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121.45.181.31 removes external references again

Hereby I report trolling behaviour of unregistered user 121.45.181.31 again (previously I did that on 1 Jan at 21:02).
He repeated his actions on 2 Jan, at 07:29 (with comment There is no source for this info and it seems to be just an opinion).
Is he playing dumb?
He has removed the references, that had explicit explanations why are they necessary.
Despite being warned by user Avruch with two messages on 1 Jan at 22:220 and 22:25 , that troll continued with same behaviour. Kubura (talk) 10:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Axctually, the section he removed deserved deletion. as to the external links, if they were references, they should've been in-line'd and/or put int he references section, not the EL. I'm more concerned by your most recent edit there, where you switched the reference which the only explanation being some noise about how it was a pdf. the other ref appeared to be a book. ThuranX (talk) 13:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC

Please, ThuranX, if you're not an admin, nor an involved person in this case, don't interfere.
How can you give right to someone who deletes external links? Are you suggesting the support to trolling behaviour: ignoring of references, section blanking, deleting of references (sources with content that POV-izer don't want to see) that are opponents' arguments that you cannot beat? Where would Misplaced Pages end then? If you can't tell the difference between the scientific article and the book, please, don't mess into encyclopedic stuff. If you don't know the purpose of external links, don't mess. Read wiki-manuals. Don't burden WP:ANI with unnecessarily taken disk space. Sincerely, Kubura (talk) 15:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me? "don't interfere"> Anyone can post here. Any editor can look into any section here, and offer an opinion. Often, that can help admins see their interpretation is supported, or disputed by others, making them give more reasoned explanations of their actions, or rework their actions to a more supported solution. It's a major check/balance on the AN/I. I've read the 'wiki-manuals'. Since all you've said is basic trolling, and no explanation for the change in citation, then move on. The edit was questionable, and I stand by that. ThuranX (talk) 06:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

ThuranX, deleted lines in the article were edited by me, but in that moment I didn't put a reference there, I've done it later, see history. Also deleted references were not connected to deleted text, but to other parts of the article which were not removed by this vandal user. I have rewritten this part of text according to the source, and now it's there: both text and reference - official scientific research and restored other deleted references. An user reported by Kubura is definitely a vandal - in this case removing 5,6 references! For other actions of this anon see previous report by Kubura. Blanking is his/her favourite hoby. Regards. Zenanarh (talk) 13:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

No, the lines removed by the IP didn't belong, as they were clear WP:SYNTH violations. Your rewrite is fully sourced, but that doesn't change the fact that the IP made a good call. His actions elsewhere were not dicussed or brought up till now, and remain irrelevant to the eidt in question, which I would have done myself, were I monitoring such pages, which I don't. ThuranX (talk) 21:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

IP user 121.45.181.31 has deleted whole section of external links, that gave info about these things. That's blanking.
ThuranX, if you have something to say about this, go to the talkpage, don't burden this page with the things that were supposed to be done on the talkpage. That IP user didn't give explanation. Don't disturb admins' procedure.
If he dislike one section of the text, he could have deleted only that part, but no, he deleted unwanted references, because they were proving him wrong. Finally, "uncited" part was later cited and referenced. Why are you stubbornly defending a troll, ThuranX? Kubura (talk) 10:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of 'trolling', it's what you're now doing. Let me say this one last time, then I'll just move for a block against you. The edit the IP made was a good one. The ELs he removed were redundant, and the text he removed was uncited SYNTH and OR. That somethign supposedly similar, in your opinion, was later added in a 'cited and referenced' form is irrelevant. What was removed should have been removed. Stop owning the article, and accept that the excuse laden section that was removed was bad, even awful writing, constituting the writer's own Original Research into why things just didn't count anayways so ignore them, and it was rightly removed. I don't know why you can't see that, other than you wrote it, but it was bad article writing, and the IP was right to remove it. ThuranX (talk) 12:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

OK people calm down please, no need to argue about such unimportant details. Thuranx please try to understand, maybe you're right - my first edit with no reference was a kind of original research, my intention was to cover it by a source but I simply forgot it - my guilt. However, reported user actually has very short history of undoubtful anti-Croatian contributions, short but very known to Kubura, me and several other users and administrators involved, possibly a sock or meatpuppet of a banned user (an Italian fascism/irredentism extremist) who made a lot of mess in numerous Dalmatia and Croatia related articles during last a year and half. He was always followed by bunch of anons and damage done is so huge that we need 1 year more to repair it this way, since we must constantly clean it, almost every day there is some anon vandalism around in mentioned articles, although "the brain" was banned. Maybe that's why some nervousness is present here. Kubura was just trying to get some help from admins, that's all. Once again, calm down please and happy New Year to both of you. Regards. Zenanarh (talk) 19:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

IN order to get the result you speak of, you'd need to provide evidence of ongoing troubles and harrassments. That has not been done here. As Iv'e said, ad nauseum, all that was brought here was one edit, which was perfectly valid and improved the project. That's it. that's all that was put up for review. ThuranX (talk) 22:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Wrong! An user blanked a group of references! That's vandalism! Zenanarh (talk) 07:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Sfacets indefinitely blocked

Following the discussion on Sfacets' talk page, I have concluded that he is too disruptive and not willing to contribute to the encyclopedia under our community policies and guidelines. Pursuant to that, and given that he believes his disruptive actions were perfectly ok, I believe there's nothing we can do to reform him and that an indefinite block is in order. He has a long problem history, and is entirely unrepentant.

I have unblocked him and reblocked him indefinitely, both to clear the JzG block (legit appearance of conflict of interest question over RFC filed against JzG, though I don't believe it has underlying merit) and to impose the appropriate indef block.

As with any block of mine, especially indefinite ones of longstanding users, I invite other admins to review in detail and if you disagree feel free to undo it. I believe that this is going to be a community ban, and that he is not reformable, but I leave it up to the rest of the administrator communities' judgement whether I have acted appropriately here, etc. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

When someone's block log is so long that you have to scroll down to read the whole thing, you get the impression that they may not fully embrace Misplaced Pages's norms. Support indef. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Support indef. His behavior was why I chose not to reduce a previous block I had extended. --Coredesat 09:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Can't disagree. Ah well. Guy (Help!) 23:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I support the block. At some point it's no longer effective to try and reform a user, and we just need to block them and move on, rather than continuing to waste time which could be better spent elsewhere. --Elonka 06:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I also support the block. I've watchlisted and engaged with articles where Sfacets has been active. That user has been a POV pusher from his earliest to his latest edits. He's repeatedly overstepped the line, and this is just the last of many blocks. I can attest to his disruptive behavior and recalcitrant nature. I don't think that further engagement will reform him, and I think that it's reasonable to say "enough is enough." ·:· Will Beback ·:·

Hezbollah userbox

This userbox was featured until recently on Noor Aalam (talk · contribs)'s user page. I removed it because Misplaced Pages is not a battleground and WP:UP prohibits userpage content that is likely to give widespread offense, as enforced in various recent arbitration committee rulings. Noor Aalam disagrees and considers the box not to be offensive (see the discussion at User talk:Noor Aalam#Offensive userbox removed). Before I apply any sanctions to prevent the repeated readdition of this box, I would appreciate input by other administrators and experienced users about the appropriateness of this userbox. I'll be offline for nine hours or so following this post. Thanks, Sandstein (talk) 23:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

That userbox is too inappropriate, offensive, and controversial. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 23:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The userbox advocates "armed resistance", which in itself seems too provocative for Misplaced Pages. Linking the term to an organization which is deemed terrorist seems to imply the user advocates terrorism. I support the removal of the userbox. Jeffpw (talk) 23:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

As i stated on the tk pg, i am willing to change it to "This user supports Hezbollah" and remove the rest. Noor Aalam (talk) 23:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, that userbox is a perenial problem. That version is toned down - agression used to wikilink to massacres - but still in my opinion, divisive and soapboxing. Viridae 23:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the box to

Noor Aalam (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I certainly have no desire to restart The Userbox Wars — but how is this any worse than at least 50% of the entries here, all of which are on a relatively prominent gallery, and about which nobody seems to have objected? Or this fine piece of T1 material, which is transcluded on over 50 user pages? — iridescent 23:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

For starters, I don't see any userboxes there linking to terrorist organizations. That makes a difference to me. Also, it seems prudent to confine the discussion to this one box, instead of widening it to an elaborate debate of boxes in general. Jeffpw (talk) 00:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

(EC) I've nominated the Dead Marxists userbox for deletion. How are some of these allowed. "This user believes Vince Foster did not commit suicide, but was instead murdered to prevent him revealing information about Whitewater." What is the point of this? Lawrence Cohen 00:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Six countries view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, which means that the majority of the world doesnt. Bias should be avoided. Noor Aalam (talk) 00:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's put it this way: How does having this userbox on your user page promote building the encyclopedia? If we can't come up with a good answer to that (and not just in reference to this particular userbox - I'm not trying to target Noor Aalam personally), then that's a pretty good indication that we've got something superfluous on our hands. I'm not interested in wandering into userbox wars either, but if having one causes disruption for more than a few editors, then there's rarely a good reason to keep it. Tijuana Brass (talk) 00:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

We are coming across several userbox issues lately, and this makes me wonder, should we actually try to establish a guideline for the userboxes themselves? I know WP:USER covers it nicely, but maybe a very direct set of content instructions can prove useful for new users. - Caribbean~H.Q. 00:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

There is another userbox on Noor Aalam's page that should be assessed as well—the one that advocates the vandalism of the George W. Bush page. Disagreeing (even vociferously) with a politician is fine, but advocating the vandalism of a wikipedia page is not acceptable. Horologium (talk) 03:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Also an unacceptable userbox. I have removed both. Regarding the Hezbollah box, we have been through this a number of times before. See the next subsection. -- Avi (talk) 03:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Any userbox advocating vandalism is wrong, and should be removed. Supporting Hezbollah is another matter. Some people say they support Israel (which was responsible for many civilian deaths during the Israel-Lebanon conflict), so why is it incorrect to support Hezbollah?Bless sins (talk) 03:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

BlessSins, please realize: a userbox saying "I support armed aggression against Israel", is no different than one saying "I support XyZ Holy city being bombed". --Matt57 04:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The userbox says "resistance," not "aggression," so your comparison is totally irrelevant. <eleland/talkedits> 04:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) See below; it has been deleted three times as divisive and inflammatory. There is nothing that the wikipedia project gains from that userbox, and a lot that it loses. Misplaced Pages is not myspace. By all means, anyone may have userboxes supporting any cause, party, ideal, charity, mass murderer, or local bakery that they please, but not on wikipedia. -- Avi (talk) 03:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

That is simple nonsense, Avraham. CSD T1 applies only to pages in Template: space, per Misplaced Pages:Userbox migration. I realize that you are outraged by the claim that Hezbollah (in addition to whatever else it may do) resists Israeli aggression, but your outrage does not hold sway over the Misplaced Pages. I and other editors I know regularly come upon outrageous statements in userspace and talk space, but we do not seek to censor and/or block those who make them.

As I'm sure you know, there are about a gazillion userboxes which support political parties, political positions, ideals, charities, and perhaps even local bakeries. If you feel this is a problem, fine, but don't address it by removing content which you personally disagree with in the guise of enforcing WP:SOAPBOX. <eleland/talkedits> 04:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Eleland, the fact that the template was substituted, instead of transcluded, just means that it was missed when the template was deleted. That userbox was deemed inappropriate for wikipedia -- Avi (talk) 04:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

There are similar user boxes, from which "there is nothing that the wikipedia project gains". Example would be a userbox supporting Likud, a party which doesn't want the Palestinians to have their own state, thereby denying them the right to self-determination.Bless sins (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The fact that a Template: page was speedily deleted does not, and cannot, mean that similar content was thus forbidden from userpages. A policy which would forbid the simple statement "This user supports Hezbollah resistance against Israeli aggression" from userpages would require a lot more discussion than a unilateral procedural deletion under CSD T1. <eleland/talkedits> 04:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Stop being so nitpicky with the rules and recall that they serve a purpose. Circumventing that purpose with a subst does not negate the fact that the material (clearly) can be reasonably considered to be offensive or inflammatory. The userpage policy prohibits such content on userpages, and it doesn't matter that he went the extra six characters and two clicks. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking at Noor's userpage, I would have to add the "This user wishes to test the limits of userboxes" userbox. The first version above IMO is clearly unacceptable, the second somewhat less bad, but still showing blanket support for an organization which advocates unacceptable use of violence to achieve political ends. How about a userbox with the Hezbollah symbol and a message supporting peace? That would put it on a par with that horrible box suggesting DVD's shouldn't have region codes, a clear attempt to destroy the Western economic order. Unless the laws of the server location clearly state that any mention of Hezbollah is prohibited, the userbox in question is just political advocacy like many others, providing it disavows the advocacy of violence. Franamax (talk) 05:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I did not know I was attempting to "destroy the Western economic order". Should i remove that as well? Noor Aalam (talk) 05:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

advocates unacceptable use of violence to achieve political ends - as opposed to the organizations that advocate acceptable use of violence to achieve political ends? —Random832 17:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, all political advocacy userboxes are contrary to the spirit of Misplaced Pages. The only use they have is giving a clue about which editors are here to soapbox. --Folantin (talk) 12:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Note

Hello. I am one of the users who had the first userbox ("supports armed resistance"). I had never actually placed political opinions on my userpage, unless you count "supports the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation," until I noticed that other users were being threatened by administrators for placing the Hezbollah userbox.

This enforcement of political correctness is worse than the problem it attempts to solve, and is inherently impossible to enforce in an unbiased manner. Opinion polls have shown that internationally, George W. Bush and the United States are regarded as at least as threatening to the world as Hassan Nasrallah or Hezbollah. Even in my own country of Canada, hardly an outpost of ignorance and extremism, Bush and Nasrallah are regarded as roughly equivalent threats. However, due to Misplaced Pages's systemic political and cultural biases, only support for the latter will ever be targeted as "likely to give widespread offense."

Furthermore, the process by which this decision has been made is in no way suitable for determining Misplaced Pages consensus. Previously the template version of this userbox was deleted under a criterion which only applies to userboxes in the template namespace, and which is related to the Userbox migration effort, which intends that "All controversial and divisive userboxes, including those currently in Misplaced Pages:Userboxes will be migrated out of template space into userspace or an appropriate subpage, such as a corresponding WikiProject." Note migrated, not deleted. Editors are now citing these procedural deletions as proof positive of a consensus against including statements of support for Hezbollah resistance. Whether or not such a consensus exists has not been determined, and the previous procedural deletions have, in themselves, no value in determining what consensus, if any, there is. Nonetheless, some administrators believe they are justified in removing the userbox, and in threatening and blocking those who restore it.

As a result, I am placing the userbox shown here on my user page. I trust that a civil and honest expression of dissatisfaction with a decision made by administrators cannot reasonably be taken as some form of disruption, and will not lead to threats being directed against my continued participation in this project. <eleland/talkedits> 17:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

A case can be made that these edits are a violation of WP:POINT. -- Avi (talk) 17:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention that supporting violent resistance to anything is completely inappropriate for wikipedia. -- Avi (talk) 17:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Right, so users who express support for, say, the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, on the basis that it is armed self-defense, will be censured? <eleland/talkedits> 18:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Probably. Incerdently could you can it with that PC rubbish about "armed resistance"? Either call for genocide or stop messing around.Geni 18:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Woah, woah, woah, woah, WOAH. Who said anything about genocide?! I support Hezbollah in its defense of Lebanese territory. Genocide, terrorism, or even attacks on military targets outside South Lebanon have nothing to do with it. <eleland/talkedits> 19:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh please that silly PC line about legit targets and all that? If britian had thought like that it would probably have lost the Second Boer War. If you are not prepared to advocate genocide it is probably best you go back to your hippy friends and talk about peace. Psudo hawkishness is mearly anoying.Geni 01:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Per Avi's objection to anything violent. So if some is proud to be part of the Israeli army (which has killed many innocent civilians), they should be censured. Should this apply to all armies, as military men (soldiers etc.) are trained to be violent.Bless sins (talk) 20:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

BlessSins, I hope you're not siding with this user because you have the same relgiion as theirs. Do you agree that its not ok to have this userbox? "This user supports armed resistance against Israeli aggression." This line is identical to "This user supports bombing of such and such cities", which I'm sure you would not agree with. --Matt57 21:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Unless BlessSins has experienced a de-epiphany and converted to atheism, that is not the case. <eleland/talkedits> 21:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

And no, "supports armed resistance" means "supports armed resistance," not "supports every action carried out under the banner of armed resistance," rendering your second point equally moot. <eleland/talkedits> 21:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Eleland, this is a pointy userbox (which you posted above). Please remove it and stop the drama. We are not here to show our support of armed resistance against each other's countries or regions. We are here to edit the website and contribute to it. Per WP:UP#NOT, which says:

"If the community lets you know that they would rather you delete some content from your user space, you should consider doing so — such content is only permitted with the consent of the community.

"If you do not cooperate, inappropriate content will eventually be removed, either by editing the page (if only part of it is inappropriate), or by redirecting it to your main user page (if it is entirely inappropriate)."

"if user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption."

"Other non-encyclopedic related material"

"Extensive use of polemical statements"

So anything disruptive is not allowed on the userpage and this is being disruptive, not to mention, pointy. Please remove the box. See the bold above. The community is asking you to remove the box. The box can only be on your userpage with the community's consent. --Matt57 15:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This user supports the right of all individuals and groups to violently resist military aggression by other parties. The day that becomes "disruptive to the community," "non-encyclopedic," or "extensively polemical" is the day he walks from this encyclopedia. <eleland/talkedits> 17:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The forefathers of this editor resisted armed aggression in August 1914 and Sept 1939. I'm rather proud of it, and I've noticed many others proud of their willingness to do the same. Where's the UserBox with which I can advertise my support for such conduct? PR 18:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Good well, we dont need editors who dont care about showing support for violence against countries of other editors. Thats just being insensitive (to say the least). I dont think the website will miss them. We need people who are here to build articles in a positive cooperative atmosphere. If you want to support violent resistance against some countries and want to rally for it, this is not the website for it, obviously. --Matt57 22:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll not remove this box, but I don't object if other admins want to. Yes, this is obviously a silly userbox, but we prohibit disruption, not silliness. As noted below, this general kind of "I hate someone!" userbox may at least be useful in quickly identifying problematic editors. Sandstein (talk) 23:27, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I find this whole thread amusing, because this userbox only advocates ideas set forth in this subversive and problematic document. (I admit that this document may be offensive to inhabitants of one specific country.) -- llywrch (talk) 19:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Encyclopedic purpose

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that these sorts of userboxes do serve an encyclopedic purpose. Whether it's this one, or the Dead Marxist userbox, or the Hillary-Clinton-killed-Vince-Foster userbox, they identify editors whose dedication to a deeply controversial cause is so deep that they are extremely unlikely to be able to edit Misplaced Pages neutrally, collaboratively, and civilly in the long run, and are much more likely here to be part of a battlefield rather than an encyclopedia. It can take weeks or months to identify such editors (to say nothing of how long it takes to handle them). These userboxes do it instantly. That's a service to the encyclopedia, no? MastCell 20:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

LOL. Sadly to say, you actually have a point. -- Avi (talk) 21:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

eleland put this userbox on his/her userpage. Yet he/she has been a valuable contributor. This is probably true for users who put userboxes supporting Likud.Bless sins (talk) 21:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Please read the reply from Number57 above: "The Likud may be evil capitalists and anti-concessions, but I don't believe they have a militia which goes around murdering people. However, if you see a userbox supporting Kach, then by all means please bring it here for deletion." --Matt57 16:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

It could be an advantage to indicate any "political" partisanship you may be guilty of. The thing that's really objectionable is people flaunting a particular (usually distant) ethnicity and then seeking to cause revulsion in others (eg by denial of widely attested atrocities). That seems calculated to incite hatred of the grouping you link yourself to - in the full knowledge and expectation that your supposed fellows could (and perhaps already do?) suffer violence for your brazen attitudes. PR 18:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I follow the irony which you're pointing out, but it misses the point... if someone can't edit neutrally or provide acceptable citations for controversial claims, it's not likely that it'll take weeks or months to notice. For that matter, what an editor believes is irrelevant, so long as their edits meet WP criteria. I can believe that the sun orbits the earth, but that doesn't matter so long as my edits to Sun check out with guidelines like WP:V and WP:FRINGE. Tijuana Brass (talk) 20:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

While I understand, and mostly agree with MastCell's assessment that users who use these sort of userboxes essentially paint the POV bullseye on their own backs, I recognize that WP Policy and Guidelines say that when a UB hits the tipping point of irritating others, it needs to be re-evaluated. The problem is that this isn't Fatah or Hamas he's supporting, but a terrorist group, plain and simple, who play to the crowds by giving away food and such to finance their bombings. If this were a Fatah or Hamas Userbox, I'd be supporting him. It's not, it's like putting an 'I heart Al Qaeda' userbox on your page. People have found it offensive, and as such, it needs to go. ThuranX (talk) 18:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment

Why is okay for users to display support to some political parties but not others? Under the Republican Party control of the White House, people have been locked in cages without any evidence of guilt, People have been captured and tortured, and then released without any regret. They are responsible for starting the war in Iraq, which has resulted in many people having been killed and others have become refugees. In Israel Likud and Kadima are responsible for killing many Palestinians and Lebanese, they dropped over a million cluster bombs before the end of the war, yet admins seem to have no problem with people displaying their userboxes. These groups dont need militias when they have the best armies in the world to follow their orders.

I would like to display this userbox on my userpage. It doesnt advocate violence, and is no different than having the userbox of the parties mentioned above. If this is not acceptable I will put the userbox that eeland created above. Noor Aalam (talk) 22:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

No. The merits and demerits of other nations, parties and groups do not matter here, and this is not a political discussion forum. Whether you like it or not, Hezbollah are considered a terrorist group by much of the world. Such boxes are divisive and inflammatory and help nothing in building this encyclopedia. Do not add "I support Hezbollah" boxes and/or flags in any flavour to your user page, please, or they will be removed and your user page protected. Thanks. Sandstein (talk) 23:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but you seem to be suffering from a lack of worldwide view. Hezbollah is a Lebanese political party with a militant wing that confines itself to defending Lebanon from Israeli attacks to the most of world. To six countries in this world, it is listed as a terrorist group based on their misconception that is responsible for attack in South America carried out by an unaffiliated group. Tiamut 04:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Policy towards userboxes must be consistent. We shouldn't censor certain political userboxes but allow other political userboxes. Also please see the userbox below. It is used by some Georgian wikipedians in their user space and the wording comes straight out of the Georigan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I'll leave it up to the community whether user space should be a mouthpiece of the Georgian ministry of foreign affairs. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 15:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

This user opposes aggressive separatism in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and supports the unity of the Georgian state.

Kill all userboxes that have something to do with politics. --Be happy!! (talk) 03:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it that time of year again? Oh golly, I'll get out my uniform from the 'wars and we'll have a good scrap like in the old times. I can't wait for the "you deleted my userbox" "this userbox is evil, kill it" wikidrama to erupt once more. CharonX/talk 03:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

The above userbox seems to be advocating peace over terroristic withdrawl from a nation. How is peace controversial? ThuranX (talk) 18:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that it uses revanchist agitprop that seeks to reverse military losses that occurred a decade and a half ago. See here:

Georgians and Abkhaz (as well as Armenians, Ossetians, and others) eventually understood that talking to Westerners (that is, representatives of the Ultimate Power) about ancient history is a waste of time. Clever consultants emerged who taught them politically correct language that was more likely to win over these strange people. Georgians learned to speak about aggressive separatism that is threatening international stability.

I believe it was most likely added in good faith that perhaps those users heard their government use these words and repeated them in their user space. It is propaganda nonetheless. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

If this were the extent of propaganda pushing on Misplaced Pages with reference to the frozen conflict zone, it would be a net improvement. I see nothing wrong with the Georgian user box, at least they make they views clear whereas others obfuscate POV pushing under the guise of professed defense of the elusive NPOV. —PētersV (talk) 04:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The Georgian "userbox" that irritates Pocopocopocopoco is not a userbox at all. It is a code. I was just wondering what this user thinks about the Russian irredentist userboxes which directly reflects "peaceful" political propaganda of the Putinite administration.--Kober 15:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This user supports the peaceful unification of Ossetia.

This user supports independence of Abkhazia.

PētersV is correct. People who have the "aggressive separatism" userbox (which uses the same wording as Georgian government hired consultants as per the cite) make their POV clear and as per MastCell it identifies editors whose dedication to a deeply controversial cause is so deep that they are extremely unlikely to be able to edit Misplaced Pages neutrally. As per the userboxes that Kober posted, how the heck is advocating for self-determination considered Putinite irredentism? Is having a pro-Kosovo self-determination userbox Bushite irredentist? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 02:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Pocopocopocopoco, I think in general ANI is not a place for WP:SOAP. But shall I remind you that Georgian userbox essentially restates the basics of international law - the same territorial integrity principle that was used in restoring the control over breakaway Chechnya and which is being upheld by Russia legitimately opposing Kosovo separatism. And it's aggressive separatism, because in all these cases, including Chechnya, Kosovo, Abkhazia, Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, the so called "self-determination" was being achieved by wars and essential eradication/exodus of one ethnic group by another. So any reason for the inconsistency of your view on precisely Georgian userboxes? Atabek (talk) 05:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Atabek is absolutely correct. Does not Pocopocopocopoco really think that "unification of Ossetia" is a Russian irredentist concept? Is he suggesting that the Russian userbox implies the "unification of Ossetia" within Georgia? He also seems to be not very well informed about these conflicts as he apparently thinks that Kosovo seeks the unification with the United States and the US tries to annex it. It should be noted that all other separatist entities in the post-Soviet space have declared their desire to establish some kind of federative links or be directly annexed to other (internationally recognized) states which have supported them ideologically, economically, and militarily.--Kober 05:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Atabek, this section of ANI is for the discussion of appropriate userboxes. Nobody here is soapboxing other then yourself so please read WP:SOAP yourself and also read WP:KETTLE as well.

