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Possible sockpuppet of Cute 1 4 u

Hello I believe that this user New York from Flavor of Love may be this indefinatly blocked user Cute 1 4 u. Check this dif and talk page Leroyencyclopediabrown for the possible proof. If I'm wrong on this I appolize in advance but Cute 1 4 u does have a history of sock puppet and ban evasion. Æon _EA! 02:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

In addition I once I commented on that user being suspicious the comments that were made by New York from Flavor of Love were removed. Æon _EA! 02:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but this looks somewhat similar (Cute 1 4 u did once create an account impersonating Raven Symone). I'd file a RFCU. --Coredesat talk. o_O 02:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought about it, thanks I will should I post the findings here or will not not be needed? Æon _EA! 02:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Any findings in the RFCU should probably be posted here unless it comes back positive and she's indef-blocked right then and there. But it looks somewhat definitive, looking at the user's edit history. --Coredesat talk. o_O 02:39, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Coredesat. I caught one of hers last week and the writing style is VERY similar to here other socks. I will post the finding once they come in. Æon _EA! 02:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The account *could* be blocked per WP:USERNAME I think... "New York" was in fact the nickname given to a real contestant on the first season of Flavor of Love (generally only the nicknames were used on the show) and thus this name more-or-less falls afoul of the "Names of well-known living people" clause. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

After looking at the userpage and what BoG said, I decided to issue the username block. User:Zscout370 04:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it absurd how much people-power is being thrown at stopping an alleged 11 year old female sockpuppeteer from "abusing" Misplaced Pages as a social network? --  Netsnipe  ►  04:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I take it from your use of quotation marks that you disagree with the characterization of social networking as an abuse of Misplaced Pages? Choess 06:05, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, based on this diff and the message the most current IP placed on Leroy's talk page, it's definitely her. She thinks she can hide stuff by deleting it. Ryūlóng 06:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, just call me Ed.=) I apologize to everyone who has been trying to contact me overnight. I (obviously) was sleeping. Anyway, I think that Cute 1 4 u should be given one more chance. Two reasons for this. First of all, she doesn't have to keep making new accounts just to prove her point. Second, it removes the hassle of blocking EVERY SINGLE account she makes. We all know she's going to make more and more accounts.--Ed 12:58, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, she was blocked for Sockpuppet abuse, impersation, Vandalism and the 11 year old part was just added ammo to the case. And the Check user came up possitive. Æon _EA! 18:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

New York from Flavor of Love and 75.34.176.105 have both been blocked indef as sockpuppets, although I thought that IPs shouldn't be blocked indefinitely. Was there an exception made? --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 18:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

You know that she's going to make a new account anyway! What's the point for all of this hassle? This is a complete waste of our time! If we just give her a second chance on Misplaced Pages, less time for us working on her case, and one more volunteer Wikipedian.--Ed 02:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Cute 1 4 u welcomed Starcare, who is likely a puppet of Publicola, who is likely a puppet of Pepsidrinka. Hard punt. Lots of socks involved here.--Scribner 03:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

You see? The situation's getting worse. The only solution is to back off or get more admin power.--Ed 03:27, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Scribner obviously has something against Pepsidrinka, so I'm taking his comments with more than a pinch of salt. – Chacor 03:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's way too much of a stretch. Ed, sorry, but Cute 1 4 u has just done too much. Yeah, she'll keep coming back, and she'll continue to contact you, and we'll continue to deal with her. If she realizes that she's not helping, then we'll stop blocking, but as long as she continues to contact you and admit that she's who she is, then we have to block her. Ryūlóng 04:21, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Ryulong, I'm not the only one she might want to contact. Do you even realize that she could be lurking around Misplaced Pages right this moment? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed (talk • contribs)

75.34.12.156 is another one. Posted on my talk page Æon _EA! 07:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about this IP you found, but I think we should wait until she does something else before we take action against this IP.--Ed 22:45, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

It was blocked it was her (The post admited it) Æon _EA! 00:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

How long is the block? --Ed 00:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Another Possible one Prple space mnky@hotmail.com edited with the summary Got to keep it real on edit summary (Dif ) a phrase that she used many many times as her qoute. Caught this one while monitoring recent changes Æon _EA! 00:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

This is Cute 1 4 u. If I had any socks, I'd admit them. I already told you all of them. But Ed is right, I'm trying to prove my point. --75.33.230.133 02:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not Prple space mnky@hotmail.com , User:Starcare, or User:Publicola. I swear, I don't even know them. However, to prove my point, all i can say is that i have a new account and I am much nicer on that account. Ed is right. --75.33.230.133 02:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I may have found another sock and I requested a check user (Came up again on Recent changes, edits article that were created by other socks with teh same grammer an such) Æon _EA! 02:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

More or less confrimed the sockpuppet. Autoblock got it (See TV Lover) Æon _EA! 04:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Cute 1 4 u (or whatever) is going to get me a headache. I tried asking her why she's doing this on her talk page, but she said she's "going to commit 'suiside' ," or something. I don't know... I know this may sound stupid, but can't we block her IP address, so she stops creating these annoying sockpuppets? Cheers! The RSJ - 03:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

She's on a dynamic IP, SBC, I believe (according to the WHOIS reports). There's not much we can do but keep blocking her new accounts. She's not committing suiside any time soon. Ryūlóng 05:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you please clarify your statement? "Committing suicide"? Is it literal or figurative? --physicq210 05:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Prob Figurative she is 11 years old and has a history of being overly dramatic. Æon _EA! 05:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

She'll be back tomorrow, probably recreating that article of hers. Ryūlóng 05:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Do we have any way to protect the page from being created, say, creating a blank article then fully protecting it? Shadow1 17:35, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

What is the article she keeps creating? Æon _EA! 20:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

This situation is getting nowhere. In fact, it's getting worse. She will keep making new accounts, and you know that. We must find a permanent solution to this.--Ed 00:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The soulition is simple keep blocking her. We can't block her IP with out cuasing other issues. Æon _EA! 08:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone contacted SBC about this user? Letting them know that the misbehavior of one 11-year-old kid might lead to Misplaced Pages blocking their entire DHCP range could be an incentive for them to listen. -- llywrch 19:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I must tell you something. I live in the same area as Cute 1 4 u (not the same suburban area, we don't live close together or anything, we both in Metropolitan Chicago, which is in the United States). Anyway, SBC changed to AT&T in Chicago. AT&T bought SBC, so I have no idea what you guys are talking about.--Ed 22:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Let me get my facts straight. Take a look at SBC Communications, which says that SBC was the one who bought AT&T. They then changed their name. --Ed 22:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm am not misbehaving. I had stress but it has gone away. Not creating any more accounts. If I have to come back when I'm 13, I guess i'll create another account then. Say what you want. Don't contact me llywrch, I don't know you. --75.34.176.207 03:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

With that begin said I may have found yet one more sockpuppet of Her. I have requested another check user. Æon _EA! 19:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Another day, another sockpuppet, eh? What's the newest sockpuppet called now? Cheers! The RSJ - _{The RSJ at the RS Wiki} 20:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

But Crystal (that's her real name, so everyone would know) already said she's not creating any socks.--Ed 23:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

And I don't beleive her. Check my talk page for the latest. Æon _EA! 03:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Ed, I'm not. That other sock was before i made my earlier statement. --75.33.249.5 05:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

on Aeon's page I met to say I wouldn't make anoter sock p. --75.34.185.51 18:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I checked Cute 1 4 u's block log, and I am very surprised that we banned a user for being a certain age. Either I'm misreading the block reason, or we have just banned an account because she was 11 yrs. old. I don't think this is right. If Cute 1 4 u was blocked because of many other reasons such as vandalism, then that should appear on the block log.

In addition, I'm beginning to question her block reasons. The sockpuppettering is already proven. (with all of the accounts that came up here on ANI. But vandalism??? Where's the vandalism here??? I think we should recover the supposed vandalism in question.--Ed 13:05, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone think this is enough to get her unblocked? If you think about it, the sockpuppeteering started just because she was blocked for being a certain age, the link to her block log is above. And there really wasn't any proof she was going to vandalise Misplaced Pages— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed (talk • contribs)

Well, the admission to being part of S-man's "vandalism project" on top of all of the other things that she did (sockpuppetry, MySpace treatment, personal attacks, civility, etc.) all led to her block. If she just sits it out and/or stops making evident that she is who she is, then we won't have to bother her about it. But the fact that its now starting to bother you and other users is beyond anything. Ryūlóng 21:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Actally I just stopped that. And Ed's right. Why am I blocked for being 11? I can't change my age untill years past. He did the vandalism. I though about and said yeah but after that i was gonna sasy no but I was blocked. Now you think about it. Are you really being fair? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cute 1 4 u (talk • contribs)

Then why does the edit summary state her age as the main problem? I suggest that the blocking admin unblock her and provide a better block summary. And in addition, where's the proof that she was vandalising with S-man? I don't see any proof anywhere.--Ed 23:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I meant block summary. =) --Ed 23:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

She has made some descent edits. I think we should re-enable her account if nothing else after a short break period of maybe a month or so. Anyways, that is my 2 cents. --Mattwj2002 23:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I think so, too. What I'm thinking is that we get her account unblocked and put her on a monthlong probation. During the probation period, we will be watching all of her contribs and things like that. If she does something questionable, we block her with no questions asked.--Ed 00:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I initially believed that this user deserved another chance. The behaviour since the block was placed between this user and the numerous sockpuppets, some of which were created after the block, has shown to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that this user has no intention of becoming a good editor and has no compunction against blatantly flaunting Misplaced Pages's rules and regulations. While this is clearly an opinion, I am firmly against unblocking this user's account. If the user cannot even be trusted to behave while a block is in effect, what possible reason do we have for believing the user will act properly if unblocked? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me fifty times and I'm a moron. --Yamla 00:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

(unindent)Please rephrase your last 3 sentences. They don't make sense. =) Anyway, why do you think that Cute 1 4 u has been sockpuppeteering? Maybe the block would have affected it. Even then, putting her on probation shoud do the trick.--Ed 01:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

She was being a sockpuppeteer long before her indefinite block. User:Raven Symone, User:Skittles Lover, and others that have been proven at Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Cute 1 4 u, one of which was long before the block was imposed. I would not feel it wrong if Yamla decided to change the block summary to something else; something that just doesn't show that she was blocked on the reason of her age, but that along with the many other reasons I have mentioned above. Ryūlóng 06:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this situation is becoming corrupt:

• Cute 1 4 u was blocked for being a certain age, as stated in her block summary. As far as I'm concerned, whatever is in the block summary is the basis of her block.
• She wasn't going to vandalise Misplaced Pages. She planned to vandalise the sister projects, but not Misplaced Pages. There's a difference. The admins at the appropriate sister projects should have been notified.
• We're making wild assumtions that Cute 1 4 u keeps making sockpuppets. I know that she admitted to some of the socks, but what if the accounts were controlled by her siblings or relatives or something? At her original userpage, Cute 1 4 u established that she had siblings (I think).--Ed 23:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • She said she wasn't going to vandalise wikipedia. She's already shown a willingness to ignore our rules by creating socks. There are no wild assumptions when she's admitted to some of the sockpuppets. If one of those accounts really was a family member, that is unfortunate, but really too bad. Sometimes someone does something that ruins it for everyone. If the family is really that bent out of shape over it, they'll have to take it up with her. Maybe she'll learn something.--Crossmr 13:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    • All I'm just saying is that we're just coming to conclusions about these sockpuppets. We're blocking accounts for sharing the same IP with a banned user. For instance, what if she's using a school IP? There are multiple users that might be coming from the same school. And what about the wifi connections that people use now? Wouldn't multiple users be using the same wifi connection?--Ed 02:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Family members getting blocked because of one bad apple? What a ridiculous notion! --Ryūlóng 06:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Also, we're not blocking new accounts for sharing the same IP. We're blocking new accounts because Cute 1 4 u comes out and says she's evaded her block, again, on some ridiculously named new account or one of us finds out through seeing suspicious edits and she hasn't admitted to it yet, and that pushes us to add an nth RFCU request on her. Ryūlóng 07:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

i'm back. User:Shakim67 is not my family member and my family is not out of shape or whatever you wanna say. My point of createing sockpuppets is to show you my good edits. And i admit, I can be one evil bitch (if that's what ya wanna say), but I can also be a best friends and very nice.i don;t care what you need to say to me. Any way, i was planning to vandalize other wiki products, but decided not. I was gonna tell S-man i changed my mind but I was then already blocked. so thats my side of the story. --75.34.188.39 01:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, maybe we should try and view your side of the story and review this situation in an unbiased manner!!!--Ed 02:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Creating sockpuppets to show your good edits is calling disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point, which is bad, mkay? Ryūlóng 02:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

SORRY, MY KEYBOARD'S GETTING STUCK ON THE CAPS LOCK KEY. I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.--Ed 02:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm rescinding that last comment, as you appear to be lying a bit. Ryūlóng 03:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

i didn't say shakim was my sockpuppet. He's a different person. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cute 1 4 u (talk • contribs) .

That's not what your sockpuppetry comes from. It's from User:Christy06, User:New York from Flavor of Love, and whoever else you made. Those sockpuppets were used to solely evade your block and continue editting, and now, you just edit anonymously, bring attention to yourself, and impose another block on your IP for the day. Ryūlóng 03:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, you've hit the mark, Ryūlóng... she wants attention! •The RSJ• 19:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not want attention. I just wanna go back to wikipedia. (The 1st block) I wanna know why am i blocked for being 11? --75.31.247.39 22:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Your continued blatant abuse of Misplaced Pages (continuing to bypass blocks and continuing to create abusive sockpuppets) shows quite clearly why you should be blocked. At this point, I'm in favour of instantly banning any sockpuppets on site and providing long-term blocks of any IP address used by this user. Continuing to edit the Misplaced Pages while blocked is abusive behaviour. No ifs, ands, or buts. Additionally, we should consider additional steps to prevent the continued abuse from this user. I'm not sure what else can be done, though. Perhaps a block of the entire IP range, though that has a high possibility of hitting innocent third parties (in which case, it is clearly inappropriate). Perhaps contacting the ISP and having them terminate the abusive user (though I'm not sure if this is kosher). --Yamla 22:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Range blocking this user will result in a DoS of what may be all SBC customers in the Chicago area, and taking legal actions against an 11 year old doesn't sound too easy. Ryūlóng 16:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Correct. Placing a range block hinders the editing of numerous editors from Chicago. WE NEED ANOTHER SOLUTION.--Ed 18:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like you're all in luck guys. There was a tornado warning in effect yesterday in the Chicago area. No, there was no major damage to Chicago (I think), but the Internet connections have been cut off. In fact, I haven't been able to edit Misplaced Pages until right now until my Internet came back. (I live in the Chicago suburbs). So...just sit back, and relax. --Ed 18:49, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) To get through to you, a bit, Ed, THIS IS WHAT WE ARE DOING IN THIS CONVERSATION, AMIRITE? We are trying to figure out a way to deal with Cute 1 4 u, which may just end up getting her (and by proxy her parents') internet subscription cancelled for a period of time, and this would force her parents to input parental controls so that she cannot utilize Misplaced Pages, but this would have to be done at some point through legal actions, and I don't think Brad or any of the other Wikimedia legal reps wants to have to sue an 11 year old girl. Ryūlóng 18:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to be clear, although I believe Cute 1 4 u's abuse has gone way out of hand, I don't think it is realistic to seriously consider suing her. There's virtually no potential upside as far as I can see, and substantial downsides. Plus WP:LEGAL. Also, blocking all of Chicago isn't a good plan because it would affect editors like Ed, though if we could find a way to do so without affecting other users, I would strongly advise that action. I wonder how difficult it would be to contact the ISP and report the long-term deliberate abuse, and whether it would result in any change. Apart from that, the only other option I see is permanent bans on the sockpuppets and long-term blocks on any IP address used by this long-term vandal. Perhaps IP blocks of a month at a time, until and unless we block a legitimate editor accidentally (not just another abusive sockpuppet). --Yamla 19:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, legal suit was just the only thing I could think of (I'm a marine biologist/chemist/geologist/anthropologist, not a lawyer :P). The best we can do is just what Yamla has suggested. Indefblock registered users that are proven after either edits, an RFCU, or an autoblock, and long-term block IP addresses that she claims to use, which may sadly end up blocking the Chicago area's SBC users. Ryūlóng 19:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

(unindenting, with edit conflict)Blocking Cute 1 4 u's IP range will affect all SBC users. In addition, SBC has better things to worry about than our problems with one of their clients. For example, almost all of their Chicago customers are cut off from the internet because of the tornado last night. With that in mind, SBC would consider Misplaced Pages one of their least problems--Ed 19:10, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, when the time passes, we will have to send an abuse complaint to SBC concerning Cute 1 4 u's actions in the various Wikimedia projects. Rangeblocking is certainly out of the question, for now, but IP blocks will help (even though it appears that a new IP edits every day). Ryūlóng 19:21, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• I placed the banned user template on Cute 1 4 userpage, legal action for this is silly in my opinion. Jaranda 19:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

  So now we just treat any edits as revertable, even if they pop-up here? Ryūlóng 19:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

  Yes, revert and block Jaranda 19:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

  Okay, then. Looks like I'm going to have to frequent AIV more. Ryūlóng 19:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

So what? Are we going to notify SBC or deal with the situation ourselves.?--Ed 19:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I have a feeling that Cute 1 4 u will be making more socks. In fact, she might have a sockpuppet going around Misplaced Pages right now! Do we have a category page where we can just put all of her socks? That way, we can look through all of them and try to predict what her next sockpuppet would be.--Ed 14:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't have any socks at the present time. I would have made a new account. But i'm interested in real life. :P Peace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cute 1 4 u (talk • contribs)

I think an indefinite block was a little much. I think if you give this user another chance she will be more careful in her actions on Misplaced Pages. Jecowa 19:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

What's this based on? Her continuing stream of abusive edits since the initial block? The large number of abusive socks she continues creating? An editor who continues blatantly and deliberately abusing the Misplaced Pages and lying about her actions while a block is in place is not, in my opinion, someone proving themselves likely to "be more careful in her actions" in the future. --Yamla 03:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You're not being optimistic here. First of all, haven't you ever considered the fact that Cute 1 4 u made many USEFUL edits? In addition, she may have become angry, stressed, and upset after learning that she was being banned for a certain age. Even if her block reason was changed, she might have thought she was being blocked for being 11. In fact, review User talk:Cute 1 4 u and see the original reasons for blocking her.--Ed 00:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe I have found yet one more (User:Sweet Pinkette) and I fully support an indef ban Æon _EA! 13:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Good call. I checked the dialogue you 2 had, and you didn't provide a link to Cute 1 4 u's userpage. So how did she know anything about that? On the other hand, she as been editing since June 24, a date before Cute 1 4 u established socks.--Ed 00:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I knew the situation is going to end up like this months ago when I discovered the Raven Symone sock. Then Cute 1 4 U uses another sock User:Gemini to defend herself. I contacted Fred Bauder (who laugh it off) and discuss the presence of children on AN/I, no one took much notice/attention. Anyway this seems like a classic case of wikilawyering similar to the case of User:PoolGuy (creating endless socks and continue to push the the idea that he did nothing wrong initially). We don't even know if Cute 1 4 U is really 11 or not. She might faked her age so some users will be more lenient on her since she's a kid. Anyway, rules are rules. Age, sex, and other backgrounds are irrelevant. If we make a bad case by unblocking Cute 1 4 U, guess what? Next time all the vandals are going to disguise as elementary school kids. She should stay block indefinitely as well as any IP/accounts she alledgely uses (similar editing pattern etc). Gaming the rules and circumventing blocks are not constructive. She mess with the rule, she's staying block. it's simple.--Bonafide.hustla 00:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Who's Fred Bauder?--Ed 00:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Fred Bauder is an admin and arbitrator.--Bonafide.hustla 01:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

vandalism of Utonagan page

There have been repeated occurences of vandalism on the Utonagan page within Misplaced Pages. These have implied that Utonagan have wolf content or are related to other wolf-look-a-likes who have wolf content. They have also mentioned behavioral problems which do not exist in the breed, and have even gone to the extent as to imply that they originated from alaskan dogs with wolf content.

