission/draft}}"; when I look at the latter, I see Draft article not currently submitted for review etc etc. No change has been made to Template:AFC submission/draft since 21 January; maybe it transcludes some other template that has been changed. Briefly, I don't claim to understand this stuff at all, but I'm much less confident than I was earlier that Lynctekrua ignored a template telling him not to review the draft. -- Hoary (talk) 08:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This guy seems to have attempted to give himself admin power by copying a blocking Javascript into his userspace: User:Lynctekrua/easyblock.js

Combined with his multiple attempts to add the statement "This user is an administrator" to his userpage, I wonder whether this might be considered malicious behavior. Shii (tock) 00:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

More likely simple trolling. Johnuniq (talk) 00:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• I know othing about scripts but it looks as if he has gained access to the helper script by loading the entire code into his .js page. I have requested deltion of the page at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Lynctekrua/afch-rewrite.js/submissions.js. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
  • It appears that he modified the script so that he can review unsubmitted drafts Shii (tock) 02:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Lachlan Foley indiscriminate mass article tagging and WP:DISRUPT

• Lachlan Foley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

User:Lachlan Foley is out of control.

In just the last five days, LF has tagged about 400 album and song articles with music notability tags without any apparent research or examination of the articles themselves, many of which actually show they were hit songs or records, like with Blur's #5 UK charting Charmless Man and On Your Own (Blur song) song articles. . He seems to have a particular dislike of live albums - 17 out of 22 Gary Numan's live albums articles has been tagged by him as well two Roxy Music albums.

Many of the other album articles he threw notability tags on are of those by iconic artists such as Radiohead and Brian Eno.

Looking just previous to this latest round of mass tagging, I see he tagged Roxy Music #5 charting Oh Yeah (Roxy Music song) article with a notability tag.

Just have a look at his contributions page and you'll see.

Any kind of attempted reasoning with him will be met with edit warring as demonstrated by his block for 3RR about two weeks ago. See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive267#User:Info4allthepeople reported by User:Lachlan Foley (Result: Submitter blocked).

This editor needs to be kept in check.--Oakshade (talk) 06:16, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I've done nothing wrong, so I have no need to explain myself, but I will say that if you had also bothered to look a cursory glance at the constructive improvements I have made to hundreds of articles over the period of five years, you'd think twice about calling my tagging "indiscriminate". You are just still upset about that Joy Division incident and are grasping at straws in an attempt to get back at me. Lachlan Foley (talk) 09:54, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Mass tagging of hundreds of song and album articles, many of which were top 10 or top 20 hits demonstrates you were indiscriminate in your tagging. You can't erase history as the diffs are there forever. Glad you brought up the Joy Division album Preston 28 February 1980 article as that's yet another example in which you failed to do any research and threw a notability tag on. It seems you're angry about that tag being removed and being called on your WP:DISRUPT violating behavior. --Oakshade (talk) 17:21, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I recall this user sending dozens and dozens of similar articles to AfD and IIRC, they've all been kept. Recommend that LF raises notability on the WP:ALBUM talkpage first before tagging more articles. Lugnuts 18:00, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Given this is a longtime ongoing pattern, I think a topic ban might be in order. --Oakshade (talk) 02:18, 19 January 2015 (UTC) AMENDMENT: Given the behavior demonstrated by Cavarrone below with multiple topics, it seems more than just a topic ban would be in order. --Oakshade (talk) 00:37, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Just drawing to your attention that User:Lachlan Foley has tagged almost all of the Jebediah releases with notability tags even though everyone of them are charting songs and contain independent verifiable references. Until checking his talk page I was unaware that this editor has a past history of this disruptive behaviour. Concur with previous comments that this appears to be an ongoing pattern that should be actively discouraged.Dan arndt (talk) 11:03, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Does this constitute vandalism? See Misplaced Pages:Vandalism#Abuse of tags, and there are literally hundreds of wrong tags, it's hard to believe good faith. --Mrjulesd (talk) 20:14, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Def. a case of WP:DE. Lugnuts 08:13, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And for Jebediah I see on the #6 charting Kosciuszko (album) article, LF removed all the professional review sources and then tagged it for notability on the next edit. Wow. --Oakshade (talk) 08:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

• I remember a similar incident back in June 2012 with the same editor indiscriminately mass-tagging for notability hundreds of films, including films by Otto Preminger, Oliver Stone, Ernst Lubitsch, Wes Craven, Mario Bava, almost an half of the whole filmography of Roger Corman and more, see User_talk:Lachlan_Foley/Archive_1#Stop_please and User_talk:Lachlan_Foley/Archive_1#warning. Probably a topic ban from tagging articles for notability could be in order. Cavarrone 00:01, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Really could use an Admin weighing in on this and for this to have a definitive end.--Oakshade (talk) 02:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Sadly, they're too busy with backslapping and waiting for their spines to develop to help with a real issue. Lugnuts 18:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Something needs to be done. Just in the last day, even after all the agreement of his disruptive behavior here by all editors, he's tagged multiple charting song and album articles with notability tags - examples are - the latter of which, Found That Soul, was a top 10 hit.--Oakshade (talk) 23:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Still continuing with the tagging spree. Admins, time to step up. Lugnuts 14:45, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