Kober, I would suggest that you be selective with the people you choose to support your case of appropriate user space content. user:Atabek had Armenian Genocide denialish content in his user space until it was removed by admin user:Chaser. From what I have read about that period of Ottoman history, it was no picnic for Georgians either no? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Pocopocopocopoco, can I suggest you tone down a bit? I once asked our Russian colleagues to stop recapitulating Moscow's policy of inciting inter-ethnic tensions out here on Misplaced Pages. You are very much mistaken if you think that I should hate any Mongol, Turkish, Azeri, Persian and Russian editor who appears here because Georgia suffered at hands of the Mongol, Ottoman, Persian and Russian/Soviet empires.--Kober 05:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Pocopocopocopoco, I asked you a specific question to which there is a specific answer, which I don't see in your reply above. How are separatism vs. territorial integrity in Chechnya and Kosovo different from Abkhazia, Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh? The answer to this could shed some light on your WP:SOAP regarding Georgian userboxes as well as closed WP:WikiProject Karabakh.

As far as your other comment goes, I don't oppose userboxes summarizing opinions, and as long as there are userboxes calling for recognition of claims of Armenian Genocide or opposing its denial, userboxes opposing those political views can also legitimately exist. And I removed those userboxes neither because of Chaser's edit, which was restored afterwards, nor because of any change in my position, but simply out of sensitivity to the feelings of Armenian contributors. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 09:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

SIGH

SIGH Haven't we been here before like, a million times. Userboxes, root of all evil, yadda yadda yadda... So far I felt MfD could deal with problematic boxes quite well (or they can get hit be G10), but if you want to reopen that can of worms a third time... count me out. CharonX/talk 03:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

If one polemical (pro-Hezbollah) userbox is to be axed, then the ALL have to as well. Toss the pro-Israel, toss the Vince Foster murder conspiracies, and the entire lot. Individual MfDs is an absurd waste of time as it will just attract the pro and anti crowds surrounding whatever topic the box is covering. This needs to be done in one fell swoop.
Or hell, here's an easy solution; just replace them all with the one I have on my page, and all will be well. Tarc (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the userbox here is not transcluded from a template page, to which deletion processes can be applied (and have been, see {{User Hezbollah}}), but consists of code directly embedded into the user page that needs to be removed by hand. Sandstein (talk) 12:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Y'know

I'm not really a part of this, but... What if the userbox in question was just changed so that, to read the text, it had to be highlighted? Then a passerby won't read it and be offended(so easily).--Heero Kirashami (talk) 21:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

this discussion is exhibit A for removing any politics-related user box. they don't add to wikipedia. SJMNY (talk) 09:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Outcome on Hezbollah box?

I'm confused as to the outcome of the discussion. Avraham says the use of the template is forbidden because it was speedy deleted, but since the template shouldn't have been in mainspace in the first place, there's no was to appeal this at WP:DRV. Is that valid grounds for forbidding the template? Or should I just file a WP:DRV case anyway? Another thought -- does the speedy deletion of the template mean this user can't express support for this political party even in a non-graphic form? It seems odd one admin can unilaterally ban all such user space speech for all time in this fashion. -- Kendrick7 04:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

That assumes you really believe that Hizbullah is a political party, and not a terrorist group, an opinon contradicted by multiple governments and apparently, many Wiki-editors. ThuranX (talk) 04:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really anymore, as they disarmed back in 2006. I wrote an article about the whole history of this conflict. -- Kendrick7 04:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

This is the point I've been making all along, and being accused of "wikilawyering" for it. The procedural deletion of a template in wikispace can have no implications for the deletion of the information contained in the template across all user pages for all time.

Also, ThuranX, you do not help your case by making completely counterfactual (in fact laughable) claims. Hezbollah is a political party, a militant group, arguably a "state-within-a-state," and has been assigned the completely politicized and discredited moniker of "terrorist group" by governments which are themselves no stranger to terror. Above, I linked to a poll which showed that the United States government is generally considered far more threatening than Hezbollah, as is the Israeli government. <eleland/talkedits> 04:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Disarmed, you say? Y'all may be interested in the following, all no more than a few months old:

• http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/upload/hl_1038.pdf
• http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106284.html
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/25/wlebanon125.xml

I can get you more if you need. -- Avi (talk) 04:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, so maybe I stopped paying attention to that whole arming thing. Still, they do sweep most elections in South Lebanon. I don't think we can arbitrarily censor a voice of support for them as they are, like it or not, one of Lebanon's major political parties. -- Kendrick7 05:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

As user pages are governed by policies and guidelines such as governed by Misplaced Pages:User_page we can if it is felt that the material is inappropriate. Remember, Misplaced Pages:User_page#Inappropriate_content does state that WP:NOT#Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox applies to user pages, and Misplaced Pages:User_page#Removal_of_inappropriate_content would trump both. Hezbollah is still felt by the majority of the world to be a terrorist organization first and foremost, and a userbox supporting it is felt by many to be tantamount to a userbox saying "I heart terrorism" which is inappropriate. -- Avi (talk) 05:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

eleland, you need to get your incivility under control. The group was called terrorist by other editors in THIS thread, so there's proof one. As for governments calling it so, you sdon't deny it, then you accuse me of having no facts. Pathetic argument style, running to ad hom implications and mockery. We could get into the whole 'Syria backs them in Lebanon' mess, but it's irrelevant. the Userbox offends those who consider hizbullah a terrorist group, and it should be gone, end of story. There's more than enough discussion up there to make that clear, I thought. Clearly, some need it spelled out in more detail. ThuranX (talk) 05:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Even the article itself doesn't start off "Hezbollah is a terrorist organization..." so Avi's claim that this is the majority POV in the whole world is fairly dubious. In fairness, we'd have to ban all voices of support for all Lebanese political parties. -- Kendrick7 05:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

See Hezbollah#Designation as a terrorist organization. -- Avi (talk) 06:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

If you want my personal opinion, they're terrorists, as are essentially everyone involved in any armed conflict and many who aren't; the term "terrorism" is virtually meaningless. My comment about "counterfactual claims" was related to your bizarre declaration that Hezbollah is not a political party. On to substantive issues: it's completely inconsistent to state based on the political decisions taken by 5 governments and the EU, that the majority of the world considers Hezbollah to be terrorists, while ignoring poll results that show the majority of the world considers George Bush and Israel to be more threatening than Hezbollah. If Misplaced Pages means to remove all political statements which offend people, fine, but that essentially means removing all political statements period. I never before felt the need to express my support for Hezbollah's right to conduct defensive military operations on Misplaced Pages (note: not for Hezbollah generally, although that is also a legitimate view.) But if such expressions are to be systematically removed, Misplaced Pages is abandoning any policy of neutrality and enshrining systemic bias as part of its culture. <eleland/talkedits> 06:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the EU rejected the designation. But, in a similar vein, as a Roman Catholic, I don't particularly care for their undermining of our perpetual control of Lebanon. But just because someone disagrees with me doesn't mean I'll stand by and see them muzzled. -- Kendrick7 06:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Offense is offense

Offensive userboxes/remarks are offensive regardless of the group they are directed against. There is another offensive comment (see fifth quote on User:Boris_1991, "show me...") - this time its not against Israelis but Muslims. Equity (if there is such a principle on wikipedia) says that we should be treating offenses against both groups equally. I tried to bring this to the attention of Avraham (see User_talk:Avraham#Userpage), to no avail.

Bless sins (talk) 06:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

And I responded on your talk page. By remaining silent, it implied you agreed with me. -- Avi (talk) 06:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Your response appeared to have said "I shall not remove this quote as I have not removed others". Thus I lost hope of seeking the removal of that material through you.Bless sins (talk) 06:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly; quotes are a different kettle of fish than userboxes, and require their own discussion. You asked me about quotes; this is about terrorist-group user boxes. -- Avi (talk) 06:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

So are you saying that if I write "I support Hezbollah" in quotations and without a userbox, it'll be ok? To me offensive concepts, whether in userboxes, or in quotes don't seem to be much different.Bless sins (talk) 06:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No, I do not believe that is what I said. . -- Avi (talk) 06:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you asked me what action I was taking about a particular quote, and I answered you. Whether or not we should have politically-charged quotes from political figures or terrorist leaders is its own question, which should be brought up. But not in this discussion. -- Avi (talk) 06:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Because it shows the absurdity of your position? I don't understand why putting such sentiments in a userbox somehow is different from the same non-graphical expression. If another user can't quote my Pope (quoting someone else) I'm now officially offended. -- Kendrick7 07:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying it is or isn't, Kendrick. I am saying that procedurally speaking we are discussing the Hexbollah userbox and its ilk. Your arguments above fall to the fallacies of Ignoratio elenchi and Straw man, being that quotes are out of scope and I have not made a definitive statement for you to have been able to make any syllogistic or derivative conclusion. The situation about quotes, and non-wikipedia related charged information on userpages, while real, is completely irrelevant to the scope of this discussion. Trying to argue the relevance of quotations to userboxes is also an example of the perfect solution fallacy. The fact that a different problem may exist elsewhere in wikipedia is no excuse to propagate the problem under discussion. -- Avi (talk) 07:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

File:Pepperoni.jpg

Baloney.

-- Kendrick7 08:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

All this comes down to is that you cannot ban one and endorse the other. As long as pro-Israeli, pro-whatever faction/ideology userboxes remain, then there is no legitimate basis to blow away pro-Hezbollah ones either. Tarc (talk) 13:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Raggz

slakr

Still ongoing via multiple pages. Disruption, wikilawyering, gaming the system, threats, mild trolling on talk pages, and now a new single-user account (User:Ryder Spearmann) has showed up as of a few days ago, writing in the same style as Raggz and making the same arguments. Sockpuppet, meatpuppet, or just coincidence, I don't know. —Viriditas | Talk 09:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Could someone inform User:Raggz that consensus on article talk pages does not override WP:NPOV. He just claimed that it does here. —Viriditas | Talk 09:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Advice

I would like an administrator's advice on how to deal with Ghanadar galpa on the Communist Party of India (Marxist) talk page. I have tried to point out problems with the sources he is using to support his anti-CPM POV, which he regards as the "truth". However, his behaviour is quite aggressive, confrontational and uncompromising. He has now accused me of being a part of "a well-funded group of propagandists and Bengali supremacists employed by the Communist Party of India, paid and financed by the CPM gangsters to persistently whitewash their record on wikipedia." It is difficult to know what to do in such a situation. If he thinks that anyone that disagrees with him is hired by the CPM, then I don't think it bodes well for any meaningful mediation. I am unclear what the "referral for comment" procedure entails. Is this in addition or complementary to discussing it on this noticeboard? Is this noticeboard the first place to raise these issues?--Conjoiner (talk) 00:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Might also want to look at the well-sourced ] section that Conjoiner and his drive-by revert buddy Soman are desperately trying to remove

• : mass blanking as a "minor change"

and then using numerous interesting epithets, right before making disparaging remarks] about peer-reviewed sources and trying to discredit them, even after their peer-reviewed status has been independently attested by the British Journal of Sociology.Ghanadar galpa (talk) 03:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Briefly, I would like to make two points; has a edit summary which reads 'rv, minor changes'. This should be understood as revert + minor changes. 2) regarding , the anon user has already been reported in a separate ANI. --Soman (talk) 14:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)'

I haven't been 'using numerous interesting epithets', I agreed with the anon user on the rejection of the way the 'Incompatibility with Indian culture' subsection was presented. The epithet raising was done by the anon user, this accusation is merely guilt by association. --Soman (talk) 00:08, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Where is the 'disparaging remarks' in ? Regarding the accusation of 'drive-by reverts', I began arguing at the talk page in early December for the removal of the controversies chapter. --Soman (talk) 00:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The climate of discussion has taken yet another step in a downward spiral, as conspiracy theories on Communist-Nazi connections by guilt by association arguments are levelled at the talk page. It is needed that more editors involve themselves in the discussion, so that the article can move forward. --Soman (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I second that. I'm not so bothered by the accusations that I am a "Communist gangster", but there does need to be some mediation/arbitration involved by a neutral party and/or more editors from outside the discussion so we can move on. I don't know why the administrators noticeboard and the referral for comments mechanisms are not producing any results in terms of greater involvement from the Misplaced Pages community.--Conjoiner (talk) 00:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

In what I would see as a related issue, User:Ghanadar galpa has begun to include the link to Nandigram violence in 'see also' sections of Great Purge, Victims of Communism Memorial, Criticisms of Communist party rule, etc., a completly ahistorical comparison for pov purposes. --Soman (talk) 12:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC) See also, . --Soman (talk) 12:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC) User:Ghanadar galpa begins to use the term genocide for the Nandigram conflict; --Soman (talk) 12:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Rouge Admin abuse by user:Future Perfect at Sunrise?

I want to report that I have been, what I perceive to be, the subject of long term assumption of bad faith and paranoia by self described WP:ROUGE admin user:Future Perfect at Sunrise (also known as FPS). I had joined in June 19. Immediately, banned user user:NokhchiBorz had accuse me of being a sock of user:Buffadren to which FPS had said

Hi, yes, it might well be the guy is a new Buffadren/Mauco sock. I don't yet see enough evidence to go on for a block, but we'll keep an eye open.

At this point I had been posting for maybe 3 days the number of posts you could count on your fingers and already he was monitoring me and assuming bad faith in believing that I may be a "Buffadren/Mauco sock"!

I had tried to calm him down my posting to his talk page and introducing myself but no response from him.

A few weeks later, a sock of banned user and arch sockpuppetier user:Bonaparte vandalized my user space. FPS blocked him but did not revert the sock puppet tags that the vandal had put on my user page. Perhaps believing that they belonged.

A few weeks later still. An IP sock of arch sockpuppetier user:Bonaparte had started up a Request for Checkuser on me. FPS then helped this banned sockpuppetier complete the checkuser request. He also blamed me for sparking an edit war which I absolutely did not do.

At this point I had tried to reason with FPS numerous times to no avail so I decided to wait and let the dust settle and hope that he would chill and I went forward with adding content to the project. Most recently, I tried to make a peace offering and a request to put all of this behind us which FPS rejected in what I perceive as a terse response.

Part of the reason I bring this up is that everytime I have a minor dispute with another editor, that editor brings up the fact that an admin believes me to be a sockpuppet of William Mauco.

I demand that Future Perfect at Sunrise clearly state what he needs from me to end what I considered is this long term assumption of bad faith and paranoia. Under no circumstances will I give up my privacy. Once this is met, I demand that he apologize. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 00:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The above section relates to the below subsection and the archiver incorrectly archived it so I am bringing it back for continuity sake. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

user:Future Perfect at Sunrise's block of user:Britlawyer

When FPS had helped banned user user:Bonaparte file a checkuser against me. I had noticed another user user:Britlawyer which FPS had checkusered against user:William Mauco and had turned out unrelated and from different continents. Future Perfect had banned this user regardless of the checkuser results saying that he is a likely sock of William Mauco. I believe further scrutiny is required to look at his actions then and his continuing actions. This raised concerns by admin user:John_Kenney (read here). FPS responded to John_Kenney in that link:

This wasn't an easy decision for me either. Anyway, I looked pretty closely at the precise temporal patterns of account creations and edits by Britlawyer, Mauco and his other known socks. I consider that data pretty damning (I can forward it to you). Checkuser isn't magic pixie dust as they say, and we can safely assume the people behind the Transnistrian astroturfing campaign (which undoubtedly exists) have means of concealing their puppetry by using geographically diverse proxies; they only get caught occasionally when they slip. Just look at how Buffadren passed through multiple checkusers seemingly clean, and then suddenly was revealed to have been on MarkStreet's IP after all.

It looks like he is putting more faith in his sleuthing abilities than the checkuser. I for one can say that if his conduct towards me is any indication, his sleuthing skills need improvement. I recommend that this block as well as his actions be given more scrutiny.Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 00:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I must agree that the account creation and edit patterns just scream sockpuppet, and that a checkuser cannot be used as "proof of innocence" (editing from a proxy is trivial enough). I can't tell whether FPS is correct, but he certainly seems to have been reasonable. — Coren  01:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Possibly so but did it warrant a block? I have posted a request on John Kenney's page and I await what he has to say about this. I also think that some of the principles from this arbcom descision might also apply here. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to add, my reason for posting this block is that we know that false positives do occur and since FPS is wrong about me he could also be wrong about others. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I have a hard time assuming good faith from anybody who comes here demanding anything. Corvus cornix_talk 02:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Pretty please with sugar on top, could everyone not get caught up on semantics and WP:AGF and also Misplaced Pages:Assume_the_assumption_of_good_faith on my part and address my concerns. Thanks Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Britlawyer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was blocked in May. Am I missing something here? --B (talk) 03:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

It was in may. I posted it here in order to have a look at possible incorrect long term admin behaviour and possible overzealousness. Which I believe I have also been subjected to. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not a fan of admin FPS, he was one of the people who asked my ban during Transnistria arbitration (proposal rejected by arbcom), but I consider legitimate the checkuser he asked regarding possible conection between User:Pocopocopocopoco and topic-banned user User:William Mauco. Generally speaking, is nothing wrong to ask a checkuser if there are suspicions. Mauco was proved as an malicious sockpuppeteer and the checkuser didn't gave relevant answers regarding User:Pocopocopocopoco (the answer was "stale" - is bad that after the arbitration case the checkuser data regarding William Mauco were not kept). I wonder why this sudden demand of an apology for a checkuser asked long time ago and which had no relevant answers (that mean nobody can tell that the suspicions were wrong). To be mentioned that yesterday a ban evasion by User:Buffadren (banned in the same Transnistria arbitration like Mauco) was discovered, and FPS blocked the IP used for ban evasion, I wonder if it was not this fact who suddenly made Poco angry.--MariusM (talk) 04:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I care not about Buffadren or Markus Street or whatever other socks that person has used. If it was proven that he was an astroturfer then he deserves to be banned. I am not angry, just determine to put an end to this issue of FPS's suspicions against me. The reason I bring this up now is, as I stated, whenever I get into a minor dispute with another editor, FPS's beliefs that I may be Mauco are trotted out by that editor and I want this to end. This has been occuring on an ongoing basis and has occurred recently (diffs can be supplied if requested). The other reason that I bring this here is that I was not able to resolve this by communicated with FPS on his talk page recently. I clearly stated that I would try to address his concerns if he would communicate these concerns. He did not present me with any way to get to a resolution on this issue with him. I have no problem with the fact that he ran a checkuser but I have a problem with the entire pattern of suspicion that hasn't even been put to rest even now and I have a problem with the fact that he seems to be basing all of this from the allegations of banned users (NokhchiBorz and Bonaparte). Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 05:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this was ages ago - I barely remember it. I remember that at the time I thought it was questionable to block a user when the check user suggested that they were not a sock puppet - and perhaps Future Perfect acted hastily. But I would imagine it's quite likely that s/he was right nonetheless. I'm not even sure what to say about this - there does seem to be a fair amount of Transnistrian sockpuppetry going on, but the Romanian side is hardly much better. It's all a fetid fever swamp, really. john k (talk) 05:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

if  Confirmed socks are very likely to be blocked regardless of behaviour, that doesn't mean that  Unrelated socks can't be blocked based on their behaviour. Sockpuppet is unfortunately not Magic Pixie Dust. -- lucasbfr 10:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

But the indefinite block should come after incorrect or abusive behaviour no? John might not remember now, but in the link I posted John said that Britlawyer was broadly "civil and polite" and "highlighted legitmate sources". Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 17:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it was my impression at the time that Britlawyer was not behaving in unacceptable ways, aside from the question of whether or not he was a sock puppet. This is worth clarifying. The black was entirely based on the supposition that Britlawyer was a sock puppet, not based on other disruptive behavior. That said, the non Checkuser evidence that Britlawyer was a sock seemed fairly strong to me at the time after Future Perfect explained it to me, which is why I didn't pursue it further. john k (talk) 21:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Lucasbfr, that statement is incorrect. Confirmed sockpuppets might not be blocked if there is a logical explanation (family members, roommates, coworkers) and unrelated users might still be sockpuppets even without technical evidence if the contributions make it obvious. Even in a simple case like only editing from work with one account and home with the other would make technical evidence improbable, but a case could be proven with contributions. I have no earthly idea if this person was socking or not, but "unrelated" doesn't necessarily mean "proven false". --B (talk) 18:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say that there was no possible legit explanation for a  Confirmed (I saw one two days ago), just that most confirmed users are illegitimates socks. Checkusers are wary of that kind of possibilities. Anyway we are looking at the other case here :). -- lucasbfr 09:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of copying below the principles from the unrelated but somewhat similar arbcom case (linked above) that I also believe apply here:

1) Users are expected to assume good faith in their dealings with other editors, especially those with whom they have had conflicts in the past.

3) Users are responsible for the editorial and administrative actions they undertake, and must be willing and prepared to discuss the reasons for their actions in a timely manner. If a user feels that they cannot justify their actions in public, they are obliged to refrain from that action altogether or to bring the matter before the Arbitration Committee. This does not apply to users carrying out official tasks as authorized by the Foundation or the Committee (including, but not limited to, CheckUser, OverSight, and OTRS activity).

5) Administrators are expected to act in a reasonable and transparent manner. Even when reversed, administrative actions that appear arbitrary or capricious, or are based on poor methodology and evidence, have a chilling effect on people's willingness to contribute to Misplaced Pages.

8.1) Blocking is a serious matter. Administrators should be exceedingly careful when blocking. Blocks should be made only if other means are not likely to be effective.

9.1) A decisive response to on- and off-wiki harassment of Misplaced Pages editors should not come at the expense of actions which undermine the core values of the project or the goodwill of honest contributors.

The questions that I now have are:

1. Why did FPS WP:BITE and assume bad faith and believe that I might be a sock after I had hardly made any edits and had only been a user for 3 days?
2. Why does FPS pay so much heed to the allegiations that banned users have against me?
3. Why can he not admit that he was wrong, apologize, and end all of this? Does he believe that I have made 7 months of contribution in a multitude of topics just to pull the wool over his eyes that I am a sockpuppet of one of the transnitrian astroturfers?
4. Why has he not responded to this section in WP:ANI about his conduct?
5. Why has he not responded to my query about his recall criteria? I still don't think it will be necessary but how can one claim to be an admin open to recall and yet not have a recall criteria?
6. As per the above arbcom principle #3, did Future Perfect at Sunrise bring the matter of Britlawyer to an Arbitration Committee before applying the indefinite block? He obviously didn't justify his actions in public.
7. As per the above arbom principle 8.1, was there no other means of dealing with the possible sockpuppetery of Britlawyer other than an indefinite block? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 17:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Pejoratively written "questions" like this aren't actually questions (see Have you stopped beating your wife?). ANI can't really deal with this - perhaps you want dispute resolution or requests for comment? ➔ REDVEЯS says: at the third stroke the time will be 20:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how my questions can be thought of as loaded questions when I actually don't know the answers and I want the answers. For instance, I don't know why FPS thought I was a sockpuppet of a transnistrian astroturfer after hardly any edits and I want to know the answer. I don't know why he might still believe after 7 months of contribution to a wide variety of subjects that I still might be a sockpuppet of a transnistrian astroturfer and I want to know the answer. I have thought about an RFC but doesn't an RFC require two complainants? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Concerns of admin abuse by Nihonjoe

User:Nihonjoe created the article Youmex, a now defunct anime and music production company. Another editor tagged it for CSD.. Even though he was the creator of the article, Nihonjoe removed the CSD tag rather than letting another admin decide it. The editor who tagged it sent it to AfD instead. In the AfD discussion, Nihonjoe has shown some borderline uncivil behavior in his interactions with other editors. While the AfD is going towards a keep consensus, the sources themselves were questioned by the original nominator as well as other editors in the AfD. To address the issue, I checked all of the sources and found most were just the word Youmex appearing on a store page or as part of the catalog number, clearly not reliable sources. I cleaned up the article to fit what was verifiable through reliable sources, and added another reliable source for some additional titles. Nihonjoe reverted the redo, proclaiming his version had correct sources. I reverted, because what was removed was unreferenced and said so in my edit summary. Nihonjoe removed again, with the edit summary of "What the hell are you talking about? You REMOVED several references, please stop doing that, I'm working on the article right now, and your reverting is making that difficult". I undid, again, and tagged his user page for adding unsourced material and to ask him to work from the revised version rather than an old version. He removed the warning with the edit summary of "You're full of it, as I said, and I'. I reverted again (unintentionally as vandalism) as he continued to refuse to source the original research and personal views that he was adding back, or to explain how his "sources" were reliable.. In response, he protected the article with the note "To stop the stupid reverting by Collectonian )."

He also created a redirect for Futureland (record label) to go to Youmex. I CSDed it as an improbable typo (and his providing no reliable source that Futureland was, in fact, a part of Youmex. He removed the CSD even though he was the one who created the article, claiming that anyone can remove a CSD even the creator, even though the CSD notice specifically says otherwise.

To me, an admin who runs around un-CSDing his own articles and protecting as article he created so only he and other admins can edit it (even if he has, currently, kept it at the cleaned up version), is abusing his power. His attitudes with other editors in this case and seeming ownership issues with some articles is also appalling for someone with administrative powers. Collectonian (talk) 04:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• I understand your consern, and I am experiensing a similar situation with an admin in my category of expertise. But User:Nihonjoe has done a lot of work for the cumminity, why not give him a bit of latitude and see how things go? Igor Berger (talk) 04:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • His long experience and seemingly over all good edits are the main reason I brought here instead of RfC. Collectonian (talk) 04:19, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• First of all, anyone (including the creator of an article, whether or not they are an admin) can remove a legitimately invalid CSD notice (thought it's not recommended, but WP:IAR applies here, I think). If it is removed, then there's obviously a dispute over it and it should be taken to (in this case) TfD. Until Collectonian came along, all the concerns raised in the AfD discussion had been addressed (including my concerns that someone would AfD an article less than 24 hours after it was created when it was obvious someone was working on expanding it).

  Collectonian then proceded to remove all of the references for various items in the article without any legitimate reasoning, and without regard for the subject of the article being a very difficult one for which to find online resources. The only legitimate concern was a little bias I had included in the article based on my personal experience and knowledge of the company. After it was pointed out, I specifically reworded the article to remove that bias, but Collectonian abused Twinkle to revert my edit without any reason (nothing in the edit summary at all, other than the fact he'd used Twinkle to do it and that he considered my edit to be vandalism). Collectonian claims that the information in the article which he removed was unreferenced, though that is clearly untrue.

  I then protected the article (specifically at the version I did not want, and to prevent Collectonian from abusing Twinkle further) so that no one would edit it further as it was obvious that Collectonian was going to revert anyone else who edited the article to something other than what he wanted.

  The messages I removed from my talk page were rude and uncalled for (especially since they were obviously intended for people brand new at editing—Collectonian himself has only really been editing for the last 4-5 months despite having an account open since 2004).