As the foremost breeder of Utonagan in the country, these have become more than irritating.

The TCP/IP address of the user known to make these changes is: 212.36.181.65

With thanks

Nadia Carlyle

www.twatha-utonagan.com

Creek people

Creek people has a repeat repeat vandalism offender. I hope posting here is the solution. The offender is an unregistered IP vandal 164.58.208.245 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) who has changed the pages 16 times in the past 30 minutes.

Help Request from Lesser Evil

Administrative abuse by User:David.Monniaux

David sez: This user has been blocked from editing Misplaced Pages for violating Misplaced Pages's policies, most notably WP:NOT: Misplaced Pages user pages, signatures, etc. should not be used for advocacy. He then blocked User:Rookiee indefinitely and deleted, and then protected Rookiee's user- and talkpage. The "other policies" alluded to here were not mentioned anywhere, and the indefinite block apparently followed Rookiee readding of a link once. He was not warned following this.

David's allegation of "signature advocacy" apparently stems from the devious subliminal message Rookiee uses in his signature, and, ironically, David also had a links his homepage on his userpage. JayW 18:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Rookiee was warned in the strongest possible terms that an indefinite block was coming unless he ceased using his user page to promote pedophilia. Fred Bauder 18:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You alone do not have the authority to make such a warning. JayW 19:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

?!? Not only does he have "the authority", it's part of every admin's job description to protect the project, which this clearly falls under. This is a particularly weird comment, given that Fred Bauder is a member of ArbCom. Jkelly 19:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

..here's a scenerio. I'm an admin. I go TheLand's userpage and discover s/he enjoys the violin. And as it happens, a violin raped my father last week. So I burst in hir talk page and declare - without any community discussion - that, should "TheLand" not censor her page immediantly to suit my delicate sensibilities, I'll single-handedly block her - without even asking others or a "warning" block - forever. Per WP:NOT of course, nothing to do with my personal prejudices... (I might even throw in a vague death threat, just for good measure.)

..and all this is despite the fact that hundreds of other people are also violating "NOT," yet they're still free to edit.

Within my rights? Y/N?

Of course, in the real world, violins are not blamed for everything imaginable, so this analogy might be just a little off.

"given that Fred Bauder is a member of ArbCom."

uh. It's unfortunate you don't know what the ArbCom is? JayW 20:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

My suspicion is that the above is an attempt to entertain yourself. If you're genuinely confused, you can find more information at Misplaced Pages:Administrators and Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee. Jkelly 21:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"If you're genuinely confused, you can find more information at Misplaced Pages:Administrators and Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee." The point was that the ArbCom doesn't have shit to do with anything here and if you believe it does, you clearly don't know what it is. JayW 23:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

They would be the place for an indefinitely blocked user to appeal the block. Again, you can find out more information about how dispute resolution works at the above link. Jkelly 23:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Exactly: ergo, your point is ridiculous and Fred still doesn't have the right to bypass the wiki community. And you're yet to explained why a ban is more appropriate than a simple page protection. JayW 23:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Your attempt at an "analogy" goes far beyond reductio ad absurdum and simply into the realm of the bizarre. A violin does not advocate for, bluntly, the legalization of child molestation. FCYTravis 21:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought Rookiee was blocked on the basis of WP:NOT? JayW 23:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yep. Good call. We are not a platform for the promotion of 'boylove'. The Land 19:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't give a fuck what you do to his userpage, but the indefinite block is disproportionate, unfair, and against our own blocking policy. There was basically zip for dispute resolution, here. JayW 20:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be under the misapprehension that lengthy dispute resolution is required when a user is blatantly violating Misplaced Pages policy, in a manner that endangers the project, and refuses to stop after repeated warnings. -- SCZenz 20:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

There was an extensive discussion between a number of people, including senior administrators, on his Talk page. That's all the dispute resolution needed. From the content of that conversation, the content of the deleted edits to his user page, and the nature of his blog I am clear that Fred and others acted correctly. Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox, and particularly not one for pedophiles. The Land 20:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The action was necessary and proper to defend the integrity of Misplaced Pages as an encyclopedia. I wholeheartedly support it. FCYTravis 20:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

If you don't like Rookiee's userpage, blank and protect it. A block is not appropriate and not excusable. We have already concluded, after losing multiple editors, that paedophiles shouldn't be blocked for their orientation; wanna discuss it again? JayW 23:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The real shocking thing here is not the block, but that he has been allowed to last this long as it is. He was indef blocked with his userpage deleted in March, and it was reversed. Whenever a disruptive user is saved by other admins, they almost always end up getting blocked again. We need to stop this. Disruptive users or those who pose a threat have no place here - to hell with "rehabilitation" and to hell with AGF. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Too many people fail to understand that WP:AGF does not require that we continue to assume good faith in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. FCYTravis 21:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I 100% agree with you, good editors should be encouraged to work through problems and continue to be good editors (though often by the time it gets to a block, it's well beyond that). But yes WP:AGF is not "look the other way", and maybe we do need a WP:NOT a psychiatrist's couch, daycare centre, rehabilitation clinic etc. --pgk 21:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I find it... amusing that people who claim to support free speech quote the Gayssot Law, which basically bans speech that some people consider "hateful". Apart from that, feel free to send this to ArbCom, and please do not edit my user page. David.Monniaux 22:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"I find it... amusing that people who claim to support free speech quote the Gayssot Law, which basically bans speech that some people consider "hateful". Ever bring a plastic knife to a gunfight before, David? JayW 23:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You should consider attending to your own behaviour at this point. If your interest in Misplaced Pages is amusing yourself by making quips or scoring points on an internet forum, please find another venue. Jkelly 23:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"making quips or scoring points on an internet forum" Your attack is irrelevant, seeing as the above post was simply a reply to David's implication. How the hell is that a "quip?" JayW 23:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"Quip" would be overstating; "confused non sequitor" is more descriptive. --150.61.31.119 23:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked JayW for incivility and trolling. 24 hours. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:51, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• I continue to advance the notion that pedophiles should be blocked on sight. El_C 01:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Where do you draw the line? Fred Bauder 03:51, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• I support the block of JayW. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• I don't. He is swearing a lot and debating very aggressively. However, he is not sdimply trolling, he is trying to argue quite a serious and difficult point, albeit not very calmly. However if we blocked people for swearing when we were angry we'd all be fucking screwed. The Land 09:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with The Land that JayW should not have been blocked for swearing. Dionyseus 09:29, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• The block is only for 24 hours, so I would let it stand. I hope that it gets the point across that making personal attacks against users (a blockable offense) is a no-go on Misplaced Pages and if he wants to debate the indef block of Rookie, then he should do so without the name calling an insults. As for the swearing, we all done it, but it should be a good idea that in a debate like this, just refrain from doing them (don't block just because he swears, but if the swearing is getting too much, come back here). User:Zscout370 09:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Please note that Everyking was banned from this page because of his repeated assaults on the actions of administrators. There is precedent, JayW. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

hay guyz I have an idea, how about we discuss Rookiee's block instead? I really don't care about how many people you've censored before; I'd just like someone to unblock Rookiee ASAP, per policy, human decensy and common sense. Thank you. JayW 03:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

per policy, human decensy and common sense. Except for each of those "per"s being wrong, wrong, and wrong, not a reason not to do it. Other than, of course, being a completely ridiculous idea, that is. --Calton | Talk 04:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I am talking with Rookiee and Jimbo regarding his page. I would rather finish that conversation first. I hope he can be persuaded to make his userpage less aggressive. Simply restoring it short circuits the conversation. There is also hope he might consider not using the signature "revolyob" {boylover spelled backwards.} I think there is consensus that he can edit, on the same terms as others. The issue is using Misplaced Pages for pedophilia advocacy. We need to make an agreement with him though, not with his defenders as if he has to be constantly policed, it is better if he is not here at all. Fred Bauder 04:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Unblocking Rookiee is not going to go over well in certain circles. Some people are of the opinion that it is impossible for a self-admitted pedophile to remain neutral when editing related articles. Rookiee's pro-pedophile activities outside of Misplaced Pages are well-documented; phrases like "harboring pedophiles" are starting to be mentioned in relation to Misplaced Pages. Is that what we want to happen? Powers 14:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Nothing happening so far. Unblocking him is just not completely ruled out. Fred Bauder 14:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I remain boggled as to why it's not completely ruled out. Powers 13:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, generally, we let people edit if they follow our policies. Blocking someone because they use Misplaced Pages as a soapbox is fine. Blocking someone because we don't like the thoughts they express off-wiki is not something we should dabble in (even when the thoughts in question are as extreme as "pedophilia should be legal"). — Matt Crypto 09:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I used to think that Misplaced Pages's 'neutral point of view' policy suggested a sort of 'free speech' approach which allowed all viewpoints, however unpopular, to be expressed. The 'userbox wars' suggested that this was not the case where the existence of 'potentially inflammatory' userboxes in the template namespace might be taken to suggest Wikimedia backing of such... as opposed to the appearance of similar sentiments directly on the userpage where it was then ascribed only to the user. This incident now seems to suggest that even things which are clearly only the user's individual views are to be suppressed if they are heavily disliked. If we are going to have this as a practice we should do so formally to avoid understandable confusion as to why 'pro abortion' statements (equally hated by some) are allowed but 'pro pedophilia' statements are not. Both are completely legal in the United States, where the servers are hosted, so this is presumably not a 'legal concern', but an 'image concern'... we don't want Misplaced Pages to be in any way associated with ideas offensive to the vast majority of our users. Does Nazism make the cut? Homosexuality? Does it vary by language (homosexuality being much more unpopular in some cultures than others)? The last time this came up some people were suggesting that homosexuals should be similarly censored... and you take this concept to the Arabic Misplaced Pages and I think it very likely that will be the case. Should expressions of support for 'Falun Gong' be barred on the Chinese language Misplaced Pages? Are 'pro pedophilia' individuals allowed to be users if they don't state their views or attempt to bias articles, or should they be banned entirely whenever identified (even by off-wiki blogs and the like) as some have suggested? We should spell it out. If Misplaced Pages is going to have a censorship practice we should have a censorship policy. Otherwise this will inevitably look (to those impacted and strong supporters of free speech) like individual admins enforcing their own biases. This is clearly censorship and thus I think we need to have some sort of guidelines from Wikimedia on what should be censored and to what extent. --CBD 12:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

There's no need for something as provocatively (and unjustifiably) named as a 'censorship policy' to explain David's actions here, since they can be quite simply covered by WP:NOT ('a webspace provider') and by Misplaced Pages:User page. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\ 13:00, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Provocative? Unjustifiable? C'mon. In what way is it not censorship? We are barring statements of support for a particular viewpoint. It couldn't be more obviously censorship than it already is. And I'm sorry, but WP:NOT and WP:USER don't cover it because there are thousands of user pages which violate 'not a web-host' every bit as much. We aren't removing material because it is 'unrelated to building an encyclopedia'... we are removing material because of what it says. Using 'not a web-host' would mean sanitizing everything of that nature. When you do so only for particular topics it is clearly a different animal... and identifying which topics are verbotten can only help everyone. --CBD 13:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not censorship for the same reason that it isn't censorship for us to delete articles on non-notable topics: they don't belong in an encyclopaedia. Personally I would be quite content for 'everything of that nature' -- everything that doesn't relate to building an encyclopaedia -- to be 'sanitized' from userspace (although again that is another unnecessarily emotive word), but I think it is fair for cases of abuse to be looked at on an individual basis. Rookiee was invited to stop using his userspace for advocacy totally unrelated to Misplaced Pages or its projects, chose not to, and has faced the according consequences. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\ 14:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

To me this seems like hiding behind a fiction rather than being up front about the realities of the situation. 'We are removing non-encyclopedic userpage material' may sound nicer than 'we are censoring pro-pedophilia views on userpages', but it isn't accurate. It paints a false picture of how Misplaced Pages works and opens the door for further confusion and conflict on this issue down the road. If this is going to be Misplaced Pages practice then we should have the courage of our convictions and say so rather than hiding behind a pretext which only gets used in specific instances. We don't blank user pages and indefinitely block people for saying they support gay rights, various political positions, and a hundred other sorts of advocacy... and thus it is absolutely clear that this isn't about removing non-encyclopedic advocacy in general (which I agree would be preferable to doing so selectively), but rather about censoring a particular topic. If we don't have the integrity to say so openly then you can't very well blame people for not knowing or not believing individual users on this issue. --CBD 16:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I still don't really understand what you're complaining about. Rookiee was advised that his userspace breached several Misplaced Pages policies and chose not to do anything about it. I now hope the same action will be taken in other extreme cases of Wikipedians who use their userpages for proselytising, public soapboxing and other advocacy unrelated to our project. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\ 18:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not complaining so much as urging clarification. You express a "hope" that this "will" be part of a widespread effort to remove proselytising... whereas I am expressing an 'observation' that to date it has not been, but rather a targeted effort on a particular topic. If this IS activity against proselytising in general then by all means let's say so and treat everyone the same way (right down to the indefinite block if need be)... but if it is activity against pedophilia in particular (as seems to me the case based on statements of the involved parties) then we should say that too and make it official that we censor users on that topic. No complaints. Just a request that we be clear about where we stand and what we do. --CBD 18:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Promoting pedophilia is adovcating an illegal act, which is illegal. As abortion is legal, advocating abortion-choice is not illegal. Powers 13:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Powers, I suggest you read the NAMBLA article as you are very much mistaken about the law as it relates to 'speech' about pedophilia being an illegal 'act' in the US. It is illegal in some countries and a case could be made for 'Misplaced Pages avoiding illegality in any country'... but then you might have to tell all the female users that they aren't allowed to show pictures of themself on their user pages unless they are wearing a burkha. Good luck. :] --CBD 13:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You're right, I misspoke slightly. From the NAMBLA article you referenced: "The American Civil Liberties Union stepped in to defend NAMBLA as a free speech matter and won a dismissal based on the fact that NAMBLA is organized as an unincorporated association, not a corporation. John Reinstein, the director of the ACLU Massachusetts, said that although NAMBLA 'may extol conduct which is currently illegal', there was nothing on its website that 'advocated or incited the commission of any illegal acts, including murder or rape'." That implies that advocating or inciting the commission of illegal acts would have been grounds for continuation. Rookiee's user page advocated and incited the commission of illegal acts. Powers 14:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

If, as you appear to be arguing, this is supposed to be a 'legal issue' rather than an 'image issue' then it (obviously) ought to be handled by the foundation's lawyer rather than individual users who have no legal background and/or are not legal representatives of Wikimedia. However, I don't believe that to be the case because there is really no legal issue here. Your claim that he "advocated and incited the commission of illegal acts" just does not appear to be true. There were no statements encouraging anyone to engage in any illegal activity. Rather there were statements of his beliefs that it should not be considered illegal / immoral... which are protected speech. The distinction may be difficult to see, but it is very real in terms of the legality of speech. It is legal to say, 'I think mass-murder of lawyers would be a good thing'... but not, 'I want you to kill that lawyer'. --CBD 16:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

See Imminent lawless action for the actual U.S. dividing line between 'free speech' and 'speech as an illegal act'. --CBD 16:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Very well. I may have overstated the case a bit. I personally interpreted some of the content on his user page, and on linked pages, to be inciting actual acts of pedophilia (in the common sense, not the medical sense), but I recognize it was not clear-cut to everyone. Regardless, I have no problem with blocking users who persistantly push a pro-pedophilia POV. Powers 15:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Advocating the change of law is not illegal, obviously, and that's all Rookiee has done on his userpage or anywhere else. "Libel," on the other hand, is a crime virtually everywhere. Watch it. JayW 23:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Is that a threat? Powers 15:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I dont know why you would think that him pointing out a legal aspect, libal, would be a legal threat if you yourself pointed one out above, that I am sure you did not mean as a threat. I think everyone just needs to calm down a little bit. I have no sympathy for pedophiles, but advocating a change of law is not illegal and wikipedia should not be against someone stating their opinion, however their userpage should not solely consist of soapboxing for their purpose. Then again we have many Democrats on Misplaced Pages who's pages seem to be quite similar. I am sure there are many legalize marijuana users on wikipedia as well. --NuclearUmpf 16:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:BLP Concern - Wrestler's Real Name

Per discussion with several users, I'd encourage you to comment on Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Nigel_McGuinness. Nigel McGuinness is the trademarked stage name of a professional wrestler (his real name is publically available in USPTO filings). "Nigel" does not want his real name to be disclosed on Misplaced Pages.