• I have not checked his recent rapidfire tagging, but the time rate of the tags (one tag or more/a minute) is well below of a minimum standard it is reasonable to expect by a responsible, non-bot, good-faith reviewer who analyzes sourcing and contents of the articles. In spite of warnings and previous incidents, I don't see any sign he intends to change his attitude, nor he apparently wants to engage in a discussion to explain his actions, so I strongly suggest a topic ban from tagging articles, especially as the tagbombing appears to be a dead end for LF (even considering previous incidents, I don't see any intention to nominate such articles from deletion). Even if LF could be sometimes incidentally right, this mass-tagging is unhelpful and requires a lot of time (and sometimes stress) from the community to review and fix his edits, and frankly everyone has better things to do than loosing time behind some improper tags (LF included). Cavarrone 16:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Admin needed here. Lugnuts 10:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

He does not change his attitude very easily. When the Everything Must Go incident went down, he was just removing information that I added without any explanation. I tried to explain that there was nothing wrong with the information, and there wasn't, the information had reliable references, but he just kept reverting my edits, and eventually reported me for 3RR, that was the moment I tried not to edit the articles where he made changes, so I would not have to deal with the process of getting reported. Just wanted to share my opinion because I felt really cheerless when I was reported because of an article where I was adding valid information with references, and when I tried to figure out the reason for his removal of the infomration in question, he reported me. User:Info4allthepeople (talk) 14:15, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Admin action is needed

Any chance of an admin actually doing something here? This has been here for more than a week. Lugnuts 10:37, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

C'mon you chocolate fireguards. Pull your fingers out. Lugnuts 13:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Topic ban proposal

Moved this section down for visibility. Given the failure of the editor to respond sufficiently, or indeed to stop tagging articles that clearly pass our notability guidelines, I suggest a topic ban on User:Lachlan Foley from adding notability tags to music recording related articles, broadly construed. Please feel free to tweak this as required. Black Kite (talk) 13:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Topic Ban Discussion

• Support as proposer. Black Kite (talk) 13:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support The user has no clear idea over notability guidelines and is tagging articles en-masse with thought. The edit history on this article is just one recent example. Continuation of tagging and failure to engage in this discussion point to WP:NOTHERE. Lugnuts 14:42, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Block until the topic ban issue is decided, to prevent further damage in the interim. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:01, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• I have warned him to disengage from this area until the discussion is concluded. Black Kite (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support. He's even edit warring to reinstate clearly incorrect tags, and is being very disruptive. It seems like some kind of obsession that can't be reasoned with. And if he's continuing the disruption while this discussion is in progress, block until there's an outcome here. Squinge (talk) 15:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support per my reasoning in the main section above. --Cavarrone 17:19, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support per Black Kite and Lugnuts. Rationalobserver (talk) 17:20, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support, simple enough. This should be enforced with long blocks. Shii (tock) 17:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support and block, but ensure notability tag ban applies to all topics. As Cavarrone indicated above, he has not limited himself to this tag abuse to just music related articles. --Oakshade (talk) 18:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Quite clearly needed. BMK (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Agree, it is my opinion he does not change his attitude and just keeps adding tags wildly on every article. User:Info4allthepeople (talk) 23:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support, clearly, the editor is either not acting in good faith, or is not taking due care when tagging articles for notability. Either way, they shouldn't be editing these articles until they demonstrate an understanding of when notability tags are appropriate. Lankiveil 00:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC).
• Support appropriate restrictions on this editor including the proposed topic-ban. Even accepting his subjective good faith, his pattern of participation is damaging. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Judging by this, I'm not sure if s/he doesn't quite understand what notability means or if s/he just doesn't care (I'm leaning toward the latter though). Erpert 05:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support banning Lachlan Foley from adding notability tags to articles. User demonstrated on my talk page that their believes about notability criterion are in direct conflict with WP:GNG. -- Sam 10:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Given his history of constructive edits this is clearly not a SPA whose purpose is disruption. Tagging articles is a means of promoting discussion and dialog; an editor doesn't need to obtain a certain threshold of agreement to his proposals or face silencing. It would be different if the editor were blanking pages, etc., but someone should not be topic banned simply for expressing (extreme) minority viewpoints. BlueSalix (talk) 10:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose See Leviathan (song), for instance -- there is no particular assertion of notability on that page, so tagging for notability and refimprove was not a bad thing.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

  WP:NSONGS clearly states that charting by itself is not sufficient to establish notability. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If I went on a blind tagging spree, hitting 1000s of articles, I bet I can get one right eventually. Lugnuts 13:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

What Lugnuts said. Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. Just by randomness, something will hit.--Oakshade (talk) 15:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose for much the same reason as Sarek. See Talk:4st 7lb, for example, where he's precisely right: WP:NSONGS states that album reviews don't contribute to an album track's notability. When I dig back through his tags they seem pretty much correct based on the properly-sourced contents of the tagged articles. This comes down to an age-old issue, where people that have made defective articles dislike it when people tag the defects as opposed to correcting them. That the tags can generally be easily addressed doesn't make them wrong, and, if we topic-ban Lachlan Foley, we make it that much more likely that no one will ever fix the underlying articles.—Kww(talk) 13:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