  As for the Futureland redirect, it's a legitimate disambiguated redirect which is being used by several related articles. ···日本穣 04:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

  • I removed a bunch of references that didn't actually support anything in the article. You can't just throw in some links and try to call them references if they don't support anything. Anyone can remove a PROD, not a CSD. The removed information was not referenced. Most of the lists of titles you gave were not even mentioned in any of those references, and several of the "references" did nothing more than have the word youmex in a catalog number or somewhere on the page. Your references were invalid hence their removal.Collectonian (talk) 04:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
    • All of the references you removed were either referencing a specific item or contained lists of Youmex titles. None of the lists contained all of the titles, but together they listed all or most of them. As I've pointed out over and over, the company has been defunct for almost ten years (an eternity on the web), and finding online references is difficult. It is very likely that one or more of the magazines I have has an article about Youmex, but I haven't yet catalogued all of them yet (it takes a lot of time to catalogue an entire magazine, let alone hundreds of them). All of the sources you removed were legitimate. Nothing I did was abusive (concerned, yes, and perhaps a little heated, but not abusive). You complete ignoring of legitimate sources, and use of Twinkle to enforce your opinion is abusive, however. ···日本穣 04:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
      • All references don't have to be online. I added sources from one of several english language anime encyclopedias, and I suspect some of the other ones may also provide much better information as they do span multiple years. You did abuse your powers by removing a CSD from both an article you created and a redirect you created. A CSD is not a PROD and even if you felt it was not valid, as the article creator, you should never have removed them, but left it to an administrator who was not personally involved to make the decision. Regular editors who remove a CSD from their own articles are warned quick fast and in a hurry. Do you feel that because you are an admin you are somehow immune from the rules or being warned? Collectonian (talk) 05:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Collectonian, anyone can remove a CSD tag, and it is really improper for you to have been using Twinkle to edit war with an administrator who was in the process of writing an article. There was no reason to revert when content was being added that had references. The last version seemed to have several sources, but you tacked on that the edits were vandalism. I'm not sure if this is something you have to work on, or something that needs to be removed from the Twinkle script, but I can see no improper activities by Nihonjoe here, other than protecting a page he was working on.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
          • Um, what? Misplaced Pages:Criteria for speedy deletion pretty expressly prohibits an article's creator from removing its CSD tag. Of course, IAR wouldn't let that translate into preventing the removal of plainly invalid CSD tags, or are you explicitly disagreeing with written policy, in general? Someguy1221 (talk) 05:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
            • That is a relatively recent addition to the criteria. The edit summary where it was introduced said that it was restoration of policy. But I, for one, wasn't aware that it had been policy up to that point. It doesn't seem to match the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 19, certainly. Nor is it in any prior version of the page that I've seen. It's a rather wide blanket provision, for the simple reason that it is administrators that we expect to know what the speedy deletion criteria are, and whose judgement is supposed to be sound in whether a tag has been incorrectly applied. And yes, as the edit summary said, one cannot advertise for a company that no-longer exists. However, I note that the article gave no indication at that point that that was the case. Uncle G (talk) 00:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
          • If that is true, then the CSD template needs to be rewritten because it says very explicitly that the article creator should NOT remove a CSD, but put a {{hangon}} tag with an explanation of why they feel the article should not be deleted instead. Collectonian (talk) 05:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
          • Okay, after reading that, it looks like I was mistaken in that one instance. However, it appears that I'm not the only one to be mistaken in this regard as Ryūlóng also wasn't aware of that. Regardless, it was an abusive use of the CSD system to nominate the redirect (and the article itself), and at least those who abusively used CSD are now actually discussing the issue rather than incorrectly nominating something for speedy deletion which obviously doesn't qualify. ···日本穣 05:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
            • Accusing your opponent of "abusive" use of the CSD system won't help your case - it's not abusive as long as it was made in good faith and based on a defensible interpretation of policy. And then there's still the protection issue, which is a very blatant case of misuse of admin tools indeed. I mean, come on, you surely can't plead ignorance about that one, can you? Protecting a page you are in an edit-war over is an absolute no-no, most basic of all admin behaviour rules. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
              • For what it's worth, he at least remembered to protect the wrong version. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
                • Point taken. But what's the point in such a protection then? If you've got an edit war between just two people, there's an easier way to ensure that the article stays on your opponent's ("wrong") version: just stop reverting yourself. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
                • The problem being that the article is listed for AfD, and unless the article is improved, it will be deleted. Collectonian did nothing but destroy the work that had gone into sourcing the information found there (calling ALL references other than his own unreliable). Exactly how is that good faith, and exactly how does that help improve the article? As I indicated (several times now, including when I originally did it), I specifically protected the version of the page I did not want so I couldn't be accused of using my twiddled bit for my own purposes. I haven't tried to hide the fact that I protected it, and I didn't violate the spirit of the rule (which is in place to prevent what I specifically did not do). I also haven't edited the page since protecting it, either. There is no misuse here on my part, blatant or otherwise. A misunderstanding on my part of the policy, but I already admitted to that.

                  As for Collectonian marking the Futureland (record label) for deletion, that was absolutely an abuse of the CSD system. The only reason he marked it for deletion was because I created it. Period. It was an invalid tag as it was a legitimate redirect (which was in use by several articles). He claims that I have no proof that Futureland was a label belonging to Youmex, and that's why he marked it for deletion. I have a pile of CDs here that would like to argue that with him, and there are plenty of CD catalogs out there which would argue that with him, too. As I've told him multiple times, finding online resources discussing Youmex/Futureland as a business is very difficult due to the company about ten years ago becoming defunct due to being reabsorbed into its parent company. I have printed resources that may have such information, but it takes quite a while to go through more than 100 thick magazines and 50 or so large books. ···日本穣 08:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's a first: a thread with a title involving "admin abuse" where there's actually a case to answer. Wow! I'm not going to comment on the admin issues, looks like some errors of judgement rather than malice. However: Joe, you know that new articles get patrolled and are under extra scrutiny. You know we need sources. You know that a deletion nomination isn't a personal issue and that you should remain calm. Most worrying to me is this continued mention of "online resources". Who gives a flying f*ck about online resources? We need references, not excuses. If the company's old, dig out your magazines and then write the article. At least get a few decent refs together first to establish notability. The world wasn't invented the day the web was switched on, nor is there any rush to document this company that probably isn't very notable anyway... --kingboyk (talk) 15:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Protecting the article means that no one can improve it, which seems silly since it's at afd and it's likely that people would want to improve it. Since the protection was illegitimate (Nihonjoe used page protection to prevent his opponent from editing it), shouldn't it be reversed? Seraphim 16:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, looking at the article history, I'm not exactly sure what grounds Collectonian has behind this complaint. First after Nihonjoe created the article, Superm401 (talk · contribs) tags the article as {{db-spam}}. However, anyone who actually looks at the article at that point can tell that it wasn't blatant advertisement and that the {{db-spam}} was inappropriately applied and Nihonjo's removal stated that fact. Superm401, then sent to article to AfD. Ok, no real problem so far.

Nihonjo continues to expand the article and add sources until Collectonian (talk · contribs) comes in and undoes most of the work and removes nearly all of the sources Nihonjo added. At this point is when the edit war started between the two different versions with Collectonian eventually calling Nihonjoe's reverts "vandalism". After Collctonian's last revert, Nihojoe locks the article to keep the edit war going further, only to see this complaint here.

I also note that neither party attempted to discuss the dispute with each other on a talk page. Particularly, Collectonian didn't attempt to explain why he felt the sources that Nihonjoe was using weren't reliable. --Farix (Talk) 17:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• The questioning of the sources occurred in the AfD (in short, they didn't support what he said they did), and unlike Nihonjo, I've already taken my punishment for my inappropriate labeling of his bad edits as vandalism like a good girl and lost my Twinkle. He, however, abused his admin powers on this and other articles by removing a CSD from his own articles, then protecting an article he was personally involved in. Because he has admin powers, he just bypassed all the usually methods any other editor would have been expected to follow, which is an abuse of those powers to me. Whether his actions were right or wrong, he still decided to do them himself instead of letting an editor not personally involved in the article deal with the CSDs and evaluate the need for page protection. I've lost Twinkle access for 72 hours even though our minor edit war resulted in not a single warning left on my page, yet his misuse of his powers when he obviously had a COI in the situation seems to be considered just fine. Collectonian (talk) 17:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I know nothing about this incident. However, I have noticed many times were Nihonjoe has been a poor admin/editor, particularly when it comes to references written in Japanese. Thats one outsiders point of view. 220.253.5.116 (talk) 03:37, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Incivility by User:Pmanderson

Due to an edit conflict on this talk page, in which User:Pmanderson was also incivil in discussions with User:Turgidson, he keeps to be disruptive and adding "alternate names" to Romania article. However, after he was reverted two times here and here because his claims were unsourced, he added a source which doesn't necessary have anything to do with alternate names of Romania/Romanian. I think such attitudes are clearly disruptive and should be properly treated. --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 19:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Did those sources use the name Rumania or Roumania? Really though, until I was told that it "is" Romania, I personally spelt it Roumania. The Catholic Encyclopedia uses Rumania and frankly, I think people are a little too eager to make incident reports when someone disagrees with them or they disagree with someone else. When faced with people reverting these very common alternative names, I wouldn't be surprised with anyone having a less than favourable reaction. It seems to be a case of picking on someone and trust me, Pmanderson and I have had a lot of differences. He's a good editor though. Charles 20:19, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. The sources are here: two recently published books (one from Oxford) which use Rumania and Roumania in their titles, and the reasonably well-known poem by Dorothy Parker. This appears to be vengeance for my supporting the move at Talk:Iaşi-Chişinău Offensive to the form actually used in English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with User:Eurocopter tigre, in past dealings with User:Pmanderson I have found him to be incredibly rude, insulting, and disruptive in many different edits to many different articles... and he has also been blocked at times for his disruptive behaviour (whether 3RR or otherwise) but this seems to surface from time to time and now continues unchecked. Rarelibra (talk) 20:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This would appear to be a reference to this dispute, and to the time we were both blocked because Rarelibra insisted on removing the name Scutari from Lake Scutari; see its talkpage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Not seeing a problem with PMA here from any of your diffs, but an edit summary such as you made: "any such additions will be considered vandalism and reported accordingly" is not acceptable during a content dispute. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

For God's sake we are talking about the oficial name of the country. I'm sure that nobody will agree if I'll post "Ingland" as an alternate name for "England", just because I found this error in a book. Also, see PMA's incivility here and here. --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 21:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Right. And, while at it, can anyone explain why is it "imprudent for a foreigner to dogmatize on English usage", as Pmanderson puts it? What exactly does it mean to be a "foreigner" here at WP? Not a citizen of which country? Pardon me if I sound thin-skinned, but I find such speech highly disturbing, and not in sync with WP policies. I made that clear to Pmanderson here, but no real apology has been offered, just more of the same. Turgidson (talk) 21:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The discussion appears to be about alternate spellings of the name and their use on Misplaced Pages, not the official name, so far as I can see. Who disputes the official name of the country? To Turgidson, I would assume he means that people who are not native English speakers may be less familiar with questions that depend on English usage. This seems reasonable at first glance, although perhaps not well-applied in your case as your English seems excellent. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry if I insist on this point, but "foreigner", or "alien" (de:Ausländer, or l'Étranger, if you wish) means precisely "a person who is not a native or naturalized citizen of the land where they are found"—this has nothing to do with whether English is one's native language or not. (If we are to talk about the English language, let's be precise about it, shall we?) So I repeat my question: what is alleged or implied by this statement of Pmanderson, that I am a "foreigner"—in which land? US? UK? Canada? Ireland? Australia? NZ? And, if so, does it make me a second-class citizen here at WP? I thought English Misplaced Pages is for everyone to edit, with more-or-less equal rights, and that one is judged by the quality of one's edits (including, yes! one's command of the English language), and by the quality of one's demeanor, not by whether one is, or is not, a "foreigner" (again, with respect to which country?) Thank you for considering this point. I am very much interested in hearing your opinion on this, since it goes to the heart of how I view the Wiki. -- Turgidson (talk) 01:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I see I'm not getting any answer to my question. Be that as it may, I would still dispute the planted assumption "that people who are not native English speakers may be less familiar with questions that depend on English usage". Is there a reliable source stating that, or is this merely a nativist assumption? I've seen plenty of native speakers (including editors here at WP) who have a poor command of the English language, especially when it comes to grammar and spelling, and also some non-native speakers with a perfect command of the many nuances, alternate meanings, etymology, etc, not to say grammar and spelling. So I'd say that kind of dismissive attitude towards editors who may not be natives of an English-speaking country is misplaced (to use the mildest word I can use in this context), and not conducive to a good working atmosphere here at WP. -- Turgidson (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Silence talks... --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 13:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

And what is it saying? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be a reaction by a handful of editors with an emotional commitment to the use of official names, as with this uncivil comment by Turgidson to Narson; they do not recognize, or do not accept, that our policy is to use what English usually does; it should not, I suppose, surprise me that they find mention of the other names actually used for Romania equally unacceptable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

While my experience of PMA is that he can be abrasive at times in his pursuit of what he sees as correct or fixing what is incorrect, I do think that if there is 'action' taken against PMA for that talk page, certainly other users deserve administrative sanction as well (As Husond warned both, after which I believe PMA seemed to make an effort to keep his comments shorter and avoid commentry on other users, while Turgidson has continued to display disdain for the other users). Narson (talk) 04:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Law Lord homophobic attacks

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

Blocks issued --slakr 11:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• here
• here

This whole circle of events related to Matt Sanchez is getting out of hand. Lawrence Cohen 05:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Law Lord has been blocked for 48 hours and a user subpage that contained another homophobic attack has been deleted.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I've already blocked for 48 hours. Way over the line of unacceptability.--Doc 05:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

User Law Lord is a 2-3 day old account. Does anyone know if he was blocked under the old one? and if so, the info was not transferred. R. Baley (talk) 05:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Law Lord is a 1 year old account. It's 2008 now, silly :P—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Damn year change. . .what was wrong with 2007? Sorry 'bout that, I saw the link to the "compromised account" and jumped the gun. R. Baley (talk) 05:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I have also blocked Allstarecho for 24 hours for this response .--Doc 05:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

No way! seriously? R. Baley (talk) 05:20, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Related to all this. Lawrence Cohen 05:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Same insult going both ways, does it matter who is first? Probably should block them for the same duration. 05:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Good blocks, both, although I think they should both be extended to a week. Allstarecho's block should certainly be extended. --Coredesat 05:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy for you to do that, it others agree. Certainly both users are moving towards banning. Now to bed.--Doc 05:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Given my previous involvement in a related dispute, I shouldn't do the extension. --Coredesat 05:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I endorse the blocks - both of them. I do not endorse extending Allstarecho's block. I think they're fine as they are. - Philippe | Talk 20:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree strongly and am going to bring this forward for mediation.

Firstly, the first link was simply a restatement of the facts as they were stated on the user's page. He clearly did not think it was anything bad since he wrote: "Thank you. I saw it. It's information that is found on my user page so no biggie. He just used it to get back at me for my own comment I left there. :] ALLSTARecho 05:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)"

So the case was that administrators blocked people, who were in fact able to deal with their grievances themselves. The administrators were not part of the solution but rather the entire problem.

Secondly, deleting an entire user sub page is clearly a violation of policy, since the entire page did not need to be deleted – if anything, only the parts of it that were deemed violating.

Thirdly, several administrators have used a very condescending language, which is unfit for any editor in general and for any administrator in particular.

Finally, editing my user page is a policy violation and plainly and simply shows a lack of manners. --Law Lord (talk) 08:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

What policies were violated in your second and third points? John Reaves 08:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Your own actions have been inappropriate here, Law Lord. There is absolutely no reason to ever call another user a pederast. Your user subpage was a policy violation, per WP:NOT and you later added hate speech to it. You also do not own your userpage. Anyone is free to edit it. Anyone is free to edit any page on Misplaced Pages. You must realize that you have also been wrong here.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

John Reaves: That would be the policy that states that administrators must act with basic manners indicative of good rearing. I am not a wikilawyer.

Ryulong: I am not saying that I have done nothing wrong. I am merely saying that Allstarecho and I were the only ones who were blocked for wrongs when in fact wrongs were committed by everyone involved. --Law Lord (talk) 09:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I need some air and also to focus on exams. I will try and stay away until 1 April 2008, unless my exams are finished before then. Cheers. --Law Lord (talk) 11:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Userbox

I have created this userbox. User:Otolemur crassicaudatus/Userboxes/Anarcho-primitivism1

What I need to do? I have listed it in Misplaced Pages:Userboxes/Politics. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what the question is. Do you need help from an administrator (as in, does something need deleting, restoring, blocking) or is this a general userbox help question? -- Ned Scott 08:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I mean that is this userbox is suitable with wikipedia guidelines? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Solution=stop making userboxes and start editing the encyclopedia. John Reaves 08:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, John, what made you so cranky that you snapped at a good contributor like this. Though, seeing like this user has only 2000+ Articlespace edits (and a good deal more on Talk/WP/Userspace) he better start editing the encyclopedia... CharonX/talk 15:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I want to use this userbox. I want to know is this userbox is suitable with wikipedia guidelines? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how your userbox would create a problem. If it's been listed, you and others can start using it. The identifier appears legit, showing you as a member of a clearly defined class, it's not defamatory or uncivil, and others who share your beliefs may also want to use it. Looks like a thumbs up for the content. As to the technical merits (e.g. was it designed correctly, does it transclude correctly, etc.), I'm passing no judgment there as designing userboxes is outside my realm of knowledge. Gromlakh (talk) 08:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I just wanted to know this. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I recall categories for Wikipedians by political affiliation being deleted, but I'm not sure about the userboxes themselves. -- Ned Scott 09:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

First, there are categories which have political userboxes, seen here. Second, the userbox in question is listed on the page. Third, I think we can close this thread now. miranda 23:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Though seeing as how anarcho-primitivism rejects all forms of technology as a destructive and corrupting influence on human nature, I'm not sure how many will show up on Misplaced Pages and utilize the userbox. MastCell 17:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I'm sure they're more likely to suffering from the Amish Virus, where you smash your abacus to pieces and then tell everyone you know to do the same with theirs. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 21:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Anarcho-primitivism exactly not rejects technology, anarcho-primitivism rejects civilization as a whole, and technology is only part of civilization. Try to understand the subject very well before criticizing it. Anarcho-primitivism reject all the foundations of civilization, not only technology. Anarcho-primitivism rejects division of labor, social stratification everything which are part of civilization. Anarcho-primitivism rejects the entire civilization as a whole. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 06:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

(Indent reset) Okay guys. This is NOT the appropriate venue for an in-depth discussion on anarcho-primitivism. The issue of the userbox has been addressed, and I believe that we can call this one case closed. Edit Centric (talk) 06:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Can someone double check this please?

This behavior makes no sense to me. Can someone double check this please? Is delete the default regardless of fair use justification? Images with name X being used on an article with name X illustrating X are being marked for deletion? Why? Is it acceptable to robotically dismantle wikipedia? WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Err, did you try his talk page first? John Reaves 11:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears (from just looking at a couple) that images are being tagged that have no copyright status or fair use rationale. And yes, this is wikipedia policy. Images without a clear copyright tag or use as fair use without a fair use rationale are likely to be deleted. Pastordavid (talk) 11:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

What exactly is it you have a problem with? Since you didn't mention this to me and only linked to my contributions, its a bit difficult to see what you might be concerned with. Shell 11:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

As I said Images with name X being used on an article with name X illustrating X are being marked for deletion. It is fair use to use the cover of a book on an article about that book. Images that say exactly that are being marked for deletion. Images with a fair use rationale are being marked for deletion. It appears that tags are being placed without actually reading the data about the image. In short it appears to be robot-like tagging. Or maybe someone has a vastly different idea of "fair use". I'm aware that the legal definition and the Misplaced Pages fair use criteria differ, but last I heard, book covers were allowed on articles about that book. Has this changed, or are these tags being placed inappropriately? One or the other is true. WAS 4.250 (talk) 01:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I found the image you were referring to . It appears you also blindly reverted my tags without fixing the problem. You may wish to review WP:NFCC which discusses fair use rationales in detail. Per my understanding saying "Fair use is claimed for this low res image of the book cover for use in illustrating the article about the book at Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom." isn't sufficient as a fair use rationale. Specifically there is no mention of respect for commercial opportunities or discussion of minimal usage (i.e. why the entire cover is used). Shell 12:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

My question to the admins here is "Is it appropriate to demand mention of respect for commercial opportunities or discussion of minimal usage (i.e. why the entire cover is used) in all cases?" I can't see it. It is a minimal size image of a cover that has no obvious commercial use other than illustrating the novel. What sort of discussion could I possibly provide on using say the top half or the bottom half of the image. This strikes me as absurd. This appears to me to simply be deleting images to make wikipedia worse. Wholesale deletion if people who loaded up book cover images years ago and are gone now don't magically show up and jump through absurd hoops. I see a lack of thought and effort and mere robotic labeling in preparation for robotic deletion. I object to this thoughtless trashing of wikipedia. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:08, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I may be looking at the wrong version of the rationale, but I was struck by these two sentences: "The book 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' is copyrighted under a Creative Commons license. The copyright status of the cover art is unknown." Isn't this a justifiable case where we should ignore all rules, & assume a reasonable reproduction of the cover art is allowed on Misplaced Pages until proven otherwise? (And no, I'm not trying to be snarky here, I'm just puzzled over the need to dot i's & cross t's in this one case.)-- llywrch (talk) 19:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd like some help

As those who know me know, I'm not much involved with anti-vandalism patrolling. I revert merely when I notice it. Which, by corrollary, means that I don't do much blocking (again, typically only if I come across some incident, or whatever).

That said, I find myself currently dealing with two separate users who are evading indefinite blocks/bans.

The first is merely a POV pusher who became disruptive, and refused to change/learn in spite of months of trying to help the user understand. They still are doing the same, and now it's a matter of chasing down IP addresses, and multiple accounts.

The second is just a "mess". This is someone mostly preoccupied with userspace/user templates (userboxes)/user categories. That would be perfectly fine with me (how someone chooses to positively contribute seems immaterial to me), except that the user was indef blocked in relation to several disruptions, including a suicide note/claim. Since then, the user claims to have edited using a friend's account, and just generally has been freely evading their block, including harassing other good faith editors.

Note that I didn't link to anything above, and just posted some general information.

I just want to know what can be done to deal with those who evade blocks in this way.

I will say plainly that though I did a fair amount of reading, and feel I now understand range blocks, and so on, I'm somewhat insecure about it, do to the concern about accidental fall out.

(Note that I did ask User:Daniel who gave me what I felt was a good answer, and I've asked a checkuser about that on their talk page, but received no answer.)

So is there anything else that can be done? Or just checkuser on the range, and (hopefully) range block, and continually watchdog and revert on sight?

If the latter, I think I'm going to ask if someone else would help be the "watchdog".

So anyway, that's the help I'm asking - information, and possibly some volunteers. - jc37 12:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

If you gave us the details of the relevant users, we may be able to give you better help. If you're complaining about sock-puppetry, try WP:SSP. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Jc37, if you are quite sure that another account is being used, I'd just indef and be done with it. For the first user, there isn't a lot else you can do, short of filing a RFCu and applying a range block, if the range is small enough. But if this has been a long term consistent problem (i.e. a new account shows up every few days or so) a range block won't even be especially helpful, as they are supposed to be short-term blocks (under an hour, I think).

If the second user is socking to harass people, I again would say that blocking on sight is perfectly fine. It would be one thing if they returned and made a good-faith effort to contribute, or ask for their block listed, but they've decided to use someone else's account to mess around. Personally, I'd indef block the "friend's" account, with a clear block reason and message on the talk page. If there really is a friend, and that person is interested in editing, they will keep their goof-off friend off their account from then on. If there is no friend, or the friend is just as interested in nonconstructive contributions, then the indef block is perfectly justified. The information about range blocks from the first situation also applies - you may just have to monitor, block, and ignore. Eventually they'll get tired of it and go away. Natalie (talk) 00:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I thought. At what point do we just throw up our collective hands and give up? If it's clear that we really can't stop the problems, then why try? - jc37 11:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, as for the request for more info, for the first example, here's a subpage with some information (User:roundhouse0 has quite a few more sub-pages): User:Jc37/Sandbox/Pastorwayne

And for the second example, here's a note that I placed on User talk:Coelacan :

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

User:PatPeter

I don't know if you're still currently involved with issues involving this user, but they've become rather disruptive. See User talk:Sox207 and rather specifically at User talk:The Big X for admissions of what they claim was/is going on. since then it's been a stream of IP addresses. See User talk:Gscshoyru for the most current set of disruptions. (Special:Contributions/Pagesock seems to be WP:DENY issues, and is probably the person as well.) I've been reading up on range blocking, as this may be what needs to be done as a "final" step. I'd appreciate your thoughts (and help). - jc37 23:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Of the two, (if I have to choose) I think I'd really like someone else to "take over" patrolling on the second. (Though, since I've now gone through nearly all the editor's edits, I have no problem being a "helpful resource".)

Thanks for any and all help/insight/etc. - jc37 11:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Liancourt Rocks

This article has been a hotbed of nationalist edit-warring for years. There was a recent Arbcom case, but it resulted only in the ban of one editor and no sanctions on anybody else. I and a few other admins have instituted an experimential type of article probation with a zero-tolerance rule against edit warring. All to no avail.

Currently, the main problem is that the article keeps getting edited by people who, while not permanently revert-warring, are still clearly tendentious, insistent on making frequent high-volume edits trying to maximize the representation of their nation's point of view, and, at the same time, write abominably poor English. The whole article as well as the talk page have become utterly unreadably as a result.

I've pleaded with them asking them to recognise the limitations of their language skills and refrain from making further text additions until the mess has been cleared up, but to no avail. The moment one editor stops messing with it, another starts.

