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| :I read ] and was not impressed. My own feeling, based on long-term but admittedly unsystematic observation, is that anyone who might be "inspired" to become a pest by reading an account of an old troll would cause trouble sooner or later without the extra help. Moreover, a solid mass of documentation on past incidents might convince new cranks and trolls that WP is not the proper soapbox for their claims that relativity is a Zionist conspiracy. Perhaps I've been reading too much ] , but my inclination is to support the first option. ] 14:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC) | :I read ] and was not impressed. My own feeling, based on long-term but admittedly unsystematic observation, is that anyone who might be "inspired" to become a pest by reading an account of an old troll would cause trouble sooner or later without the extra help. Moreover, a solid mass of documentation on past incidents might convince new cranks and trolls that WP is not the proper soapbox for their claims that relativity is a Zionist conspiracy. Perhaps I've been reading too much ] , but my inclination is to support the first option. ] 14:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC) | ||
| ::I think ] might work for people who ''aim'' to get "long term abuse pages" about them: puerile schoolboy vandals. But, for cranks and trolls with ideological agendas they wish to promote, it is important to have a means of identifying and tracking their activities, so that they don't so much as get a foot in the door. So we need to put the pages somewhere, and keep them active and operational (i.e. we should be able to add new sockpuppets/activities etc.); and Hillman shouldn't have to take sole responsibility for their maintenance, either. | |||
| ::However, navigating around Misplaced Pages's "meta-pages" is a bit of a nightmare. The people who have primarily been involved with the users Hillman has documented are mostly Wikiproject pseudoscience/physics members. So, if the pages are put in the namespace of "Long term abuse", there should definitely be a page with links from this project to those pages. I think that people are more likely to be concerned with trolls operating in their own spheres, but at the same time a centralised method for dealing with them is also important. So I would go for a compromise between the first and second: keep centralised across all Wikiprojects by putting the pages in "Long term abuse", but actively encourage project members to maintain the pages pertaining to their own projects, by making access and monitoringeasy. | |||
| ::Since the specific pages in question here are documenting banned users, who mostly edit using throwaway sockpuppets or IP addresses, semiprotection of the pages could be a help, I think. ] 14:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC) | |||
| =="]"...== | |||
| ...has just been nominated for deletion . Input appreciated. ] 14:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC) | |||
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Brad Patrick said what?
User:Brad Patrick, apparently acting in his capacity as General Counsel for the WikiMedia Foundation, left a very odd message, which I quote in full:
Representatives on behalf of the company have sent a cease and desist letter to the Wikimedia Foundation office after unsuccessful attempts by its lawyer Kent Forbes to change the content of the article. Please do not comment on legal threats either in the article or talk space. Thanks.
— Brad Patrick 16:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC) in Talk:Water fuel cell
Several users have requested clarification:
- What company precisely?
- Did he really mean the talk page?
- Just where are we supposed to discuss specific legal threats, if not on talk pages? Should we infer that leaving a message in the user talk page of user U who has just made legal threat T, warning U not to make legal threats, is now "illegal"? What about discussion of specific legal threats at places like WP:AN/I? Or does he mean just this one threat (does he mean the letter which we wouldn't even have known about had he not left his message?), and not other threats?
- And is Kentforbes (talk · contribs) the Kent Forbes who sent the letter, or is that a vandalism account by some troll looking to cause trouble?
It's all very strange.---CH 07:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
- Brad is just saying that we shouldn't discuss this particular legal threat as it is a meta-issue to the article and will only complicate matters for Wikimedia foundation since Brad is now involved (it has escalated beyond what administrators, the arbitration committee, etc. will deal with). Also, Brad is instructing the editors not to cite the legal threats made by Kent Forbes in the article itself. Just ignore the legal threats and go about doing the work of editing neutrally and verifiably. Brad is simply saying he's handling the situation and will work to resolve the issue. You can wash your hands of worrying about the legal issues surrounding Kent Forbes' posts.
- Of course, this only applies to this particular issue, and not other issues in other articles or with other users. If other legal issues come up surrounding this user or article, just refer them directly to Brad Patrick at his user page (as though he was the uber-administrator). Legal issues not involving them can be handled as you normally would.