We can ignore Kww comments following a string of bad-faith edits over the weekend. Clearly needs to read WP:CIR before he continues. Lugnuts 14:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The attacks are getting pretty old, Lugnuts.—Kww(talk) 14:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

For attacks, read facts. Are you now going to do your token block threat now that you've been found out? Lugnuts 15:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going to disagree with 4st 7lb (though there are lot of independent sources available - it might sneak in), but the problem is that LF has been tagging charting singles by major bands. What are the chances of there being no sources available for those? Nil. Tag them for more sources by all means, but tagging for notability is ridiculous. Black Kite (talk) 18:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - NSONG isn't exactly definitive (probably are, may be, etc), but the articles (as tagged) appear to at least be in question. Yes, there may be other sources that establish notability - but they aren't in the articles and there is enough to question based on what is in the articles. Blocking or topic-banning for placing tags is not a good precedent at all. The editor is engaging at the article talk pages and at their own talk page (to some degree). Worse than the tagging is the edit warring to remove the tags without addressing the concerns raised. --Tgeairn (talk) 15:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Nobody here is claiming LF should be blocked just by tagging, it's the mass indiscriminate tagging with many clear examples tagging article topics that are most definitely notable (remember, WP:NOTABILITY is very clear:"Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate citation."). Tagging the #5 UK hit Oh Yeah (Roxy Music song) article demonstrates the indiscriminate, almost random nature of LF's tagging. As pointed out above, this has been going on for years. Notability tagging the Oliver Stone-directed film Seizure? Clearly LF has learned nothing over the years. As the opening states, something needs to be done to keep this user in check. --Oakshade (talk) 15:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Mayhaps I am in the wrong here too. Seeing Oh Yeah (Roxy Music song), I would tag it for notability and sources as well. There are two references, one is not about the article subject at all, and the other is a completely unreliable source of user-generated trivia. Yes, if this was a #5 UK hit then it may be notable (per WP:NSONG) - but we don't even have a source for that. I'd still tag it, as NSONG has additional criteria for standalone articles. I'm not seeing clear examples of indiscriminate tagging. --Tgeairn (talk) 16:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

As for Seizure, it had zero references at the time of tagging. Of course it should be tagged or fixed on the spot. It now has a single reference (to Facebook, no less). The lack of a tag is hurting article quality, as nothing is drawing editors to find reliable sources for what is likely a notable film. Again, I would have tagged it too. --Tgeairn (talk) 16:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, and the added tag asked for exactly what needed to be done: someone needed to add reliable sources that address the topic's notability.—Kww(talk) 16:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

(ec) Tagging for more sources is one thing, but notability tagging which in effect says "This is not notable because I don't see sources" is a different matter. For Oh Yeah (Roxy Music song), with no surprise it only took me about 3 seconds to confirm it was a #5 hit as you would want confirmation for . For Seizure, it took 2 seconds to find very in-depth coverage. It's clear LF doesn't make any effort to follow WP:NOTABILITY and WP:BEFORE on obvious examples such as those and just slaps on notability tags.--Oakshade (talk) 16:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)--Oakshade (talk) 16:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Note that WP:BEFORE isn't mandatory, isn't a guideline, and wouldn't be a relevant one if it was. It's a paragraph inside a page describing our AFD process and describes what to do before nominating an article for deletion. If Lachlan was dragging this many articles through AFD, I'd be in favor of a topic ban. Putting a tag on unsourced articles in the hopes that someone that cares about the topic will care enough to add a reliable source? That doesn't seem to warrant any kind of action.—Kww(talk) 16:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we'll just go back and forth on this about tagging for sources, which nobody here is having issue with, is a very different matter from mass indiscriminate tagging for notability which is beyond simply a request for sources and where the issue is with most editors here. Pretty much what I stated just above is where I'll leave it stand.--Oakshade (talk) 18:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If the only difference between the two tags is that the notability tag has an implication that makes it more successful in getting editors to actually add sourcing, I would see that as a fairly persuasive argument for using the notability tag.—Kww(talk) 19:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Disagree with that. The only time I would use the notability tag was if I saw an article that (a) looked non-notable, (b) I couldn't find any online sources, but (c) I was not familiar with it and could see that there may be something I'm missing. If I suspected it was possibly notable then I would add refimprove and see what happened; if I was fairly sure it was non-notable I would nom it for deletion. The notability tag is IMHO fairly useless in most circumstances. And especially with many of these where (b) doesn't apply anyway unless you're not trying. Black Kite (talk) 21:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Furthermore, empirical evidence has told me that expecting anyone to fix a top level tag at any time is just wishful thinking. Take a look at George Town SC, Historic church of Cúcuta, Iranian football league system, New Town, Luton and New England Interstate Route 19 - not a single source added on any of those articles for well over eight years. Ritchie333 14:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Strong Support. The tags I have looked at mostly verge on the ridiculous. And there are many hundreds of them posted over the last few days. And they have done this before, and not learnt. They haven't even stopped for this ANI. And the only explantation posted is "You are just still upset about that Joy Division incident and are grasping at straws in an attempt to get back at me.", showing no understanding of the issues at hand. Something needs to be done, and this is a good start, else this disruption will continue. I would also support a motion to restrict drive by tagging by this user too, as most of them have no talk page discussions at all.--Mrjulesd (talk) 19:38, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per discussion below. NE Ent 23:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose ban as being Draconian (covering every single article "broadly construed"?) but suggest a stern warning that a topic ban on "music notability tags" is highly likely in future if too many bad notability tags do not stick. Collect (talk) 23:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