Can we block people for writing bad English? The whole situation is unbearable, and I'm losing my patience with these people. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

"Can we block people for writing bad English?" I think we should if they're clearly making bad faith edits and are not here to contribute to the encyclopaedia. Unfortunately, our problem is half the world's trolls speak English and WP:EN is a great place for POV-pushers of various factions and differing languages to meet for an "away match". We shouldn't be making life easy for non-anglophone disruptive users to come here too. I doubt the Icelandic WP has to put up with the levels of hassle we have to. --Folantin (talk) 16:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

They aren't necessarily acting in bad faith. Their tendentiousness is also not dramatically above that of your average "nationally-focussed" editor. It's the combination of that tendentiousness with the poor English that makes it so bad. -- Actually, one of the recent main culprits, Opp2 (talk · contribs), has now stated he will give it a rest (good for him!), but could somebody look at Whatdamn (talk · contribs) and tell me if he is a certain sock? He is, but I can't quite work out whose. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

"They aren't necessarily acting in bad faith". Sure, but judging purely by the effect they have on encyclopaedic content it's difficult to tell the difference between sincere but tendentious and ill-informed editors and bona fide bad faith trolls. Liancourt Rocks has a notorious reputation as one of the "nationalist hot spots". I've never examined it in much detail and I can't make head or tail of some of those comments either, probably because I don't know the linguistic substrates (Korean and Japanese). I think there is an ArbCom ruling on avoiding the use of foreign languages in talk page disputes which might be relevant. IIRC it was on one of the East European arbs. --Folantin (talk) 16:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a bit of linguistic pedantry: bona fide means... "good faith". So I'm not entierly certain you meant "bona fide bad faith".  :-) — Coren  16:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

That may be what it originally meant, but many people use it to mean "the real thing" or something along those lines (e.g., "That guy's a bona fide cowboy.") Meanings change, and all that. (^_^) ···日本穣 20:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Nice catch! (Looks round for the entrance out of here...). --Folantin (talk) 17:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• I'm seriously tired of the grief that this article causes. I have deleted it. We are simply better off without it. The amount of time and effort it sucks up from productive users trying to mediate simply isn't worth it. No doubt someone will reverse me but, seriously, there has to be a mechanism to control articles like this that cause so much disproportionate trouble. Spartaz 16:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that once you start editing a Misplaced Pages that is not in your native language, then whether or not you are editing in good faith is moot if your writing quality is so poor that it degrades the article. If editors are being contacted specifically about their writing quality, and continue to make edits that create in a net degradation of the article, then they are effectively vandalizing the encyclopedia... I would have no issue with a short block for an editor who has been fully warned. That said, it is still important that we first reach out to such editors and offer to help them integrate information in order to differentiate poor writers from poor writers who are also tendentious. Hiberniantears (talk) 17:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Now that's rouge, Spartaz! I'm tempted to recreate it with "Liancourt Rocks are just some boring rocks between Japan and Korea. Get over it". I suspect someone will try to haul you over the coals for "violating policy" but I wonder why we never seem to enforce our policy on WP:BATTLEGROUND. --Folantin (talk) 17:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there some way, perhaps, that a page could be fully protected so that only admins could edit it? Could that be a way forward with an article about a notable geographic feature that is frequently reported in news services worldwide, and which attracts controversy from a number of countries? DuncanHill (talk) 17:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Whoa, turning Liancourt Rocks into a rougelink? That's radical... :-)

I share your feelings. Although, of course, we should have an article on that topic. I was considering forcibly stubbing it down and having it rewritten from scratch. But who is to do it? Sigh. (And it just so happens that I've for a long time maintained another article on a disputed little islet, demonstrating that it is possible...) Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Heh, it's gone blue again. Can't wait to see what's happened to it... :-) Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

It's a redirect to Dokdo. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw it was a red link, heh. I know I'm not an admin or anything, but if it came down to it, I'd support Fut.Perf.'s thought of a full rewrite. — HelloAnnyong 17:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Liancourt Rocks (section 2)

• How many versions of this article exist? I came across Dokdo while reviewing the deletion history of Liancourt. Hiberniantears (talk) 17:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Whatdamn has just recreated the page and redirected it to "Dokdo" (Korean POV and violation of WP:COMMONNAME). This must be actionable. --Folantin (talk) 17:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• • {EC}Its just been recreated. I'm going to spend a few more rouge points and delete the redirecrt and the pov fork and protect them while we discuss this. DuncanHill's suggestion has a lot of merit Spartaz 17:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Wow, talk of cheekiness. Well, by doing that lightning-quick copy-and-paste move, Whatdamn has certainly demonstrated he's not a new user but some kind of sock. Indef-blocked now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I've heard a pretty reliable rumour that there are noticeboards out there encouraging Korean and Japanese nationalists to come and edit this particular article. So I think it's perfectly fair we take measures to protect the encyclopaedia. --Folantin (talk) 17:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point. BTW, would anyone object if I tried my hand at a neutral stub replacement? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't object to that. --Folantin (talk) 17:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

You have my support in creating a neutral stub replacement. In the mean time, what should be done with Dokdo?Hiberniantears (talk) 17:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Why can't people just learn to get along? — Rlevse • Talk • 17:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC) Dokdo can be redirected to liancort rocks and full protected. Agree with fut perf rewriting this in neutral and then full protection thereafter. Spartaz 17:35, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

(3 edit conflicts) A neutral, fully-protected stub would a) make sure we at least have something about these notable stones, and b) keep POV pushing (to some extent at least) off the mainspace. Go for it, I say! DuncanHill (talk) 17:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, give me half an hour. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read the above discussion yet. But I don't understand why the Liancourt rocks page has no content. I thought an editor who copied and pasted contents from the old article of Dokdo (now redirect page). And why is the edit history of Liancourt rocks deleted? -Appletrees (talk) 17:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Wha? 17:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I was upset at the whole contents being deleted, so I wrote too quickly. --Appletrees (talk) 18:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

After reading the above discussion, I still think this is pathetic. Replacing the article with that sentence was downright childish and you have brought the administrators to the same level as the edit warmongers. A large systematic attack on the article as you've mentioned could very well warrant full protection, but not this, this is vandalism. Wha is what I want to know. -Theanphibian 18:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• Restore the article quickly The administrator who protected the Liancourt rocks should've restored the page to the prior version after a banned user reverted. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and there is no content on either the redirect page, Dokdo, and Liancourt rocks. --Appletrees (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems a bit too dramatic, actually. From cursory observation, I notice that intro has not come under dispute, or changed much for that matter, in a while. So why send readers away to answers.com (as much as I'm a fan!). And no, it isn't just some rocks, I reckon it is homework for thousands of Japanese and Korean students. So, I'm restoring the intro, which should not have a bearing in figuring out the rest. Good luck. El_C 18:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Future Perfect is working on a stub, and if the stub is of quality then I think protecting it somewhat permanently from editing would be a fine idea. In the mean time, a protected article with little or no information is preferable to the constant edit-warring that this article is subject to. How many ArbCom cases, AN/I reports etc. need to happen before we decide that this piece of content isn't worth the trouble? 18:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• It'd probably be best to restore the entire history as well though, to give an idea of why the article is a neutral stub. BLACKKITE 18:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I looked at few version and the lead remains pretty much the same throughout and has no citation requests, so, at least we can provide the very basic inforamtion of what, when, whom, etc. El_C 18:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I thinm Fut perf os doing a quick stubification/rewrite and material can be restored from them on in. Obviously we will have to restore the history for gfdl reasons once this is complete but at the moment shall we leave fut perf to work on this in peace? Spartaz 18:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how having the undisputed intro is preventing to work in peace. El_C 18:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed the references on the existing stub. Let's see how FP's version looks. BLACKKITE 18:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

As mentioned on the talk page, I fail to understand the reason behind deletion, if the purpose is to blank (which I question, too). One can blank and protect and the effect is the same. Why was the page deleted if all it's revision are to be restored intact? The only difference between that and blanking is... what, the drain on our resources as thousands of revisions are restored? Paint me confused. El_C 18:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry El C, I see this has already been undeleted but the (admittedly out of process) deletion of the article seems to have helped towards creating some progress. Sorry for the confusion here. I was expecting to be immediately reverted but instead we did something constructive instead. :) Spartaz 19:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and in honour of this experiment of yours I shall dedicate this new entry in the Dictionary of Silly Misplaced Pages Jargon to you: "to rougelink (v., tr.): rougely turning sth. into a redlink temporarily to force a way out of an edit-warring impasse.". -- Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

All credit to you for making something useful from it! Spartaz 19:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

If the stub is to be protected (which I presume it is, or else this is all pointless) there is no harm in restoring the history, I'd guess. BLACKKITE 18:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing in the revisions we're trying to hide, which is why I'm confused. Oh well. No big deal. El_C 18:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I've restored the history of the Liancourt Rocks article. Writing a new version of the article and then protecting it is not a terrible idea, but there seems to be no useful purpose (or permissible reason) for deleting the history. -- tariqabjotu 18:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, at the very least the history could be useful in providing diffs. in assessing the behaviour of warring editors in future Korean-Japanese disputes. Maybe best to protect the redirects at Takeshima and Tokto too if this has not been done already. --Folantin (talk) 18:55, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

As an innocent bystander who saw a mention of this edit war on the Help Desk page, I must say I think that the new, neutral, stub-like article is far better than the 100k monster that's there in the history from only hours before. The old version is too long-winded to read and a POV-pushing nightmare, "Pro-Korea" and "Pro-Japan" sections in the external links, etc. Kudos to the admins for providing a neutral article so quickly that's about as long as anyone who doesn't really care about these rather dull rocks would want to read. ^_^ • Anakin 19:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

While I could agree with deleting the actual rocks deleting the article has significant baby bathwater issues.Geni 20:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

A motion to expand the remedies available from the prior arbitration case has been made at WP:RfAR#Liancourt Rocks article probation. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I motion we leave the article fully protected forever and never let anyone edit it ever again unless something drastic happens (such as erosion or a Japanese invasion/liberation (which term depends, of course, on your POV). It's a small outcropping of rocks, and the article as it stands covers everything that could and should be said about them. The old version () was raddled with nationalist rubbish. Neıl ☎ 10:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Please make lengthy comments regarding the article's content on Talk:Liancourt Rocks, not here. Neıl ☎ 14:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think his pointing out is not that lengthy. The editors are invited to discuss the matter here. I prefer seeing comment regarding correcting information rather than the below scornful and unhelpful sarcasm.--Appletrees (talk) 15:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Please propose any factual corrections on the article talk page. I wouldn't be surprised if I got things wrong, I know absolutely nothing about either Korea or Japan, other than what I could gather from the existing material. Any admin can fulfil requests for uncontroversial edits or merge uncontroversial material back in from the old versions. The article should be allowed to grow back to a natural size under some cautious scrutiny. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Give them guns and let them kill each other over it. After all, they really are just a couple of rocks out in the ocean... what purpose or value would it really be? Set up a McDonald's there - and everyone will be happy, I say. Rarelibra (talk) 13:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC) (sponsored by sarcasm)

I like the deletion of all the "history of claims" and other stuff, it was too cluttered anyways. I like the article as it stands but it could do with more information regarding the dispute.

I don't think we should block (or you mean ban?) non-english users. They are biased and rude but because they don't understand english, I don't think they fully know how wikipedia is run and are probably doing what they think is ok. At least I hope that they are doing this unaware. I think you should just warn them about adding bias and being biased in discussions. I think they will pay attention more to administrators. Good friend100 (talk) 02:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

A suggestion

Even though the article has some incorrect information as an editor pointed out, I also prefer the current version than the past controversial editions including all mumble jumble. I think protecting the article from editing for good is a good idea because the nature of the article tends to be a consistent hot zone of editing warring. Regardless of the conflicts here, the actual situation is still same but readers can get a wrong information from the past badly written article. If someone wants to expand or add new information, first go to the talk page and then get a consensus at a discussion and administrators only add confirmed information to the article under the protection.

For example of User:Opp2, his adding has not got any consensus, but he just added very controversial paragraphs to the article. It is only advantageous for the party to which Opp2 belongs. Due to the new rouge rule, the other party can only revert the edit once per day, but Opp2 adds and adds more unconfirmed information. I also think the article needs more surveillance from administrator who can read Japanese and Korean because of the basic information regarding the history are Japanese or Korean sources. How do you guys think? --Appletrees (talk) 15:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this is only an interim solution; eventually a consensus needs to emerge concerning the content of this article, & hopefully it will be unprotected. There are many reasons for this, but I will only mention one. Eventually, Wikipedians who have vested interest in the contents of this article will, one way or another, manage to become Admins, which will lead to a renewed round of pain over this article. No, I am not engaging in WP:BEANS by saying this, because anyone who can edit Misplaced Pages can figure this trick out for themselves (& from the prolonged nastiness over this article, I wouldn't be surprised if a few people have already started "sleeper accounts" for this very purpose). However, a broad consensus about the content of this article could avert this result because its supporters would a reason to work off-Wiki to minimize a renewal of this conflict, & if they prove effective the protection could then be removed. -- llywrch (talk) 20:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Jaakobou (talk · contribs)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Request for arbitration filed. MastCell 01:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Fresh off a three and half day block for edit warring, Jaakobou is back in action, mass blanking some 17,000 bytes of material of sourced and attributed to reliable, scholarly sources at the article Palestinian Fedayeen (here and here). Note that while he claims he has raised specific concerns on the talk page, he has not, beyond questioning the validity of one source cited in the introduction. This behaviour is a pattern for Jaakobou, who blanked 6,000 bytes of material at Second Intifada while taking issue with the wording of only one sentence in the introduction. Despite attempts to reason with him, (at the talk page here and here and at his talk page here), he has persisted in this blanking.

This kind of editing creates a corrosive atmosphere. The edits I made at Palestinian Fedayeen represent two days of research and writing, citing over 16 different published works from political scientists, historians and Middle East analysts. The article prior to my edits was a complete shambles, relying largely on sources such as the Jewish Virtual Library, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Anti-Defamation League (i.e. highly POV sources with no scholarly expertise on the subject of Palestinian fedayeen). It is extremely disturbing that an editor with a track record like Jaakobou's can come by and repeatedly delete this material, using only the most cursory of attempts to engage in talk. I request that an administrator review the situation and that Jaakobou be sanctioned for this pattern of disruptive editing and/or be assigned a mentor. Tiamut 18:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Appears to me to be a content dispute. Have you requested mediation or tried other forms of dispute resolution? Gromlakh (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a limit to "the appears to be a content dispute" standard answer, which this case appears to cross. If the user starts reverting as soon as they return from a block, and if their objection (concretely) is limited to a single sentence but they are removing whole other sections, then we have a problem. Adding "good faith" to revert edit summaries is not enough. Perhaps 1rr is the answer here. This user clearly is not discussing in the comparative depth that the scope of his reverts demand. El_C 19:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:TE is definitely an issue with Jaakobou - multiple instances of blocked for breaking WP:3RR, of reverting "vandalism" of others , accusing others of censorship and violations of WP:UNDUE (constant reinsertion of a massive criticism section at Gideon Levy). I would suggest a Middle East politics topic ban. пﮟოьεԻ 57 19:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

(EC)There's more than just content dispute here, as Laakobou is engaging on one of the most aggravating and frustrating behaviors possible on Misplaced Pages - The 'I dont' have that book right here in front of me right now, therefore I dispute your entire edits until you give me this thing I'm too lazy or unmotivated to go and get for myself' tactic of content dispute. It's a pathetic dismissal of AGF right off the bat, and I have NO tolerance for it.

As for the actual changes in content, it's a hell of a lot more referenced than before, and presents a narrower focus to the article. Jaakobou's comments on the talk page mostly amount to 'i hate the subject matter, therefore i must harry the messengers'. His behavior is not conducive to creating an encyclopedia. I'd support yet ANOTHER long block on Jaakobou. ThuranX (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict - Thanks to El C and ThuranX for those comments, here was my own) I have not tried mediation or dispute resolution because in my opinion, this is not a content dispute. This is about disruptive editing by an editor who blanks sourced and cited material he does not like without any specific commentary that might lead to consensus changes and this is something he has done repeatedly in the past. I would be happy to engage in a discussion over how to change the wording of what I added to improve WP:NPOV or flow or readability, but that is not what is happening on the talk page. Jaakobou is claiming that my edits are POV without citing specific examples that might help me to comprehend what it is that I should focus on changing. Instead, he just mass deletes everything I worked very hard to add. As I said, he has done this before at Second Intifada (a page now protected) and in order to avoid the same fate at this article, I would like someone to take some action. I do not like sterile edit wars but when I am faced with mass blanking with no policy-based rationales, and little in the way of specificity, what choices are left? That is why I came to WP:ANI. This seems to me a pattern in Jaakobou's editing, one that has warded away many good faith editors from other articles. (See his talk page for example, the section of Saeb Erekat. I am not alone in this opinion of his editing style.) Tiamut 19:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

In addition to everything that has been said above, I would just add that Jaakobou use sources which are highly controversial; e.g. on Palestinian Fedayeen he use PalestineFacts ( IMO PalestineFacts makes, say Jewish Virtual Library or the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs look like pure NPOV). Also; Jaakobou has been around a while now, and I cannot detect any great change in his editing style. I suspect yet another ban will not change his style. Therefore, Number 57´s view above, that is: a Middle East politics topic ban, sounds very sensible to me. Regards, Huldra (talk) 21:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

There are very serious conduct issues at stake here. User:Jaakobou came straight back from his 3.5 day block to plunge into revert-warring again. His 2nd edit was a revert at Saeb Erekat, where he has single-handedly, edit-warred against the consensus of 8 other editors - this is the entire 16 month existence, every topic and every contributor at this TalkPage! This is on top of the 4 articles that were listed at the ANI leading to his block, and there are many others again. Blocking or topic-banning an editor is intended to be preventative - action in this case would be a service to the project, protecting a great swathe of articles from his pervasive, un-encyclopedic and anti-scholarly influence. PR 22:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. A widely cast topic ban or fully community ban is in order. After reviewing some of his actions in this matter, he reverted and came to my talk page stating that my edits would be reverted because they fail to match his standards. My edits consisted of reverting to a FAR more sourced version, and then removing some cumbersome wording. He can't be pleased, short of having his way, whether or not they are actually valid. ThuranX (talk) 22:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

(r to Huldra)

On the subject of sources, I would add that he favours using the activist website zionism-israel.org as a source as well, because "from my personal experience, that website has a better reputation for accuracy and fact checking than the BBC, Guardian, and other sources that we allow". This is sadly typical of Jaakobou's edits; he seems to rely almost exclusively on his personal opinion for determining what belongs in an article or what does not, with no apparent effort to consider policies and guidelines. <eleland/talkedits> 00:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I've had my fair deal of aggravation with User:Jaakobou in the past and present. I posted here a while back (here) regarding his WP:POINTiness and WP:TE. Every time I've used the argument, in nomenclature debates, that "Article XY, which is the main article on that sub-topic, uses/doesn't use the term Z, therefore, we should/shouldn't use it here", User:Jaakobou would edit the article XY and remove/add the term in question, wait a few days, and declare victory.

Attempts at WP:DR were all useless. User:Jaakobou rants on for days on end and then just disappears, showing up later only to block compromises worked out by other editors, over disputes that he himself started. It appears that for User:Jaakobou, WP:DR is only a tool to block a discussion over longer periods of time. For examples of his recent "work", check out Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt and Gilad Shalit.

As mentioned before, this AN/I has a distinct "been there, done that" flavour to it. For some reason or another, it seems that most admins are reluctant to touch issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would be nice to finally see some action here.

Cheers, pedro gonnet - talk - 07.01.2008 07:54

This user appears to be acting in good faith (following an IRC discussion with the user), but I feel that this is no more than a content dispute. I would also like to point out that from reading this thread from scratch, people do seem to be getting a little heated over this, so I would ask everyone to take a deep breath. If Jaakobou could say clearly why they believe that their prefered revision is better, and I believe that Tiamut has already done so, then I believe that reaching consensus on this will be easier, and hopefully, we won't need to upset anyone any more. I would also like to add (to also act as a reminder) that everybody has a right to their opinion, but that also we are aiming for a reliable, well sourced, unbiased encyclopedia. Stwalkerster 11:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Stwalkerster, I appreciate your trying to help and having talked to User:Jaakobou directly. The problem is, though, that it is not a content dispute, but rather hundreds of content disputes, all going in the same direction, namely pushing a radical anti-Palestinian POV. User:Jaakobou has a long record of disrupting articles under the pretence that a source or statement is biased or POVed, inserting POVed material himself and edit-warring until either all parties lose interest or until any serious mediation (i.e. RfCs) goes against his wishes, upon which he just disappears. In my experience, there has nevern been any consensus on any issue with User:Jaakobou. The cases in which consensus was eventually reached were only possible once User:Jaakobou lost interest and left. When he leaves, it is usually only a matter of days before he jumps on a new topic or article to push the same views and arguments there.

Again, the bottom line, it is no a content dispute, but a continuous flood of never-ending content disputes.

Cheers, pedro gonnet - talk - 07.01.2008 12:44

(EC)Agree with Pedro. In shirt, Stwalkerster, you got played. Jaakobou isn't acting in Good Faith. He's here at AN/I so often he's got frequent flyer miles and his own chair. And it's always the same thing - promoting his POV against all consensus using hostility nad WP:TE to try to get his way. He'll ramp all opposition up tillthey violate WP:CIVIL, or it gets sent to one of our processes (DR, RfC, whatever), whereupon he'll split, leaving everyone else to 'fix' the mess, wasting lots of their time. then he jumps to a new article, and starts again. He's a persistent Tendentious Editor, and he needs a community ban. ThuranX (talk) 12:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

And that makes him different from the majority of his critics how? Let's not forget to look at both sides of this dispute and realize that it is part of a larger problem of POV-warring on Palestine/Israel conflict articles. (Which, I'll admit, I'm not exactly unfamiliar with....) Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 13:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Stwalkerster - many people will have undoubtedly assumed that Jaakobou is here in good faith - a close look at his actual editing would quickly persuade you otherwise. This TalkPage, starting at this section is one place to start. Whatever the rights and wrongs of our treatment of this main-stream Israeli journalist, it must be clear that Jaakobou's antics are not going to improve this article, they can only harm it.

As you can see in that example, on top of the bullying, Jaakobou operates in a totally un-encyclopedic fashion to use/abuse sources. Not only does this damage articles, it has a profoundly discouraging effect on real scholars attempting to edit. In at least three cases I can think of, Jaakobou appears to have driven such people away in double frustration, both as regards the material itself and the absurdly tendentious way it is defended. A ripple effect of bad vibes is spreading about the whole project amongst all who value accuracy. PR 15:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

A more perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black would be hard to come by. Jayjg 03:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

As someone who has, to some extent, observed some of the events on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles, I have to echo Kyaa's sentiment. Jaakobou is no doubt being disruptive, but he is, unsurprisingly, not the only one stoking the flames in this contentious subject. What I think is necessary here is a request for arbitration. -- tariqabjotu 16:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Some the complainants here are engaging in an astonishing display of WP:KETTLE, and they are easily as extreme, if not more so, in their POV pushing than Jaakobou. The only real difference I can see is that there are more of them, than him, which makes it much easier to game the system here. An arbcom might be a good idea, but it also needs to include the people he's been fighting with, or it will be a wasted effort. <<-armon->> (talk) 21:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the block log tells the story - numerous blocks for edit-warring, tendentious editing, etc. The kicker is that many of the blocks were lifted after an apparent promise to reform... followed shortly thereafter by more of the same behavior, another block, rinse and repeat. I suppose yet another RfArb on the matter would be appropriate, but it would be nice if the community could decide that editors of this stripe are a net negative to the project, regardless of their political allegiances etc. I'm all for 2nd chances, and even 3rd and 4th chances, but in this case the block log is testament to a very refractory level of recidivism. MastCell 17:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Does it tell a different story than this block log? As Armon wrote, it takes an astonishing amount of Chutzpah for someone like PR, currently under mentorship for disruptive editing and abuse of sources to pile on the way he/she does here. AN/I is not the place to continue content disputes. If you think you have a case, by all means take it to ArbCom, and be reminded that ArbCom will look at the behaviour of all those involved in this. Those of you in glass houses should think long and hard about it. Mr. Hicks The III (talk) 21:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Um, that's a nice try to divert the issue, but TariqAbjotu, El_C, and Number 57 are admins with clear block records, Tiamut and Huldra are respected editors with no block logs, Pedro Gonnet has one now-overturned 3rr block, I have a 3rr block from this summer (the blocking admin later said "since I blocked him last week, Eleland has done nothing but remain civil and try to discuss the situation"), G-Dett has two 3rr blocks, and only PR and maybe ThuranX have any serious record of disruption. Whatever stone-throwing from glass houses is going on here, a multitude of respected, trusted editors and admins find there to be something seriously amiss with Jaakobou's actions on the Misplaced Pages. <eleland/talkedits> 23:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I forgot how depressingly predictable all discussions relating to these topics are. Thanks for the reminder, Mr Hicks. Yes, PalestineRemembered's block log is every bit as ugly as Jaakobu's. Obviously the solution, then, is for both of them to carry on as they've been doing, right? Or maybe send it to ArbCom for another round of stern admonitions (if they dare go that far)? Let's not forget the step where all editors/admins who take the time to comment are assigned to dichotomous political camps based on their opinions about a user-conduct issue, either. MastCell 00:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Bring it on - I'll dare go "as far as" ArbCom - and much more - I'd be delighted to go "up against" Jaakobou. I've pleaded (and been rejected and pleaded again) for the case that bears my name to be arbitrated - I still want it - and I'd be delighted if the many new allegations against me (there've been lots, all virtually evidence free) are added to it. I've never lied, cheated, or damaged the encyclopedia - quite the reverse - in fact, I've several times been attacked and sanctioned (up to and including an indef-block) for doing good work that has stuck. I've never (deliberatly, anyway!) acted unreasonably - so there's a crystal clear comparison to be made here.

And there is more than defending the scholarly against the tendentious can be decided now - it's high time the cancer of false accusations against good editors (and their defenders) be excised, and the cancer of partisan defence of terrible editors be faced and stamped out. Bring it on. PR 08:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Can someone enlighten me to the previous arbitration case that has been alluded to multiple times? Anyway, Eleland, I think you're off the mark with your interpretation of Mr. Hicks' comments, especially because you suggest I disagree with him. Let me be clear: I don't disagree with him. Yes, Jaakobou's actions have disruptive and should be addressed, but it would be unfortunate if we were to levy sanctions against him based on dicussion here and then close the book on this Israeli-Palestinian conflict disruption. Some of the other disruptive editors, including, but perhaps not limited to, you (Eleland), Taimut (who doesn't, by the way, have a clean block log), and PalestineRemembered, certainly need to have their actions scrutinized. Unsurprisingly, all three of those editors have been quick to denounce Jaakobou's actions and feign innocence (i.e. throwing stones in glass houses). Blocks and topic bans are not intended to give one side an upperhand in a dispute. If a broad arbitration case or investigation results with just Jaakobou being sanctioned, fine, but we should be real careful about how we respond to this. -- tariqabjotu 00:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Please feel free to scrutinize my edits and block log. While it is true that I have been blocked four times, three of those blocks were the result of 3RR reports filed by Isarig (talk · contribs) who was edit-warring with me at the time and the fourth was placed by Traiqabjotu after I filed a 3RR report against Egygey (talk · contribs). Three of those four blocks were lifted before they expired.