OK, thanks, SA, can I copy this to Talk:Water fuel cell? Do you know anything about the other questions I raised? ---CH 08:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
- I would prefer that you don't copy this to Talk:Water fuel cell since it may only aggravate the situation. If other users are curious, refer them directly to this page on their user talks or via e-mail. I don't know what company it is, but presumably it is the company that Kent Forbes works for. As per usual, any other Legal threats not pertaining to this issue that are made on Misplaced Pages should immediately be reported to admins and blocks should be immediate. AN/I, talkpage discussion, user talk discussions all can and should continue as normal. Guidelines and policies about warning users for making legal threats are all still applicable. However, you should not warn Kent Forbes or discuss any legal threats he made/makes or alluded/alludes to on Misplaced Pages with respect to this issue and instead refer these things directly to Brad as they arise just so that you aren't unwittingly pulled into a legal battle you probably don't need. From what I can understand from Brad's letter, User:Kentforbes is very likely the same Kent Forbes who sent the letter, however, that's not really our concern anymore. Brad will deal with what to do with this user. --ScienceApologist 08:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
RfArb
User:Iantresman has started a request for arbitration you may wish to comment on WP:RfArb#Pseudoscience__vs_Pseudoskepticism. --ScienceApologist 12:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Another set of pages to watch?
Yeah, I know. In theory PNA should be used for this, but actually pages listed there don't get much expert's attention.
I've recently stumbled over the contributions of Viriathus (talk · contribs), especially Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev and Harold Aspden. Comments? ---— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pjacobi (talk • contribs) 07:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
- (Rolls virtual eyes): "Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder’s groundbreaking 1970 book, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain"? Good grief! Where oh where do they all come from? ---CH 01:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
- Good grief. aspden.org is the domain of his website, which is registered in Southampton (but with webhost apparently headquartered in London); see this page search for ample evidence of his anti-relativity campaign. Now see this linksearch for ample evidence of the problem for WP quality control.
- A quick dig suggests that Viriathus (talk · contribs) may be no other than Aspden himself, suggesting that these edits may represent yet another incident of wikishilling, another WP:VAIN vio, etc. Note that Viriathus says this figure "led the Lusitanian guerrilla fighters to several victories over the Romans" which certainly seems consistent with the mood of Aspden's "struggle for acceptance" of his views, which he describes at his website. Of course, we know the fate after the ship named after the province of Lusitania, so some might say this seems to be a rather defeatist choice of "heroic" handle! Perhaps he'll give up easily if challenged?
- Note that aspden.org is the domain of Harold Aspden's website, which is registered in Southampton (but with webhost apparently headquartered in London); see this page search for ample evidence of his anti-relativity campaign. Now see this linksearch for ample evidence of the problem for WP quality control.
- Finally, note that the btcentralplus.com anon may also be Aspden:
- 86.143.143.200 (talk · contribs) (London area at 90%)
- 88.214.190.123 (talk · contribs)
- 88.214.188.144 (talk · contribs)
- He seems to be a fairly isolated anti-relativity crank.---CH 02:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
- P.S. I happen to agree that the PNA notice at the top of this page should be removed for the reasons stated by Peter.---CH 02:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Monitoring continued problematic activity by permabanned users
As most of you probably already know, I have been maintaining (as quietly as possible, i.e. not very quietly at all, as it turned out!) several pages monitoring sockpuppets and anons used by several permanbanned problem users well known :-( to this project:
- User:Hillman/Dig/Bogdanov re banned users from the Bogdanov affair
- User:Hillman/Dig/KraMuc re permabanned user KraMuc (talk · contribs · block log) and socks
- User:Hillman/Dig/Licorne re permabannded user Licorne (talk · contribs · block log) and socks
- User:Hillman/Dig/Sarfatti re permabanned user JackSarfatti (talk · contribs · block log)
Keeping such notes is permissible according to Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Iloveminun#Keeping_notes.
I might add a fifth page to this list:
- User:Hillman/Dig/Salsman re Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs · block log) and LossIsNotMore (talk · contribs · block log)
after hearing comments here. This particular individual has announced that he intends to violate an ArbCom ban on his disruptive edits of Depleted uranium and related articles, by creating a sock and continuing the very activities which resulted in the ban on DU edits from his first user account! He has in fact been done just that, with (I feel) no effective response from the Misplaced Pages community. IMO, this phenomenon raises serious questions about whether ArbCom findings have any real meaning.
Note well: I have also created similar pages studying edits by some other users. The other pages seem to be substantially more controversial than keeping notes on permabanned users suspected of posing a continuing problem, and I am currently engaged in negotation with User:David.Mestel regarding the eventual disposition of one of these other pages. Therefore, I stress that in this proposal, I am discussing the possible eventual disposition only of my four (five?) user subpages specifically listed above, which suggest how to monitor recent activity by four specific permabanned users, via socks and/or anons, in violation of their ban, plus one additional user subpage studying edits by a specific user who is openly defying an ArbCom finding.
These pages seem to have acquired a dual purpose:
- illustrations for User:Hillman/Digging and my other user page essays on cruft control (the purpose I originally envisaged),
- actively maintained pages for real-time monitoring of these users, who in some cases IMO clearly pose a continuing problem.