For those interested in a quick summary: We were contacted yesterday by his webmistress, requesting that his name be removed. After a revert war with several users, she filed an OTRS complaint, the pages were locked, and the revisions deleted. Nigel McGuinness remains fully protected. alphaChimp 01:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

There is no need for further discussion as far as I can see; the users involved have acted apropriately, and the resulting actions are correct for the situation. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I will point out what is, to me, the crux of the issue - the fact that this man's real name is not published anywhere else. A Google search for the man's real name + wrestling came up with zero hits outside of Misplaced Pages. That means Misplaced Pages was being used as the primary point of dissemination for previously private information - which is something we are not. I will continue the conversation on the BLP noticeboard as necessary. FCYTravis 01:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any real issue in putting someone's name in their article, particularly given the public nature of that information. This really isn't so much about Nigel McGuinness, but the precedent we're setting in regard to real names and stage names (see Criss Angel for a very similar situation). alphaChimp 01:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The situations are not similar at all. The very first Google result for "Christopher Sarantakos" is this Forbes article on Mr. Sarantakos' life. The link between the real name and the stage name is widely known. I would not uphold any OTRS complaint about the use of this man's real name because it is well and truly public. In Mr. McGuinness' case, there is no such public knowledge and the only source citeable is a trademark database. FCYTravis 01:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Mr Sarantakos name isn't on the public record, as far as I know, and his proponents try at all stops to remove his name. That case is the same vein in that, assuming in the Sarantakos case his name is known but not of public record while the McGuinness case has the name of public record but "unknown", they both have to do with wanting secrecy/privacy in their stage identities. We're an encyclopedia so I do not understand why factual and supported additions are to be removed at the whims of people involved - do we rate the level of publicness as the time when we start to include facts that are already listed such as real names? Are we starting to invent a point of publicity before information has been added or do we follow wikipedia is not censored? –– Lid 01:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

We follow the idea that Misplaced Pages is not the first place anything should be published. Mr. Sarantakos' name is published in multiple mass media sources, hence there is no reason we should not publish it, because it is already widely known public information. Mr. McGuinness' name has not been published in any mass media sources and hence we should not be the first to open that door. FCYTravis 01:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

This is quite a slippery slope in that we can't post sourced information because wikipedia has to regurgitate the information of media outlets. Why media outlets? The fact of the matter is this debate is about a complaint that has no real basis of opposition due to the information being in the public domain. Even though I can find zero full wikipedia policies that specifically deny his name to be placed here, and I've read through WP:NOT trying to find one and keep coming up with the "is not censored" part supporting keeping the name in, it could still be argued that it falls under WP:Ignore all rules and WP:BOLD as keeping it out interferes with improving the information of wikipedia. –– Lid 02:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:BLP#Public_figures emphasizes that basic facts should be published in reliable secondary sources (such as a newspaper or magazine article) before being included in our articles. A USPTO filing is primary source. Dragons flight 03:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Touchè, but I believe the second part, ignore all rules, still applies as this is specifically lessening the information of wikipedia and setting an extremely dangerous precedent (see Daniel Bryant's comments). –– Lid 03:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

This is not unprecedented. We treat porn stars the same way. If it is not already out in the real media then Misplaced Pages is not in the business of revealing it. Though this case is more verifiable than the cases I've dealt with since the USPTO is presumably beyond reproach. Dragons flight 01:39, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The USPTO is a reliable source. It's relevant to the article. That's all there is to it - it should clearly be included. --Improv 01:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not all that relevant since knowing his real name tells you nothing about the character he plays (I'm assuming that the actor is not notable aside from the character.) But mostly I agree with FCYTravis, being the first mass media to expose a secret identity is not the kind of thing Misplaced Pages is intended to be used for. Dragons flight 02:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'd suggest that the USPTO is a significantly more notable source that Forbes. If the fact was not verifiable, we'd obviously remove it per WP:BLP, but it is verifiable, and is in no way defamatory. alphaChimp 01:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The USPTO is a reliable source, but is it notable? How is a trademark filing notable? Everyone who ever files for a trademark should be on Misplaced Pages? FCYTravis 02:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

This isn't a chicken or egg debate, the article existed long before the trademark was discovered so the point of trademark filing leading to articles is not part of the debate at hand. –– Lid 02:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I used the wrong term. Obviously we don't have to make an article for every patent holder. But, the fact that that information is made publically available in said patent should allow it to be included. alphaChimp 02:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The talk page of the Buckethead article may be of interest to participants in this conversation. Buckethead has taken great pains to keep his real name private. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 01:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course, since MTV and Rolling Stone published his name, he apparently wasn't all that effective. Dragons flight 01:59, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Great work, guys. Daniel Brandt now has some more ammunition to have his whole article removed, because of this. If all it takes is to send an OTRS to WMF to censor information you don't want written about you, then WP:NPOV may need to be re-written. Daniel.Bryant 02:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, the Daniel Brandt card. Regularly and blatantly misused to justify the inclusion of anything we want about living people simply because screw them, who cares, we can do it, so we're going to do it. The question has been repeatedly asked - What relevancy does his real name have to his wrestling career? Where is his real name used other than Misplaced Pages and a trademark filing? Why should we countenance the use of Misplaced Pages as an investigatory tool about people's lives, rather than a means of encyclopedically summarizing their life and career based on reliable published sources? None of those questions have been satisfactorily answered. Instead, we get the same he doesn't want it in, thus we should put it in just because we can, and he can't do anything about it, neener neener neener nonsense over and over again. Ridiculous. FCYTravis 03:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the trademark filing a reliable source? I'm pretty sure it is. Or don't you trust the US Government agencies to get his name right...? Wait a minute! "Misplaced Pages may contain content that some readers consider objectionable..." - amazing! Oh, and "In its ambitious mission of documenting all human knowledge" (existing emphasis on Misplaced Pages:Content disclaimer) Amazing! Daniel.Bryant 03:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not about "Because we can", but rather because it's relevant. For articles about people, their name is pertinent. People's preferences should have no bearing, positive or negative, on what's in an article about them -- we're an encyclopedia, not a PR firm. If it makes it a better article, and it's based on a verifiable source, we should include it. I don't see any reason we should try for a sympathetic treatment of subjects. --Improv 20:45, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

From the previous examples of Buckethead and Criss Angel to every single character profile ever on wikipedia the real name is listed in the article, usually in the first line, even if that person doesn't want their real identity to be revealed to the public. Misplaced Pages is about facts, not ommitting them. The reason the published elsewhere question has been ignored is because it has no bearing on the debate, if it had been published elsewhere we wouldn't even be having this debate. The biggest issue is the precedent it sets, removing publically available facts because of a complaint when the facts are neither negative nor libel. Your ending line of "neener neener" is especially odd considering everyone here is keeping a level head and debating the topic fairly. If this passes does it mean that there is a level of public identity until which facts that are already known can be posted? It's a question that has huge ramifications in where do we draw the line? It's the precedent this sets that's the debate, not the individual. –– Lid 03:32, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

His real name (which I just found and started searching around for on search engines) is nothing but a marker in a governent database. For this, while his information is in the "public record", I think it would be well afforded that since his real name exists nowhere outside of said government database it should be kept private. The logic has already been cleanly applied to birthdays (yes, everyone has a birthday, and if I go through enough trouble, I can find someone's birthday and other information, and all stage names have a birth name assigned onto them), but it doesn't need to be instantly included into an article. Its dregging up private information that should've stayed private. Now, if the media comes out and writes about his real name, as in several other cases, the cat's out of the bag. Its not like critism, though. Critism is a whole new ballgame to contend with, and I'd trust that the OTRS people would think very hard about well-sourced critism material being demanded for removal before compling with any such demands. But its not, its private information, and the right thing was probably done to remove it considering the quiet nature of his real name. Now, who wants to improve some sourcing with me? Kevin_b_er 04:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Once again we're back at "private information" in the public domain and how that makes it still private. The case still stands in the literally tens of thousands of other character/stage name articles and their real names being listed, where do we draw the line? Many of those articles also list birthdates, in fact the vast majority seem to, where's the line? If secondary source reported the name they would be reposting the same content as the primary source, there's no difference in the context and the source is actually further back than when it needs to be thus adding additional steps to the detriment source of knowledge that is wikipedia. Public, not private, sourced information being removed on whims should not be what wikipedia is about. –– Lid 04:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I had decided, after my last comment, not to take any further partin this discussion; I have lifted my self-imposed parole just for this comment. Firstly, Kevin, I totally agree with you, and express my hope that the OTRS people would strongly consider whether to delete well-sourced criticism from a request. I was personally involved in something which was the exact definition of the aforementioned situation, and I was aggrieved to realise that Misplaced Pages had, in fact, deleted sourced criticism from an article. But that's the past, this is the present, and hopefully in the future WMF will consider their position more closely.

In this instance, I think the decision has to be made here is whether a state-actors real name is personal/private info, or is it public/needed. In most cases, a name would be public/needed, and hence includedin the article. However, the question is do many people know this person/actor by his real name, and if they do, is there enough to deem it notable? I have already expressed my opinion in this case, and won't just repeat it again for repeating's sake. So, if you ever see me posting on this issue again, give me a slap over the wrists at my talk page, and I wish everyone else good luck in this discussion, and lets hope that this discussion doesn't degenerate into incivility, insult throwing and name-calling. Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 04:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to comment on something posted above: It's not all that relevant since knowing his real name tells you nothing about the character he plays (I'm assuming that the actor is not notable aside from the character.) (by Dragons flight). If we're going to follow this, we'd have to remove pretty much every single professional wrestler's real name, regardless of whether it's verifiable, public information, or whatnot. This can't happen. McGuinness' real name does belong in the article. -->So sayeth Methnor|_{Other sayethings}

We are here to synthesise information, not to be investigative journalists or to "out" people. On the particular facts of this case, I favour keeping the info out of the article. On a very slightly different set of facts I'd take a different view. I don't think this is much of a precedent. Metamagician3000 03:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This whole issue has piqued my interest, perhaps due to FCYTravis's question above whether the USPTO is a "reliable" or a "notable" source. Can we rely on the USPTO to give us the real name of this Nigel McGuiness? I took at the Trademark database, & found the name in question (I'll call him Smith in order to keep this discussion from being redacted), & all it states is that Smith is the owner of the trademark -- not Smith is the real-life name of McGuiness. Now anyone can own a trademark: the actor, his agent, his lawyer or accountant, or a suit in the Professional Wrestling business who has no other relationship to the person who performs under that name. It's clear that Smith has some kind of relationship to the character Nigel McGuiness, but to explain what that relationship is would be original research (which is the point I suspect Metamagician3000 is arguing) -- unless someone can cite a published source that explains it. This line of reasoning is good enough for me to exclude this source -- although it does not settle the question people are arguing over above. Does it convince anyone else? -- llywrch 06:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

As per the USPTO's website if it were an attorney the trademark would list the applicant as "representative". It's listed as a "principal" meaning the person who registered it is the individual using it. –– Lid 09:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the principal the owner of the trademark, rather than the necessarily the person acting as a character with a trademarked name? For example, who is listed as principal for trademarks like "superman" or "batman" or "spiderman"? WAS 4.250 12:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

The principal for each is their parent companies, namely DC and marvel comics, however looking at those trademarks illuminated something to me about trademark formats . When a lawyer gets the trademark for another the trademark lists a section for "Attorney of Record" which the McGuinness trademark lacks. In addition the trademarks of those are listed next to type of mark as TRADEMARK while McGuinness is listed as SERVICE MARK, which under glossary is "to indicate the source of the services and to distinguish them from the services of others. A service mark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product." As the McGuinness trademark is for "Sports and Entertainment Services, namely, live and televised performances by a professional wrestler/entertainer." this categorically proves the person who submitted the trademark is the real name of McGuinness. –– Lid 12:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I think your explanation above has simply underlined my point: if you have to interpret or furnish a lengthy explanation for a source, then you are getting close to the No original research ban. Normally, I wouldn't consider this a reason to invoke this guideline, but the fact that WP:OFFICE was involved puts the burden of proof on us: unless someone has investigated this matter & published her or his claim that the owner of the trademark (or service mark) is Nigel McGuinness, we can't use this source as independant proof -- only as a confirmation of what someoen else claims.

There are a lot of sources that fall into the same category as the USPTO database in this regard: for example, A. B. had to make an extensive argument here to prove that there was a flaw in the information at the GeoNames server, & that a certain village did not exist in Nigeria. Another are the real estate databases maintained by local governments: can you always be certain that if Smith is recorded as the owner of a certain piece of land that it is where he lives? Allowing these publically-accessible sources to be used to prove points opens a path that I, for one, am uncomfortable going down; this is a good case where we should be content to wait for someone else to prove this connection first. -- llywrch 01:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This interview, which I'm sure you're going to remove from this page, gives the same name as the trademark search and other details that match McGuinness exactly; English professional wrestler training in the American midwest under Les Thatcher in the HWA. The interview was conducted before he was ever known as McGuinness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.182.252 (talk • contribs)

I think this discussion is missing the main points of having a BLP policy. The underlying idea is "do no harm". How does the inclusion/exclusion of his real name affect article quality? Does any benefit outweigh the harm we are doing by including the name? If the benefit clearly outweighs the harm, then by all means, include it. If the harm clearly outweighs the benefit, then leave it out. If you aren't sure, then figure it out. Why does he not want his real name plastered all over the internet? How would those of us to choose to edit under pseudonyms feel if ED tracked down our real names from, say a 15-year-old usenet posting, and publicised it? Now remember than we are one of the top-ranked websites, and everything that gets published here is mirrored in dozens of places. We can't work on the principle of "you can't stop me, so there!" We don't operate under the ethics of 12-year-olds. Figure out the costs and the benefits of including this information. And then argue about costs and benefits, not about what we can and can't do. Guettarda 14:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Admins who don't edit articles

Available at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)

• Ryulong, reverting right away is a bit extreme, don't you think? At least leave a genuine precis so that folks will know to click on the link -- something like: "A policy idea regarding whether people who do not add content should be allowed to be administrators at Misplaced Pages." It's not an AN/I issue, granted (though it might fit at AN), but just blowing it out of the page is at least slightly hostile. Geogre 13:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Also, the proposal is here . Geogre 13:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't know exactly what you're referring to, but I just reverted the linking from WP:VPP back to the full name; that didn't seem to serve much of a purpose. Ryūlóng 21:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • If I got it wrong, I certainly apologize. I got a note on my talk page inviting my input, and then I saw nothing here. It looked like someone had been peremptory, and I misread the history. Again, my apologies if I was hasty/confused. Geogre 00:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

A year or two from now when you have substantial administrative responsibilities and no time to edit you will have a different viewpoint, assuming you become productive. Fred Bauder 13:23, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Fred, can you possibly be speaking to Geogre, who has been an admin for several years and is a massive contributor of top quality content? He writes an article a day and has created some of our best Featured articles. If I were one tenth as productive as Geogre is, I'd be proud. If you were a hundredth part as productive as Geogre is, you'd be... not sure how to finish that sentence, except you'd be better placed for criticizing him than you are. Did you post in the wrong thread or something? Bishonen | talk 13:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC).

No, although I was not aware of his editing. All I know is my own story, which is that if I start doing a lot of editing (or anything else) I soon fall behind on arbitration work. So if I were as "productive" as Georgre, there would be a mess and I could hardly call myself productive at all. Fred Bauder 14:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at the discussion there, Fred. You could offer valuable evidence. It's true that outside work can eat up all one's time, and each of us has to make choices, but I feel a bit irresponsible if I go too long editing and don't do the mopping up that I do have time for (mainly CSD, in my case, as it rarely entails long arguments, but sometimes DRV and less often AfD), and I can assure you that, if I were to be in a more involving duty, I'd feel creepy if I went too long without doing some editing. I, personally, find that disrespect is the real subtext here, and that disrespect comes from either ill will or ignorance. We can't stop the one, but we must stop the other. Geogre 14:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Not knowing what CSD or DRV is, I feel like a just wondered onto a strange MUD and got ambushed by a "killing cloud" just outside the Village Church. I think if someone volunteers 30 hours a week and does good work, they should not be under pressure to do more, whether I know who Giano is or not (I did not, nor had I ever noticed you before). Fred Bauder 14:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't that tell you that you ought to investigate? Wouldn't that be particularly true if you were having to assess the validity of the comments? I won't comment on the logical weakness of insisting that 30 hr a week spent any way is the same as 30 hr a week spent a productive way. If you don't know the players, you could at least take a look at the program. Also, if someone were to be arbitrated for "tagging for CSD ianppropriately," wouldn't you want to know that that's "candidates for speedy deletion?" Geogre 16:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Fred, I want to say this with all due respect to your 30 yours of volunteer work reviewing and adjudicating the "worst and most intractable" disputes. It's a nasty job but somebody has to do it. I understand the argument that admin hours and editing hours are mutually exclusive. Some admins do little editing and some editors have no desire to do admin work. Some people do both and there is a continuing debate whether admins should also be good editors and do substantial editing work.

But, here's what boggles my mind, how can you be an arbitrator and not know what criteria for speedy deletion and deletion review are? These are fundamental concepts of the deletion process which is a core Misplaced Pages process. Perhaps the acronyms didn't ring a bell so you didn't remember. Or, perhaps you feel that because you are an arbitrator, you need to stay out of AFD and DRV discussions to maintain objectivity?

--Richard 16:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I just don't know the jargon. No apologies for that. Please don't use it so much. I'm not the only one who gets lost in the alphabet soup. Fred Bauder 01:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC) See Misplaced Pages:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!. Fred Bauder 04:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, I think the "editors who don't contribute content should not be allowed to be admins" is a terrible policy idea although failure to show substantial experience in editing is a sine qua non for granting adminship in the first place. I would prefer either fixed terms (not necessarily term limits) or admin recall instead.