Additionally, I have authored at least 10 DYKs and one good article, not to mention my contributions at tens of other pages. I don't think it's fair to compare my editing to that of Jaakobou's, who as Huldra (talk · contribs) points out below, hasn't seemed to actually improve a single article. Tiamut 12:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Not only is Tariqabjotu's comment right on the mark, but in the almost two years since he began editing, PR still spends most of his time either edit-warring or filling talk pages with original research and political speeches. PR, who is theoretically under mentorship, has apparently managed to drive way all of his mentors except self-appointed ones, and they, unsurprisingly, have no impact at all on his behavior. For that matter, another of Jaakobou's current opponents User:Liftarn carries out silent POV edit-wars that have lasted, in some cases, years. Jaakobou is not unique, merely outnumbered, and less sophisticated than his opponents. Jayjg 03:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I am asking for the arbitration that bears my name to be re-opened, and you are a party to it. I will want your statement above entered into the record as evidence. If there are other occasions when you have leveled undefendable statements about my conduct or character, I will enter those as evidence too.

I can assure everyone reading this that all my actions have been carried out with the intention of improving the accuracy of articles, and the quality of the project. In many cases I have clearly succeeded against the most bitter of opposition and the most reckless of personal slander. PR 12:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, what is the deal with his mentorship, anyway? MastCell 03:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

In the interests of keeping Jaakobou's ANI on track and not filling it with complete irrelevancies I have answered your question at your TalkPage. In a nutshell, despite it's apparent absurdity, I've been delighted with mentoring, whereas my detractors have repeatedly de-railed the process because they're not. Please feel free to question me there or elsewhere. PR 12:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the Tiamut statement, I must have mistyped it somehow. And I don't "feign innocence," I have violated 3RR once and skirted it a couple of other times, and I've made uncivil comments, especially towards Jaakobou.

Anyway, you have a reasonable point about being careful. This is, after all, a case of infractions which are all, compared to blatant trolling or vandalism, relatively minor when taken individually. And if Jaakobou's block record is any indication, an admin so bold as to put his foot down would just be undone anyway. I agree that this should be taken to arbitration. <eleland/talkedits> 02:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. It looks as if it is inevitable that any discussion involving editors on Palestine/Israel issues degenerate to some form of WP:KETTLE. I think it should rather boil down to what the "signal-to-noise" ratio is. That is my point: from my experience with Jaakobou I do not know about any article which has been improved by his attention. I am not saying that there aren´t any; I just do not know about it. (And I confess: I have not looked through them all). Can somebody tell me? That is, can anybody tell me which articles that has improved under his attention/edits? And, btw, I actually do believe that Jaakobou acts in good faith....but that doesn´t really make the situation better. Not at all. The "improvement-potential" is, IMO, less in such cases. Regards, Huldra (talk) 05:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Since so many people seem really into this User:Jaakobou / User:PalestineRemembered comparison, why don't we drag User:Jaakobou to WP:RfArb and place him under mentorship and a short leash just as User:PalestineRemembered was? pedro gonnet - talk - 08.01.2008 07:52

Because as shown by PR, mentorship does not seem to work. Even in PR's case, it was simply a settlement so the community would be able to stop the drama and try to give him a chance to be a productive editor. It doesn't seem to have been a very good solution, imho. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 09:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I can assure everyone that mentorship works superbly. It provides a conduit whereby minor (or major) complaints about my editing/conduct are funneled through one person and slight adjustments can be requested/required, without the drama of a "disciplinary".

The problem arises because certain editors have taken it upon themselves to object to real improvements going into articles - and my mentors have repeatedly been unable to find any fault with what I've been doing. See this from October 07 and (for productive cooperation), see this from January 08. PR 13:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the suggestion by an editor at the top of this section that Jaakobou be limited to 1RR is a reasonable suggestion that would deal with his mass blanking of article content quite adequately. Tiamut 12:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that if it was enforced on ALL editors on these tendentious articles. Do we have a WP:GLASSHOUSES yet? Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 12:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I really think that we should remove Twinkle from Jaakobou's mono-book. Just a quick scan through his contribs shows he uses it in content disputes and labels good faith edits as vandalism - I see very little constructive use of tool. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to note,

• That Tiamut ignored my serious concerns regarding the factuality of his material and continued editing:
  • i disagree with the removal of the "Palestinian terrorists" category 16:06, 5 January 2008
  • why are you changing the arabic translation and revving up the "resistance" terminology? 18:31, 5 January 2008
  • last i checked "fedayeen" translated to guerrilla, not "freedom fighter", 13:14, 6 January 2008
  • considering you've made more than 50 edits with many contested changes, i'd expect at least the issue i addressed, to be fixed before moving on with more edits. 17:23, 6 January 2008
• To be frank, previous to my recent block (which I well took notice of) I'd have reverted him long before making 4 talk page pleas -- but following these notes, I saw no alternative to the continued edits than a revert to get noticed with my, up to that point ignored, concerns.

-- Jaakobou 12:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle

p.s. Ryan, I'd appreciate an example of where I reverted good faith edits and marked them as Vandalism. Perhaps one of those made on the person you're supposed to mentor who still keeps bothering me and call normative sources "hate sites" .

-- Jaakobou 12:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't be using the tool in any content disputes, regardless of whether or not you add your own edit summary in. There's plenty of reverts using the tool in content disputes and that's serious misuse of twinkle. I would appreciate outside comments on this before I remove twinkle. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I may have misused it a couple times if you go over all of the many times i've used it with, but I can't recall any uses that cannot be explained -- I'd appreciate some input on the person you mentor before you remove it. Jaakobou 13:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Stop piling everything on PR - does he force you to click on rollback on twinkle every time you're in a content dispute? No, this is about your misuse of Twinkle. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

How about you advise your mentee to stop trolling Jaakobou as well? It isn't about his misuse of twinkle, although that could be a legitimate complaint. Jaakobou has pointed out that he's made an effort to discuss his changes while Tiamut doesn't seem to do the same and is using sympathetic POV language for terms which do not seem to warrant it and opened this kangaroo court instead of trying to discuss the content dispute properly on the talk page of the article. You have a hang-up over his use of twinkle, noone else seems to. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 13:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Again, User:Kyaa the Catlord, it's not a content dispute we are talking about here, it's the hundreds of content disputes which User:Jaakobou starts and then drags on for ever and ever to no avail. Don't try to turn this issue into a content dispute, as User:Jaakobou always does. It's disruptive and tendentious editing that are the issue here and it's just plain annoying for anyone and everyone trying to make decent encyclopaedic material out of the I/P articles. pedro gonnet - talk - 08.01.2008 13:40

So its a number of content disputes which are being labelled and sold as nasty words with wikilinks behind them. I find you annoying in our particular discussion on Gilad Shalit, but I'm not whining on AN/I about it and I take the time to discuss the issue with you on the talk pages. Tiamut does not appear to be acting properly and discussing these even when the branch is offered. Both sides MUST be looked at in these matters which you will learn quickly if you take this to arbcom. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 13:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Uhm, no, you seem to missing the point: User:Jaakobou starts content disputes over bogus material as a way of blocking articles he doesn't like. That's WP:POINT, WP:DISRUPT and WP:TE all in one. If User:Jaakobou is so good at discussing and talking things through, can you give me a few examples of him ever having agreed to some compromise on any point? Can you show me any RfC he's followed until conclusion? pedro gonnet - talk - 08.01.2008 14:00

No, I'm not the one on the warpath and am not stalking his edits. Maybe he can. I can, however, show you one where you aren't following the conclusion of an RfC if you'd like.... Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 14:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Just so we're clear exactly what the problem is, this is Jaakabou's use of twinkle in content disputes over the past few days - some are labelled as vandalism when they clearly aren't;

I've gone ahead and remvoed twinkle from his monobook. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Ryan,

1. Which ones of them clearly aren't?
2. I still can't recall any uses that cannot be explained -- I'd appreciate some input on the person you mentor Saeb Erekat edit -> "revert vandalism" now that you've taken to remove it.

-- Jaakobou 14:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The PR edit was clearly not vandalism. One of the edits up there you reverted as vandalism when someone removed an unsourced section - this again isn't vandalism, and porbably have to be done. On another page you reverted somebody who removed a comment labelling someone a "former terrorist" - BLP eh? Many reverts I've seen are straight edit wars, with you reverting with very little rationale. One of the best edit summaries I've seen for a while was "(Reverted 1 edit by Tiamut; I STILL object this mass revert.. using TW)" - and what do you think you were doing when reverting that? Exactly the same thing that you reverted for in the first place. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's how I see it.

1. The provided "reverted as vandalism" diff you've given, was not marked as Vandalism. (It was however a series of 3 WP:POV and WP:POINT edits)
2. The former terrorist text refers to Walid Shoebat, who presents himself as a reformed former PLO terrorist.. not only on the back-cover of the film but also in every TV interview he's made. BLP eh?
3. As i've stated on my page , I have not seen a place where it says I'm not allowed to use the tool as long as I give a proper edit summary. Regardless, i've just served a time-out partly due to reverting on that page (despite leading an attempt to resolve the disputes).
4. Anyone giving a look at the Saeb Erekat edit can decide on their own if it is vandalism or not.

-- Jaakobou 15:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Jaakobou, WP:RfArb

Well, sorry for pooping anybody's party here, but to bring this thread back on track... The issue is User:Jaakobou's tendentious and disruptive editing. Many editors and admins have suggested arbitration. I already tried this once on a specific issue (WP:POINT and WP:DISRUPT, see here) and it got shot down as a content dispute. Any other editors willing to start an WP:RfArb as suggested here? Or, better yet, any admins up to it? Cheers, pedro gonnet - talk - 08.01.2008 13:34

Pedro, despite an RfC++ showing favor for use of the word hostage, you've reverted that word out - what makes you think the arbcom would disregard this "tendentious and disruptive edit"? Jaakobou 13:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, dude, I'm not taking the bait -- I've answered on this issue far too many times. This is not about any specific dispute, but about your behaviour in general. Stop trying to divert it. pedro gonnet - talk - 08.01.2008 14:05

Its kinda funny, Jaakobou shows you evidence that you don't follow the consensus shown on an RfC but you can't handle the heat when your glass house is pelted with rocks. (Yes, I intenionally mixed metaphors. Hurry up and make that RfArb if you think you have a case Pedro...) Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 14:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, do you mean the RfC at Talk:Gilad Shalit which resulted in the nice compromise solution suggested by User:Dbratton (here), to which I and most other editors agreed to, but to which User:Jaakobou did not, instead trying to turn the WP:RFC into a vote (which the page WP:RFC clearly states it is not)? If so, then it is again an wonderful example of User:Jaakobou's editing pattern... pedro gonnet - talk - 08.01.2008 14:42

Yes, due to your continued tendentious refusal (and subsequent 3rr block) to follow the advice of the consensus of editors on the page, we gave in and decided to take the compromise position. Its an excellent example, is it not? Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 14:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

You're not serious, are you? Tell me you're not serious... Where, in the aforementioned RfC, do you and/or User:Jaakobou accept the compromise solution? And that block was reverted. Have you been drinking again or have you just taken to plain lying? Cut it out with the diversions, red herrings and straw-men. pedro gonnet - talk - 08.01.2008 15:07

Neither Jaakobou nor I have editted away the "compromise" position. We may not have held a parade, but we've not fired rockets from the Golan Heights either. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 15:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Jaakobou has a long history of abusing procedures, including calling for RfC and then refused to abide by the results. Earlier today, I've informed another editor of one such case here.

Note how, in this case as in so many others, User:Jaakobou's determination not to abide by policy is infectious, and results in other editors slipping into these consensus trashing and article damaging behaviors. It really is of the utmost importance that he be stopped. PR 15:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, the punchline there is Mr. Hicks' final response to you. You should probably read that again before trying to use it as "evidence'. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 15:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

As I said to new editor User:Mr. Hicks The III, "Please don't behave as if the procedures and conclusions of the community don't apply to you." PR 15:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Observers need to check the result of the RfC refered to, "Comments by previously uninvolved users, where, despite interference by an involved user, the result seems to be two to none in favour of Pedro's solution of "abducted" or "captured" (ie not use the word "hostage").

Observers might also care to visit this TalkPage, where it would seem that Pedro has partaken in a model of consensual discussion, with an involved user of an opposite point of view.

Uninvolved observers might suppose that this mini-example neatly demonstrates a massive problem of tendentious editing by the subject of this ANI. If problems of deceit arise at this evidence-based process, then how much worse is it a problem in articles? PR 14:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Those same observers should scroll down and see where the usage of hostage in the article has strong support. The near unilateral belief that he should not be called that for "pov" reasons is overruled by the clear consensus of editors. Unfortunately, some do not believe that consensus can ever occur apparently. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 15:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

If my understanding of the RfC process is faulty (or I've not fully understood the vast amount of verbiage just on this one issue), then you will be welcome to my apology. But my understanding of the purpose of "Request for Comment" is to get the input of the community, hence the views (or, wrongly, sometimes the votes) of uninvolved editors only are being canvassed.

And in this case, only two uninvolved editors appeared, both of them opposed to the word "hostage". I've obviously not checked all the media sources, but the supporters of "abducted" or "captured" claim to have done so, and claim to be editing to the sources. That's what editing is about - it's called policy, and it appears that User:Jaakobou refuses to abide by it. PR 15:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sources have been presented and summarily disregarded. But hey, let's move on. This is boring me. I await the RfC or RfArb. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 15:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I look forwards to presenting this evidence at the ArbCom. There is a lot more where that came from. PR 15:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This is heading to arbitration unfortunately unless Jaakobou's (and other editors that are in the dispute) conduct changes somewhat. I would suggest a user conduct RfC before any arbitration cases are filed. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Jaakobou in real-time

Actually, for a nice, real-time demonstration of User:Jaakobou WP:Wikilawyering his misbehaviour and attempting to discuss it to death and/or turn it into a content dispute, see User talk:Jaakobou#Detwinkled. He's only just gotten started, so this may fizzle-out as soon as he reads this post. pedro gonnet - talk - 08.01.2008 14:16

I love the part where he says "I'd appreciate some further discussion/explanation on my use of the tool for reverting vandalism, such as the cases on saeb erekat, ....". His claim to be fighting vandalism at Saeb Erekat is breath-taking indeed. Sorry to repeat myself, but this proves that User:Jaakobou has been single-handedly holding off 8 editors at this article, he has demanded it treat the subject a liar - and he's succeeded in doing this for the whole 16 month existence of that TalkPage! No dispute resolution will ever be possible in these cases, the damage to articles such as this one has simply got to stop. PR 15:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

And with that out of the way, I'd like to motion to close this. It has been suggested, appropriately, that this should follow WP:DR not be a focus of this noticeboard. Opinion on closing this and letting Jaakobou's detractors take this to an RfC or RfArb? Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 14:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

For the record, Ryan Postlethwaite has (quite rightly IMO) taken this to arbitration - see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration#Palestine-Israel conflict. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:The Noosphere

Posted for review: I've tagged and blocked The Noosphere (talk · contribs) as a sock of banned Cognition (talk · contribs). The accounts edit the same articles, have the same userboxes, edit from the same POV, and both accounts can be seen to be editing from the same geographic area. Noosphere has been editing disruptively in pushing his POV, as did Cognition. I haven't been involved in any of those disputes, though I was involved in disputes with Cognition prior to his banning in May 2006. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

If you have serious concerns, why not log a Checkuser? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

For some context see Raul's talk page. I don't think that checkuser would work given the stale nature of Cognitions account. Am I correct in that assumption? Woody (talk) 19:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, your assumption is correct. Raul654 (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but since current account has been blocked and there seems to be considerable evidence of sockpuppetry (past or otherwise) it may still be wise to log a checkuser on The Noosphere (talk · contribs) to ensure no additional accounts are being used. But your call. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Cognition last edited (under that account) in May 2006, so checkuser wouldn't be helpful. Several editors working with The Noosphere have already identified him as a probable sock of an unknown master. Since I was familiar with Cognition it was obvious to me who the puppet master is. I agree that an RfCU to check for other socks is a good idea. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

There are no socks detectable from that account -- I ran checkuser on it 2 days ago and turned up nothing. Raul654 (talk) 19:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I encountered The Noosphere a few days ago on the Robert Mugabe article. I was surprised to see a new contributor turn up and be immediately so familiar with Misplaced Pages policies and start pushing opinions on a lot of different articles. I checked a few article histories but couldn't come to any conclusions about who he might be a sock puppet of though. • Anakin 19:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to pick out one area of similarity, both accounts added "drug-free" and "Platonist" userboxes (which Cognition created) and both had photos of Martin Luther King on their user pages. There are other signs as well. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of blaboring the obvious, compare the meanings of the terms "cognition" and "noosphere." Raymond Arritt (talk) 19:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, before Cognition created that username he probably edited as The Power of Reason, The Power of Human Reason, and El Poder de la Razón. There seems to be a theme. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed my mistake below, someone might want to check the other slightly similar account. R. Baley (talk) 08:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Despite the coincidence of names, user:Noosphere appears to be entirely unrelated to this matter. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Then it's best if I make one more edit then. . .R. Baley (talk) 09:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

For the record

I (edited to add R. Baley (talk) ) was working on this to bring to ANI, so I'll just post here, since the problem is already in the process of being resolved.

• {{userlinks|Noosphere}} (oops, no need to link. R. Baley (talk)) The Noosphere (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) account created: "05:57, 1 January 2008 The Noosphere (Talk | contribs) New user account" link
  
• On "day 2" of his wiki-experience, he/she pipes links in an edit summary diff in a wiki-move that removes criticism from Rafael_Correa and forks it over to a seperate and newly created page.
  
• Jan 5, Merlinme asks politely "who are you?" diff. Noosphere replies with evasive non-answer, "Your allegations that I have had a previous account are hurtful and poison the cooperative spirt of a community-built encyclopedia. It is not suspicious. . ." and later deletes the question again from his talk page (on Jan 6, removal of 2nd ? from Mme)
  

• This user does seem to show a remarkable knowledge of WP policies/procedures for a newbie and is editing with fervor and frequency that are unusual for a new editor. I'd find it hard to believe that he is in fact a new user. It's worth noting in your example above that he was asked more than "who are you?" He was directly accused of having a previous account and he provided a Clinton-esque denial. Oren0 (talk) 20:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Warnings left at Noosphere's talk page:

on Jan 1 by TES

on Jan 2 by WB

on Jan 4 by RA

on Jan 5 by RA

on Jan 6 by R6

on Jan 6 by WMC

That was as far as I got. . . R. Baley (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Request attention to User talk:209.244.30.109 - Pre-block advisory

Recently, IP user 209.244.30.109 has been removing content without justification at the following article diffs:

1. Bootstrap Bill Turner 5 January

   POTC: AWE 6 January

   POTC:AWE 5 January

   POTC:AWE EARLY 5 January

   Will Turner 5 January

As these removals are not commented, and continue to occur, this constitutes disruptive editing, and needs to be addressed. This is a pre-block advisory, action is not being requested at this time, unless it is deemed by admin(s) to be required, per the record of edits. Thank you again for your time an attention to this incident report. Edit Centric (talk) 22:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Took a look at his edits - on "Will Turner" he's editing out what looks like POV (removing

POV is in keeping with our policies, in "Pirates of the Caribbea: At World's End" He's editing out a referenced to a forum, again, in keeping with policy regarding references. I don't see that this is vandalism. I don't think a block or a ban would be appropriate here, but that's just my .02 cents. :) KoshVorlon ".. We are ALL Kosh..." 18:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

TfD page not updating

The bot which used to update the TfD page is no longer working. For some reason, Zorglbot no longer updates the TfD page like it used to. Could someone who owns a bot that is authorized to do this sort of thing please fix this? Thanks. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 00:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Reposting. This still needs to be fixed. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 00:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Schutz has said that it will be back up by Monday at the latest - just hang in there! east.718 at 00:59, January 7, 2008

Ok, cool. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 01:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Leftcoastbreakdown and American Apparel

I previously reported this user on 26 November for his POV edits to American Apparel and Dov Charney (CEO of AA) after identifying himself as the "web communications coordinator" for American Apparel. User was warned against making any edits (POV or otherwise) to American Apparel or Dov Charney and the case was marked as resolved. This account has recently began making further POV edits to that article to promote his company's stance on immigration. This indicates that this account will continue to be used for POV edits to American Apparel, is a single purpose account and a gross violation of WP:COI and should therefore be blocked. Thank you. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 01:02, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(Disinterested third-party observation) All I can see from the diff is that the user changed the source citation from an outside to an inside source of the same jpg image. Hardly a POV edit. Edit Centric (talk) 01:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• The image was added to promote American Apparel's position on immigration. Considering this account's past edits to Dov Charney and American Apparel, it is not hard to understand why they would that. As an account belonging to somebody who is paid to promote American Apparel on the internet, it would be difficult to argue that it will be used to anything other than that purpose. Their continued edits to American Apparel even after being warned reduces their credibility in this regard even further. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 01:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Uh, but the two images are the same -- User:Leftcoastbreakdown replaced the link to the version of the image on the American Apparel site with an identical Misplaced Pages-uploaded version of the ad. That was his or her only edit to American Apparel since being warned about conflict of interest on 26 November. A singular edit, not "continued edits". You, uh, reverted that essentially null edit, replacing the image uploaded by Leftcoastbreakdown with the original identical copy. What was the point of that reversion? Where is the POV pushing by Lcb? -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 02:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• It demonstrates that this account will defy WP:COI rules and the requests of other editors to continue making edits to an article which he is paid money to insert a bias into. The fact that he uploaded that image isn't the most egregious violation being discussed here, but instead it only serves to demonstrate this user will not follow protocol on this issue. This is also a single purpose account and has only made edits to articles which he is paid to contribute to. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 02:08, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Since 26 November, when he was warned, what violations of COI has he committed? There was already a link to the ad in the article, going to the company's website. He uploaded the image, and replaced the link to the company's site with a link to the uploaded identical image. He essentially made a null edit. Where is the COI violation? What bias has he introduced to the article since he was warned about conflict of interest on 26 November? Since you mentioned "egregious violation" -- what other violations has he committed since he was warned? Yeah, he appears to be a single-purpose account -- but since he was warned, what has he done wrong? -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 02:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• He is being paid to promote his company on Misplaced Pages. His continued edits to the article demonstrate that he will continue to do so. Please read WP:COI for more information on what a conflict of interest is. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 03:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• I did, and I have. Please don't assume that those who disagree with you are ignorant.
  Let's take a key sentence from the introduction : "COI editing involves contributing to Misplaced Pages in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups." How does replacing an external with an internal link promote AA's interests? If he had added the link, I can see that, but he didn't. Looking at the rest of the guideline, I don't see the pattern of violations (or any violations) of COI since 26 November. Possibly a case could be made that he has committed a small technical violation -- but if so, I think that it (in the words of the banner at the top of WP:COI), "should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception."
  Any further edits that he makes, especially those against WP:COI, I'll be with you asking for correction. But, in my judgment, he hasn't broken the rules since the 26 November warning. I'm not an admin, and it's going to be administrators's judgments that count here, of course, but I don't think that now is the time for the hammer to fall. -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 03:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
• And for now, since I really didn't want to visit the argument clinic tonight, unless an authoritative voice chimes into this discussion, I think I'm done here -- the back and forth argument is generating more heat than light, at least on my side of the screen. I am curious about the outcome of this, and will watch closely, though. -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 03:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Well, considering that he's already admitted to being paid for his edits to that article, I don't know if there is any way it couldn't be seen as a conflict of interest. Instead of focusing on this most recent edit, it might be helpful to you to take in the broader perspective and consider that this man is being paid to edit this Misplaced Pages article to insert a bias and has demonstrated that he will continue to do so. I can keep repeating myself about this or we can all finally agree that this represents an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 03:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears (at least to the naked eye) that the reference to the image was added previously to this, as a source citation, by an unregistered IP editor. (See diff here.) After this, the editor in question uploaded the image to Wiki. I've compared the two, no difference. It's the same image. As far as I can tell, all that User:Leftcoastbreakdown did was to change the reference tag to point to the internal copy of the image. This, in and of its self, does not constitute a POV edit, this would instead be a WP:V and WP:RS issue, based on the location of the image, maybe. But definitely not a POV edit. Edit Centric (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Could you read the topic first before you spend any more time belaboring the issue over the image. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 02:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• I'm supposing that the issue of the image is being belabored here because it's the only thing the account has done since being warned about COI. I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but where's the additional violation? -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 02:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not seeing a violation of WP:COI in these edits. I have no doubt such an account could, and apparently, already has violated COI, but given that post-warning, there's nothing but this tiny set of edits, I think the warnings worked. This falls under the common sense clause of COI. Leave it be. This is not a problem to me. Your arguments here seem to border on something more than a simple concern, like you're out to get the editor. I think this is done, as multiple editors don't see it the way you do. ThuranX (talk) 03:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(unindent). One thing we should resolve is a difference between me and Cumulus Clouds regarding what Leftcoastbreakdown is free to do. If you look at Talk:American Apparel and User talk:Leftcoastbreakdown you'll see Cumulus Clouds claiming that Leftcoastbreakdown should have been blocked in the first place in November, should be blocked now for having tried to replace one link with a different link to an identical image, and in any event should be prohibited from any further editing of the American Apparel-related articles because they cannot be trusted. I note that AA was warned a single time over the incidents in November, immediately stopped and has not engaged in any further improper edits since the warning, and per WP:COI is free to make edits that do not raise POV concerns. I think we're giving Leftcoastbreakdown mixed signals and that my position is the accurate reflection of the COI guideline. Whatever their past sins editors, even single purpose editors hired as communications directors, are free to continue editing as long as they follow COI. COI does not prohibit conflicts of interest; rather, it informs people what they may do if there is a conflict. Wikidemo (talk) 09:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• As far as I can tell, Leftcoastbreakdown's actions in this particular case are a non-issue. If this changes in the future, we'll take appropriate action, but for now it's fine. -Hit bull, win steak 18:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I can certainly understand a desire to not speculate about future administrative actions in response to misbehavior that has not yet occurred. My question, rather, is whether we're endorsing or letting stand Cumulus Cloud's warning that Leftcoastbreakdown is forbidden from editing the article under pain of being blocked, or simply saying we'll deal with it under usual COI principles if the subject ever comes up again. If I were in Leftcoastbreakdown's or American Aparrel's place, the warning would have a chilling effect on my desire to ever participate again in the project, whereas the softer approach might encourage me to proceed with caution if there is every any minor neutral upkeep I could perform on the article. Maybe that's a good thing. But don't we allow parties to tidy up their own article? Wikidemo (talk) 01:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The do-not-edit warning is overboard and should be stricken. As Wikidemo notes, policy allows even editors with obvious COI to edit. As a practical matter a review of Lcb's edits shows he (she) has no interest in editing here other than to protect or promote his employer's interests, so I doubt much harm has been done. Raymond Arritt (talk) 02:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Concur with Raymond Arritt. ThuranX (talk) 03:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Concur with Raymond Arritt. Edit Centric (talk) 06:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Need Administrators Attention to this checkuser findings

A request for checkuser case against User:UzEE was confirmed and now it needs the attention of Administrator. Sarmad (talk) 04:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Umm, You asked, and were told what would happen. Be patient, please. - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok! i just thought to bring it at the noticeboard so Administrators can have a look at it! Sarmad (talk) 05:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: any administrator may tag and block (or not block) based on checkuser findings. Clerks often do it since they keep an eye on the page, but there is no process stating that clerks must be the ones doing it. We are only here to close and archive cases (and in doubt it happens that we close a case and let the requester find an admin more familiar with the case to act upon it). -- lucasbfr 09:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Alfred Legrand: Disruption and sockpuppetry

User:MathStatWoman sockpuppeteer (confirmed by Checkuser admins Kelly Martin & Fred Bauder, see summary of behaviour here), has been blocked three times for repeated copyvio contributions, repeated vandalism and repeated disruption. She has a history of abusive sockpuppetry and disruptive edits related to the now deleted Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Roberta Wenocur subject in particular. Articles on Wenocur have been deleted four times already, the fifth is now at AfD. MathStatWoman has not edited since Aug 06 (none have any of her previously identified sockpuppets have edited past Sept 06, except for one, which made edits to userpage removing the sock template Feb 07).