He was already given a stern warning. And that was 2012. He doesn't care about warnings.--Oakshade (talk) 05:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Strong support per WP:HITANDRUN - the way you fix articles is by doing this, not this. (See point 15 on my user page). Ritchie333 08:44, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support - not buying the arguments of "there are loads of unreferenced things in this category", "NSONG is vague" or "they got this tag right!" - the fact is that tag bombing to this degree is almost always disruptive, and when many of these are blatantly wrong... then the user shouldn't be performing such actions. It's as simple as that. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 12:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

LF topic ban Discussion

Of the current 6,929,374 articles, about a quarter million have {{Unreferenced}} tags, to pick one example.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. I actually do have a problem with tagging articles. Once upon a time some wikiperson had the road to hell is paved with good intentions idea that, upon finding a problem, instead of fixing it, they'd place a tag on the top the page so that some mythical, unicorn like massive herd of editors would appear and fix 'em. They're a bureaucratic, make work for other people abomination that should go away. Since so many folks like them, of course, a whatever-for-deletion would unfortunately be WP:POINTY which is why I haven't filed it. Given that they exist, and they're acceptable to the community, unless anyone can provide evidence that tags are consistently wrong, Lachlan Foley should not be banned from adding them. NE Ent 23:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

302860 for {{citation needed}}. Thank you for providing me with a method of verifying that adding that tag is of no particular benefit.—Kww(talk) 23:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I use {{citation needed}} when improving an article towards GA status, for information in the article when I found it that I'm prepared to believe is true, but haven't found a source for yet. The main difference here is that I take responsibility for the tag when I'm adding it. Ritchie333 14:28, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Midnight Rider (film) article split/copyright issue

The article Midnight Rider (film) was split to form the article Midnight Rider train accident. While there seems to be concensus to split the article, the cut/edit/paste procedure used and the lack of history of the new article has created substantial authorship and copyright issues. My solution would be to revert the split/edit in the original article, request speedy delete of the new article and start over with a discussion of the proper way to proceed with a split. I am simply seeking an admin review and advice as to the technicalities of what was done, and the best solution before I attempt to fix it myself as proposed on the talk page. The overall split and general intent of the editor who carried it out is not being challenged, simply the procedure used that has created the copyright/authorship issues.

More detail on the issues of the split can be found in this section of the talk page. DFinmitre (talk) 19:31, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• I have answered at Talk:Midnight Rider train accident#Issues with Split to create this article. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Assisting admin has added attribution template to both new and old article talk pages with proper diff ref which is greatly appreciated and addresses issues related to WP:CUTPASTE.

However this still does not address issues related to WP:PROPERSPLIT, WP:SPINOFF, and WP:ATTREQ. Is it to be considered acceptable wiki practice in spliting a majority of a controversial article to:

• Select multiple sections and parts of sections to split to new article without grouping together first in original article.
• Delete substantial paragraphs during the split-cut/paste that take place during an interim offline editing step between cut and paste and are thus hidden from typical edit history. (Paragraphs thus would seem to have been moved as part of the split looking at the original article history, but never show up with the "paste".)
• Add original authorship as part of the cut/paste to create new article such that it is not clear what was moved from the old article and what is used to create new article. (This should have happened in a subsequent edit after the paste.)
• Edit section headers during the cut/paste so these edits do not show up in history of original or new article and further confuse what was cut/pasted, what was newly created, and what was edited. This further confuses attribution.
• Not provide summaries of sections deleted as per WP:SPINOFF such that the article is dramatically truncated as part of the split and controversal information, that has previously been the target of serious vandalism requiring admin intervention, is mostly removed from the original article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DFinmitre (talk • contribs) 06:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

DFinmitre, is there further admin action you require? These points seem like content issues which should be discussed at the relevant article talk page. Sam Walton (talk) 10:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: Actually my argument is that it is not merely a content issue, but a copyright/attribution issue. I think the intent by wiki to suggest, for an article split, separation of content and a clean cut/paste, without editing during an interim step, is to avoid violation by wiki of the copyright agreement with the original authors. The mixing of cut/paste content with deletes and edits in one step under the guise of a split makes the break in history very confusing to follow and could incorrectly thus attribute much of the new article to the editor who split the article contrary to published wiki standards.

Everything the author did content wise could have been accomplished by properly following the wiki standards for a split with a clean cut/paste, with edits and deletions happening in the original article prior to split and in the new article after the split procedure. This is not what took place. I can revert the edit in the original article, but I can not revert the edits that took place to the content of the new article. They do not exist in wiki history because they happened between the cut and paste that created the article.

Further wiki has created a history system to allow the collective of authors to clearly see, review, and revert edits. To allow edits to take place during a split that are not registered in the article history seems like a standard practice that wiki should avoid.