--Richard 16:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Tolerance and diversity and respect and a better Misplaced Pages are all tied together. No one should be insisting any volunteer spend their time by doing good thing A instead of good thing B. Some suggest useful new articles or other good ideas on talk pages. Some start articles as stubs. Some catagorize articles. Some wikify. Some add content to articles. Some source existing content. Some delete questionable content. Some fight the vandals. Some mediate. And so forth. Don't insist liver cells be heart cells too. WAS 4.250 15:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Fred Bauder was admittedly "not aware" of User:Geogre's substantial contributions but chose to denigrate George nonetheless and taunt him as non-productive without bothering to look at who he was lambasting. Upon User:Bishonen pointing out that Geogre indeed has a corpus of work here that puts most of us to shame, Mr. Bauder never apologised and then continued to belittle us all in his next comments. Fred Bauder and James Forrester have acted horribly in this debate and their dismissive and snide attitude illustrate this fundamental "disconnect" between the article editors and the non-editing Admins. --Pewlosels 16:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Meh. I don't much care if Fred personally has heard of me or what I do, but I do think it's essential for anyone in any judicial portion to have as an utmost quality curiosity about the site. I don't want to indict him, even if I think he's made some terrible decisions, because terrible decisions go with insightful ones. People are people. However, I do think that people need to investigate, need to be curious, need to value the side they don't do as highly as the side they do. Geogre 16:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

My lack of awareness is very simply explained. If I spend hours poring over the edits involved in arbitration cases the users I become familiar with are the users involved in those cases. I don't learn about the users who are busily editing and administering without being involved in the disputed matters that become arbitration cases. If I don't spend my time on the arbitration cases, I don't do a very good job, there is a big backlog and a feeling arises that the only way to solve a dispute is by main force. There is a very good reason I never heard of Geogre. He hasn't been making a lot of trouble, up to now anyway. I do edit some anyway and certainly don't hang out or IRC. I really don't think I'm a very good example of the problem Where I fall down is not doing anywhere near a normal share of administrative duties, or checkuser. I just don't have the time, unless I happen to be caught up, which is very rare. Fred Bauder 01:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I heard of Geogre due to the references to Geogre's Law (now I think Geogre's First Law) which was, if I recall aright, that any article on a person where the title is incorrectly capitalised is likely to be delete-worthy. It's a pretty good rule of thumb :-) (oh, are smileys banned as well?). Love the alphabet soup link, by the way. Guy 12:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Heh... maybe what we need is some sort of 'job rotation' program. Admins (or users in general) temporarily 'assigned' to work at various tasks to get a better idea of the 'regular players' in that arena and the difficulties involved. --CBD 11:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

As had been stated here up above, I'm just not sure that's a good idea. As admins, we really are completely in control of what we want to do. It's a given fact that as you get more and more into admin stuff, you literally have less time to do anything else. My story is that I got too involved in admin stuff...it was effecting my personal life...so I backed off and started doing more "real" editing. But you know what? That's my choice. People like Fred have jobs on here that are much more complex than mine. He made a choice at some point that he wanted to do stuff like the arbcom. That's fine and that's his choice.

One of the main problems I have with this "rotation" idea (and the idea that admins should be stripped of their powers a couple of months a year) is that admins are here for a reason. As Fred said, if he gets too involved in editing, then he falls behind in arbcom stuff and people complain and then he's really doing a disservice to the encyclopedia. Let's say we do this rotation idea or the idea that admins lose their power every 2 months. That would mean that about 1/6th of the admins (if not more) would be unavailable for a long period of time. Does anyone patrol any of our "backwater" admin pages? Can you imagine if we lost that many admins at once? I'm talking about requests for page protection, requested moves, personal intervention noticeboard and the like. It'd be chaos. We already have one hell of a time keeping up on those pages. I don't want to think of how bad it'd get with more admins.

And the other major problem with these ideas is that forcing admins into roles like it is being proposed is going to be unworkable. It's almost impossible to "police" anything like that on here. Admins will find a way around it.

So do I have an answer? No. :) I do agree that more admins need to edit. I just don't think that these are the answers. And btw, before anyone asks me, about 80% of my edits are non admin related. But again, that's my choice. --Woohookitty 08:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Woohookitty. Actually I wasn't really thinking of a 'forced' sort of thing and creating gaps in admin coverage and all that. More like admins voluntarily being moved around to cover each other's tasks for a short while... if 'Admin X' handles alot of speedy deletion requests and 'Admin Y' is currently creating stubs for every species of bat in existence (which I keep meaning to get back to) and they both 'signed up' to do rotations they might end up taking over for each other for a couple of weeks. Obviously it would have to be something the person can do (which would limit non-admin users to certain tasks) and in all probability they wouldn't be as good at it as the person who does so regularly, but while a bit odd it could serve as a way of breaking down barriers and getting people familiar with things they might never have looked into otherwise. They might even find they like some of them. Obviously 'ArbCom duties' wouldn't fit into this, but maybe someone could be assigned to do clerk work for a week or two while the arbitor was doing cleanup on WP:WP and thereby finding out what CSD, BLP, DRV, RfPP, PAIN, and the rest of the 'alphabet soup' were all about. :] --CBD 14:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Santorummm

He has the {{protected}} tag on his userpage. When I removed it, he was incivil. Looking at his contributions is rather interesting. TimBentley (talk) 04:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Misplaced Pages will be hurt if he isn't dealt with in some sort of way. Ryūlóng 04:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I blocked him indefinitely for extremely innapropriate personal attacks. It is fine that he is upset with the wikimedia foundation and to express his opinion, but making such a scene and going on with personal attacks is completely innapropriate. Cowman109 04:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, this could blocked under username violation (US Senator Rick Santorum comes to my mind). User:Zscout370 09:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Haven't looked, and I'm not going to be speaking in favor of anyone wanting to shadow that evil senator, but indefinite for NPA is pretty extreme. I urge you, Cowman, to lower it to a reasonable time. Let's try a week, eh? One does not go from unblocked to eternity. Geogre 13:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't look like the user will be back any time soon, blocked or not. I think they made it clear they have no further desire to contribute to the encyclopedia by the long diatribe explaining his lack of trust in the Wikimedia foundation - if he does come back, he can always request to be unblocked, but I don't see this user improving the encyclopedia in the near future at this rate. The user basically stated that they were leaving and never intended to come back, and then went on to make a scene and swear at quite a few people in anger. If anyone wants to reduce the block, by all means go ahead, but I won't be doing so myself unless it turns out they were drunk or something of the sort and simply got carried away. Cowman109 18:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer it if you did it, as the principle is more important than the personalities. We, individually, don't decide whether or not someone will ever be productive or not. A pure vandal is a special case, but someone hurling poop and swearing is a problem that needs multiple sets of eyes to assess. Part of the problem causing such rancor right now is that some administrators have been personalizing everything, deciding that they, personally, can block someone else for being angry, etc. If you won't shorten the block, then I suppose I will have to. A month's block is usually plenty to defuse a vandal, and, if he's gone away, then he's gone away. If he hasn't, a week or month's block is better than indefinite and still shows up on his or her record. Geogre 18:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This is an offensive slang term derived from the senator's name, and thus is not allowed by WP:USERNAME. Indef blocked for inappropriate username. See the rfc also for discussion. pschemp | talk 20:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to an indefinite block for the user name. (I'm not sure how it's a particular slang term as much as it's a pretense to being at the Senator's office.) I remain adamant, however, that personal attacks not be used as justification for long blocks, or even short blocks if there is any ambiguity. Geogre 00:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks of any kind are not acceptable, and I support the same blocking terms as Geogre. When he returns from his block, I am willing to help mentor him as he has seemed to make valid contributions prior to this episode. Yamaguchi先生 01:03, 25 September 2006

NPOV violations

User:Harlequin212121 (contribs) has repeatedly added NPOV violations and original research to the article Boy Meets World, despite discussion and receiving the full range of warnings. The user also reverted the page more than once with blatant disregard to any other editors' helpful additions or edits just to re-add their commentary. -Shannernanner 08:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I've pointed out in the discussion that the Harlequin is engaging in original research. No policy violation has occurred. Let's hope it stays at that. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. -Shannernanner 00:49, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The user is continuing to re-add his or her edits, dismissing relevant contributions by other users, including significant additions and copyedits. The user also accuses me or "threatening" him or her with banning for using the warning templates, telling me to "never do that again" as I "am not an administrator." -Shannernanner 20:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this is more of a mentoring issue at this stage. Before anyone brings the hammer down, let's see if we can try to build some consensus at Talk:Boy Meets World. I've already started on this effort. -- ShinmaWa 22:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Jack Sarfatti

...is on another one his tears, railing against his many enemies and trying to "out" anyone who displeases him, succh as myself. Would some admin mind going in and deleting some recent edits where he tries this stunt, namely , , , and -- though you could probably also lose and , too, just on general principle. --Calton | Talk 14:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Death threat by Cretanpride

Hi all. I've just received a death threat from the banned User:Cretanpride:

HI Khoikoi, perhaps you have not realized how serious I am about adding my previous edit to that article(homosexuality in ancient Greece). Perhaps you have not realized the length I will go to get it. I will present to you an ultimatum now. Either my last edit stays. The one which shows Bruce Thornton's argument, or a young girl named Emily dies because of your unfairness. Am I bluffing? That's not the question. The question is whether you are willing to take that chance. Do you want this with you the rest of your life? You have 48 hours for the article to change to my previous edit or you can hear about this on the news. I am not asking for much. Just two paragraphs which encompass the truth. I hoped it wouldn't come to this. I have wasted two months of my time, I think I should be rewarded. Its your call.

This is your fault for ignoring me and never considering my edit. You brought this girls death and you are responsible. But you can still save her by simply restoring me edit on homosexuality in ancient Greece. Not too much to ask. Bye. Bye.

This seems pretty serious—can anyone tell me what I should do? Thanks... —Khoikhoi 18:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This seems to require a serious effort on the part of wikipedia sysops and higher authorities to track this individual and send the police there. Even if there is no "emily" this threat is probably a federal crime. And if there is an emily immediate action is required. In the meantime, I would let the edit remain until the police deal with it. --Blue Tie 18:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

How did User:Cretanpride send you this message, since he is banned? Did he contact you by e-mail? What evidence do you have that the message was written by User:Cretanpride? —Psychonaut 18:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it was an email. The evidence is because I got into a conflict with his socks Steve88 (talk · contribs) and James577 (talk · contribs) on Homosexuality in ancient Greece. —Khoikhoi 18:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Assumming you are concerned enough to believe this might have some shred of a credible threat. Call the office (1-727-231-0101) and hope that someone is reachable on a weekend. Dragons flight 19:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've aleady reverted to his version...isn't that enough? —Khoikhoi 19:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

No. Not enough. Make the call. Try hard. (I do not think anyone can appropriately judge the credibility of such a threat without investigation.) --Blue Tie 19:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

No, if the threat is real then there is some girl named Emily that is in danger (if not now, then probably in the future). Dragons flight 19:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've forwarded the email. —Khoikhoi 19:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Several people have the email. I hope that some of you are doing more than "Forwarding" the email. --Blue Tie 19:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

If this was sent via email, perhaps the email headers will have the senders IP, which can be traced. --Ragib 19:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

The email should have a full set of header information available to view. Depending on your mail client and your settings, you may have to jump through one or more hoops to see these headers. (In Microsoft Outlook, for example, I believe you can right-click on the email subject as it shows up in your list of emails, and select "Properties".)

In any case, the headers you are looking for will start off with the word "Received:" There will generally be 3 or 4 of these.

These headers will allow you to trace the origin of the email. The last one, reading from the top down, will usually contain the IP address used to actually send the email. This will give you the ISP used to send the email. After that, it's a phone call to the cops in the jurisdiction of the IP address. In the case of a direct physical threat of death, as in this case, most ISPs will waive the requirement for the cops to provide a subpoena, and will provide the subscriber info in short order.

Hope this helps,

Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak}

19:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Other editors received a similar email: see Talk:Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece#Disturbed_individual_persists_on_imposing_nationalistic_and_homophobic_views_and_resorts_to_blackmail. The email came from Sam328 (talk · contribs), who's been blocked as a sock of Cretanpride (talk · contribs).

The appropriate authorities have been contacted; in the meanwhile, I don't think we should give in to this guy by including his edits in Homosexuality in ancient Greece. The editor has been engaged in rampant sockpuppetry from the moment he found Misplaced Pages, and putting in his changes is just telling him that he can get what he wants through disruption. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Akhilleus)

Akhilleus (talk · contribs), Haiduc (talk · contribs), CaveatLector (talk · contribs) and I all received the same message. I've been working on this off-wiki today; I had not planned to reveal this publicly, but Akhilleus and I have a good idea who the individual behind this is, and I have contacted the police department at his university. They are investigating. If anyone wants details on this, please email me; I'd rather not show my full hand in public.

Incidentally, I agree that it's not appropriate to give in to this sort of blackmail. Our moral responsibility goes as far as contacting the police. If we start changing Misplaced Pages articles based on death threats, that could be a very bad precedent. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Uhh.. if you think your moral responsibility goes only that far and no further, you are in error. Its ok to wait a bit while the investigation goes on. There are no huge problems that will crush us while we wait. It is just an encyclopedia. It is not a life. There may be nothing to the threat, but it does not hurt to wait. Relax. Do the right thing. --Blue Tie 19:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Threats or no, we can't allow ourselves to be intimidated. --InShaneee 19:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you have not provided any proof that this is from Cretanpride or if the message even exists. How can you prove you are not making this up? Lapinmies 19:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I can forward you the email if you want... —Khoikhoi 19:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to the legal ramifications, since Khoikhoi is a reliable user. --InShaneee 19:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I am referring to both, e-mails are very dubious evidence, I usually get spam from fake addresses and IPs. It would be a completely different case if there was a edit in wikipedia with the threat. Lapinmies 19:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Why would five editors invent a story like this? The email is real. I received it, and have forwarded it, with full headers, to the police. They're handling it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

If the matter is being handled by the police, they probably would appreciate if there weren't much more on-Wiki discussion until they've finished investigating. I also suggest that you make sure the Office knows exactly what you've done and why. (edit conflict with below: I agree with the page protection also) Newyorkbrad 20:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

You may believe me when I say that they don't care. If they have the threat itself and the full set of headers, they have all they need. This discussion won't even ping their radar. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 20:05, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've left a message with the office (using the Danny Wool phone number on the "press contact" page). I'll email Jimbo as well, just so he's informed. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Making a belated and, at this point, mostly useless clarification to my statement above. In my preceeding statement "they" == "the police". Thank you for allowing me to indulge my anal-retentive nature. Your forebearance is appreciated. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 23:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Whatever, I have full-protected the page to avoid edit warring on whether to give in to a thread or not, and I suggest it does not get unprotected until this is resolved. -- Kim van der Linde 20:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the protection. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well. —Khoikhoi 20:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Me too: it's the right thing to do.--Aldux 20:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Even when you all had not agreed, I would have done it. The police will tell you that rule number one IRL is that you NEVER EVER give in to blackmail. This regardless the threat, as it will just fuel further blackmail. -- Kim van der Linde 20:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, police will not always tell you this. It would depend upon the circumstances and in particular the legal and social systems available in the location of the threat. Indeed, there are many instances internationally where the only safe procedure is to submit to demands, and the law enforcement officers will tell you that very quickly. Trite "rules" of conduct, repeated in a safe environment are unhelpful in many real world situations. If any one of you ever has a spouse or child kidnapped by Central American gangs, you had better pay up or your loved one will almost certainly die and the kidnappers/killers will never be caught. This is so true that sometimes a kidnapping does not have to take place, simply a threat of a kidnapping is sufficient to obtain payment and payment is sufficient to avoid kidnapping and the loss of fingers or ears or eyes and such. This is so prevalent that you can purchase Kidnapp and Extortion insurance for overseas travel. The record for return of hostages is quite good... if the payment is made.

Ok, so this was not a real kidnapping and not a real threat to murder. I would not go so far as to say we got lucky because the likelihood of danger was small. Things transpired as probability would have dictated. Kooks abound and are mostly harmless. But I am glad that we did not get an unlucky roll of the cosmic dice. I am glad that we did not face the problem of dealing with the rare case where a kook moves to defcon 5. It feels really satisfying to be all tough and macho -- all the way right up until you actually have to pay the piper.

Oh...wait... what am I thinking? That could never happen.

Never mind. --Blue Tie 00:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there are exceptions. But we are not in Central America. -- Kim van der Linde 00:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC) (BTW, have you ever negotiated with guerilla's?)

Yeah. It's the exceptions that get ya in trouble though. As far as guerillas... not exactly. But does negotiating with armed Saudi tribesmen to stop beating a person and return him to me count for something like that? --Blue Tie 01:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it counts. If this was a case with say Columbian para-militairy, I would have reacted differently, but we are dealing with a student in the US, which makes things slightly different. -- Kim van der Linde 01:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

At least it's a creative way to reinterpret "NEVER EVER". --66.101.59.18 06:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Colombian :) - FrancisTyers · 10:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I know, just one of those darned non-native English speaking dyslectic's :-) -- Kim van der Linde 13:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Update

I've just received another email from Cretanpride. Here it is:

You guys win. I give up. That last email was a joke. You win. I'm never going to edit on that article again.

My guess is that the police found the individual and made him realize how inappropriate the "joke" was.

I've forwarded this message to the police as well. I tried to call them, but the officer who's handling the case isn't available. I left him a message, and will let you all know what I hear. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I've just received a call from the police officer; it turns out that he wasn't able to verify the identity that I gave him, so the timing of Cretanpride's second email was a coincidence. Given that email, it seems extremely probable that this was a hoax; while making a hoax death threat is still a serious matter, I think that we can all relax a bit now. I'm going to continue to pursue the investigation, but the urgency has diminished. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Can I suggest that if an editor thinks that it's funny or a "joke" to make death threats (however false) that they are not mentally stable enough to be an editor or even own a computer. --Charlesknight 22:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't possibly concur more. Luckily, he's already indef blocked. --InShaneee 22:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

It might be appropriate to update the block log with a more specific block reason, in case anyone ever later thought about unblocking. Also, has a checkuser been run? Newyorkbrad 23:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Done, and I have put a notice at the user page. -- Kim van der Linde 00:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd assume so from Khoikhoi's second comment, but a new one may be in order. --InShaneee 23:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Has a checkuser been run? Read and weep, my children (and don't forget to scroll down, to see the full litany of horrors). The matter currently being discussed is whether a range block is possible. Unfortunately, Mackensen is the checkuser who knows most about the case, and he's on a wikibreak until Thursday. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, maybe today's events will put a different spin on the matter. If it really has been brought home to this user that his recent communications crossed the line and sufficiently worried people here that the police were contacted, then he might now be more receptive to a strongly worded suggestion that under any name, he's not welcome to post here any more. Newyorkbrad 23:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps that strongly worded suggestion should be left by someone other than me, since I was a recipient of the email. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

(Unindent) I have not had the experiences you guys have had, so I might not have the right idea. But I sort of hope this fellow recovers and could return with a good heart and wiser edits. I apologize in advance if this offends anyone. --Blue Tie 00:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Legal context

I am just back from a friend who is a law enforcment officer, and I asked him to have a look at the e-mail and this tread. Based on that:

1. A threat like this is at least a misdemeanor.
2. Do not give in to it.
3. Take it serious and contact the police.

In most cases, this is just a frustrated person who does not think and tries something, in rare cases, this is serious stuff. -- Kim van der Linde 00:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Cretanpride was already banned before this latest fiasco. If you look at his talk page, you'll see that he was given many chances to do the right thing before I eventually gave him an indefinite block; even before this weekend, that block had morphed into a community ban because of his incessant sockpuppetry and POV-pushing. I'm not offended by your suggestion — indeed, other editors may tell you that I'm sometimes too willing to give abusive editors second chances and the benefit of the tiniest doubt — but it really doesn't apply in this case. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I saw it, and I have confirmed the indef block for his blackmail attempt by treatening to murder an innocent girl. This is just not ok. -- Kim van der Linde 00:49, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm completely uninvolved in this but I wanted to compliment everyone involved. Yes, it was 99.9% a fake threat from a little kid who couldn't get his way - but that doesn't mean he doesn't need to be thoroughly beaten with a clue stick. Contacting the police was exactly the right thing to do, if only to get him on their radar when he inevitably begins killing small woodland animals. --Golbez 04:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. Well done for being cool, calm, collected – and practical. JackyR | Talk 10:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Perverted-Justice.com

There have been a series of edits to the article, where the editor edits for the first time, or an anon IP, or where there have only been a few edits and all are of this site. I am suspicious that these are edits from a person, or persons working for the Perverted-Justice.com. I'm not sure if ther IP addresses are genuine, spoofed, or using a proxy server. I don't have much to go on other than the odd feeling. Perhaps admins here may know a way to look into this further? Please see:

• Squaresville
• 221.153.56.253 (Korea)
• 71.206.224.250 (Mt. Laurel, New Jersey)
• 219.32.18.62 (Tokyo, Japan)
• 66.252.253.81 (Alexandria, Minnesota)
• 83.132.162.110 (Lisbon, Portugal)
• 64.223.120.132 (Burlington, Vermont)
• 66.252.250.171 (Alexandria, Minnesota)
• 151.205.53.80 (Morgantown, West Virginia)
• 151.205.40.203 (West Virginia)
• 24.85.0.108 (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
• 4.157.53.66 (Unknown, US)
• 4.157.53.101 (Unknown, US)
• 65.68.74.240 (Houston, Texas)
• 4.157.29.225 (Unknown, US)
• 4.157.29.234 (Unknown, US)
• 4.156.3.197 (Unknown, US)
• 24.181.233.64 (Worcester, Massachusetts)
• 69.239.140.140 (San Luis Obispo, California)
• 63.224.57.186 (Seattle, Washington)

• Not much co-relation on location
• All of them have one, or only a few edits, only to this article, and then never revist it, or wikipedia.
• Some of the comments make it appear that the user has used Misplaced Pages before ("copyedit", "rv, edit detracts from quality of wiki", "rem. poorly placed and unneeded phrase re interstate commerce", "reduced number of run-on sentences, used more specific legal terminology, edited some phrases for NPOV".)
• Edits seem to be for benefit of "perverted-justic.com", or "Von Ercke", none negative.