With regard to the fairly uncontroversial set of pages dealing with permabanned users, and perhaps also the Salsman page, I'd like to separate these two functions.
First version of my proposal: I might propose in Misplaced Pages talk:Long term abuse or some other such "administrative" page (suggestions?) that the four (five?) pages listed above be moved to some centralized "administrative" location, protected, and thereafter be updated only by admins engaged in active anti-vandalism, ArbCom enforcement, and so on. In fact, I think someone should write a template using the format of these pages as a model, to ensure uniformity of appearance in keeping such "enforcement notes" for admins, and to ease creation of similar pages for other problem users who have been banned or appear to be violating ArbCom findings. These pages would then be carefully interlinked with other relevant administrative pages, e.g. the ArbCom page in the case of the Salsman page.
A second version of this proposal: copy these pages to subpages of this WikiProject, whose members would then be responsible for maintaining them. Notice that KraMuc (talk · contribs · block log) has frequently vandalized User:Hillman/Dig/KraMuc, so without page protection this could be a real headache. The idea here would be that by asking individual WikiProjects to monitor problem users editing articles under their purview, they might be more likely to recieve the regular attention they would require.
A third version: keep protected copies here as examples of problems caused in the past, which could be referred to in future proceedings against new sockpuppets of these users, and similarly for other permabanned users who edit pages relevant to this WikiProject.
A fourth version: keep protected copies of pages modeled after User:Hillman/Dig/Salsman at the associated ArbCom pages, to help the clerks monitor possible violations and to enforce the findings, and keep protected copies of pages modeled after the first four at an administrative sockpupettry site.
On balance I think I myself prefer the first variant of my proposal, to avoid duplication of effort.
Should this come to pass, I propose to request protection of the four pages listed above (as well as my "signed" user page essays), so that my statements of my own views on WP quality control problems will be vandal resistant with little interferenece from myself.
I myself am not very optimistic that the kinds of problems described in the four (five?) pages listed above will ever be adequately controlled at WP, mostly because of the incredibly ineffective and tortuous procedures for creating new policies at WP seem to ensure that WP will never be able to response effectively to new threats to the integrity of "information" presented in its "encyclopedic articles", and there seems to me to have been no recognizable progress whatever since the Boston meeting toward creating an Advisory Board with the mission of reforming the whole administrative policy and enforcement structure of Misplaced Pages. However, I could be wrong and I certainly would like to give the Misplaced Pages community maximal opportunity to fix its house. Be this as it may, someone has suggested to me that as per WP:DENY, giving problem users the dubious "honor" of an actively maintained monitoring page might just encourage even more trollery. This is a difficult issue; I don't know what might happen, but on balance I feel that experimenting with "official" pages modeled after the four (five?) pages listed above may be an idea whose time has come for consideration by the Misplaced Pages community.
Comments? ---CH 01:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
- I read WP:DENY and was not impressed. My own feeling, based on long-term but admittedly unsystematic observation, is that anyone who might be "inspired" to become a pest by reading an account of an old troll would cause trouble sooner or later without the extra help. Moreover, a solid mass of documentation on past incidents might convince new cranks and trolls that WP is not the proper soapbox for their claims that relativity is a Zionist conspiracy. Perhaps I've been reading too much David Brin , but my inclination is to support the first option. Anville 14:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
- I think WP:DENY might work for people who aim to get "long term abuse pages" about them: puerile schoolboy vandals. But, for cranks and trolls with ideological agendas they wish to promote, it is important to have a means of identifying and tracking their activities, so that they don't so much as get a foot in the door. So we need to put the pages somewhere, and keep them active and operational (i.e. we should be able to add new sockpuppets/activities etc.); and Hillman shouldn't have to take sole responsibility for their maintenance, either.
- However, navigating around Misplaced Pages's "meta-pages" is a bit of a nightmare. The people who have primarily been involved with the users Hillman has documented are mostly Wikiproject pseudoscience/physics members. So, if the pages are put in the namespace of "Long term abuse", there should definitely be a page with links from this project to those pages. I think that people are more likely to be concerned with trolls operating in their own spheres, but at the same time a centralised method for dealing with them is also important. So I would go for a compromise between the first and second: keep centralised across all Wikiprojects by putting the pages in "Long term abuse", but actively encourage project members to maintain the pages pertaining to their own projects, by making access and monitoringeasy.
- Since the specific pages in question here are documenting banned users, who mostly edit using throwaway sockpuppets or IP addresses, semiprotection of the pages could be a help, I think. Byrgenwulf 14:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
"Spin-Mediated Consciousness Theory"...
...has just been nominated for deletion here. Input appreciated. Byrgenwulf 14:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
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