I think this goes against all of the procedures and standards wiki has established to track attribution and respect the copyright of original authors. As a non admin and without a speedy delete of the new article, I do not know how to correct the copyright issues of the new article, as in my opinion it is now an issue for the whole of the new article.

Is it the opinion of wiki administrators that this procedure for spliting an article is acceptable? DFinmitre (talk) 17:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: Thank you for your assistance. I think the editor who completed the split agreed it would be better if it were accomplished a bit differently and graciously reverted the split and deleted the new page. The article clearly has issues that need to be addressed that a concensus of editors, myself and the editor who split the article included, all agree on. I expect a discussion on the talk page can now result in solutions based on what we have all learned. This issue, as presented here, is now completely resolved. Thank you. DFinmitre (talk) 03:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Silent treatment muddle

I just completed a new article in a sandbox - User:Penbat/silent treatment. I tried to do a move to Silent treatment but It wouldnt let me as it already existed as a redirect. I unwisely just copied and pasted the content of User:Penbat/silent treatment to Silent treatment but there is legacy junk left in Talk:Silent_treatment. Please can someone tidy this up, maybe best idea is to delete Silent treatment so I can do a clean move from User:Penbat/silent treatment.--Penbat (talk) 09:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

No reason to delete the article or its Talk page. The two short posts on Talk:Silent_treatment are on the same subject that your text is on. If you want to archive them, they are over 7 years old, so that would certainly be an obvious and acceptable move. Just create an archive on the page and manually remove and insert them there. Softlavender (talk) 11:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

PS: I removed the inaccurate transwiki template from that Talk page. Softlavender (talk) 11:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks it freaked me out that the transwiki template said "Removing this tag will usually trigger CopyToWiktionaryBot to re-transwiki the entry. This article should have been removed from Category:Copy to Wiktionary and should not be re-added there." Are you sure its OK ?--Penbat (talk) 11:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the bot looks for pages that (1) are in CAT:Copy to WT and (2) don't have a transwiki tag at the talk page. If you revert it to this point and don't put the tag back on the page, the bot will probably move it, but aside from that, you should be safe unless a vandal adds the category to the current article. Nyttend (talk) 16:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks.--Penbat (talk) 17:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Conduct of J Doug McLean

This user is a published author, who has made some valuable contributions at Talk:lift (force). However, I am concerned about his conduct towards myself and others.

I joined the discussion last August, partly because of this comment, arguing from authority against other authors and implying they were not "aware of these pressure forces". This was refuted by evidence from the sources. Since then, I have seen an ongoing pattern of incivility towards anyone who disagrees with him. To highlight just a few examples:
8 October 2014: Claim that different numerical results are, "comparing what different sources say about precisely the same question".
13 November 2014: Dismissal of reasoned review of evidence as 'intuition', 'speculation', and 'protestation' (previously brought to ANI).
5 December 2014: Claim that source "supports what I've been arguing all along." (Refuted.)
11 January 2015: Refusal to listen to another user, "at this point yours would seem to be a minority view. Does anyone else oppose my adding this new subsection?"

Finally, I asked for specific evidence of verifiability for one of his claims and was not satisfied with his response. He has already been asked publicly and personally to refer to WP:VERIFICATION. He proposes insertion of a footnote that looks to me like WP:OR, but he only seems to refer to policy when it supports his argument.

I've had enough of arguing with him. Please evaluate his conduct and take any steps necessary to protect the community. Burninthruthesky (talk) 13:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Doug McLean is a cited author in the article. In his published works he also criticises a standard introductory approach to the subject, and for many months now has been trying to push his minority PoV on the article. He has a clear conflict of interest, and to his credit has avoided editing himself but has confined himself to the talk page. However the discussions became interminable and sometimes less than gentlemanly, and I joined the debate to help manage them. That succeeded partially, though they now fill at least two archives,7 and 8, as well as the current talk page. Despite a strong warning there, and again on their talk page, the excessive pedantry still trickles on. I should like to propose a voluntary topic ban for say six months, both to give us all a breather and to give Doug a chance to learn more constructive approaches to editing Misplaced Pages. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I participated in the discussion in question, often re-reading Doug McLean's and others' comments several times in order to better understand them, so I am quite familiar with the issue. There were/are disagreements among the editors including myself. In my view, at the times when the discussion began to border on incivility it was not Doug McLean who was being uncivil. While the administrators are welcome to wade through the walls of text on the Talk page, I don't think there's anything actionable there at least as far as Doug McLean's behavior. And I don't think bringing this up in AN/I is conducive towards building consensus. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:48, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Mr. Swordfish, after some pause for thought, I can perhaps understand why you don't see it. Doug is very knowledgeable, eloquent and persuasive. He would never sink to the level of calling someone a "dilettante" (as someone else did). But no amount of careful wording can hide the underlying message, "you're wrong" that has been consistently levelled against others, regardless of what the evidence says. No doubt some of the mistakes that have been alleged were in fact wrong. We all make mistakes. I know I've made some, and I've corrected myself where I can. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we're willing to learn.