Atom 20:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

List at WP:OPP Thatcher131 07:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, has anyone seen this page? It markes WP as a "Category 2: Passive Corporate Sex Offender". --Ragib 08:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Being harrassed.

User Havoc is posting on my talk page as if he was a moderator or admin of Misplaced Pages. I am not complaining about content of any edited article but I do not believe it is appropriate for someone who is not a moderator or admin to punish or inform other users of not meeting criteria as if they were in charge. Employees do not punish other employees. That is what the boss is for. I have deleted his "friendly warnings" and advised him to stop on his talk page but he continued to do so. Hyde v 22:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

It's actually entirely appropriate - I've handed out hundreds of warnings and I'm just an editor (1st class lightlap division). You seem to misunderstand the relationship of people here. Administrators are not the "boss", the different between them and normal editors is that they can act upon the warnings that normal editors put on other editor's pages or decide that they have been used incorrectly. As for your particular case, it appears that that Havoc has left two polite and to the point notes informing you that Misplaced Pages is not a games guide. I have not yet checked the edits and therefore cannot comment upon them (but that's my next action..). --Charlesknight 22:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I did. He is, in fact, correct. --InShaneee 22:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I concur - however I would note that maybe Havoc could have taken a little more time to explain policy to a new editor (and I'll hold my hand up for taking the same road on a number of occassions. --Charlesknight 22:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess I just will not post to World of Warcraft articles. Just about everything I have added to Misplaced Pages has been edited to the point that there was little left of my additions and it is always considered "cruft" or whatever the heck it is called. I do not feel it is my place to admonish other posters for what I perceive is wrong but it appears to be within the rules to do so. I think it would be best if I stopped being so public from now on. Hyde v 22:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

No one's 'admonishing' you, nor is this about perceptions. He was simply informing you of a policy you most likely weren't aware of in an attempt to explain why your content was being removed. --InShaneee 23:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Further to the above comments. Don't be too hasty, you clearly know your stuff and could make a positive contribution to the project. Let me make a suggestion, take a few days off or maybe a week. When you get back, discuss the edits you want to make on the talkpage with your fellow editors. Once you have been brainwashed... em.. get a bit more use to the policies and practices of Misplaced Pages, it all gets a bit more straight forward. Please feel free to drop by my talkpage if you want to discuss this further. --Charlesknight 23:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I do apologize for being blunt, but this is not the first instance of game guide information I have removed, and as such I have become somewhat harsh in my way of handling it. Specially when it comes to the Warcraft articles, and especially Classes in World of Warcraft as it all started with me merging nine articles into one. And right after that a merger happened with talents from WoW aswell, making the article even more of a game guide then before. I have also explained not only to hyde v, but numerous other editors about the inclusion of game guide trivia and information, which in turn has lead me to believe that this has in fact been understod as nobody has voiced any opinion on the contrary. I could have toned down my warning, but as I saw it I had given him a fair amount of chance to object to my deletions of said information. Again, my appolagises for being blunt, my intent was never to make you feel harassed, but please do understand my position on this as many articles have been deleted because of the inclusion of this type of information. Thank you. Havok (T/C/c) 06:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Steve Willis' Sockpuppet Theater

According to the Steve Willis article, created a few days ago, Steve Willis is a "radio presenter" in Wolverhampton, who "attended Dormston School in Sedgley", and "has sat in for Adrian Kennedy on Dublin's FM104 phoneshow" . He also "appearedd on the Late Late Show".

Some interesting edits happened during the last week. Here's the cast of characters in order of appearance :

• 82.37.179.220 (talk • contribs • WHOIS) doesn't like the imperial system, he prefers the metric system. He started his life on wikipedia (on the 16th) editing out unit translation in the imperial system from an article related to radio broadcasting. The next day, he does the same in the article about Sedgley. So far so good. On the 18th, we first encounter edits about a Steve Willis, added to the notable alumni of the Dormston School article (diff) as well as the Angelus one (diff) where we even get the url of his website. On the 19th, this is the turn of the Sedgley article to feature Steve Willis (diffs 1, 2 & 3).

• VickyRoper (talk • contribs) appears on the 19th. A first edit is to Dormston School where a certain Steve Willis is added to the notable alumni (diff) (edit by IP had been reverted). She also makes an edit to the List of radio stations in the United Kingdom (diff) about a FM radio in Wolverhampton. No more edit from her.

• EmmaWaldren (talk • contribs) makes her appearance on the 20th. Her first edit is to Angelus (diff) where we learn a certain radio in Wolverhampton is broadcasting the Angelus each sunday just before ... the "Steve Willis programme". She also edits Sedgley (diff) to add the name of Steve Willis (the previous addition had been reverted). See a pattern yet ? Her next edits will be to Talk:Sedgley where a user who had reverted the edit again makes interesting observations (check the talk page).

• Back to User:82.37.179.220 on the 21th with an edit on ... Talk:Sedgley (diff), he seems a little confused as to who he is. Coincidently, immediately comes User:EmmaWaldren who adds her sig to the reply written from the IP (diff). No more contribution from Emma to Misplaced Pages after that.

• Paul-Johnson (talk • contribs). His first edit ever on the 22th is a new article : Steve Willis. He also uploads the picture of Steve Willis (with permission of Willis by email he claims ).

• Roy Wedge (talk • contribs) (contribs) makes his appearance on the 24th. He adds information about Steve appearing on the Late Late Show to the Steve Willis page (diff), adds Steve to the Late Late Show page (diff), and corrects the url of Steve's webpage (diff). No more edits from him.

• The Steve Willis article is sent to Afd on the 24th (Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Steve Willis). 'Keep' comments are added by various users : User:ClaireLMillington (contribs], User:SineadNiNeachtain (contribs), our anon User:82.37.179.220, and User:Beetroot1 (contribs). All but our anon only have edits related to the AfD and they want to keep the article. Claire's first edit was to erase the AfD entry (diff). User:Paul-Johnson also commented.

• I ommited a couple edits from User:82.37.179.220 on the 24th, still obssessed by Steve Willis, whose name is added to the 1974 page (diff), and to the FM104 page (diff).

I think Steve's show deserves a round of applauses.

Anyway, we have someone here making a farce out of the editing process of Misplaced Pages, as well as the AfD process currently going on on this entry. I'm not sure what actions should be taken, I'll leave that up to the Wikipedians reviewing this. I'm also not completely sure AN/I is the right place for such a report, so please tell me where to post this if it's not. Equendil Talk 00:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Some more fun:

• Beetroot1 (talk • contribs) has blanked the Afd page (diff). Equendil Talk 00:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I am a new user, and I have been reading this report. Out of noseyness, I found his website, and I saw a notice about it on the font page. I just thought you should all know. http://www.stevewillis.eu - D@taM@n 21:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What's really amazing about this comment is that it was made BEFORE the notice appeared on the frontpage of the website. Amazing stuff, eh? Must be magic - or maybe a magic SOCKPUPPET with a poor grasp on the order in which he should do things. --Charlesknight 21:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Besides yet another new puppet above, anon IP User:82.37.179.220 has vandalized User:Charlesknight's user page. Equendil Talk 22:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• September the 26th. A new anon User:82.47.100.243 makes his appearance on the AfD page, he wants the article to be kept, claiming he vaguely heard the name of Steve Willis in Dublin years ago (diff). His IP traces back to blueyonder in ... Wolverhampton, which of course also happens to be true of the other anon involved here (IP info , whois ). Blueyonder is also Steve's hosting company. Equendil Talk 19:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sam Harris (singer)

The Sam Harris (singer) article is being used for advertising. 24.60.26.138 repeatedly put in content from which is a blatant copyright violation. He claimed to be affiliated with the site, which is even worse because at that point it becomes vanity. He has since been given a 48 hour block, but has returned with a new IP, 66.212.134.173, and added in the same copyrighted material. Can the page be protected or something? I feel that this user is going to keep coming back and using Misplaced Pages for promotional means. IrishGuy 01:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Page temporarily sprotected. Please correct the article to conform to established guidelines and policies. Thanks. ~Kylu (u|t) 01:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. IrishGuy 01:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Glengordon01

His user page looks to me like a violation of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, specifically at ]. I requested that he tone it down and he refused User talk:Glengordon01#Please change your user page.

This is an outgrowth of a dispute at Talk:Charun that went through WP:3O and Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts and Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Glengordon01. After I opened the user conduct RfC Glengordon01 became hostile toward me (I'm one of the people named on his talk page) so I've about run out of options. I'd like to request special care in this instance: while this editor's conduct steps over the line, his scholarship seems to be quite good - it's the sort of interpretive reading that would be fine in a university term paper but falls on the wrong side of WP:NOR. Would an administrator lend a hand, please? Regards, Durova 02:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Other than the personal attacks, I think his essay is pretty good. --Blue Tie 03:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Would an administrator address the personal attacks, please? I don't view myself as particularly attacked, but Scottandrewhutchins was distressed and wrote to my talk page. I agreed this steps over the line and asked him to let third parties handle this. Durova 05:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Another thewolfstar sock

220.68.74.149 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) This diff says it all:. Ungovernable Force 02:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Should be blocked, but I think in the future you shouldn't respond to his messages. Don't entertain him. —Khoikhoi 03:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

And another: 211.192.251.157 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Ungovernable Force 03:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Based on the IPInfo and Traceroute tools on the IP talk pages, it looks like Maggie's using Korean proxies. Maggie's obsession with disrupting Misplaced Pages is getting a little frightening. I really wish she had given up with WhiskeyRebellion. Captainktainer * Talk 03:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

She's been getting help and advice. After she got knocked off as Wolf Star, she was invited to go over to WR. That she's war dialing open proxies is not attributable to her genius. Geogre 10:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that I can use a resolution process to resolve my disputes? How am I supposed to do this without using proxies if you keep blocking my ip address? Also, Geogre, it would be nice if you didn't make personal attacks against me by saying things like "is not attributable to her genius". Okay. I'm asking for a mediation or an arbitration to resolve why I was indefinetley banned the first time for making a personal attack against RyanFreisling. If I had been (rightfully) blocked for a week or even a month, I would have learned my lesson, and I never would have made all these socks. The indef ban was wrong and I am asking for a resolution. Maggie

I don't know anything about why you were blocked originally, but your account Lingeron was headed for an indef block on it's own, aside from the fact that it was a sock. Even if you shouldn't have been banned the first time (which I doubt), your actions since that time more than deserve an indef block. Ungovernable Force 04:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Users banned by the community can appeal their bans to the Arbitration Committee or (theoretically) to Jimbo. Such appeals should be by email. See WP:ARBCOM for a list of the people on the committee. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Disruptive editing..?

Can an admin take a look at edits from KrishnaVindaloo and have an opinion on his "collaborative process"..? I think it borders on "disruptive editing"... I am also wondering if it's a sockpuppet, the user only edits one topic. Thanks!--Travisthurston 03:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Morton devonshire

I warned User:Morton devonshire for vandalism for this edit where he had inserted the same (potentially defamatory and unreferenced) statement 7 times in the article. He denied this was vandalism and made a personal attack, accusing me of having a grudge against him. I had also left a request for him to leave an edit summary, and he accused me of intimidation. I've edited some of the same articles, so I feel someone else should take a look.

His user page and sub page User:Morton devonshire/conspiracy theory is used for polemic with photos ridiculing 9/11 researchers. This is clearly provocative, trolling and counter-productive to collegiality over a subject which is already fraught. Guinnog asked him to remove such material three days ago, but it has not been changed (apart from a Che Guevara image). User:Morton devonshire/todo also contains a personal attack not appropriate for wiki.

Although it is a different issue, I consider that Morton's POV agenda extends, to the detriment of wiki, into his editing practice. Furthermore, there is either a serious failure to AGF here or a need for some admins to be called to task.

Tyrenius 08:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Given that the edit appears to be, you know, true, as this extract from the Steven E. Jones shows:

On September 7, 2006, he was placed on paid leave while his university reviewed the scientific basis of his work in this area.<ref name=DMorning_pleave>Walch, Tad. "BYU places '9/11 truth' professor on paid leave", Deseret Morning News, September 8, 2006.</ref><ref name=USNW_BYUtakes>{{cite news |first = Will |last = Sullivan|title = BYU takes on a 9/11 conspiracy professor|url = http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060911/11conspiracy.htm|work = U.S.News & World Report |publisher = www.usnews.com|date = 2006-09-11}}</ref>

it's hard to understand where the "potentially defamatory" comes in. --Calton | Talk 08:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Potentially defamatory is the difference between:

1. he was placed on paid leave while his university reviewed the scientific basis of his work in this area
2. who is on paid academic leave due to his apparent misrepresentation that his work had been properly vetted

The first statement is neutral. The second states impropriety ("apparent" is no defence). There is no suggestion in the article that he misrepresented anything. See similar discussion here Tyrenius 09:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Uh huh.

Besides worries about his accusations, Carri Jenkins, a spokesman for the university, said BYU was also concerned that Jones's work on September 11 had not been published in credible peer-reviewed journals. Jones edits the Journal of 9/11 Studies, an online collection of articles that has included his work. From U.S. News & World Report

Which means that the second statement is, you know, true. Which means what you're arguing about is spin, not neutrality. --Calton | Talk 09:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing to say he misrepresented anything in your quote. Besides which, this issue of potential defamation has become a red herring, so I've struck it, as the other points above are being ignored. Tyrenius 16:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to second this motion. This user has been involved in an attempt to push POV on all 9/11 articles. His talk page makes both his position and his intent clearly evident for all to see, so I don’t think there is a need to link evidence but I will if requested. An editor who cannot avoid allowing his personal feelings to override good judgment and respect for and compliance with policies should not be an editor any longer. Shortfuse 09:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Funny, I looked at Morton's edits and saw him as pushing NPOV. The mainstream view is not usually regarded as POV. Guy 11:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Pushing any viewpoint at the expense of any other viewpoint is POV. Please read WP:NPOV again. It's unequivocal that all points of view should be presented fairly, including non-mainstream views, and in proportion to their importance. They should certainly not be ridiculed. Also "None of this is to say that tiny-minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can give them on pages specifically devoted to them'". Tyrenius 16:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I am pretty familiar with that policy, thanks. The relevant part here is "undue weight". The dominant view point - accepted by all but a tiny minority - does not qualify as a POV as such in this instance, any more than a tacit acceptance of evolution qualifies as POV just because some folks refuse to accept it. Not a very good example of course - the 9/11 conspiracy theories have massively less basis than intelligent design. Guy 23:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Morton's use of userspace is hostile, inflammatory, and uncivil. His use of the {{vandal}} template for established editors, as well as categorizing editors into friendly and unfriendly camps is definitely a violation of WP:CIVIL. His contributions show an intermittent use of edit summaries; he is especially prone to not use edit summaries when he is making controversial edits. So far, I'm with you, except for the incident which you brought to the board: the edit in question wasn't vandalism, and you diminished yourself by making that accusation immediately (Morton isn't the only one to violate WP:AGF). However, there's one more thing that you're missing, and that is... this is not the appropriate forum. There's nothing that needs administrator attention as of this point. Requests for Comment and Requests for Mediation is thataway; there are plenty of other forums you could have made use of that don't result in overwork of our already extremely busy admins. Captainktainer * Talk 14:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The key point is not just the content of the edit. It is the fact that the same sentence was instated 7 times, i.e. each time Jones' name appeared. This is a deliberately inflammatory bad faith edit. I think you've missed the fact that I am one of our already extremely busy admins, and have posted here for confirmation that there are serious points to be addressed with this user, as he is claiming I have a grudge (I didn't know anything about him till a few days ago). You have confirmed this, and I am quite happy to proceed on this basis (or for another admin to intervene), so it need take up no more of anyone else's time. Tyrenius 16:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be focusing more on people than edits. It might be better to avoid each other for a while, or try mediation if you have to. Don't let this become some kind of personal thing between the two of you. Tom Harrison 16:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure why anyone is even bringing up his user page, that space really has no bearing on the issue of the repeated insertion of the line in question. The issue here is his edits, while I think what he inserted is correct, it does not need to be put in 7 times. I think a simple warning that over use of that line is a problem. Jones has claimed that his work was peer reviewed. A college does not put its professors on leave simply because they want to check their work ... I mean seriously ... So the real issue seems to be the over use of the line in question. Again I reccomend a simple warning stating that it does not need to be included numerous times and possibly can be rephrased to an exact quote from a source, to prevent POV issues and rewording problems. --NuclearUmpf 16:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this will stumble into a larger issue after doing a little research. We have Jones used as a source of information in numerous articles and it turns out his work was not peer reviewed as per WP:RS in scientific articles or claims. I also want to point out that it seems everyone has been on the verge of WP:AGF here and perhaps everyone just needs to take a step back and relax a moment. I am not advocating for Morton because I think there is a general over use of that sentence that was attempting to be used, but I think a review of what we use here on Misplaced Pages from Jones should be considered and the line or mention of his schools lack of faith in his work should be made in a quotation form. --NuclearUmpf 16:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

First off, if Morton Devonshire has stated that you (Tyrenius) has a grude against him, that's not a personal attack, but his opinion and we don't stiffle opinions in routine conversations. Secondly, the facts are that nothing Steven Jones has stated about his beliefs on the reasons why the world trade center collapsed has appeared in a single engineering journal or a reliable source because he hasn't had it properly vetted. In fact there isn't anything, aside from opinions, that support the idea that the world trade center buildings were brought down by explosives. No one is POV pushing if they are fighting to only use reliable sources and factual evidence when discussing these affairs. If folks want to believe, just as some do in UFO's and Bigfoot, that something so ridiculous as controlled demolition brought down the twin towers and otrher buildings, go right ahead. Morton shouldn't be (and I don't think anyone really should be) listing other wikipedians that he feels may or may not be "problem users" or cranks, but he certainly can list articles that have been deleted and others that should be if he so chooses. Furthermore, images of folks with tin-foil hats that are free use is a violation of nothing. My basic observation is that folks that believe in the controlled demolition theory of the WTC are either uneducated in the facts, have a strong anti-American bias or a political leaning strongly in opposition to the current American administration, or they are simply trying to disrupt Misplaced Pages when they create POV fork articles such as the Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center, which has information that failed to meet consensus for inclusion in the main article which is Collapse of the World Trade Center. This kind of misuse of Misplaced Pages to advocate or counterbalance factual encyclopedic content is definitely a POV push. Lastly, Steven E. Jones is kind of the poster-boy of the controlled demolition advocates. He has, however recently been placed on paid academic leave from his university so that they can decide if his work has indeed been properly vetted, as he claims--MONGO 17:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Start again

This is not a thread for a discussion about conspiracy theories or Steven E Jones. It has been turned into that, and it is an irrelevance. It is about admin and user conduct.