The most recent R. S. Wenocur article was created by User:Alfred Legrand. Other pages created by MathStatWoman and since edited by Alfred Legrand include Marion Cohen (twice survived AfD by non-consensus), and Mark Pinsky.

A confirmed MathStatWoman (by Fred Bauder here) sock is User:Philly Student, and MathStatWoman has edited Philadelphia related articles such as the Philly suburb article Ardmore, Pennsylvania, example (problematic) edits: , . Alfred Legrand's also displays an interest in Philadelphia topics, making some problematic edits: (e.g. & ).

MathStatsWoman complained that Utz chips ought to be deleted , Alfred Legrand's put a prod tag on it (). Alfred Legrand has also created some very odd food-related articles, such as Sweet Muenster Cheese, the (now deleted) Harvest Moon Cocktail and Whole stuffed camel. He's also made edits attributing the invention of recipies to R.S. Wenocur, e.g. the pomegranate martini , the harvest moon beer coctail . In a similar edit User:Samuel Kotz attributes a recipie for Sweet Muenster cheese (note difference in capitaliation from the Alfred Legrand article) to R.S. Winocur .

Not only is User:Alfred Legrand a transparent User:MathStatWoman sockpuppet, but quite aside from the sockpuppetry, these edits are disruptive to the project. Off to file at SSP now. Pete.Hurd (talk) 04:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

These personal attacks and this suggestion for deletion of the BLP David Eppstein (a WP admin involved in wikiproject mathematics) are reminiscent of User:MathStatWoman. In addition donations of $34-89 to MSRI at the Fibonacci level (the "Archimedes Society" of MSRI), mentioned in the BLP of R. S. Wenocur, are not made public. This unsourced private detail in the BLP of Wenocur plus a copy of Wenocur's CV in Alfred Legrand's user space (User:Alfred Legrand/Wenocur) suggests that it could be one of her close associates, possibly even Wenocur herself, making these edits. Mathsci (talk) 17:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

User:RDSW (Roberta S. Wenocur) has made a statement here . Alfred Legrand is referred to as Dr. Legrand, contrary to & . Mathsci (talk) 20:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

On Jimbo's talk page User:Alfred Legrand wrote:

« I have had articles about quite noteable persons erased, and have been accused of vandalism when what I added was truth, backed by references. I have been blocked for unknown reasons. »

These odd statements about reversions and blocks are not reflected in his history or block log and could be further evidence of sockpuppetry. In addition this user vandalized Cave painting in the the most perverse way here . All the sources are incorrect and the crazy additions seem typical of MathStatWoman. The edit refers to Cro-Magnon characters called "Me Ogg" and "Ugga"; the female "Ugga" counts in base thirty and moreover

«  Og and Ugga contributed to probability theory, especially empirical measures. Og say: How many buffolo we catch this moon? Ugga say: three. Og ask: How many we try to catch? Ugga say: thirty. So empitical measure of 3/30 = 0.1 was invented. »

It is very hard to assume good faith when editors behave as vandals like this. Or am I missing something? Mathsci (talk) 00:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Needing a Little Help

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

Take it to dispute resolution, as advised. Neıl ☎ 09:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I updated the affiliate/owned & operated listings on the Moody Broadcasting Network page. The template that is currently being used was created by JPG-GR. The template only allowed for 21 entries total. Currently on the Texas section of the Moody Broadcasting Network listings, there are 26. So I added 9 more entries to JPG-GR's template, which was immediately reverted. JPG-GR even tried to use a different template for just the Texas section, which didn't have the FCC Listings beside the entry, like the current template.

At the moment, the Texas affiliate section of the Moody Broadcasting Network page is only showing 20 stations because of JPG-GR's refusal to allow the template he made to be slightly altered....and not even in a bad way.

When trying to talk to him, I get nice posts, like this. Can an admin please have a word with JPG-GR so that this can get resolved. I don't think this is too much to ask. Thanks....NeutralHomer 04:55, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

As I have already tried to explain (three times on my talk page and once on the talk page for the template in question, {{RadioTranslators}}), the appropriate template to be used in this article is {{RadioRebroadcasters}}, which is capable of holding 30 stations (as NH has added to it) and is used for fully licensed stations such as those listed in Moody Broadcasting Network, not translators. I changed the article in question to use the proper template and display all the stations, but NH reverted this oddly. I have tried to explain all of this on my talk page to him, but he doesn't seem to grasp it (or, more likely, doesn't CHOOSE to). I am shocked and appalled to see such a hilariously minor situation brought to WP:ANI. JPG-GR (talk) 04:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

...again with the reverting. JPG claims there is "no instance of a radio station having more than 21 translators readily identifiable" when he has been show an "instance" of just that and completely disregarded it. This is a clear cut case of OWN'ing a page/template/etc. - NeutralHomer 05:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I already adequately explained multiple times that those are NOT translator stations, but you either missed this fact or chose to ignore it. JPG-GR (talk) 05:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I have now made the appropriate changes to Moody Broadcasting Network. Also, I'd like to point out I'm curious how you can accuse me of WP:OWN, when I'm the one who originally created both templates. If I was violating WP:OWN, why would I let you edit one freely and not the other? Is one my red-headed stepchild? JPG-GR (talk) 05:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

And now, a beautiful example of blind-reverting: NH has now reverted my correction to the properly used template to that of the improperly used template, despite my many attempted explanations of the use of the templates. Of course, now he can complain that {{RadioTranslators}} is not excessive enough and revert it again, knowing that I won't touch it because I'm not going to violate WP:3RR. Yes, this statement in itself violates WP:AGF, but I don't really see any other way to look at it - why on earth would an editor revert away from a version using the appropriate templates, especially while discussion is ongoing? JPG-GR (talk) 05:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this, while pointy accurately discribes that JPG-GR's statement that "no radio station in the US has more than 21 translator stations (as of an October check)" is just plain wrong and that he is violating WP:OWN and not checking his work what-so-ever. This diff shows that the parent station of CSN has more than 200 (just by looking) translators , which would require MUCH more space in JPG-GR's template.

Also, what is the difference between a "rebroadcaster" and a "translator", if none, I request JPG-GR's two templates be merged. - NeutralHomer 05:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

And, they're not "my" templates. They are {{RadioTranslators}} and {{RadioRebroadcasters}}. Your weighty choice of words isn't very clandestine. JPG-GR (talk) 05:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)So, you've been edit warring with me and you don't even know OVER WHAT? *sigh* Here we go (note, all definitions are how they are used in the US):

• A translator is not really a station at all, but a special transmitter which is designed to solely re-transmit a radio station's signal. These stations are of the callsign form A###AA and are not responsible for hourly station identification. They only exist on the FM band. For these, {{RadioTranslators}} are used.
• A rebroadcaster is a station that re-broadcasts a radio station's signal. These stations have normal AAAA callsigns and MUST perform hourly station identification. These can be either AM or FM in type. For these, {{RadioRebroadcasters}} is used. Additionally, this template has started to be utilized in Canadian radio station articles, as there is no FCC-dependent variable. JPG-GR (talk) 05:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, we pretty much have {{RadioTranslators}} on the Moody Broadcasting Network page. So....that is what we would use. But since you have admitted that you overlooked the CSN thing (and will not have to MASSIVELY expand the template) this whole thing is moot. - NeutralHomer 05:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but Moody Broadcasting Network SHOULD be using {{RadioRebroadcasters}}, which it was until you reverted my correction of it just before you admitted you didn't know the difference between a translator and rebroadcaster. JPG-GR (talk) 05:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I never said I didn't know the difference....I asked what the difference was. You can know something and still ask what the difference is.

But you sparked a thought in my head....why do we need two seperate templates when they are almost the same? One has an FCC listing link and one doesn't? Otherwise, they are the same. Seems like a waste of space. I suggest a merge. - NeutralHomer 06:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Almost the same != the same. I've explained the difference. A "waste of space" is adding unnecessary entries to a template and then edit warring over it in the mainspace, templatespace, userspace, and finally WP:ANI. But, that's just my opinion. JPG-GR (talk) 06:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of getting into the middle of this, is the labeling of "rebroadcaster" vs. "translator" even worth making in the context of a template? Dont they both serve the same purpose here? Actually these templates should be merged, take the link to the FCC database functionality from the translator template and make that available in the rebroadcaster template, and add support for both AM and FM stations (currently the translator template assumes all stations are FM). --Rtphokie (talk) 06:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

JPG, you are just mad cause you were proved wrong, real wrong, by showing you "overlooked" a 200+ list of translators and obviously didn't check your work.

Rtphokie, I agree with you, they both serve the same purpose and should be merged. Since you are good with the merge thing, you want to nominate them? - NeutralHomer 06:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's the problem with that, RTP. {{RadioRebroadcasters}} is the more general one, useful for any station anywhere (i.e. US, Candada, whatever). For that reason, the FCC link can't be included. However, in the case of {{RadioTranslators}}, because this definition only applies to the US and the A###AA stations, it can have that additional field. Merge, mutilate, fold, or spindle how you like, but barring some rather complicated coding, there's still gotta be two.

And, NH, would you please cut out the personal attacks and discuss/debate without throwing insults around? JPG-GR (talk) 06:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"one of the most insulting people I've ever come across in my entire time online"...and I am the one who is "throwing insults around"....right.

To the templates, just because it is a "rebroadcaster" doesn't mean it can't have a FCC link. That is just a BS excuse. An FCC link is an FCC link. There is no rule that says it can or can't be there. The two templates need to be expanded, for one, and two need to be merged. - NeutralHomer 06:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

You missed the part where I said the template is for use for other countries. Canada doesn't file with the FCC. Unless the template is gonna be set up with a separate variable to control when that field appears, it won't work. JPG-GR (talk) 06:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Then you make that one (minus the FCC link) for international and use the one WITH the FCC link for US regardless.

Also, don't try to make your comments look like they are by me. I have re-indented them. - NeutralHomer 06:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(Jehochman blows his whistle.) Friends, you have a dispute. ANI is not part of dispute resolution. Click the link and you will see! Please choose another method of resolving your disagreement rather than bashing each other with clue-by-fours at ANI. Thank you very much. Now back to our regularly scheduled program... Jehochman 06:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Hence why I was confused by the posting in the first place. Regardless, I'm all talked out from running in this circle. Catch whomever tomorrow. *tips hat* JPG-GR (talk) 06:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"all talked out from running in this circle" - Yeah, until you have to comment again. Like on Template_talk:RadioTranslators where you had your "final comment" and then you commented. OK. - NeutralHomer 06:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

User Luke0101

• Luke0101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

User Luke0101 is creating difficulties on at least two pages. Luke0101 appears to be editing without communicating. I am not certain why, but I suggest that you review this pattern. Raggz (talk) 06:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

To save time, it would be helpful if you could say what pages, and what the difficulties are. --Elonka 06:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The issues seems resolved, thank you. Raggz (talk) 23:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"I think I wrote all the changes I made on the discussion page, not the talk page. (I was under the impression that the talk page and the discussion page was the same. My sincere apologies. --Luke (talk) 23:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)"

User:TTN bulk redirecting episode pages

• User:TTN is still or again indiscriminately replacing hundreds of pages about episodes of fiction serials by redirects to their parent pages. Some have called this "soft-deleting". This has caused many user complaints in User talk:TTN (also see its archive pages). I feel that:
  • He should be warned to stop this practice. If he wants to "soft-delete" all the episode pages about serial or show X, there should be an AfD discussion for each serial or show X involved.
  • Someone or a bot should revert all his edits which are the last edit to a page and are replacing a text page by a redirect. Then we and he can start again, AfD-discussing for each serial or show.
  • Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

His behavior has been to ArbCom and they did not sanction him. Every time I have taken the time to politely request an AfD, I have been obliged. What administrative action do you require? RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 07:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirecting is a normal editorial decision that doesn't require any more previous discussion than any other content edit. He is making mass edits because there is a mass of trash to clean up. How else would you do it? And why waste more time on the junk? Show me one page, just one, that TTN has redirected in this latest spat of his that even remotely resembles a legitimate encyclopedia page. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

He was instructed to seek consensus via discussion before pulling this crap. If he's failing that, he's not meeting the expectations of his arbcom case, as amazingly weak as the decision was. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 07:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I have undone Anthony's revert spree (great, more crap on my watchlist). Talk first next time. --Jack Merridew 07:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Would someone consider doing the same for similar reversions of TTN by Mvuijlst (talk · contribs) on Gilmore Girls articles? / edg ☺ ☭ 08:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that Anthony Appleyard is attempting to discredit TTN by making sweeping generalisations; I would like to see evidence that his edits are in breach of any guidelines before this complaint is brought here. If these episodes have no reliable secondary sources to demonstrate notability, then I would suggest TNT's edits are bold.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry. I am not trying to discredit anyone. For an example of the user complaints about this "soft deleting", see User talk:TTN#a happy little note from a frustrated editor. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• I think that this further highlights the need for a fandom/pop culture Wiki, where secondary sources and notability aren't required. People wouldn't fight so hard over these articles if a good alternative was available. *** Crotalus *** 10:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I think it highlights the need to block people who pull crap like this without discussion. But that's just me. R. Baley (talk) 10:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Yes, indeed. It highlights the need to block people who reinstate crap like this, which is a violation of our non-free content policies and potentially violates copyright. Which is exactly what I intend to do from now on. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Quite. While there is obviously some dispute with certain articles, why on earth people would want to re-instate articles which quite obviously violate WP:NOT, WP:V and WP:N and always will, is beyond me. BLACKKITE 14:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
• I can't see any problem with TTN's particular edits here. Unlike some pages, articles like the Shorty McShorts' Shorts episodes are never going to have enough to be standalone articles, and redirecting is the correct move here. I really don't see why this is controversial at all; if it was another editor than TTN doing it would there be the same problem? BLACKKITE 12:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Before anyone goes for another headhunt on TTN, perhaps they should look at the articles he is redirecting and see how they stand up to Misplaced Pages's existing policies. A took a snapshot of some of the articles and all of them fail WP:NOT#PLOT because they are just merely plot summaries. They also fail WP:SOURCES as not a single one of them contains a single independent reliable third-party source. As such, there is no way they can pass WP:NOTE or any of the other notability criteria. So rather then waist time and sending the articles to WP:AfD, he is redirecting/merging them into the appropriate list which stands a much better chance at establishing notability. --Farix (Talk) 14:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It sorta would help to know if TTN's present behavior is objectionable or not. I agree that the ultimate result (merge individual eps to episode list) is appropriate for those that do not demonstrate notability, but as I'm trying to wrap up a rewrite of WP:FICT, TTN's name comes up nearly once a day, and so we're trying to make sure that there is an acceptable route of actions to dealing with non-notable articles.

I pulled out one at random from TTN's latest edits: A Family Matter (a Gilmore Girls episode). A user (not TTN) added the {{plot}} tag in September, a random IP added {{notability}} in late November. Outside of the bot edits for these tags, there were two changes made since and both only adding info to the plot. So TTN goes ahead and redirects the article without any additional discussion, neither on the article page or the main Gilmore Girls talk page. A month seems like a reasonable time to wait for notability to be demonstrated, but there's also the lack of notification (as best I can tell) that TTN was going to mass-run through all articles. My only argument against TTN's actions here is that he is not discussing them first with appropriate talk pages even though they were "notified" by the tags that cleanup was needed. --MASEM 15:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, discussion should occur and consensus should be found as the arbcom bearing TTN's name urged. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 15:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

If the actions are controversial, I agree. Deleting (or redirecting in this case) articles which patently fail multiple Misplaced Pages policies is not controversial, however much heat and light it may generate. If these articles went to AfD they would be deleted. Having said that, it might be the best option in order that re-creations of similar articles fell under CSD criterion G4, whereas at the moment CSD is not available for use (and rightly, I think).BLACKKITE 15:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The pale fact that his behavior has spawned an arbcom case, multiple threads here and heated discussion at WP:FICT highlights that his efforts are indeed controversial. It is quite silly to say otherwise based on the mounds of evidence to the contrary. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 07:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Generally, I use merge tags with series with more than thirteen episodes, those with high "traffic", or those that actually require info to be merged. In the case of the Gilmore Girls, only the pilot has more than fifty edits (and it still has less than one hundred), and it has been around since '05. There is no reason for discussion in that case. The only thing a discussion would lead to is the one user gaining the ability to wikilawyer by claiming that there is no consensus found in the local discussion. TTN (talk) 15:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that discussions on episode article Talk pages tend to rally editors whose interest in logging their fandom tends to exceed their concern for policy. Recently such articles, which by WP:EPISODE should have Merge discussions, have been discussed as Articles for deletion. Is something broken here? / edg ☺ ☭ 15:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Semantics only, I think. Merging and redirecting these episodes to the list article is above called "soft-deleting" (I don't like the phrase, but I see why it's used) as the actual redirects themselves will probably never be searched for. On the other hand, I don't see any reason why the pages themselves couldn't go to AfD as many are obviously unencyclopedic without hope of rescue; it's just that redirecting is less of a waste of everyone's time and effort. BLACKKITE 15:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I do understand that if you bring these types up for discussion, you are going to get the rallying cry. At the same time, when it is done "without warning" (e.g. the case of "A Family Matter"), WP:FICT gets hit with requests to drop that guideline (despite the fact that it's built on PLOT and NOTE), and what is partially behind the fact that it's been unstable for about 6 months now. Again, I agree with the general outcome of TTN's edits that the bulk of these articles are non-notable and should not have been created until notability is established, but if you look through WP:FICT's talk page and archives, you'll see that there's a lot of people that want to almost stop TTN from doing what he does, which is making trying to rewrite this more difficult. The best I've been able to add is that at best, merging or transwiking the info to an appropriate wiki is a better solution than AfD, but even these merge actions are being seen as aggressive. --MASEM 16:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Only by a vocal minority. TTN is doing some very useful work - these articles are all garbage. I have not yet seen him redirect a decent referenced episode article. And I have not once seen him refuse to civilly and politely accept any requests from dissenting editors for an article to go to AFD for further discussion. The wailing and gnashing of teeth from those who happily revert back to recreate articles that fail a laundry list of policies because "TTN did it" is the behavioural issue here, not TTN's actions. Neıl ☎ 16:37, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Please refrain from insulting other peoples' work. If you cannot avoid this, please instead avoid the topic. This is an obviously inflammatory matter where a number of people feel that they're not being trated fairly, and you're not helping. --Kizor 16:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The people that create plot-summary-only articles and revert legitimate redirects aren't helping either, and they are a far worse problem than TTN.Kww (talk) 16:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't think that's relevant to civility. --Kizor 17:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I completely echo Neil's comment above; this is cruft and TTN's efforts are not problematic. As this AN/I discussion is showing (as those before this one), there is general community consensus that our policies, principles and guidelines be enforced. Reference to the arbcom decision in the case where the content is in clear violation of those principles is cross-eyed wikilawyering. Eusebeus (talk) 19:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

...And neither is that, or is it? --Kizor 23:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Neil's right in the action increasingly becoming wrong just because "TTN did it" - a discussion two days ago was trying to get TTN's monobook blanked for reverting a user who was reverting them back against a unobjected wikiproject consensus. Will 01:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed a discussion on that very topic. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I reverted the mass-redirect (or soft delete if you will) of the Gilmore Girls episodes. I have no strongly held opinions whatsoever about those articles. I do doubt the way this was done, certainly in the light of the recent Arbitration Committee decision that urged for a degree of cooperation and consensus. I just checked in the mirror, and nope: neither wailing nor gnashing of teeth. No happily reverting either: regretfully reverting, twice even, because I think it's the right thing to do. As it's been said elsewhere: there's no hurry. Why not leave things up, and trust the community to come up with a good solution? Sweeping those episode articles under the rug does nobody a favour and only polarises the issue. -- Mvuijlst (talk) 17:02, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

If (and that's a big if) there was any possibility that these articles could become encyclopedic at any point, I would agree with you. But (in these cases at least) there is not. They fail practically every article-related policy that Misplaced Pages has, as pointed out above. It doesn't matter what the community "consensus" is here - it will never trump policy. I'm sure there are episode articles for other series that are, or may at some point, become good articles - in those cases discussion is the correct way forward. BLACKKITE 18:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

For some of the earlier discussions, please see Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive339#A_big_campaign_against_articles_about_fictional_events and Misplaced Pages:Suspected_sock_puppets/TTN. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 18:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, for a clarification on the above, please see User_talk:Le_Grand_Roi_des_Citrouilles#Caution. Thank you. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 19:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• For each set of episode pages of one serial or show, start an AfD. If that AfD after due discussion says "delete", THEN redirect the episode pages to their main page, with the edit comment "Redirected per AfD Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/xxxxxx". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 00:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Policy does not require an editor to do that. It's why WP:MERGE and WP:BOLD exist. Seraphim 02:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I support fully TTN's actions. He'snot at all totalitarian about this, but completely open to reasonable discussion. To wit, I'm a member of WP:HEROES. I went to TTN and asked that he skip our project's domain, and let us sort it out. He agreed easily. I think TTN's contributions really do clean up Misplaced Pages. Do we really need that many Gilmore Girls articles? I just wish he'd take on Family Guy. There are WAY too many plot nad pop culture only episodes, and few with actual real-world relevant content. TTN provides Misplaced Pages with incrementally better credibility the more episode articles her turns into redirects, by helping us put the proper emphasis on the wide range of topics we cover. Should editors find his BOLD MERGEs inappropriate, then can easily revert them and improve the articles. ThuranX (talk) 03:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that TTN is doing a good thing overall, he seems to be resorting to edit wars rather than let editors revert the redirects. A glance through the histories of Rabbot, Animal Farm (Oz), Cosmo and Wanda, Denzel Crocker, Francis (The Fairly OddParents), and any number of other articles shows repeated reverts to the desired redirect without any discussion on the relevant talk pages, a far cry from the recommended BRD pattern that generally works so well. If TTN is serious about making these redirects stick, discussions leading to consensus is the only way to do it. --jonny-mt 04:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh please. His edit summaries are clear, and people revert because they worked hard on that crap, instead of working hard to get it ABOVE the level of crap. If every time some idiot reverted to the full article with the 'well, a real person is an actor on the show, that's real world info, now we must discuss', TTN's intentions would totally fail. because each and every single article would require the same level of craptastical disputation. Why don't the various editors instead actually improve the articles? The BEST I can see being reasonable is if TTN used a bot to follow behind each redirect, posting a stock new section to the article talk, in which it stated something to the effect of 'due to a lack of Real World Context and Notability, the article has been redirected to the main list of articles. Until such citable information is added, do not restore the article. Please use this talk page to build up a good article, thank you, sincerely, TTN'. But to expect him to go through and explain, ten thousand times a week, that a fifteen paragraph plot summary and a holistic cast and crew section aren't real world context, and fight at it till all the editors understand, is NOT a realistic situation. He's cleaning up this project. Do we really need MORE articles about Gilmore Girls or Family Guy than we do about the statesmen of all the varied nations, or all the animals cataloged by scientists? What's REALLY mroe encyclopedic? ThuranX (talk) 05:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I actually think your tag-along bot proposal is pretty good, but I have to disagree with your assessment of "Redirect per WP:FICT. Do not bring this back without adding real world information." as a clear edit summary. WP:FICT is a disputed policy (the talk page currently lists no less than seven drafts), and WP:WAF is an accompanying guideline to WP:MOS. I'm of the opinion that until he can demonstrate some sort of broad-based consensus for redirecting and merging episodes and other similar articles, he should follow the slower procedures on WP:MERGE (including following through with discussion and refraining from edit warring when another editor objects to his actions). --jonny-mt 09:04, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I assume you are up here because of the VivianDarkbloom incident report. It's worthy of note that none of the articles involved there would pass any version of WP:FICT. They were only plot summaries.Kww (talk) 13:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

You assume right :) While this doesn't excuse her actions and I have no intention of contesting your point that the redirects are a Good Thing, edit warring is edit warring even when you're warring for a good cause. Multiple reverts, recruiting other users to help with the reverts, refusing to take issues to the relevant talk pages--these actions do not adhere to the collegial spirit we try to create here.