You were rightly offended by the other incident, and chose to report it, as you are entitled. Personally I found that event far less distressing than the remainder of the last six months. Perhaps this helps you understand how I feel about this situation. If you do have any unresolved concerns about another editor's conduct, you should raise it with them, with evidence, in the appropriate place. If you have unresolved content issues, they should of course be raised on the article talk page. Burninthruthesky (talk) 20:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC); edited 22:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Legal threat

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Blocked promotional account has now made a legal threat at User talk:BlueLionEnt, so perhaps the ability to edit the talk page should be removed? Squinge (talk) 18:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The attempt at outing, though laughable, also needs to be dealt with. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about that - it's ludicrously wrong. Squinge (talk) 18:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It's still not permitted, and should be rev-del'd. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. Squinge (talk) 19:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Block adjusted now, thanks folks. Squinge (talk) 19:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Disruptive comments on User talk:Eric Corbett

Proposed Interaction Ban(s)

Knowledgekid87 and Lightbreather have issues with Eric. Eric has issues with Lighbreather. I'm not sure what Knowledgekid87 has against Eric (old history I guess), but he was the most outspoken at Arbcom with regards to EC and Lightbreather's interactions with EC are well known. Eric is off doing what he does best, work on the encyclopedia. Other's have said that since his sanctions, he has made a remarkable improvement. I see no reason to allow editor's that may harbor grudge's to try and rock the boat. For that reason, I propose that Eric/Knowledgekid87 and Eric/Lightbreather are placed under an indefinite interaction ban.