Very simple points:

• Morton Devonshire complained that I improperly warned him for inserting the same line 7 times (forget what's actually in the line - that's not the point!). This is a deliberatively disruptive edit, and the warning was in line with wiki policy.
• He has been asked by an admin (Guinnog) to clean up his user space and not use it for polemic and provocation. These are attack pages against a large number of people. This is against wiki policy. It is irrelevant what anyone's view is of the people attacked. Wiki is not the place to express it. We are writing an encyclopedia, not carrying out a political campaign.
• He has accused me of acting from a personal grudge. This is an attack on my integrity, and violates WP:AGF. I have had very limited interaction with this user.

I have only posted here for the sake of transparency. Tyrenius 17:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• If the edit is in fact factual, and true, and sourced by WP:RS and WP:V standards. Then wouldnt the removal of the statement be the disruption and not his inclusion. Wouldnt hiding this fact in a case where he is being used as a source, which in itself might fail WP:RS if it wasnt peer reviews, be pushing POV? I think MONGO has a point that if Jones isnt peer reviewed after all then Morton's edits were in fact for the bettermeant and actually a suitable middleground instead of removing Jones all together as failing WP:RS.
• His attack pages are not relevant to this discussion if your complaint is the insertion of the quotation, much like anything you might have done elsewhere or in the past is the subject.
• I dont see someone stating they think you have a grudge on them as a personal attack.

The subject of Jones is important because it determines who is pushing POV and who is removing cited information. --NuclearUmpf 17:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What justification is there for inserting an identical 25 word setence as a footnoot after every single reference of Jones's name? I can see no policy based reason to do that. Once is fine. We do not Wikilink every instance of a word; only the first. His edit was to literally insert the identical line of text after all 7 instances of Professor Jones's name. What justification is there for that? The user was asked as well why he did it on his user page but had not answered. If such an edit was justified, I would appreciate to see what policy justified it. · XP · 20:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The edit in question. I see in his user space he has been previously warned many times for this sort of vandalism on politically charged/911 related articles by both admins and regular users. · XP · 20:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't see it as a political campaign if Morton Devonshire is working to ensure NPOV is being followed. That sounds like he is trying to defend policy, in fact. NPOV is non-negotiable and the undue weight clause of that policy is being misread by many. Undue weight applies to reliable sources, not personal opinions. Thus, while we can say lots of people believe "A", if we can't find reliable sources that support this belief in "A" from a scientific or engineering background, then it is a extreme minority viewpoint that deserves only a passing mention or no mention at all. This is an encyclopedia project, not a platform for advocacy of an extreme minority viewpoint. Morton may feel you have a personal grudge against him because he is possibly on the opposite side of the argument from him, and your request that he make major changes to his userpage is being done so because you feel insulted? I'm reaching here. I feel that if he doesn't point directly at any editor, but at the opposition in general, he is in violation of nothing...at least he is open and honest with where he stands in the argument.--MONGO 18:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You are indeed reaching, and I would be grateful if you would kindly retract. I have no idea why you should feel that I am personally insulted by people in tin foil hats. I am not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist/researcher, and I am on neither "side" (though I note you consider that there are "sides", which I have also observed) of this 9/11 conspiracy debate. It is unfortunate that anyone editing an article about this topic is now automatically branded as on one "side" or the other. That is not how wiki works. The topic has very little interest for me. What does interest me is maintaining wikipedia policy and objectivity. I see very little evidence that Morton Devonshire is committed to NPOV, but rather more that he is on a campaign against 9/11 "conspiracy theories". That is not exactly the point. The case is rather:

1. Inserting the same line 7 times in an article is a blatant violation of WP:POINT, deliberately provocative and hence vandalism.
2. Misuse of user page for polemic and deliberate provocation. If the same thing were done to, for example, "Republicans" or "Democrats" instead of "conspiracy theorists" it would not be tolerated.
3. An accusation that my actions are not based on my commitment to the best interests of wikipedia, but because of a personal grudge, is a direct personal attack.

These are three different items that happen to have coincided. 1 and 2 are unrelated issues. With 2 I am simply following up for another admin who's on hols at the moment. Tyrenius 19:00, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Wouldnt the people removing a clearly sourced and relevant piece of information be commiting the vandalism. Jones is being used as a source of information on a scientific topic he reported on, his work is being questioned by his own employers. This is directly relevant to WP:RS. There are two sides to this debate, the people constantly removing the information may be seen as provoking Morton. --

NuclearUmpf 19:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You've misunderstood. There weren't 7 edits. There was one edit, where the same text was inserted in 7 different places. Tyrenius 19:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, geez...he made one edit...I see it was reverted, so I see no edit war. He didn't provide a cite to support his comment, but that article is more than 50% just a random collection from unreliable websites anyway, and is a POV fork to boot. From my standpoint, there is no reason to even edit that article unless one wants to waste their time. I don't contibute to articles that are platforms of advocacy for people's opinions.--MONGO 20:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I also think we should limit this to the current topic of the quote or instead direct you to RfC if you have a laundry list of complaints. You dont want Morton to think you have a grudge but you are taking up complaints of other admins instead of addressing your issue ... As I said I think we should keep this discussion focused on the original topic or move it to where its more relevant, RfC. --NuclearUmpf 19:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

RfC is not required and would take up a huge amount of productive time. The "laundry list" is simply so that others can keep an eye out here. Guinnog asked me to follow up, as he was travelling. It was something I was going to address anyway, but he got there first. Admins work co-operatively, not in isolation from each other. If it's in the interests of wikipedia, it is a communal responsibility. Tyrenius 19:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I cannot see that his statement that you holding a grudge aginst him is a personal attack. I understand that you may feel his comment undermines your integrity, but that doesn't make it a personal attack, but an observation. I have left a note for him on his talkpage to make sure he follows Misplaced Pages:User page. I will also look at these 7 edits he made and if I find them to be excessive, I won't hesitate to let him know. His userpage may be possibly be polemic and provocative, but so long as he follows the policy, he would not be the first editor to post polemic or provocative commentary in his userspace. Some find an American flag or the Hammer and Sickle polemic...so this is a matter of opinion.--MONGO 19:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Study WP:NPA. A personal attack is a negative comment about the person. It's not an "observation", unless there is any objective evidence to show that I hold a personal grudge against Morton, and I assure you I do not. It is blatant failure to AGF. As I have said, I have had very little interaction with him and that only recently. There is nothing in my history on wikipedia to indicate that I act out vendettas. Morton has now followed up with some more unfounded observations; see my reply. I expect support in maintaining standards. I am not particularly interested in pursuing the PA business right now, but I am interested in getting rid of blatant provocation on his user pages. It is completely inappropriate for a user to choose a group of people they dislike and use wiki space to ridicule them. It is divisive and completely counter to building a harmonious community. I expect your support on insisting that user space is not abused in this fashion. Tyrenius 20:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

He appears to be removing potentially offenive commentary .--MONGO 20:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

So he made an edit that was true but uncited, and included it everywhere Jones' qualifications as a BYU physics professor were mentioned. You post on the notice board saying this was vandalism, plus his user page is disrespectful to conspiracists and the memory of Che Guevara. And on top of that, Morton fails to assume good faith about your actions. Did you post here to have your admin actions reviewed, or to request some admin action against Morton?

I am on a campaign against conspiracy theories myself; I actively oppose conspiracy theorists using Misplaced Pages to boot-strap themselves to legitimacy. Conspiracists use a flawed methodology to arrive at their conclusions(at best; often they just spew innuendo). Saying so, and saying so in article space, makes Misplaced Pages a better encyclopedia. This can be done because there is an extensive academic literature on the subject. Presenting this nonsense as just another legitimate point of view that any reasonable man might hold is like defending sophists, or marketeers, or deconstructionists. Tom Harrison 20:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

As Morton felt persecuted by me, I didn't think it was fair to carry on engaging directly with him at that point, and wished to give him the benefit of wider discussion. I posted both so that my actions could be discussed and also for admin action to address anything necessary.

I am sure that maintaining adherence to wiki policies of NPOV and VERIFY will allow readers to gain the facts to make their own judgement. The less involved an editor is with the issues, the better this can be achieved. Pejorative language and a priori attitudes towards any subject are best avoided as much as possible. It also makes collegiality hard to achieve. We have to respect that people hold beliefs sincerely, even if we disagree with them or are sure they are flawed. There is no harm in being polite and refraining from being openly contemptuous to others or using scornful language. The truth will out in these matters.

Morton is showing goodwill by removing the photo captions, and I think this is a good solution. I have made my points, and have no wish to take the matter further.

Tyrenius 21:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I suppose I feel compelled to respond here, although I really hate these things. I’ve seen the edits that Tom Harrison made to Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center with respect to Steven Jones, and I like his version much better. Thanks. Also, I have taken into account the suggestions some of you have made, and have altered my user and sub-user pages accordingly. I decline to get into a content war with Admins. I apologize for being direct, but being an American, that’s my way: I don’t wish to be involved in continued sessions of dialogue, and choose to disengage to calm things. I hope that you will respect that. Cheers, and happy editing! Morton devonshire 21:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Massive IP spambot attack

Per all of the wonders of RC Patrolling, I managed to gather up this list of an active dynamic spambot. There is obviously something else at work here, than the simple spambot if it went across that many ranges in less than one hour. Ryūlóng 08:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to note that one of them did turn out to be an open proxy (according to CSCWEM's block summary); perhaps the others are as well? Ryūlóng 08:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

A partially complete list is as follows:

• 68.3.184.185 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 69.223.144.41 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 71.233.7.55 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 24.46.117.2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 68.226.184.19 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 69.232.175.98 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 69.223.144.41 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 67.38.244.244 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 68.102.71.108 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 24.111.81.246 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 172.180.99.13 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 67.168.96.59 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

--Ryūlóng 08:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I've also tried to list the domain of the spambot to the Meta-Wiki blacklist. Ryūlóng 08:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Blacklisted allln.com. MaxSem 11:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Happens frequently. I overheard that certain things like using a div of display=none is actually blocked off, to cut down on the number of spambots hitting stuff. These things hit sites all over the internet, and wikipedia's just the lateast one. Most of them are probably zombie computers too. Ever searched google for a particular phrase involving sseason in 2005? Kevin_b_er 15:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Finally

I finally figured it out. Look, before we start anything else, I'm not a troll or a sock. I do honestly love the admins that are here and I want to show gratitude towards them by showing how incredibly awesome they are. I thought about it real hard the last few days, but I think Alphachimp, Crzrussian, Yanksox, and Tyrenius are like the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. They will kick yo ass and you won't know what happened. Of course, this leaves the opening for Bill. I think it's pretty damn obvious who Bill is, none other than Samir. Yatuern 11:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• This sort of accusation needs to be backed up with evidence. You appear to hold the very same opinion as a banned user, so it's logical for people to assume you're a meat puppet or sockpuppet. Instead of posting this and getting yourself banned again, try going about it the correct way. - Mgm| 11:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

See Yanksox is awesome and similar articles for the other admins involved. Am deleting them as they don't belong in the article space. - Mgm| 11:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Yatuern has spammed this message across multiple pages and reported himself to AIV after he was done. I blocked him for spamming, trolling, sockpuppetry (and by his own request). - Mgm| 11:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Excellent response. It's nice to know that we have fans. alphaChimp 12:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll be Vivica! - CrazyRussian talk/email 14:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The timing of Reterole's account creation and unblock request is slightly suspicious, but seeing as 192.138.214.102 (talk • contribs • WHOIS • block user • block log) is a SharedIPEDU belonging to Suffolk University, I've had to lift it on good faith. So be aware of any further vandalism and sockpuppetry from Yatuern and co. --  Netsnipe  ►  19:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

(sigh)This is all rather thrilling... Yanksox 04:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Abu badali

I believe User:Abu badali is unfairly harrassing me! He continually is retagging my images and listing them for deletion. After a big discussion, the fair use images probably should (or will be, anyway) be deleted. But now, I think he is unfairly targeting the images that I upload just because I argued with him. And the new images I uploaded were created by me anyway, so he has no right to retag them as not being created by me. Please, I need some help in dealing with him. Thank You. - Ivan Kricancic 12:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you please point to an image or two which were marked by this user but for which you provided all the necessary information? Or are you saying that he is marking images which are missing this information? If the latter, the way to stop this from happening would be to provide all the necessary information and this would not really be grounds for a complaint. --Yamla 15:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a continuation from an early incident in which Ivan asked for administrative assistance. Some people do not agree with Abu's tagging, while it seems it does follow policy. I would have hoped after the issue comnig to AN/I that Abu would have ceased interacting with Ivan as it was clear Ivan felt it was malicious, however during the AN/I discussion it seems Abu went ahead and kept filing for Ivan's image uploads to be deleted. It seems to be at the very least a bad judgement call and did no good in helping to difuse the situation or ease a fellow editors worries. If Abu is randomly going through the list of images that needs tagging and finding Ivan's I guess that is fine, however if he went through Ivan's contribs to find image uploads then that may be a different issue. --NuclearUmpf 16:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Abu Badali is asking legitimate questions about the gfd-self tags on images such as Image:Sfxycwncgm.jpg. He's doing so very politely, too, given the circumstances. Ivan, if you would show a little cooperation and provide more information about these photographs — such as when they were taken and the reason that they have ink patterns similar to newspaper print — then we could all move on. Your talk page is the correct place for this discussion (outside of WP:PUI); please do not delete AB's posts there as "harassment" . ×Meegs 19:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Abu badali is unfairly targeting me. Polite or not, it is still harrassment; if I politely asked a girl if I could touch her ass, it would still be harrassment. I want nothing more to do with Abu badali, as he just serves to irritate, frustrate and drive peopel away from contributing to Misplaced Pages. If i see his posts as harrassment, I will delete them. - Ivan Kricancic 09:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

We got thousands of image upload each day. Many of these are copyright infringements. There is a small number of people who understand the copyright laws, wikipedia copyright policy, the tools we have to facilitate the dealings with the images. Some of them devoted most of their effort to the unthankful job of sorting the images. Sometimes they are named the image police. Sometimes they are rude, but we can not live without them. Please do not make their life more difficult by harassing them, just provide the necessary info and try to be nice and maybe they will be nice in return. Unfortunately the demand for Abu Badali to leave you along is similar to the demand to traffic policeman to leave you alone. It would never happen. abakharev 09:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

User:FCYTravis

This administrator is abusing his privileges and using his status to advance his own POV. For example, if you go to Advocates For Children in Therapy you will see he continues to change the edits of others. In that dispute, he has be uncivil, edited the page when it was blocked, ignored two polls in which he was the only one opposed to the changes, and 'refused' mediation. This is not the example that an administrator should set! If you check his talk page you will find may complaints by many others regarding a variety of pages on which he has acted without regard to Misplaced Pages policy...or claims to act in accord with it, but a reading of the poliy shows that he is only enforcing his biased interpretation. If you need specific page and other citations, let me know and I will provide those. For example, if you go to the talk page for SamDavidson you will see that FCYTravis calls him a meat puppet and claims Misplaced Pages policy in support of that; despite the fact that a reading of the policy shows that to be in accurate. RalphLender 13:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This should go to dispute resolution, not here. I'm going to move this thread somewhere else if no one screams in the next five minutes. - brenneman 14:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I support the claim that user FCYTravis has been most difficult and has even created edit wars. Where is "dispute resolution?" I'd like to follow this. DPeterson 20:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Requests for Comment/Administrators (the first step) is thataway. FCYTravis 20:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

MODEM

ARTICLE: MODEM

UNDER SECTION: SMARTMODEM: A SECTION OF GIBBERISH HAS BEEN INSERTED. I HAVE NEVER EDITED BEFORE. I WONDER IF SOMEONE WOULD LIKE TO EDIT.

RICHARD.