While he certainly hasn't slipped into incivility and isn't trying to make a point with his edits as VivianDarkbloom did, he has also failed to demonstrate that his actions are based on consensus (with the possible exception of the redirects related to the Avatar Wikiproject). Misplaced Pages is a slow-cook project; I see no need to rush and take care of these articles before WP:FICT is settled (after all, an eleventh-hour proposal allowing these articles isn't outside the realm of possibility). Alternately, he could bring the issue up with the relevant WikiProject to ensure some level of consensus and community support before diving in to a given series. Or the simple act of moving it to the talk page could defuse a lot of tempers. There are any number of constructive ways to address the problems he wants to address, and those should be the first stop in undertaking a task of this magnitude. In fact, this is one of the remedies suggested in the oft-mentioned ArbCom case. As an aside, TTN mentioned there that he would refrain from edit warring and utilize AfDs more often.

Speaking of resolutions, has any need for administrative action been raised? --jonny-mt 14:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It's fine to wallow in a feel-good spirit of collegiality, good faith and the like, but don't willfully be an ingenu. The contours of the ongoing struggle over whether Misplaced Pages should be allowed to become a fansite are so vast that the kind of happy back and forth you envision is not only impractical, but serves those who tout such a recourse as a means of gaming the system.

Can you point me towards a discussion about the extent that destruction of content, mass or otherwise, is suitable for defending our reputation? I've seen this used as a justification four times in a short period of time and am quite interested in it. Data on how and how much our reputation is affected would also be helpful. --Kizor 22:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Rather than respond directly to your comment (incidentally, what exactly is an "ingenu"?), I'll simply point you to DGG's comment below, as he summarizes everything that I would say. Given that I've already contributed enough to the usurpation of AN/I to discuss something that does not seem to require administrative intervention, I'll refrain from further comments here and simply keep any eye on the more appropriate venues at WP:DR. --jonny-mt 02:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• That depends on the definition of "crap". E.g. I have no interest in football, and to me most football matter is footballcruft and I skip over it; but I know that football is important to many people and I do not go round deleting or soft-deleting dozens of football-related pages. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Possibly - to repeat myself again - because most football pages don't fail practically every article-related Misplaced Pages policy, which these episode pages (the ones in question) do. Of course, should you find football pages that have major issues, feel free to be WP:BOLD with them. BLACKKITE 07:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• 'I see some comments above that notice should be given because then editors involved with the topic may oppose the merge. this is a direct repudiation of the principle of community editing and transparency. If wider attention is needed, and a group cabal of some sort is suspected, AfD and dispute resolution is available, Even BRD requires the opportunity for R and D. The opinions above indicate that a number of contributors to this noticeboard think differently than the people at WT:FICTION. I didn't know we decided on article content here, or on the appropriateness of merges. WI did think that what we dealt with here were attempts to subvert the processes of article discussion and policy formation--and mass nomination of anything controversial is in my eyes an attempt to to do that. DGG (talk) 01:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I note that I personally dont care in the least about whatever may happen to articles on this subject--a subject in which I have no actual interest whatever. I became involved in the discussion when i say that repeated attempts were made in various forums here to affect consensus formation by attempting to overwhelm AfD--and similar projects. I accept the good faith of those wanting to purge the encyclopedia in one blow of everything they dislike--but it's not the way we work. at least, not the way we should be working. . DGG (talk) 01:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Anybody who thinks these mass deletions do a service to Misplaced Pages is severly deluded. Two years ago, for example, there were detailed articles on individual characters within the Nickelodeon cartoon The Fairly OddParents, along. Now there's a single list of characters, and it alone has been tagged for deletion. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; This is a sabotage mission! And if anybody objects to me saying that, well that's too damn bad! I'm still right about it! ----DanTD (talk) 05:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Please note that TTN and Jack Merridew are still edit-warring over Fawlty Towers episodes even when editors are making efforts to improve articles. , . Catchpole (talk) 09:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

OK is the british goverment RS then?

OK, given Gavin's comments about secondary sources, how about this then? Isn't this shifting the goalposts?cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

If you actually look at the government document, you can see that it is a trivial mention. So as a bases of establishing notability, it isn't sufficient. --Farix (Talk) 12:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully the last SIHULM thread

I am drafting an FAQ here and would appreciate any input or constructive edits the editors here could give on/to it. The page is currently semi-protected; I do not trust anons to edit it given the topic matter and their use of it. -Jéské 08:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand how this semi-protection is justified under the protection policy. 72.193.221.88 (talk) 10:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Userpages can be semi-protected on request, 72. As an administrator, I can simply cut out the middleman and semi-protect it myself. -Jéské 19:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Hamid Dabashi

Please check the neutrality of this article, see the history and read the talk page. It is full of peacock terms. I repeatedly tried to add the necessary tags. The article was locked for a month without any result. See also and . Thanks.Aparhizi (talk) 11:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Personal attacks and curse words in an edit summary

User:Piercetheorganist made a minor change to the Soloflex article and gave the following edit summary: . This is Piercetheorganist's only edit on the article in the past 500 edits, and seems to be an out of the blue thing. As I'm posting this here because a quick glance at the user's talk page shows at least two prior blocks for incivility as well as numerous warnings. MrVibrating (talk) 14:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Unacceptable (though perhaps he was just having a bad day) and I've left a warning. BLACKKITE 14:32, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• It looks like User:Piercetheorganist is the bad hand of User:Republican given that both pages redirect to Republican's. --WebHamster 14:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• I was a little confused about what that meant. Does that mean that Piercetheorganist is a sockpuppet? MrVibrating (talk) 15:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Eek - I'd left him a message and not even noticed that. I see that Ioeth is dealing with it now , though. BLACKKITE 18:17, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you take a look at another use of vulgar language in edit summaries by User:Piercetheorganist on Demarcation point. Here is the reference - 08:41, 7 January 2008 Piercetheorganist (Talk | contribs) (4,179 bytes) (A f&cking grammar fix, you f&cking idiot morons. Why the f&ck don't you know the f&cking difference betweent these f&cking SIMPLE words, you f&cking screw-ups?!!!!!!) I can't understand why he would become so angry over such a trivial matter. Thanks63.239.69.1 (talk) 21:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This edit was made before BlackKite's warning, so additional action isn't necessary. However, if this happens again, I would suggest a longer term block (i.e. 1 week), as this is a recurring problem for this user. Tijuana Brass (talk) 21:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Given the fact that the user has been warned multiple times, and blocked twice for the exact same kind of issues I don't think a further warning will prevent future disruption. After looking through his contribution history, I think stronger measures are warranted right now rather than waiting for the next instance of incivility - I've instituted a one week block. If the user makes a commitment to improve his civility, I'd be happy for him to be unblocked earlier though. henrik•talk 22:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Incivility block on Neutralhomer

I just blocked Neutralhomer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for increasing incivility and would like review from other admins. Here's my blocking reason to him:

You have been blocked for 48 hours because of your increasing incivility. Posts such as this where you suggest someone "gets a life" and other posts like this and this are completely inappropriate. In the past weeks you've been getting more and more testy and have showed no signs of stopping. You need to take some time to step away and calm down. Metros (talk) 14:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This has been ongoing behavior with him in the last weeks where he has, basically, stalked other users, instigated revert wars, and been somewhat unwilling to discuss with any civility. Any comments, questions, or concerns? Metros (talk) 14:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This makes for interesting reading. Neutralhomer seems to have been baiting JPG-GR nearly continually (JPG-GR has pretty much refused to reply, simply archiving all NeutralHomer's incessant provocative comments). Particularly trite considering NH had a banner on his talk page up until 4 days ago () stating posts from JPG-GR would be immediately deleted. 48 hours is entirely appropriate. Neıl ☎ 15:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I support your decision and the duration here as well, Metros. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 15:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, support block. Given his previous history, a week off may not have been inappropriate either. henrik•talk 18:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Legal threats from Spammer

Biggilo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) made this legal threat, "In accordance with the law I am making you aware of my intentions to persue legal action ..." to User:Xyzzyplugh and this to Admin User:Vsmith. I've blocked the account, however it appears this WP:SPA account was spamming related adsense sites (Adsense pub-4547357587573977)

• frankingmachines.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Misplaced Pages: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• howtobuydiamonds.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Misplaced Pages: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• vids-uk.info: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Misplaced Pages: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

--Hu12 (talk) 15:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Are theses sites genuine spam, and if so, have they been added to WP:SBL? Is there any other action that needs to be taken regarding this matter? Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 16:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Biggilo also fails to understand that Misplaced Pages's servers are in the United States, not in Britain, and in the US, libel law does not function in the same way. Over here, the onus is on the accuser to prove libel, not on the defendant to prove that it was not. Horologium (talk) 16:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Obvious they are all related (adsense confirmed) and promotional additions. In light of the threats, should we BL them? I see no reason wikipedia needs them, nor ever would. Doubt we need them reapearing under another username or anon IP..IMHO.--Hu12 (talk) 17:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

BL'd all three, doubt anyone will dissagree, but if so, say so..;)--Hu12 (talk) 17:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppet case

• Jasdhf1981 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Klijh1986 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• RobJ1981 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Jasdhf1981 has just opened a sockpuppet case on RobJ1981, see here. However, this is the users first edit, see their contributions. Another editor, Klijh1986 notified RobJ1981 on his talkpage, see Klijh1986's contributions. He's also left a post on WT:AN about this. As RobJ1981 has been a good-faith user on Misplaced Pages since June 2006, I'm almost certain their is some sockpuppetry going on here involving Jasdhf1981 and Klijh1986. Could an admin look at this situation, and possibly block the offending users. Cheers, D.M.N. (talk) 16:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The entire SSP case was reposted to RobJ1981's talk page, in lieu of a briefer notice. In that context, I think both Jasdhf1981 and Klijh1986 are the same user. The SSP case indicates that the reporting user is a regular contributor who wishes to avoid stalking and harassment from socks and proxys, which would seem to confirm that both accounts are indeed socks - whether they would be permitted socks or not is unclear, and may be based on the merits of the case (i.e. whether it is spurious or not). I haven't checked all (or even many) of the diffs, but the AfD case appears to be circumstantial, in that Eyrian nominated Nanotechnology in fiction for deletion in July 2007, and RobJ1981 re-nominated it in November. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 16:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

In fact, RobJ's made a comment at the SSP page which you may which to see. D.M.N. (talk) 17:15, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

some of the diffs do seem less than convincing, and I agree that the admitted sockpuppetmaster and desysopped admin Eyrian has the least to do with this business, but the general concentration on the wrestling seems to match the previous sockpuppet pattern. I can see why someone who think he's going against JB196 might want to use a different account, and that he said so straight-out is a sign of good faith. . But as UltraExact says, it will need a detailed look at the evidence, which I am not able to do this week. DGG (talk) 19:55, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Admin threatening use of powers in content dispute

Let me begin this by saying I am not looking for a pound of flesh. I'm trying to help the administrator in question. I'm trying to head this off before it happens.

Faithlessthewonderboy (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), a newly minted administrator, has been involved in a content dispute on Minor Harry Potter characters. He has contributed in part to edit warring on that article over the removal/re-insertion of fair use images onto that article. This post here is NOT about that dispute, how rational it is, or anything of the kind, but rather Faithlessthewonderboy's threatened actions in the matter. In , he threatens to block an editor (me) with whom he is in dispute ("I will block you for incivility"). Whether the rationale for the block is valid or not (if you want to assume it is for the sake of this discussion, fine, it matters not), threatening to use his blocking powers is a breach of his responsibility as an administrator. Previously, administrators have been de-adminned by ArbCom for such actions.

Also, I requested and received page protection of the article (again, for the sake of discussion as it's irrelevant, let's assume it was in incredibly poor taste as Faithlessthewonderboy suggests). Subsequent to that, Faithlessthewonderboy indicated he was going to use his administrator powers to revert the article to his preferred version "Therefore, I will revert to the previous version". Once again, this is the sort of action that administrators have been de-adminned for before.

Faithlessthewonderboy has been directly involved in this dispute and to use his powers in this way is exceptionally bad and likely to lead to his de-adminning if he takes such action. Please, would some experienced administrator give him some sort of wave-off before he abuses his powers in this way? If he wants to recommend I be blocked, or wants to request another administrator to revert, fine...but using his powers in this way is not what he should be doing. As an inexperienced administrator, I don't think he fully understands the ramifications of using his powers in thisd way. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 17:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

First off, I think both of you need to have a nice cup of tea and sit down. I see there's a discussion going on the talk page; let's all use that and figure out what's going on.

You're right, however, about Faithlessthewonderboy using his admin power to revert to his preferred version. That's clearly an abuse of the admin tools (squarely addressed in the protection policy) and he should know better. I'm not going to put a note on his talk page about it because I see he was already referred here, but the edit war needs to stop from both sides. Reach consensus first on the talk page; once that's done, the page can be changed (if need be) to reflect that consensus. Getting hot about it and reverting to your preferred version (even if you're correct, and even if Hammersoft was NOT correct in reverting then requesting page protection) is not the way to approach things during an edit war. Gromlakh (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) This is incredibly unfortunate. I encourage everyone to read the contents of Talk:Minor Harry Potter characters. The conversation was perfectly amicable at first by all parties (Hammersoft included), until out of the blue he threatens to have those who he disagreed with blocked. I repeatedly tried to diffuse the situation, but received only more threats from Hammersoft. I cautioned him repeatedly that our disagreement aside, his uncivil attitude was completely unacceptable, and would likely lead to a block if he persisted. For this caution, I was scoffed at and Hammersoft "dared" me to block him. As I said on said talk page, I was hesitant to take any action against him (even if it was justified), as I was involved in a content dispute with him at the time. I believe the discussion on the talk page more than speaks for itself. While I maintain that I am completely in the right here, I will for the time being recuse myself from editing that article, pending the result of this discussion. Cheers, faithless () 18:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not looking to have people say I was right or wrong. This section was entirely to get an experienced administrator to head you off at the pass before you did something you could be de-adminned over. It was meant in good faith, was meant to help you in every respect. Every single editor on Misplaced Pages can assume I was absolutely in the wrong if they'd like. It has nothing to do with this attempt to save you from serious problems. If you want someone to acknowledge you're right, and I was flat out in the wrong, fine then; you were right and I was flat out in the wrong. But again, this has nothing to do with attempting to wave you off before you did something that would have caused you serious harm. Since that wave off has been achieved, this succeeded and I am happy for it. I wouldn't want you to lose your admin powers over this. That would be silly. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Administrators are still free to act as ordinary editors. They are allowed to revert the same as anybody else, and they can request a block if another editor is acting disruptively on an article they are involved with. Before requesting a block, they can warn the other editor that a block may result if bad behavior continues (though it helps to clarify that they will not place the block themselves). I do not see any diffs here that show abuse of administrative powers, and I do not see any need for administrative action at this time. I hope both parties will take the above advice and head to dispute resolution and work out their differences in good faith. Jehochman 18:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Jehochman's analysis of the situation and advice on how to proceed. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 18:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The issue here is not with an admin being involved in a content dispute, it's about threatening to use his admin powers to continue the revert war after the page had been protected. That's a clear violation of the protection policy had he done it. Fortunately, it appears that he did not do it, so there was no violation. It still should not have been threatened. Gromlakh (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(multi-ec) The content dispute here involves images. If the page remains protected for a week with all the images orphaned, they get tagged and deleted, which would rather favour one side of this dispute. There was no allegation of actual admin abuse. Hammersoft's userbox is arguably divisive, though, given the current atmosphere. Gimmetrow 18:32, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Our mission and noting same within the context of fair use is divisive? Wow. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, I've not tagged the orphaned images. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Though, five of the eight images removed from the page lack sufficient fair use rationales. Six of them are currently orphaned. Two of them are used improperly. 1: (Image:Viktor krum hpgf.jpg on Stanislav Ianevski (living person,replaceable) and on a gallery at Bulgarians#Bulgarians._Faces_through_history). 2: Image:Maxime.jpg on Frances de la Tour (living person, replaceable). --Hammersoft (talk) 18:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Your new userbox is more divisive. Regarding the former userbox, "I support X" is not the same as what you had, given the current atmosphere. Gimmetrow 21:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• My new userbox is exactly what I've been recommending on Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content, and what many people have been advocating. I hope you're not suggesting that appeasing the huge masses of people who feel fair use should be used liberally is somehow divisive. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Sarcasm can easily be divisive given the current atmosphere. Gimmetrow 22:32, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It isn't sarcasm. It's how I feel. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Faithlessthewonderboy should not threaten to use admin powers in a dispute he's involved in. That's all I have to say, it'd be fine if he was uninvolved though, now let's forget it and move on--Phoenix-wiki 18:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec x 3) Hang on. It seems that Faithlessthewonderboy may have reverted a protected page to his preferred version. Is that what happened? If so, you need to use {{editprotected}} in the future, and make sure not to use any sort of sysop tools nor threaten to do so, if you are involved in a content dispute. The diffs provided do not establish what exactly happened, so I am reading between the lines. If anyone can clarify, that will help. In any case, one mistake does not require any action other than acknowledgement and an understanding how to proceed in the future. Jehochman 18:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Nothing actually happened, other than threats to use his admin powers in the way I said above (and cited). The only action I was looking for was to wave Faithlessthewonderboy off from performing an action he could lose his admin status over. That's been done, thankfully, and Faithlessthewonderboy heeded the advice. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, which is why I hope he sees this thread and remembers not to use his powers in a dispute he's involved in, akknowledgement is all that's needed here, so I'll be bold and mark this as resolved.--Phoenix-wiki 18:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Conveniently, the first 3 images I checked have been tagged as orphaned, and so are up for deletion in 7 days . But I guess anything goes in a "war". R. Baley (talk) 18:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• I did not tag them. I've never worked or even spoken with Addhoc. It was his doing on his own. He's never edited the article they were removed from, nor commented on the talk page of that article. His action was entirely separate from anyone else's. A little good faith please? Please? --Hammersoft (talk) 18:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I just want to add that Faithlessthewonderboy did not threat, he gave a warning after Hammersoft himself threated with blocks for users that were in disagreement with him. We asked Hammersoft not to re-introduce his edits until we reached consensus in the Talk page of the Minor HP characters article. Everything is in the Talk page, take a look at that before accusing Faithless of taking any action. He was asked not to revert the protected article to a previous version, and he has not do so. --Lord Opeth (talk) 19:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Faithlessthewonderboy did make statements (perhaps you like that wording better) of intent to use his powers on me and on the article, when he has been directly involved in a dispute with me and on the article. That's what I was hoping to avoid. You should be happy that I brought this problem here for an experienced administrator to head him off. I could have chosen to step back and let him use his powers in that way and then *really* nail him to the wall with abuse of his administrator powers and quite probably have his admin status forcibly removed. I'm not sure what it is you're expecting of me, but what I did was for his benefit, not against. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, after your threats about blocks and warnings and stuff, I do not know what to expect. But I will AGF. --Lord Opeth (talk) 20:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Opeth, thank you for your comments here. If anyone is still reading this, Opeth was the third editor involved in the dispute, so he is aware of what transpired. As for Hammersoft, please let this end. You have repeatedly on this page spoke about me like I am an inexperienced or unknowledgeable editor, and that you were doing me some big favor. I have shrugged it off before now, but I am tired of having my name dragged through the mud, so to speak. I am an admin with roughly fourteen times as many edits as you; while I am far from perfect and, like most people, still have plenty to learn, I do have a pretty solid grasp of how things work around here. I could probably even learn something from you, but do not talk about me like I just registered my account and don't know anything. Remember, I have done nothing wrong here, and I'm getting tired of you implying that I did, or that you somehow prevented me from doing so. You had been asked several times to remain civil, yet you continued to threaten other editors. Like I've said, if I had blocked you, it would have been for your consistent incivility; it had nothing whatsoever to do with the content dispute. You're trying you're best here to portray me as someone who doesn't know what they're doing, and needs help. This isn't the case, and it's quite offensive that you would misrepresent the situation the way you have. All you've done is wasted the time of a bunch of people and made me look bad, when all I did was try to keep our discussion civil. In your future dealings with editors, I encourage you to not make baseless threats towards people and respect your fellow editors. Cheers, faithless () 23:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally, for me that is, it would be easier if Faithlessthewonderboy could sign his posts with his full handle. Also, perhaps it is a bit confusing that he refers to himself in the third person? ("You're right, however, about Faithlessthewonderboy using his admin power to revert to his preferred version.") --Law Lord (talk) 08:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

That is actually Gromlakh's comment. They are just indented the same amount one after the other.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

You are right. My mistake. In that case, the only thing is with the handle signing, though since the matter is resolved, it does not really matter. --Law Lord (talk) 10:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Faithless, I've no idea what it is you want from me. You accuse me of incivility, and I ask you to provide evidence. All I get from the talk page is "look above". Yet, I've made no insults towards anyone, ever. You threaten me with blocks, as I've cited above, when taking such actions could cause you to lose your powers. Knowing that you would not listen to me, I came here to get an experienced administrator to caution you. You apparently heeded that advice, which is great. Further above, I cow tow to you in every respect noting "If you want someone to acknowledge you're right, and I was flat out in the wrong, fine then; you were right and I was flat out in the wrong." What is it you want from me? What more could you possibly want from me? Do you want me to request a permanent block of myself? Do you want me to advertise to every forum on Misplaced Pages that you were right and I was wrong? What? You go to the extreme of accusing me of having contempt for my fellow editors because I use an asterisk in my comments for formatting. On even that count I must accede to your every wish and desire. There's no quarter with you. I tried to do you a favor, and you accuse me of dragging your name through the mud. Just tell me what it is I can do to restore your good name to angelic status so you will leave me the hell alone! --Hammersoft (talk) 14:02, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I just want you, Hammersoft, not to forget that you threaten us with blocks before...

"If the edit warring continues to attempt to force these images back onto the article, I will recommend blocks." --Hammersoft (talk) 20:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

"If they (some images) are re-instated against policy, I will remove them and recommend blocks." --Hammersoft (talk) 23:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

We asked you to wait a couple of days to get consensus and, if your edits proved to be right, then obviously the images should be removed, but you instead threaten with blocks only because we were in disagreement with you. And then you come here accussing Faithless of warning you? --Lord Opeth (talk) 17:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I will quite gladly threaten blocks when warranted, and will continue to do so. In fact, warning of potential blocks is pretty much required, rather than just going ahead and having someone blocked. What I wanted to achieve was to have an experienced administrator wave him off from using his powers against someone with whom he was in dispute. As I noted, if he wanted to recommend I be blocked to another admin, fine. Mission accomplished. Faithless was warned off, and the abuse of power didn't happen. That's a good thing. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good thing. The bad thing is the way you threaten everyone that is in disagreement with you. --Lord Opeth (talk) 19:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• I use threats of blocking as appropriate to the circumstances as they arise. If a person were to vandalize something for example, you do not just move to block the person. You warn them. That's the way it's supposed to be handled. I handled this entirely appropriately. Policy was being violated. People were edit warring against policy. I warned of potential blocks should that continue. You can debate the application of policy all you like (feel free to Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content). Debating a policy does not mean it no longer applies. And before you say policy didn't apply, you're quite in the wrong. Per character images have been removed from hundreds of articles over the last many months by far more people than myself and Betacommand. The difference is that the recent crescendo of acrimony over the removals has effectively suspended the application of policy. I fully intend on continuing to warn and threaten people with blocks when their actions work against policy. If you think this is wrong, your best bet is to request I be blocked since I do fully intend on continuing this pattern. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

When an article is nominated for deletion, it is because it does not meet Misplaced Pages's criteria (notability, tone, style, etc.), but if CONSENSUS says that it should be kept, then it should be kept. The same happens with this images, you did not manage to fully prove you were right, you just provided some link and say you were acting on policy. Acting against consensus is also acting against a policy, so in the end you were wrong anyway. I have nothing more to say, good luck. --Lord Opeth (talk) 01:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, Hammersoft, neither Lord Opeth nor myself did anything even approaching being worthy of a block. Neither of us broke 3RR, we were exceedingly civil in the face of your threats, we tried to work toward consensus while you were making your contempt for consensus abundantly clear, etc. Your threats were not in the least "appropriate," as you claim. On the other hand, the warnings I gave you were warranted, as your incivility and ignoring of several appeals to your better judgment to mind what you were saying are indeed block-worthy; if I had threatened to block you because we were disagreeing, obviously I would deserve to have my admin tools revoked immediately. Of course, this did not happen. Indeed, there was another editor who commented in the discussion who disagreed with me, but she was civil and didn't threaten other users. And you want me to "leave you the hell alone?" I'll remind you that you started this discussion, and now you object to me defending myself? I don't want anything from you; I am simply trying to convey what has really transpired here to anyone who is reading this, lest some stigma remain attached to me from having an utterly unnecessary and unwarranted report of me posted at the admin noticeboard. You have completely misrepresented and then overblown everything that has happened, and I want to stress to everyone reading that I did nothing wrong here, kept a very cool head in the face of repeated threats and sought consensus instead of edit warring. I was then portrayed as being incompetent and overwhelmed by a user with a fraction of my experience. The very title of this discussion (Admin threatening use of powers in content dispute) is inaccurate; I warned you that you might be blocked because of your incivility, nothing at all to do with a content dispute. Your claiming that you were only trying to 'help me' is similarly misleading. When someone is accused of a misdeed, it very often is irrelevant whether or not the charge is accurate, their reputation is damaged either way. I beseech anyone reading this to peruse Talk:Minor Harry Potter characters to see what actually occurred. As far as I'm concerned, the two of us have to agree to disagree and move on. This could go on forever, but nothing positive is going to come from our continued arguing. faithless () 05:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Without reading anything but the last sentence since my last diff, agree. Bye, --Hammersoft (talk) 14:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

List of Vampire Hunter D light novels‎

I removed a copyvio from this page per WP:CP, and User:BladeRN keeps on reinserting it, this last time past a last warning (he used his IP). People, please watchlist this page and I would request that someone would block BladeRN for 24 hours for reinserting a copyvio past a warning. The Evil Spartan (talk) 19:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The copyvio claim was overly vague to begin with. So vague that it didn't cite specific source of the alleged copyright violation. So it's reasonable for BladeRN to question the claim and reverted the article. You also didn't help by blanking almost the entire article, regardless of whether it contained material that was a copyvio or material that was clearly not a copyvio. --Farix (Talk) 19:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:TODAY / WP:5AD

Apologies for the spam, but there hadn't been a proper Look At This post on AN or ANI. It was on VPP and the CENT template, however, and spawned out of a thread on AN last week. Please review and help out at:

Misplaced Pages:Task of the Day

Posting here, as it would obviously require some administrative support, as it involves protected pages. Basic initial idea work is now done, and the (surprisingly basic) technical Mediawiki work as well. Please review it, and weigh in on Talk there, so we can see if the idea has proper legs. Thanks! :) Lawrence Cohen 19:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Cardiff edits

90.203.45.168 shows strong indication of anti-Cardiff point of view and reflects it in his/her edits to Cardiff (such as removal of information in the Media section which he/she ironically summarises the edit as POV), Cardiff Central railway station where he/she removed yet more information and also in Swansea railway station. User was warned by me but removed the message from his/her user page before making the above edits. Would like administration intervention please. Welshleprechaun (talk) 19:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

If it makes a difference, when you have to accuse everyone else of "anti-Cardiff POV", you need to stop and consider whether it's actually you engaging in "pro-Cardiff POV". 90.203.45.168 (talk) 20:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Related: WP:AN/I#User:Welshleprechaun. x42bn6 Talk Mess 21:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Spunga

Earlier today Spunga was deleted as a result of an AfD. In has subsequently been recreated in identical form and the {{db-repost}} has been repeatedly removed by what appear to be single-purpose accounts. As the CSD tag will not stay on the article for longer than 5 seconds please could someone delete the article and if possible salt it too as I think it is going to be some time before these people get bored of the game. Thanks in advance. Kind regards, nancy 19:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Was about to mention this myself. An alternative to salting would be a fully-protected redirect to Squeegee#Squeegee for floor, as the word is genuine. Tevildo (talk) 20:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree - there was some consensus for a redirect in the AfD. nancy 20:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The redirect's there at the moment - let's see how long it holds. :) Tevildo (talk) 20:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I have semi'd it after looking at the deletion log. If semi won't work, I'll call Fort Knox for the gold padlock. -Jéské 21:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Was there consensus for a redirect? I removed the sponga material from the squeegee article and changed the redirect to just squeegee. Anyways, --Tom 20:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The official closure statement included "A subsequent redirect to squeegee or mop might be appropriate, but as for which, I leave to editor discretion." There certainly wasn't a consensus for a simple deletion, but if anyone wants to redirect to Mop instead, I'm sure it won't be controversial. Tevildo (talk) 23:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Welshleprechaun

This user is consistently trying to own articles relating to the Cardiff area, editing articles to conform to their own POV, and accusing anyone that disagrees of editing with an "anti-Cardiff POV". They then have the audacity to warn other users for vandalism when an article is edited in a way that they do not agree with - AIV when trying to insert their POV failed. A browse through the edit history of Cardiff will demonstrate this nicely. Evidence of branding good edits as vandalism: wording change, restoring own POV, introducing an inaccuracy, branding the edit that removed it "unnecessary", fabricated a claim as to population rank. Evidence of POV editing: (note use of "belittlement") (inflating the position of the city) (an audacious attempt to change the MoS) (yet more insistence on adding Cardiff everywhere) . Evidence of inaccuracies:

In all, the user has been warned for seeming ownership, fabrication, attacking users, and POV editing. Despite all of this, the user continues to behave disruptively, placing bogus warnings on other users' talk pages, and then chastising said users for removing them, claiming that "you shall not remove vandalism warnings", when it is clearly established that users and anons are entitled to do just that (removing comments from user talk IIRC is generally regarded as a sign that said user has read those comments). This user clearly shows no sign of changing their behaviour, and no intention of adhering to our policies and guidelines. I ask that something be done. 90.203.45.168 (talk) 19:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Related: WP:AN/I#Anti-Cardiff edits. x42bn6 Talk Mess 21:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Persistent vandal account

• TheOnlyJason (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Persistent vandal. Final warning given. User talk page blanking obscures previous warnings. Latest example -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 20:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

For future reference, you'll want WP:AIV for this. J-ſtan_{User page} 20:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

They refuse to act if it's not occuring within minutes of the time of reporting. Please can admins on AIV and ANI reach a consensus on this and publish it in the instructions for using both boards. Thanks. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 20:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, it was 5 days ago. If he does it again, you can warn him one more time, or report him. J-ſtan_{User page} 20:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Just report it on the AIV page the next time it happens, and tell the admins who review it that there has already been a final warning issued and to review the history of the Talk page. Corvus cornix_talk 22:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Political spam links ?

Piquant (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Just about every edit involves adding a link to an article in the International Socialism journal. I don't know if this contravenes anything, but it looks like undue politicisation of articles to me. User talk page blanked, obscures one warning. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 20:15, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Consolidating some discussion on this Talk:Happiness#Proposed_link, User_talk:Piquant, User_talk:Edgarde#Your_comments_on_citation_and_external_links, User_talk:Orangemike#Spamming_and_POV, User_talk:Irishguy#Spamming.3F, User_talk:Daytona2#Removal_of_link_from_subprime_article

Is this an ANI issue ? -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 21:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Yeanold Viskersenn

Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Image commented out, there's really no reason why it should be here too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a simple question but really needs to be addressed. It has been brought up once before and edits to improve the situation continue to be reverted as vandalism or other somewhat misleading edit summaries

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User:Yeanold_Viskersenn&diff=prev&oldid=180732796

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User:Yeanold_Viskersenn&diff=next&oldid=181596688

See previous discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive346#User:Yeanold Viskersenn Does the following use of an image of one user be allowed to be used on another users personal page with the following caption.

The image and caption to the right is copied from User:Yeanold Viskersenn

The caption is a valid quote from Stan Shebs as found on Viskersenn's talk page. But its use as a caption just seems wrong to me. Is my thinking wrong? Or is this considered accpetable within Misplaced Pages? Dbiel 21:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered nominating the page at MfD?--Addhoc (talk) 21:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

As a disinterested third party, it's clear that something should be done. The image is also used by User:Yeanold Viskersenn here. I'll Mfd the page. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 21:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussion now at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Yeanold Viskersenn, so this section could probably be marked resolved. Addhoc (talk) 22:37, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

MfC has been closed, image removed from user page per WP:DICK. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand how WP:DICK confers any authority to remove any content from anything. Frongle (talk) 05:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

"Vandalism"

User:Smart Viral recently reverted my addition to an article with the summary "Reverted 1 edit by Arrow740 identified as vandalism to last revision by Cuchullain." My edit was obviously not vandalism. He did this same thing a few days ago and was warned about it by two other editors. This is simple disruption. Can something be done? Arrow740 (talk) 22:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

sorry i press "Rollback (Vandal)" instead of "Rollback". Smart_Viral 22:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

In the future, Arrow740, please bring this up on User talk first. Smart_Viral, thanks for apologizing and be more careful in the future. Let's all go edit the encyclopedia now... — Scientizzle 22:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Help at DRV

Can someone close this bad faith DRV discussion before it goes on too far? This is the second request by the user in the last 5 days...I'm not aware of what the IP did, but this is obviously related to it..--Smashville 22:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Someone has requested me to delete and/or undeleted this user talk page... any help would be appreciated. --W.marsh 00:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It's already been through DRV - Misplaced Pages:Deletion_review#User_talk:202.76.162.34_.28closed.29. Pastordavid (talk) 17:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

IgorBlucher on Gavin Newsom

IgorBlucher‎ appears to be a single purpose account that only desires to attack Gavin Newsom‎. As per the article talk page, he continued to assert that Newsom couldn't be Catholic anymore because...well, because Igor doesn't think he should be. When pressed, he provided "sources" that in no way stated what he claimed they did. He asked for more input. More input was provided...and every single other editor who contributed claimed that he was wrong. He is edit warring and ignoring every other editor. I am tired of trying to deal with him. IrishGuy 22:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Irishguy if you tired take a wikibreak, go see a movie or do something else. Igor Berger (talk) 06:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I am attempting to make valid contributions to the Gavin Newsom article in good faith. There is evident controversy concerning the issue of Newsom's religious standing, with valid sources discussing his excommunication and separation from the Church. These contributions are being deleted without cause. Further, no consensus has been reached, contrary to any such claims. I would like to make additional contributions but am spending my time on with this matter. I also find at least one of these "editors" on the article talk page to be suspicious and uncivil. I need help dealing with this problem. Thank you in advance. IgorBlucher (talk) 23:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any incivility on the Talk page. You make claims that IrishGuy is being uncivil on the page, but I don't see it. What I do see is your unsubstantiated POV. (I'm non-Catholic and don't care one way or the other, so I don't have an axe to grind on this issue) Corvus cornix_talk 23:17, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

No, as noted on the article talk page the only "source" you have is an article from October 2005 which states that the some proposed to the Vatican that certain politicians be sanctioned. That was over two years ago. It obviously never happened. The other "sources" don't even remotely state what you claim they do...and others have pointed this out on the talk page and when reverting you. Yet you continue to act as thought there is "controversy" about this person when there clearly isn't. If you cannot come up with something better than a two year old article it is obviously a non-issue. Which editor do you find "suspicious"? You keep making this claim but you don't elaborate. IrishGuy 23:17, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"The sources provided by IgorBlucher fail that standard (laughably so, in fact)." Repeatedly deleting my valid contributions and commanding others' behaviour is most certainly uncivil. IgorBlucher (talk) 23:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I had never heard of Gavin Newsom before this exchange, but a reading shows your contributions are being deleted because they obviously don't belong in the article. Thus, it's not uncivil to delete them. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I had never heard of the man either. I caught the edit summary of you can't marry, divorce and remarry; excommunicate in the recent changes and looked into the edit. IrishGuy 23:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to propose a new sub-section, under "Controversies," on the controversy surrounding Newsom's religious standing. IgorBlucher (talk) 23:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no controversy. There are years old articles that clearly led to nothing. IrishGuy 23:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow another Igor, how many Igors does it take to make you listen? Igor Berger (talk) 23:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It would only take one with convincing arguments. In any case, IgorBlucher (talk · contribs) is violating several policies, including WP:BLP and WP:WEIGHT, not to mention edit-warring in an attempt to insert this material against consensus. Either come up with reliable, independent secondary sources demonstrating this is actually a current, notable controversy or stop inserting it. If you continue, you're going to be blocked for tendentious editing, edit-warring, WP:BLP violations, etc. MastCell 00:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I have provided valid sources regarding the existence of the controversy. IgorBlucher (talk) 00:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, no one else agrees. I would encourage you to engage on the article talk page, make your case, and try to achieve consensus. But in the interim, if you continue edit-warring, you're going to end up blocked. MastCell 00:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Igor I strongly recommend to listen to User:MastCell he speaks words of Wisdom and Jurisprudence. Thank you, Igor Berger (talk) 00:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that "no one else agrees", especially since discussions are newly underway. As for MestCell, I see he speaks words of Overpowerment, not of wisdom. As for Jurisprudence, i.e., a philosophy of law, either natural or officiated by an institution-- that would be WP:LEGAL violation or threat. I'll WP:AGF you didn't mean that. IgorBlucher (talk) 00:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Stop wikilawyering, its not gonna win you any support. The sources you have to support the inclusion of a controversy section appear to be invalid. Go get proper ones and no one will dispute the section, if they're valid--Jac16888 (talk) 00:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I would agree that there is controversy, but that's not what IgorBlucher was originally placing in the article, and the conclusions he is reaching are not supported by the sources used. The most recent attempt, a new section, is closer to a solution, but the claims were so far from factually accurate that they had to be removed per WP:BLP. Pairadox (talk) 00:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Like http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/09/MNQRTM37Q.DTL&type=politics. The section is valid and shouldn't have been deleted.

Oh, come on, if that's your type of source, then there's no argument here at all. Nowhere does that even mention his having been excommunicated, nor does it call him an ex-Catholic or any other type of Catholic. That's not a source for any of your claims. Corvus cornix_talk 03:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikilawyering? Oh, you must mean the other Igor. Stop-- a command? Couldn't be-- that's a violation of . I'll WP:AGF on that one, too. IgorBlucher (talk) 01:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This is getting tedious. IgorBlucher, if you want to make a claim in an article, you must be ready to present a source that explicitly covers said claim. Implicit claims are inappropriate, especially involving living person biographies; you can't put multiple sources together to make a new claim. A controversy section is an appropriate section for this article (and there is a modest one, in this case), and specific cited statements may be appropriate to add to such a section, but please do not continue edit warring, tendentious editing, or being otherwise discourteous. — Scientizzle 01:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. And i was telling you, IgorBlucher, to stop wikilawyering, not anyone else--Jac16888 (talk) 01:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I understand. You are Wikilawyering. IgorBlucher (talk) 04:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I've now looked in detail at IgorBlucher's contributions and... good grief. Igor, you must read WP:BLP which details Misplaced Pages policy on biographical material for living persons. I gather you don't like Gavin Newsom but that's all the more reason you must scrupulously adhere to Misplaced Pages policy in this regard. By now you've repeatedly been warned; next time you do something like this, you'll be blocked. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

You gather incorrectly. please WP:AGF and remain WP:CIVIL.

Stop complaining about incivility, wikilawyering, and bad faith. When there isn't a single other person who supports your contentions, you might want to look at yourself. You're being disruptive. Corvus cornix_talk 04:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not complaining, I am asking you and other users, at present a small group acting uncivilly and creating disruptions, to please remain WP:CIVIL, while I am making valuable contributions. IgorBlucher (talk) 04:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Counting myself, NINE other Wiki-editors find that you are NOT making a valuable contribution, but instead violating numerous policies. Please stop. I support a preventative 72 hour cool-down block for this editor, who can't understand, or won't understand, the problems. ThuranX (talk) 04:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

A small group, who others may disagree with, myself included. Please WP:AGF. My contributions are valuable. IgorBlucher (talk) 06:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

They are not valuable if you have to flat-out disregard our bio policy and our verifiability policies to make them, and assuming good faith only stretches so far. I count 10 now. -Jéské 06:33, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, as I said before, a small group. I have not disregarded policies, and am making valuable contributions in good faith. IgorBlucher (talk) 06:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, we oferd help, but it looks like you are not interested, so untill you can figure out what to do, stay hear and argue with each other. Nobody is getting banned or blocked! Enjoy, have fun, and learn..:) Igor Berger (talk) 06:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Igor Berger! Your help is appreciated. Onward and upward! IgorBlucher (talk) 06:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

So far your "valuable contributions" amount to two references for the infobox that merely confirm what was never in doubt - Gavin Newsom is Catholic. On the other hand, there are now a lot of editors who are aware of your editing style. Pairadox (talk) 06:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I am happy to work with other editors interested in working with me. IgorBlucher (talk) 05:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Asgardian

Asgardian (talk · contribs) - Made 2 reverts in less than a week , , (with the original edit that was a revert of over a weeks time ). This is violation of the user restriction agreement RfA:Asgardian-Tenebrae. This may or may not be a moot point as the use is currently blocked due to the agreement for similar edits on another page. -66.109.248.114 (talk) 23:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC).

It is indeed pretty moot. Our ArbCom Enforcement page is usually the best place to report potential breaches of RFAr rulings. Neıl ☎ 09:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Valediction

Are there any administrators out there who can handle this issue? There is a proposed or suggested merger of two articles that has been lingering on for three months (since October 2007) ... See Valediction. Can some administrator out there officially come in and close the discussion and end the proposed merger? Please advise. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC))

Done. :) IrishGuy 00:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC))

Concerns about administrator Nat

Hi, I've been having some difficulties with Nat, and could use feedback. A little while ago Nat blocked Armon after an erroneous report was filed on the 3RR board by Timeshifter. Armon was blocked not for violating 3rr but for edit-warring. I didn't think this was the right call; the person Armon was edit-warring with (if was edit-warring), Tiamut, had made 5 reversions in 29 hours (And Tiamut, if you're reading this, please know I'm not asking for anyone to block you ;)), quite a bit more than Armon. So I asked for Nat to reconsider the block on his talk page Nat's response? To whisk my post away without comment.

I thought he must have seen the message, but wasn't completely sure, so I posted again. Again, whisked off to an archive without explanation.

I found this all pretty distressing, but thought it might just be best to let the thing die down. I felt Armon had really been shafted for no good reason, but Armon himself seemed to take it with a great deal of equanimity, so I followed his example and dropped it.

Then, recently, I noticed that Nat had unblocked Pedro Gonnet (NB: because I had the page Pedro was editing watch-listed, not because I was looking at Nat's actions). Pedro had been blocked for a clear violation of 3rr, see , and in fact, after being unblocked by Nat, Pedro continued right along with the reversion he'd been blocked for making .

Given that these blocks concerned Israel/Palestine issues, which are fraught with friction already, and that Nat had blocked a user (who might be on the pro-Israeli side) when he'd not clearly committed a blockable offense, then unblocked a user (who might be on the pro-Palestinian side) when he indisputably had done so, I felt I had to say something. So, with some trepidation, I left a message on Nat's talk page again. . No bonus points for guessing what Nat's response was: .

I don't know how others feel, but if this were a regular editor who was responding to concerns from a user in good-standing, I would be concerned. That an admin would do so—would remove posts from his talk page without a single comment—makes it alarming. I would also point to this arbitration case, , a case which Nat I think initiated, wherein this very issue was raised and voted on by arbcom:

3) Due to the collaborative nature of Misplaced Pages, proper communication is extremely important, and all editors are expected to respond to messages intended for them in a timely manner and to constructively discuss controversial issues. This is especially true for administrators in regard to administrative actions. Such expected communication includes…using accurate and descriptive edit and log summaries; and responding promptly and fully to all good-faith concerns raised about their administrative actions.

Indeed, User:Alkivar was desysopped, in part, for this very practice. I am not calling for Nat to be desysopped, but I do think he absolutely must respond to messages left on his talk page about his admin actions, and I also believe that the admin actions in question have been applied by Nat inconsistently, even erratically, which exacerbates an already tense atmosphere. I would have been much happier to take this up with Nat on his talk page, but obviously couldn't do that in this case. Input is welcome. IronDuke 00:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi IronDuke, I apologize for not responding to your messages left on my talk page about my actions as you have listed above. I agree, "proper communication is extremely important, and all editors are expected to respond to messages intended for them in a timely manner and to constructively discuss controversial issues", and I am sorry if you felt that I had ignored your posts. In regards to the case of Armon, I admit I might have overlooked the actions of Tiamut. I agree it was a bit unfair that Armon had been blocked and not Tiamut, for as you said, 5 rvs in 29 hours. In the case of Pedro Gonnet, i did write in the unblock message: "After re-reviewing the request, the block appeared to be a punitive measure rather than a preventive measure. As that is the case, I have reversed my previous decline of the request and I have granted the request for unblocking for Pedro Gonnet. That being said, Pedro Gonnet had indeed violated 3RR, and as a warning, next time a 3RR violation occurs on PG's part, blocking may be issued without warning.". Reading through this thread, it seems that you are implying that I have taken a side in this Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have not. When I make my decisions, I do not notice or pay attention to their political views or affiliations. As that is the case, it is pure coincidence that I blocked a "pro-Isreali" editor and unblocked a "pro-Palestinian" editor. I would like to apologize again for not responding to your messages left on my talk page about my actions, and I would also like to apologize for the fact that it took an ANI thread for me to respond to your concerns. nat.utoronto 08:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nat. Thanks for your thoughtful reply. First off, please feel free to move this discussion to your talk page (or mine). I don’t believe it requires admin intervention now, if it ever did. And I appreciate the apology—these are often grudgingly given through gritted teeth, when they come at all, and yours clearly wasn’t.

A few minor-ish points. I wasn’t saying that you are pro or anti anything, FWIW, just that you made two admin actions in a row that could plausibly be said to favor one “side”, which cause for concern, nothing more.

As for the Pedro block, I must respectfully take issue with your characterizing admin B’s block as “punitive.” I can’t think of a more by-the-book kind of block, can you? Pedro was edit-warring, went past the electric fence, was rightly blocked, not-so-rightly-unblocked by you, went back to making the same edit he was blocked for, and some people are now saying his block was “overturned,” implying it had not been merited. Do you really think Pedro’s block was any more punitive than any other run of the mill 3rr block? I’d be interested to know why, if you do. IronDuke 23:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:VivianDarkbloom

Quite a rampage today. She has taken part in edit warring on at least 24 articles, and gone on her own personal antiporn crusade, putting false "db-bio" tags on numerous articles, including articles that included such statements as "In 2007, she was named Directrix of the Year at the Adam Film World Guide Awards", "94 listed works in the Adult Film database", "worked in over 150 pornographic movies with some of the biggest names in porn". Maybe not the most savory of occupations, but clearly assertions of notability, making it hard to believe that these are good faith A7 candidates. After some of these got removed, she proceeded to go on a tirade against Epbr123, with what can only be politely called an uncivil note.Kww (talk) 01:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

She's been warned by LaMenta3, and the tagging seems to have died down for the time being. I've removed the last two remaining CSD tags noting that the articles make some claim of importance--although she needs to work on her civility a bit (WP:WQA might be a first step in dealing with that issue), she does show signs of working within the system. Unless others have a different take on this or the disruptive tagging starts up again, it seems to me that this issue can be considered closed. --jonny-mt 02:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that warning is probably appropriate, but, digging through her contribution history, a specific warning about the misapplication of A7 tags in addition to the one she has received about incivility seems in order to me.Kww (talk) 02:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me--I added one here. I also looked a little closer at her contributions, and it seems she has a bit of a penchant for edit warring over discussion (particularly against redirects), although to be honest responsibility for a number of these edit wars seems also to lie with TTN and Eusebeus, as they seem equally reluctant to take the issue to the talk page or even explain their reasons for redirecting in the edit summary (with a couple of exceptions). This, however, is a separate issue that would probably be better dealt with at WP:RFC or another stage of the dispute resolution process. --jonny-mt 03:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Or one of those issues could be brought up above instead. Remind me to look up in the future >.< --jonny-mt 03:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It's called wikistalking because he violently disagrees with our fiction redirects and has animus against TTN and me, which I reciprocate at this point. Vivian is a self-admitted sock and a highly disruptive editor who in my view should be blocked. The recent "edit war" consisted of going through my contribution history and undoing - in exact order, I mean you have to admire the gall - my wantonly vandalising efforts in backing up TTN's redirection of fiction related articles. Eusebeus (talk) 16:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Fully agree that that is where her warring tendencies lie. I suspect the porn crusade is an application of WP:POINT -> "If they are going to delete my teen fiction articles, I'll delete their porn stars." I actually wouldn't mind if she treated most of the porn articles the way TTN treats the badly written fiction pieces, but that involves following rules to the letter.Kww (talk) 03:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

M People revert

Hello I have added info to M.People's wiki entry which has been removed, it is factually correct so can you please out it back to where it should be as it was a lot of content! I should have signed in when I did it but it's frustrating that it has gone. Please can you authorise this. Thank you Ebs <email removed> Username : ebuaki —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebuaki (talk • contribs) 03:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorted, it was a vandal Bot revert that caused the problem. --WebHamster 03:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Not quite sorted, I fear. quite a lot of what is going in seems to be lifted from

and/or , the latter of which attributes "Encyclopedia of Popular Music". I can't stay around, unfortunately, but there seems to be a copyright issue here. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 04:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Smith Jones

Smith Jones (talk · contribs) Something probably needs done about this user - a cursory review of his contributions will show them to be full of attacks on other editors for being too "skeptical", and edit summaries like "reverting vandalism -- next time it happens I will submit this user to an arbitration committee" - during him edit-warring to add a npov tag because he objects that the article mentions the controversy over Uri Geller. A warning might suffice, but the chances of him becoming a productive editor seem very low. Adam Cuerden 03:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

you have no diea of my motives and the gall taht is require dfor you to automatically design why i aded that nPOV tag is unbelievalble. as i explained in the talk page, i percieved a disconect between the stated policies fo neutrlaity and letting readers coming up with their own conclusion from he evidence and the statments made on the Uri geller article, which made definiteive statements based on the opiions of sketpics. i have no problem with the mentioning of the controversy, only that the aritlce should NEVER have stated conclusively that uri geller was a fraud since that tshould be somethign that is either videncet to the reader or not. i have read all the regulations that hav ebenn submitted to me and never have i read that wikipedias job was to make decisions for readers, and in fact it seems to be the oposite. perhaps i am wrong, butr i will not concede m mistake until this is explain rationally to me. Smith Jones (talk) 22:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I've been interacting with him for a few days now, and I concur with Adam's suggestion that the chance of him becoming a productive editor is very low. My first direct interaction with him was to inform him that the this threat to SineBot was both against policy and ridiculous, as the Arbitration Committee is not about to hear a case against SineBot (my message to him). This conversation ended in him referring to my explanation of talk page signatures as "harassment" and opting out of SineBot, also calling it "harassment". But he didn't threaten to tattle on me, so I guess this is the best conversation I've had with him ever. A subsequent message informing him, very politely, that his indiscriminate use of all-caps was rude, was also apparently harassment. After that I told him I'd stop trying to help him if it was bothersome.

However, the problematic behavior has continued, as has his constant threats to "report to an arbitration committee." I've repeatedly explained what ArbCom is and what it does, and why threatening other users with reporting them to ArbCom is inappropriate, but he has continued. Following the last threat, which Adam links above, I've left him a final warning in regards to his threats and his characterizing good faith edits as vandalism, and will block for a length of time if he continues in that manner.

i have apologized erepatedly for my initlial mistakes as to the purpose of an ARbitration committee, and yet my past mistakes continue to be dragged out of the closet to be used agianst me in unrelated disputes. i submit that this is an entirely unfair way of treating me since i have noticed that very few others poeople are subject to such an intense amoutn of scrutiny and judgment as well as to my intentions. i have always taken it under assumption that i am supposed to be judged as acting under good faith unless proven otherswise but so far i have been treated like a criminal or a vandal sfor any disgarement i may have with a fellow editor or any mistakes that i have made regarding the rules and the ways thing soperate on wikipedia. i am not an experience duser and i freely amdit that I have made many mistakes and not been the best editor i could be and I would like to apologize fot to all the people who tried to help me such as user: natalie erin but I also must rmeidn you that even though i make mistakes i am still a human being and a fellow editor sand i would like to be treated iwth respct and my feelings considered before i am submitted to the degree of harassment and mockery that i have been submitted to during my career trying to imrpove this encyclopedia. Smith Jones (talk) 22:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This user does seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of both how the Misplaced Pages community interacts and what Misplaced Pages as a whole is for. Perhaps a half-dozen users have attempted to explain some of these fundamentals to him, but he invariably blanks his talk page and continues in the same manner. The various points he needs to be aware of have also been explained on various talk pages, including Talk:Uri Geller, Talk:