• Support as proposer. If they can't talk about each other, then they can't goad each other.Two kinds of pork_Bacon 20:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• I don't have issues with EC I take issue with editors getting piled on. In addition I just recommended that the talk page be revoked for the duration of the block due to all of the comments made. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 20:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. On the Arbitration case last year involving Eric, you had the 2nd highest edit count on that page, a majority of which were discussing EC. When it comes to Eric, you are a drum-major. But not for peace and harmony.Two kinds of pork_Bacon 21:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support, although I doubt it will do much actual good. Intothatdarkness 20:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support - For the sake of Misplaced Pages. The continual disruption is contributing to a hostile editing atmosphere and this needs to stop. I endorse it fully. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose If EC can't help himself enough to avoid this recurring drama then I see no benefit to banning others from confronting him when he acts inappropriately. I wonder if there is any way to calculate how much time the community has wasted over the years dealing with his near constant emotional immaturity. Rationalobserver (talk) 20:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• My take on it is that even if it is on another's talk-page the editor talked about can still see it if it were hidden then okay but its not the information can be found via a search engine as well as here on Misplaced Pages and doesn't go away. If IRL you overheard a bunch of people talking behind someone eles back would you just sit by silently and watch? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 20:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Assuming it was just the usual petty gossip (i.e. not a credible threat of harm) I'd walk away and mind my own business. NE Ent 22:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• How long is gossip allowed to last though and at what point does it turn into harassment? There is a saying "Weapons of war do not need to be bombs or guns" there is a real emotional side to the whole thing here on wiki. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose per Rationalobserver.Ironholds (talk) 20:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• SUPPORT - an EXCELLENT idea. Best idea of the day. Hafspajen (talk) 20:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose... The most recent interaction between Lightbreather and Eric Corbett was Lightbreather (reasonably in my view) observing Corbett breaking his ArbCom topic ban and Sandstein (again reasonably in my view) imposing a block as a result. Asking administrators to enforce ArbCom decisions is scarcely goading, in my view. The Land (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Strong support Knowledge kid especially seems (from my perspective anyway) to exist on wikipedia purely to pounce on Eric and spout something sanctimonious. We'd be better off without either of them being permitted to approach Eric.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• STRONG OPPOSE!: this whole charade is a farce. There has been no proper procedure, no diffs, no proper discussions. What Eric/Knowledgekid87 interactions does this refer to? Reporting him to ANI? Anyone is allowed to do that! This feels like a kangaroo court or lynching. --Mrjulesd (talk) 21:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Strongly support The two seperate factions seem at total odds-end, and I can't see them ever seeing eye-to-eye. One side in particular seems particulalrl adverse to this, and for the sake of Misplaced Pages and the community I feel it is imperative that such a ban is placed (at least for the foreseeable future). Somethingwickedly (talk) 21:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Don't you realise no proper evidence has been put forward in this thread? How would you like to have an IBAN in this fashion! It just seems to me to be revenge on Knowledgekid87 for reporting EC and fans to ANI. --Mrjulesd (talk) 21:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm only familiar with Knowledgekid from the arbitration case (of which he wasn't a party). IMO he had a very unhealthy interest in Eric. I recall so did Lightbreather who was editing under an ip while supposedly being "retired". Others here might know the backstory in more detail, but it's obvious to me this would be a benefit in drama reduction aloneTwo kinds of pork_Bacon 21:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Where is the evidence though that I have had a history with Eric? If I see something that looks like putting down editors I will report it, I have been following Light through her all women's project proposal though. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If we put an IB on two of the only editors who are brave enough to confront EC, we are in effect protecting EC from the burden of his TB, which he has already broken. Most others are too afraid to say anything, and I don't blame them, but the idea that you can solve a behavior problem by banning users from complaining about it is misguided. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose based on comments of user Rationalobserver. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose because I don't see any evidence provided regarding Knowledgekid87 requiring an Iban here, being outspoken at ArbCom does not seem to justify an iban.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose interaction bans are just drama magnets which generate more heat than light and attract other drama board acolytes who don't do anything other than chase the shining glitter of ANI. Utterly ineffective and ultimately damaging. Oh, and don't forget that Eric actually does something for the project around here while many others just create drama. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Lots of editors " something for the project", but at what point does EC's divisiveness and near constant hostility yield a net loss? I think the idea that writing a few FAs earns you the right to act inappropriately is damaging to the project, but the vast majority of editors who write FA-quality material would never dream of taking the liberties EC does. Is he really the only Misplaced Pages editor worth retaining? Rationalobserver (talk) 22:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - I think it's a splendid idea. So we can all go back editing instead of this. Hafspajen (talk) 22:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• I think it's a strange position to take that those who report TB violations are wasting our time, but those who actually violate their TB are not. Rationalobserver (talk) 22:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• It's the position taken by some editors who have decided (with no supporting facts) that a "trivial" topic ban violation does not qualify as a "real" violation. One of these apologists was Cassianto (talk · contribs), who has now resigned from Misplaced Pages, so sometimes these things work out. :) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• I don't think anybody should resign over this, but if they would rather leave Misplaced Pages than suffer the indignity of having to follow our guidelines, that might be the best solution to the interconnected problem, which at its heart seems to be a lack of maturity and self-control. There are several laws that I don't agree with, but when I break them I must accept the responsibility for having done so. To do anything else is to espouse an anti-social mindset, and I mean that in the clinical sense. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose If they can't be mature enough to stay out of each other's business, then they have no place in this website. An IBAN will change nothing and merely draw more good-intentioned editors into their honeypot of toxicity. Nothing short of an indefinite ban will stop any of them. KonveyorBelt 22:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• In an ideal world this "business" would be working to improve the encyclopedia and not ganging up on other editors. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• For me the thread Knowledgekid opened raises a couple questions: why did they not discuss the matter at the talk page before opening an ANI thread as recommended at the top of the page, or simply bring the attention to the blocking admin? If the talk page comments are inappropriate, why were they transcribed from a page with 625 watchers to this page with 6,400? The effect of opening the thread was, in fact, a bunch of editors ganging up on Eric. NE Ent 23:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• When it comes to seeing something wrong WP:ANI is the place to go report things. Do you really think I would have stood a snowballs chance going in there and saying "hey could you please stop with your comments?" or the like? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• No, but it had little and nothing to do with you and you could have easily ignored it. KonveyorBelt 23:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Yes I could have but as someone who has seen others put down before in life I chose to lend my voice here, as I said I felt a line had been crossed, it had gone from simple venting to something else. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Well, as a word of advice, it seems this mentality of "for great justice" is creating an issue with others when you interrupt in their affairs. Perhaps just live and let live. KonveyorBelt 23:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• For the most part I agree it is no big deal, people say things that get under another's skin, say things they dont mean when they are upset, and that usually comes and goes. In this case, multiple editors came in to chime in, now usually when someone gets upset you have others be by their side and say to get over it what I saw was more than that. You have the right to be upset, you dont have the right to gang up on another person or persons in my opinion. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment in the absence of other evidence, as no other evidence, was given, it seems to me that this Knowledgekid87 is being punished for bringing EC and supporters to ANI. Also Lightbreather is being attacked for reporting EC to ArbCom. Now lets say this was successful. Do you realize what precedent this would set? It would mean anyone reporting EC could be subject to an IBAN. Now, is that really what we want? People fearful of reporting EC for transgressions? It would destroy the sense of justice in the whole WP process, at least for me. --Mrjulesd (talk) 22:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Well said, Mrjulesd. I believe you've hit the nail on the head! Rationalobserver (talk) 23:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no justice. It would be a great precedent if folks who are unable to distinguish from battleground nit picking and mature dispute resolution are strongly discouraged from continuing to do so. NE Ent 23:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that; it isn't any less just to incarcerate an individual that disagrees with a particular law than one who agrees with it. Further, if you knowingly violate a guideline or expectation it is just that you should answer for it, even those, especially those that you disagree with. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• 1775 edits since: 2014-08-31, 1109 edits since: 2012-09-13. Hafspajen (talk) 00:17, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose As IBANS dont work, and since no one has managed to get any sort of block stick with Corbett no matter what he does, its a waste of time adding more rules for him to ignore. Only in death does duty end (talk) 03:31, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe that's the case anymore - that was the very reason this was an Arb Enforcement block. Admins are frustrated because they're not allowed to "unstick" it. Ritchie333 09:28, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Not actually working very much at reducing disruption though is it ;) Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Very Weak support: normally oppose IBANS as drama-magnets, as others have noted her. However, if people can be prevented from poking the bear, that would be good; and here, Lighbreather is really quick to overreact to Eric Corbett, and KnowledgeKid does poke at Eric. I'd suggest that if any of them is sanctioned for anything, it should boomerang on the other one who is involved, as my experience with Corbett is that he only growls when baited. Montanabw 07:31, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