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Misplaced Pages is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Misplaced Pages community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. --ais523 14:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

(I have removed the vandalism anyway.) --ais523 14:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Muhammadhani

User has been warned repeatedly about submitting copyrighted information, and continues to do after my personalized warning. -- Merope 15:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

More information: This user is persistently creating articles that are copyvios. He has four {{nothanks-sd}} warnings, two {{nothanks}} warnings, and one warning from me asking him to stop copying and pasting content. Since that warning from me, he has created one more copyvio article. He's also doing something extremely strange: he's copying existing Misplaced Pages articles (e.g., Hub Power Company) and creating new articles with the word "Limited" appended to it (Hub Power Company Limited) even if that's not the name of the company. I can't remember, but I don't think that Misplaced Pages policy uses "Limited" or "Inc" in the titles of articles, but even still, he should be creating redirects. (I mean, he clearly knows those articles exists, since he copied them, formatting and all.) Nearly all of his edits are copying and pasting material (either copyrighted or from other WP articles). Since repeated warnings have not worked, perhaps a 24 hour ban? -- Merope 19:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

User:65.35.27.83

65.35.27.83 (talk • contribs • WHOIS) appears from editing history to be User:Edward Saint-Ivan who is currently indefinitely blocked for using sock puppets and adding irrelevant information about himself to articles that are tangentially connected to himself, which he's up to again. Looking back, I'd say the entire edit history of this IP is the same person. JulesH 16:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

User:203.219.181.10

203.219.181.10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

This IP appears to be a static IP that has been used nearly exclusively over the course of several years for vandalism, nonsense edits, and grafitti. This IP should be blocked, and in any case shouldn't be receiving test1 and test0 warnings. In August, I added the vandalism watch template to the top of the talk page in the hopes that editors reverting vandalism would notice that it is a persistent case of vandalism, but the user continues to receive "don't do it again or else" warnings, which are of course ignored. Neil916 (Talk) 17:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I added the {{repeat vandal}} template to the page, for what it's worth, at least people can't miss it. Equendil Talk 18:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Legal threats

Are regular users allowed to remove legal threats from the talk pages per WP:LEGAL? There's an IP address editor throwing around legal threats on the Talk: St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine page -- can I just delete them, or does an admin need to do it? Thanks, TheronJ 16:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Best leave it there, it's not technically legal threat, and it'll die on its own. Equendil Talk 17:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy/Simplified

Please look over Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy/Simplified. It should have pretty much the content of the present blocking policy, refactored to be more readable and usable as a practical guide to admins, particularly new ones. Discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Blocking policy#Refactored_blocking_policy - David Gerard 16:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Hiding facts about admin conduct

A group of admins wants to hide facts about their conduct. They abuse privileges and then if someone reports these, they wanna delete the report. Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Tobias Conradi/admin right abuse Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This kind of worries me and I think a policy needs to be made regarding gathering of information. As a previous debate raged here earlier I think you have to tag the page as the start of an RfC or something to the liking. I think users shouldnt keep "attack" pages but I think we need to draw a clear line eventually as to what constitutes one. Considering the information is sourced with dif's I dont think its really an attack page. --NuclearUmpf 16:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Also not kind of worried about the offsite communication as numerous voters are not MfD regulars yet have found themselves to that page to vote, all being admins listed on the page. Perhaps we just need a page where people can post stuff like this for review by the community or something. --NuclearUmpf 16:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

There are legitimate concerns on both sides of the issue... on the one hand suppression of dissent and on the other possible aggravation caused by being included on such a list. As such, I'd suggest we encourage people to keep such lists privately 'off wiki' for future reference and express dissent in written form rather than as a list of disputed actions. Some sort of consistent response to these would be a good idea though since it comes up fairly often. --CBD 19:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The "aggravation" stems from the admins actions. Nobody is included there id he did not violate policies. If someone has killed someone, well you can decide to mark him on the forehead as former killer or not. You can also go and say, we keep it only in an archive, and don't mark the forehead. What I see here is a perpatuation of a two class WP society. The admins can leave there markers on other peoples forehead, whether valid or not. But regular editors can't even collect evidence about the admins. I lately was denied AWB access by User:Winhunter, who still did not point me to the corresponding policy as I did request. Furthermore admins are free to alter my comments and if I revert can come in and put officiall warnings on my talk and point me to 3RR. Yes they are three, I am one. So 3RR is very easy deal for them, right? This is mega corruptive. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

"Mega Corruptive" would be a great name for an industrial band. And as far as I can make out, AWB use is left to administrative discretion. --InShaneee 20:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Gathering data is good. Disrupting is bad. If people complain why not move it offsite? At least temporarily? Willingness to play well with others says more than any analysis of the content. WAS 4.250 19:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know how this data collection page is disrupting. Offsite? Hey, how shall this be done? I have the FF browser and the wikipedia server. That's it. Shall I move it to meta? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking Geocities would probably be a better idea. --InShaneee 20:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Claiming "OMG ADMIN ABUSE" is disruption in and of itself, as is complaining "The MfD isn't going my way". --InShaneee 19:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not think this is complaining about a MfD but about the proccess being undertaken to eliminate information from Misplaced Pages that normally would not be removed. People have half completed RfC's all over Misplaced Pages and I doubt any admins are specifically hunting them down. However since an admin who is on the list found this it got sent to MfD. I believe this came up earlier and was stated that pages like this needed to be tagged as RfC's in proccess or something similar. As for disruption I don't really see how its disrupting anythnig if someone would have never taken it to MfD in the first place and left it alone. Perhaps if he moves it and removes the wiki-linking of names that will help, then noone will stumble on it? --NuclearUmpf 19:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Regardless, the MfD is proceeding, so this is not the place to complain about its validity. --InShaneee 20:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This is actually the place to complain about admins abusing procedure, especially if its seen as being done to cover up their own issues of the past. Since this user is asking for admin assistance regarding an incident, I really do not see a better place. --NuclearUmpf 20:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

...Except that no administrative actions have occured here. Anyone could have nominated that page for deletion, and anyone still can vote. --InShaneee 21:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This user has copied the entire contents of the abuse page, word for word onto the MFD. I replaced it with a link (note it is already linked at the top) and he reverted. It is a complete duplication of the abuse page and a link would be better to include as there is no point posting the same information over and over again. I won't revert again since I'm obviously one of the abusive admins, but for the sake of clarity and readability and just plain common sense, can someone please remove the duplicate material and replace it with a link? pschemp | talk 19:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

the fact that I copied it to the MfD, is that the orig may be altered. I have an updated version on my user page now. So I really would like to know which of the facts are wrong on the original page. That's why I copied it. Annotations can also be made better if the stuff is copied. Please go and say what is not violation of policies. Golbez who brought this to MfD right now, has done so only after he abused again. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, it isn't admin abuse to want a readable page without the same exact information as the page proposed for deletion pasted in there again. I'm writing this now because I fully expect someone to come along and tell me that removing duplicate information and repleacing it with a link to the exact same information is harassment. Which it isn't. The whole point here isn't whether it is true or not. No one is going to go through and annotate anything. This issue is whether its appropriate to be sitting around in an encyclopedia. pschemp | talk 20:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

ZOMG wikiadmin conspiracyz!!!11one Danny Lilithborne 20:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Please do not troll here, your comments are not helpful in difusing the current situation. --NuclearUmpf 20:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This situation is not helpful for Misplaced Pages, and my comment was no more harmful than much of the nonsense being passed around in this discussion. Danny Lilithborne 00:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not really sure what you mean by this situation. A user/editor believes they are being targetted by admins who are attempting to hide information ... this situation is indeed not helpful at all. The more thought out response would be to explore the allegations not make trollish comments. Attempting to debase the conversation really serves no purpose to easing the editors feelings or solving their complaint. --NuclearUmpf 00:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Putting an entire page that is up for MfD ON the MfD is just NOT our practice. Tobias has inserted it three times already, and it has been removed by three different discussion participants. I've warned him to be careful of 3rr. In my view he's in violation in spirit already. ++Lar: t/c 20:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Are they all admins, are they all people voting delete? I mean if they are you would see why according to this discussion he all see's them as one. If people who are on this list are removing it then ... well it kinda goes toward his point, not that I agree. I just think he should keep the page without the wiki-linking so noone can claim they stumbled on it or its distracting anyone, and he should tag it as a future RfC. --NuclearUmpf 20:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course it makes his point for him...but only for people willing to believe in the Secret Admin Cabal(tm). And opinions about the fate of the MfD belong on the MfD. --InShaneee 20:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not going to argue this point with you, but the information has already been immortalized in the MfD log now, so whatever was attempting to be accomplished is now really moot. The discussion here is about admins deleting pages that contain misdeeds. As for Secret Admin Cabals, if you do not believe any admin would work with another admin for a negative purpose then you probably do not believe in meat puppets either or two users working to circumvent 3RR. Same principle, not every admin has to be stewing over a bubbling cauldron plotting world domination for their to be an issue. --NuclearUmpf 20:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well now. As far as I can tell the mature response to the original request here was "fuck off, troll". Everything since has been nothing more than gratifying the troll's ego and providing more comfort for those who wish to see Misplaced Pages reduced to anarchy. Jaded? You betcha. Guy 23:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Is this responding to me? If not please refactor your comments. I am not sure who here has said "fuck off, troll" or anything else in your post. If you are in fact jaded then you may want to take a step back and lower your wiki stress levels for everyones benefit. --NuclearUmpf 00:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter who Guy was addressing the comments to. That is obviously egregious incivility and personal attack and serves only to promote "anarchy". Guy, if you are that stressed take a break from whatever it is that is causing you grief. It's a big wiki and there is always something else to do. --CBD 11:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

For the record:

• 2006-09-24 12:52 User:Golbez starts MfD Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Tobias Conradi/admin right abuse
• MfD says: Items sent here are usually discussed for eight days
• 2006-09-25 23:35 User:Alkivar (Talk | contribs) deleted "User:Tobias Conradi/admin right abuse" (*poof*... and in a flash it was gone)

Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

"Usually" != "Always" ... Tell you what, Tobias. As was suggested before, if you want to start an RfC, a mediation request, an RfAr, or any other of our normal dispute resolution mechanisms, where rules of fairness and civility apply, everyone that is involved can give their views, and if you're willing to abide by the results of that dispute resolution process... I'll undelete the page for you and put it in one of those places, Just decide which, and say when, and I will be happy to help. But if you want to maintain a biased screed with no chance for anyone else to reply or rebut, and maintain it indefinitely, well... maybe you will find it a bit harder to get someone to help you. ++Lar: t/c 18:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I support the page being poof'd and keeping it poof'd. The page served no legitimate purpose on the project. Take it to MySpace. FeloniousMonk 18:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The page should not have been deleted out of proccess. That is my only complaint. Its funny that an admin would do that when the issue is brought up that they may be trying to hide information, then delete the page when its on MfD. --NuclearUmpf 19:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Edits on Front organization

We've recently had some problems on Front organization, where an anon user edited the article and almost turned the ensuing revert war into a 3RR violation, leaving personal attacks in their edit summaries. The user's motives were then supported by a newly-created account (User:NoLongerScieno), who was immediately blocked by Naconkantari for sockpuppetry. The user then came onto the #wikipedia IRC channel, yelling about the block and saying that he wasn't guilty of any sockpuppetry, despite the fact that his IP was in the same subnet as the anonymous editor. The user was then kickbanned from the channel, then immediately messaged me (I had been trying to resolve the problem), lying about the kick reason and forging messages from the channel operator who banned the user. No harm came out of this, but now the page in question has been protected, and I'm concerned that the user might be using User:Blainetologist to evade the block. Any ideas? Shadow1 17:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest a WP:RFCU. Naconkantari 18:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, I don't think an anon user getting an account really counts as sockpuppetry. Unless he then denies it.

User GreekWarrior

GreekWarrior (talk • contribs) was blocked for six months some time back (28 Jan per Tony Sidaway's comments on user's talk page). If the intention of the block was to produce a change in behaviour, it evidently didn't work. Today we have the editor trolling on Talk:Armenian Genocide (diff), attacking User:Adam Carr (diff), and trolling again (diff). Per this diff, the editor is editing anonymously as 86.140.42.192 (talk • contribs) and probably as 86.143.173.80 (talk • contribs). Some people never learn, and this appears to be one of them. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well he admitted to be using sockpuppets and his language is already looking to foreshadow some disruption - I'd support indefinite blocking him and blocking those IPs if they appear to continue through his block again. Cowman109 21:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I proposed a community permanent ban originally but this was rejected because it appeared that, at the time, he was interested in contributing and he was producing good work, albeit his anti-Muslim or anti-Turkish edits were beyond what can ever be accepted. Well if he has returned and started disrupting, I propose again that we ban him from Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway 16:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I also note that GW had the explicit opportunity to be unblocked if he promised to (and followed through with) avoid personal attacks, edit warring, and other disruptive behavior. Instead, he chose to wait out the block, possibly using sockpuppets. If he had any intention of reforming, he didn't have to wait 6 months to do so. Powers 16:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I may have been waay off base here but nevertheless, we shall hopefully soon see Glen 18:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Anon vandalism at Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005

An anonymous user keeps inserting "Piss Christ" at the above page. He makes no attempt to justify its relevance in talk, and I have removed it several times. He is operating as 67.175.216.90 (talk · contribs) and 66.209.214.23 (talk · contribs); according to the talk page for the second IP he has done this to numerous other pages too. Samples of his vandalism are here and here. There does not appear to be anyone else using the IP address.--csloat 20:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Try posting this to Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism instead. --InShaneee 20:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Suspicious uploads by Alex43223

I stumbled across the contributions of Alex43223 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) while clearing out CAT:CSD (seems to be a good way to find these cases). He's been around for a while, and has uploaded quite a few images. Many have been deleted, for various reasons, mostly just for being orphaned fair use images. Several have also had their status questioned for various reasons, such as for lacking sources or for having unlikely license claims or otherwise being suspicous, but have been kept after an explanation has been provided.

However, the more I look into the situation, the fishier it all looks to me. Here are some examples of his uploads that seem particularly odd, in rough chronological order:

• Image:Jgarner9.jpg: First uploaded with a {{NoRightsReserved}} tag and the summary "Jennifer Garner in Daredevil". After tagging was disputed by Yamla, Alex43223 reuploaded a different photo over it, stating "There was a mistake in the original copy of this photo. I acquired it from a source that claimed all rights had been released. I found out that this was not true, therefore I changed the file to a press release photo." and changed the tag to {{PromoPhoto}}. In fact, he uploaded two new versions — the first one having the text "www.comicscontinuum.com" on it, while the second one had the text cropped off. Despite this, he later changed the image description to read "Press release photo of Jennifer Garner at an awards show. It was given to me while on the red carpet at the Golden Globe Awards 2005. It was given out freely." (Compare with Alexavega1.jpg below!) The image was later deleted as an orphan fair use image.

• Image:Jerryyang.JPG: Uploaded with a {{PD}} tag. When the copyright status is questioned by Water Bottle, an anon pops up on the talk page with the statement "hey alex43223 i kno i told u in da letter dat da pic wuz not copyrightted, but i lied!!!!" Picture is then deleted. (I suppose I should assume good faith here, but it does feel a bit suspicious given the other cases.)

• Image:Prisonbars.PNG: First uploaded in 30 December 2005 as {{CopyrightedFreeUse}}. After source was requested by Admrboltz, retagged as {{GFDL-self}} with the comment "I created this on my home computer". (Note: The image has since been moved to Commons and deleted locally.) Nothing particularly suspicious here, except that none of the user's other uploads show such artistic skills, and that I can find several quite similar images on the web, all clearly derived from a common source, presumably from a clip art package somewhere.

• Image:Muirfield cap1.jpg: Claimed to be own work, but first version has "Photo by Jim Mandeville" written on it. Second version uploaded with the summary "First image was copyrighted and wrong one. This is the correct one which I took myself." — but it's the exact same image, cropped to hide the text. You can even see the bottom of the letter "y" at the top of the cropped version. (If Alex43223 is in fact Jim Mandeville, who seems to be a professional photographer, I can't find any evidence for it. If he was, you'd think he'd mention it on his user page, given what a useful venue for promoting his work it'd be.)

Image was taken from nicklaus.com, reported with {{imagevio}}. Equendil Talk 22:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Image:Alexavega1.jpg: Originally uploaded with the summary "This was a photo taken at the Teen Choice Awards - 7/2/2003. It was recieved openly as part of a press kit (taken by the press), and was included in the advertising for the event afterwards." After Abu badali pointed out that it was taken from (page number corrected in link), Alex43223 responds with "The one on the stated website is obviously taken by a different camera or was given as a violation of copyright." — despite the fact that the third image on the page (thumbnail; the 400px version is no longer avaliable for free) is the exact same shot. Deleted after languishing on WP:CP.

• Image:072406111853 vcsboxart.jpg: Originally uploaded by OSX and credited to GTAPortable.com. Reuploaded by Alex43223 with the summary "Scanned this in myself". However, the two versions are pixel-to-pixel identical except that the latter has a different rating label photoshopped onto it. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you — but why lie in the upload summary, then? This one's just weird.

There are also some more straighforward copyvio cases (like Image:Aps1.JPG) in the user's upload history. Any advice on how I should proceed with this? I'm not quite sure where the best place to discuss such cases is, so I'm posting this here, in the hope that it'll get at least some attention from people with more experience with such things than I am. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It is hard to tell if this user is deliberately inserting false information or just simply does not understand what is required. The best way to deal with this is with warnings (many have been already given) and then an escalating series of blocks. 24 hours, 48 hours, a week, etc. --Yamla 21:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Kehrli ban enforcement

The recently closed arbitration case Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Kehrli found that "1.1) Kehrli (talk · contribs) is banned for one year from articles which relate to m/z." It has come to my attention that Kehrli has violated the ban. Since enforcement is an administrative process, and not an arbitrator one, can I ask for some admins to look into this? Thanks. Dmcdevit·t 22:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours for violating article ban by editing Mass-to-charge ratio and M/z --FloNight 23:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Problem finding autoblock

I'm having problems finding an autoblock that is blocking User:Agr723. The block was initially placed on User:Js2Jo. This user is trying to edit from 205.188.116.137. I know how to find autoblocks, I'm just not turning anything up in this case. I certainly placed the block on Js2Jo but there does not seem to be any outstanding autoblocks. Nor on the IP address. If someone could find out what's going on and unblock Agr723, I'm sure he'd much appreciate it. --Yamla 23:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Ugh... AOL proxies. That's your problem. I believe the following is to be used: Js2Jo(Autoblocks • block log). Ryūlóng 23:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I have one word for you, Yamal, "n00b" HP 50g 00:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Hp 50, I'm going to have to point out to you that Misplaced Pages is not a game, please be civil.--Konstable 05:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

If you were using the toolserver autoblock script then because of some downtime that wasn't being updated for quite a few hours, I've just restarted it. --pgk 06:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I'M GOING TO SUE USER JOSHUA 316!! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I don't think it's serious. I'm pretty sure it's just a guy in my neighborhood we call "Bobo" who's hassling me and my friends again. Could someone please tell him to stop being a jerk. Thanks.Joshua316 00:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, it seems more of a username violation anyway. Recommend implementation of WP:USERNAME actions prescribed for these situations (in short, blocking?}. --physicq210 01:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, he/she/it is now indef blocked. --physicq210 01:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Request granted HP 50g 01:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, an edit summery you made, "Go away, Bobo. You know my dad's a magistrate and would never let this suit get off the ground." is not appropiate. I kindly ask you two, to take your legal hassling somewhere else. HP 50g 01:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Britain vs England

Several dynamic IPs are making POV pushing edits (changing Britain to England) on several biographies of British celebrities including Keeley Hazell and The Stone Roses and many others (see history for both). Any suggestions to stop the vandalism?--Bonafide.hustla 01:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• I've come across this in articles about people who aren't even English at all. In some places England is used as a synonym for Great Britain or the UK. I'd try informing them about the difference first. - Mgm| 08:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Anon user 82.32.80.231

I'm posting this here as it doesn't seem urgent per the instructions at WP:AIV.

82.32.80.231 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

This IP address has been used to make a grand total of 16 edits, all in the last 2 months. Every edit appears to be related to "Jack Andrews" and appears to me to be vandalism. The user seems to have been adequately warned and appears to me to be someone who is just here to cause problems. --After Midnight 02:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• With such a long time between edits, a block is unlikely to affect them. Please keep an eye on him so we can react immediately if they post again, or add the IP to User:MacGyverMagic/Watch (bottom of first list) and mention this discussion in your edit summary. - Mgm| 08:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

New account created by blocked user

I was perusing the user creation blog and noticed the following:

"03:01, 26 September 2006 Asdon (Talk | contribs) created new account User:Hicking"

Asdon's user page notes:

"This user has been blocked indefinitely from editing Misplaced Pages."

--A. B. 03:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

However, Asdon was never blocked. I don't know why the {{indefblocked}} template is there though. --physicq210 03:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Update:

• User:Prolfain wuhhd... added the notice.
• Check out User talk:Prolfain wuhhd... -- has had warnings
• Prolfain wuhhd... is now blocked

--A. B. 03:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

This is our friend in North Carolina. He just dropped a note on my talk page asking me to help. I think he is genuinely "trying" to give up the vandalism habit, but doesn't quite get it, i.e. is not taking full responsibility for his actions, and is failing to recognize the harm he's done. Since I'm disinclined to be his babysitter at the moment I'm ignoring him for the time being, but do as you please. By the way there are probably at least a hundred "sleeper" socks of his around such as the one you found, and the one that moved his own MFD page just now. Antandrus (talk) 03:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Some other personas I found; some have been addressed by admins, others have not:

• JacksonHaus (talk · contribs · block log)
• Ti Exi Yexyes (talk · contribs · block log)
• A Texas Guy (talk · contribs · block log)
• Robotic Power (talk · contribs · block log)
• 2005 glens (talk · contribs · block log)
• Snuffbandit (talk · contribs · block log)
• Mr. Remington (talk · contribs · block log)
• Hirschten (talk · contribs · block log)
• Shrembble (talk · contribs · block log)
• Wentvo Ede (talk · contribs · block log)
• Seeksee (talk · contribs · block log)
• 194.247.241.29 (talk · contribs · block log) (maybe, maybe not)
• Hacl the Boar (talk · contribs · block log)
• Country Jeb!! (talk · contribs · block log)
• Hoki Joinhouse (talk · contribs · block log)
• Birbirbir (talk · contribs · block log)
• UEL (talk · contribs · block log)
• Madvac (talk · contribs · block log)
• Geezers (talk · contribs · block log)
• Doggy-teddy (talk · contribs · block log)
• Dirkenstein (talk · contribs · block log)
• Brockingham (talk · contribs · block log)
• -----------------Reidsville--------------- (talk · contribs · block log)
• Jake Mayo-Dan (talk · contribs · block log)
• Oteraham (talk · contribs · block log)
• Ohadi (talk · contribs · block log)
• Kevin tapp (talk · contribs · block log)
• Jonesville (talk · contribs · block log)
• Kinokos (talk · contribs · block log)
• Shinigan Hill (talk · contribs · block log)
• February 2004 (talk · contribs · block log)
• Kundermyst (talk · contribs · block log)
• Swashbuckling beer (talk · contribs · block log)
• Dark fire (talk · contribs · block log)
• Horginhuvin (talk · contribs · block log)
• Wentworth Jed (talk · contribs · block log)
• Swanierra Mo (talk · contribs · block log)
• RCRCRCM (talk · contribs · block log)
• Larry the Cable Quinn (talk · contribs · block log)
• Zecholikni100 (talk · contribs · block log)
• Wozwu (talk · contribs · block log)
• Scrantotandus (talk · contribs · block log)
• 63.19.155.51 (talk · contribs · block log)
• Davie County (talk · contribs · block log)
• Alfred Burns (talk · contribs · block log)
• Cfuller43 (talk · contribs · block log) (maybe, maybe not)
• Quahog Guy (talk · contribs · block log)

I’ve run out of time to do anymore digging on this one.--A. B. 04:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Spamming for DRV

User:Kappa has been doing a great deal of internal spamming / votestacking related to Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2006 September 22#Finger Lakes Christian School as seen here and here . --After Midnight 03:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Holy Moly, that's alot of messages in a short amount of time. I'm dropping a message. Yanksox 03:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

He seems to have stopped for now. I will make a note if he starts up again. JoshuaZ 04:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I rolled them back: Aside from the spam of it, he accidentally put all of these talk pages in a category, and half of the users haven't edited for months. —Centrx→talk • 04:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Did Kappa only post to a specific type of contributor to influence the result or did he inform everyone who was previously involved in it some way. As long as such a mass mailing has a fair chance at backfiring because he also contacted interested deletionists, I wouldn't oppose it. - Mgm| 08:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  • He only contacted inclusionists and did so specifically using the category in question. He says so in the message. He also refused to consider contacting anyone but inclusionists. See his talk page. JoshuaZ 12:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
    • All I know is I "voted" to delete in the AfD, and no one was coming to my talk page to let me know about the DRV. At any rate, as far as I know we've never come close to establishing that "vote spamming" or what have you by itself is actually anything blockable... not really sure what intervention is required here from admins. --W.marsh 13:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• That DRV needs to be closed and rerun without the spam. And Kappa needs to be trout-slapped. Guy 14:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• I'll take "Reasons DRV needs to move to a consensus-based model" for $400, Alex. DRV's the only place that vote-stacking would theoretically work, being the only pure straight-vote process on WP. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Or we could just, you know, suppress vote-stacking. Oh wait, WE ALREADY DO THAT. I'll take "Process wanking" for $100, Alex. --Calton | Talk 14:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Trans25

Is this someone's sockpuppet? I rolled back their first two edits ever here. An attempt to sabotage an RfA like this is very odd. I just left a blatant vandal warning. Grandmasterka 05:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I just went ahead blocked indef after the user removed my warning. This is too strange. Comments? Grandmasterka 05:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• I've tried checking further back. Are you 100% sure they didn't revert some blanking without mentioning it in their edit summary? If not, that block is fine. Posting comments using someone else's signature is something I have an absolute zero-tolerance for. - Mgm| 08:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  • It's a clear case of vandalism - compare the date when the adminship nomination started with the dates of the comments. Obviously, the user has copied them from another user's RfA. - Mike Rosoft 11:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

user KrishnaVindaloo

The user KrishnaVindaloo (talk • contribs) isn't playing real nice at the vitalism page. anyone want to check his patterns? and take action, if necessary. I don't consider his editing as a contribution the health and spirit of wikipedia. --RealDefender 06:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Cursory examination doesn't reveal anything untoward in this user's edits. Care to be more specific? - brenneman 08:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

This is clearly unacceptable, adding the dominant scientific point of view into an article by reference to a Nobel laureate. Shouldn't be allowed. Guy 13:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

That's not a very good edit, no, but the big picture looks a bit different to me, Guy. KrishnaVindaloo is perhaps expressing understandable frustration with the argumentative POV which I notice holds this article hostage. A frustration which I see he has properly explained on the talkpage, only to have it rudely dismissed. RealDefender, you seem strikingly knowledgeable about the nooks and crannies and jargon of Misplaced Pages, for somebody making his seventh edit ever. (Click on that, dear reader, the edit summaries are interesting in themselves.) Please remember the basic rule of the encyclopedia, RealDefender: Misplaced Pages:consensus doesn't trump WP:NPOV. I think I'll put Vitalism on my watchlist, and I hope a few others here do the same. Bishonen | talk 15:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC).

Search engines catching protected pages

I have received a complaint from Josh Humphries that the deleted page "Josh humphries is clearly GAY" has apeared among the top Google results for his name. I don't think anything can be done about it now, but for the next time: when you protect a page with an offensive/attack title against re-creation by vandals, be careful to delete it after a few days before the search engines and/or Misplaced Pages forks catch it. - Mike Rosoft 08:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

There is an interface to Google that allows removing individual pages from the cache. I don't have the link here, sry. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a broader issue, maybe we need a "temporarilly protected" template in addition to the longer-term {{deleted}}. The short term one could be deleted after 48 hours or so... just used to stop a vandal on a creation spree (which as I recall does happen quite a bit). Being vigilant is a good idea in the meantime though, but mistakes are always going to happen. --W.marsh 13:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I submitted the request, it my take a while to be actioned. Guy 13:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, it can be removed from the cache (which is really not the point because the cached version only contains the {{deletedpage}} notice) - but can it be removed from the Google results? - Mike Rosoft 19:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Anon user 141.213.210.108

This user, from his edits, is almost certainly a sockpuppet of indefinitely blocked user:LaGrange.--Brownlee 14:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

J.D. Salinger requesting semi-protection

The J.D. Salinger (history) article has been the subject of repeated petty vandalism by anon IPs since the begining of August but especially since the start of September. Some of the vandalism has been more serious including on particluar unsourced claim about Salinger's sex life entered in a (poorly written) article style (i.e not just the usual chants of "He's XXXX"). Because of WP:BLP these sorts of unsourced claims must be removed. But the constant petty vandalism makes it hardeer to stay on top of. The last time this particular claim was made it stayed in for 5 days before being caught.

Could we get the article semi-protected for a while? Thanks --Siobhan Hansa 16:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. Gwernol 16:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

209.18.49.15 need to be blocked

the ip 209.18.49.15 is a high school computer network IP, the network has over 500 computer. there has been over 79+ and counting each day.... vandalism that i could count. Student (at least from the school) should NOT be able to edite. (or at least not without an account)

--209.18.49.15 17:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Request block of 64.8.175.8

I would like to request the block of 64.8.175.8 for recent vandalism on the Calling shotgun page. Further, his/her contribution history makes it clear that this is a repeat offender that should possibly be banned. -- Drostie 17:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Are the vandalism rules being manipulated?

Take a look at this diff. The next diff on the article shows that in the same minute, the same user reverted his/her own edit. This isn't the first time I've seen this - maybe it's only coincidence, but perhaps it's getting more common.

Are users such as the one above aiming only to get their comments into the article histories, thereby avoiding vandalism warnings and possible banning, while knowing that their edit will remain pretty much unactioned forevermore, ever viewable in the history? --Crimsone 17:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Could be just a user experimenting with Misplaced Pages; this sort of thing happens all the time. If the user or IP doesn't have a history of vandalism; best is to put a {{test-self}} on their userpage. I just did for the diff you mention.

It should be noted that the inappropriate comment left in this case (calling Chris Moyles an obscenity) probably is not a legal issue (you can't sue someone for libel just because they call you naughty words); plus, old article versions aren't indexed/followed by search engines (at least those which pay attention to robots.txt).

--EngineerScotty 17:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Whenever I've seen it, I've assumed it's someone seeing if wiki really works, and, when they find out it does, deciding they don't want their comment their after all. It still needs "test" warning. It seems to occur with new users. Tyrenius 17:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Another plausible theory (I don't know if it applies in this case) is that the edits are being made by two different users behind one router, such as in the case of a school's computer lab. One person taps the other on the shoulder and says "heh, heh, look what I did", and the second person reverts it. Neil916 (Talk) 18:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

You know, for what it's worth, I haven't been doing as much RC Patrol as I used to, but in what I have done in the last week or so, I've issued an unusual amount of {{selftest}}s. Then again, if they are reverting it immediatly, I'd say it's less of a problem, if anything. --InShaneee 18:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Spam problem, a deletionist needed!

I was wondering whether or not to deal with this myself, but instead of spamming up CAT:CSD, decided to put it here instead.

Over 40 (possibly more by now) user/user_talk pages contain:

Misplaced Pages is great!

The best source of information. And it really is!

All these pages that link to the spam site click me. So I'd suggest blocking all these users, and speedy deleting all the pages that contain the link as they are obsolete and useless.

Of course, all the users which have placed the link is of course their only contributions.

I'd also suggest blacklisting the website. - http://meta.wikimedia.org/Spam_blacklist

Good luck!--Andeh 18:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Whoever the spammer is; he/she isn't going to get the affect she likes. I believe that URLs on user and talk pages are not indexed by search engines--all outbound links have the nofollow attribute set. Also, note that the site has been added to the blacklist; I've nowikid the URL above.--EngineerScotty 18:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Done, clean up is now over and pages deleted and spammers blocked. Might be able to find more about the spam via the remaining pages that link to the page.--Andeh 19:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Damn edit conflict - I blocked all (almost) the users and deleted all the pages (someone else got to a few before me! :D), so it should be gone now. Cowman109 19:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

ScienceApologist (talk · contribs) adding uncivil warning to user pages

I apologize. I listed this on the wrong board As a member of the Good Articles project, I left a notice on several current articles of a change in the good article criteria regarding the mandatory use of in-line citations and enhance attention to WP:V. A copy of what this notice is can be found here. Being the Good Article project, we obviously want articles to stay as GA and as such the notice was meant to make the editors aware of this change and possible improve the article prior to a reviewer coming and de-listing it. The User ScienceApologist has responded to this notice in a rather uncivil way, including adding a warning to my talk page about "hurting wikipedia". My first suspicion was that he simply misinterpreted the notice of a pending review as a review in itself and I sought to clarify that it wasn't. I even requested that he voluntarily remove the "warning" he placed on my page, however at this moment he hasn't. At this point, I am choosing to walk away from dealing with this user rather then contribute to the fair and possible become uncivil myself. I would, however, like an admin to consider this matter and remove the warning from my talk page and possibly give ScienceApologist a warning for being uncivil. His actions are rather counterproductive in building a quality encyclopedia. Thank you for your timeAgne 18:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Update. SA has removed the warning but I still would like some admin eyes on the matter, particularly if I acted inappropriatly-please let me know. Agne 18:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

This arises from you disputing Good Article's status, right? Your's is an objection no one seems to agree with looking at that page. You seem to being taking discussion there personally; don't. I don't see the issue here. FeloniousMonk 18:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

What's happened is that the Good Article criteria has changed recently, so users like Agne have been going around warning articles which don't comply with the new criteria, namely that in addition to being well-referenced, an article must have inline citations. So for instance, if you had an article which listed 25 books at the bottom and had no inline citations, its good article status would be forfeit, how is anybody supposed to know the article actually used those books as references or just pasted them on to make it look more authoritative? But anyway, Agne seems to of been warning a few articles which SA patrols, and SA seems to think Agne is just randomly complaining about articles or something, and it turned into an argument. Homestarmy 18:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Putting an uncivil (and frankly unfounded) warning on a users page is personal. As I explained to him, my role was a messenger in giving a notice of recent changes and a pending review. His accusations of being "vague" seemed to insinuate that he was interpreting the notice as being a review. Despite my attempts at clarifying this, he continues to accuse me of doing damage to the Misplaced Pages project with imprecise criticisms. The notice above linked to what the Good Article criteria was, where the change in criteria was discussed and more importantly pointed to expectations of WP:V and WP:CITE that the article will be held to for GA consideration. That was not vague and because I did not go through each and every article to give a full review prior to giving notice of an upcoming full review, does not mean I deserve such uncivil treatment from another editor. I took good faith that it was just a misunderstanding at first on his part but unfortunately, while grateful that he took down the warning, he is being persistant in my "damaging vagueness". Agne 18:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the idea about the necessity of in-line cites (even for textbook science, that's the point) is just plain stupid. Being attacked as a messenger can be prevented by not acting as messenger for stupid ideas.

See also Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Physics#Another_reason, why Misplaced Pages sucks, Misplaced Pages talk:Citing sources#When not to cite.

Pjacobi 18:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

That is faulty logic that goes against WP:AGF and WP:NPA. If you disagree with the content/messenge then you are free to discuss the merit of said content. However, it is never appropriate to "attack the messenger". That is the line that I believe SA crossed. Agne 19:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know which article this is about, but Agne stirred up a reaction in Mathematics too. While some of us are happy to improve the article, one week is a ridiculously short time to meet the changed guidelines. We have taken months just to get the first paragraph right, and the subject is deep and wide ranging, involving many editors. Our aim is to reach FA status, but a year is a more realistic timetable. So perhaps the message to take back to the GA people is that giving more notice would be more productive. Stephen B Streater 19:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Then take it back yourself, and be civil about it. There is no excuse for anyone to be attacking Agne here. --InShaneee 19:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Political org editing

Please take a look at the edits by 65.118.45.2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). This IP has been making very politically stilted edits to several articles including ones related to the Viriginia Senate election and labor laws. This wouldn't normally peak my radar except that the IP is owned by "National Right to Work" (http://www.nrtw.org), which is a political action group. Does this make it to or cross the border of inappropriate editing? --StuffOfInterest 19:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Need Advice

I am almost on the verge on an edit war with another user over Muhamad Naji Subhi Al Juhani, he has added information about a person named Khalid Ibn Muhammad Al-Juhani and stated his reason for doing so is because the US government probably arrested the first person because they thought he was the second. I asked for a source and his reply was that Arab names are hard to illiterate and so they probably made a mistake. I kept removing the information asking for a second source, if he just made up this connection or if anyone has made this link before. He has yet to provide one and instead simpyl reverts. The article itself is up for deletion Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Muhamad_Naji_Subhi_Al_Juhani on the basis that it lacks information and it seems this is an attempt to add fluff to the article, if you read the article the link isnt even asserted, there is just a splatter of information on the second person inserted into the middle of the article, no explanation no link at all. Is this vandalism? is this against "Misplaced Pages: No original research"? Am I wrong to keep removing it? This user is adamant that this information is to stay. What option do I have other then reverting? --NuclearUmpf 19:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

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