  This section should be closed like the "parent" section above. Doc talk 07:45, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

  Where have you seen me "poke" Eric? In this case I requested that talk page access be revoked for a duration of a 48 hour block due to nonstop talk about 2 editors between a group of editors. It didn't have to go this way, its okay if you saw Eric as a victim in the case I understand that and you have a right to your opinion, what I don't understand is why editors felt the need to pile on afterwards as I have been saying. I blame the other editors more than I blame Eric here, he was blocked and rather than doing something like talking about articles or finding resolve, this happened. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - Not seeing any sufficient evidence to require an IBAN, Also this is a collaborative place so thus we all need to work together .... If someone cannot do that than they perhaps need to find a new hobby. –Davey2010 08:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• Weak support per Montanabw. I am pretty sure Eric won't be interested in interacting with these two, and hence probably will shrug off an interaction ban with disinterested compliance. Ritchie333 09:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per Mrjulesd; I've never been happy with trying to dissuade editors from reporting here, and this would set a dangerous precedent in that regard. Also, I find the lack of diffs disturbing. StAnselm (talk) 10:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Also, I find the lack of diffs disturbing. Thank you, StAnselm. And lest anyone misinterprets the thanks as sarcasm and a poke, I mean it. Genuine thanks. Sincerely, thank you. Lightbreather (talk) 16:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support - as a first step to thinning out the provocations... Carrite (talk) 18:55, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. This doesn't assume good faith on anybody's part. Eric probably won't interact with these two, anyway, if he doesn't want to interact with them. Epic Genius (talk) 19:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose, IBANs are nonsense obstructions to getting any genuine issue resolved. If an editor is found to be at genuine fault then an appropriate topic ban or site block should be imposed. people with interaction bans cannot work on the same articles simultaneously. GregKaye 20:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

JHunterJ

I am very sad to report that JHunterJ (talk · contribs) has acted WP:INVOLVED in a disambiguation dispute to promote his singular POV over and above the disambiguation guidelines of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and community consensus established at AfD, and more recently, a snow requested move discussion (still underway). Before composing this report, I spent two days attempting to discuss the problem with JHunterJ, with no recognition of any problem on his end. Every response from JHunterJ in that discussion promotes the erroneous idea that Misplaced Pages is a bureaucracy, even though the first and fifth pillars note that it is not. When confronted with this problem, JHunterJ claims he is enforcing the singular POV of another user. Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, JHunterJ continues to blame others. I will now summarize the problem with JHunterJ's edits:

1. In 2009, the community discussed Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Away team. The result was "No Consensus (default Keep)". In that discussion, one editor, User:EEMIV, voted delete.
2. An hour after the AfD closed as keep, User:Untick correctly disambiguated the title and moved "Away team" to "Away team (Star Trek)", which is where the title should appropriately reside.
3. Eight hours later, EEMIV unilaterally moved the article back to "Away team". This showed very poor judgment on EEMIV's part, as there was already an Away team (disambiguation) page, and his move made the article a primary topic when it never was to begin with. Although his incorrect move should have been reverted, it never was.
4. Fast forward to 2011. EEMIV once again acts unilaterally, this time to redirect the entire article to Star Trek: Away Team. There is no evidence that the video game is the primary topic. In fact, quite the opposite.
5. This blatant, glaring error remained until 2013, when Miyagawa figured out there was a problem and attempted to redirect the primary to the dab page.
6. Instead of helping to fix the problem listed above, JHunterJ stepped in and reverted back to the incorrect target, claiming the guideline as his enforcement mechanism. As you can see from the above, this is manifestly false.
7. A requested move discussion was started in January 2015. While ongoing, the results are a snow move, because most reasonable people recognize the problem.
8. Unfortunately, JHunterJ is not one of those reasonable people, as he continues to repeatedly add the incorrect target and enforce EEMIV's previous, erroneous unilateral action.
9. JHunterJ then uses his admin tools to enforce an incorrect redirect and move against any kind of community consensus or evidence supporting WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. His page history deletions removed the original page history and split it into two different articles, making more work for other admins to fix.

   15:08 . . JHunterJ (talk | contribs) deleted page Talk:Away team (Star Trek term) ‎(housekeeping)

   15:08 . . JHunterJ (talk | contribs) restored page Away team (Star Trek term) ‎(7 revisions restored: article history)

   15:07 . . JHunterJ (talk | contribs) moved page Talk:Away team (Star Trek term) to Talk:Away team over redirect ‎(rv move)

   15:07 . . JHunterJ (talk | contribs) deleted page Away team ‎(G6: Deleted to make way for move)

   15:07 . . JHunterJ (talk | contribs) moved page Away team (Star Trek term) to Away team ‎(rv move)

   15:07 . . JHunterJ (talk | contribs) restored page Away team (Star Trek term) ‎(82 revisions restored: redirect history)

   15:06 . . JHunterJ (talk | contribs) deleted page Away team (Star Trek term) ‎(temp delete to split history)

10. When asked on his talk page why he continues to do this, he cannot give an actual answer. When he is informed that there is zero evidence supporting his actions, he claims that Misplaced Pages is a bureaucracy and the rules must be followed. When he is pointed to WP:NOTBUREAU, he ignores it.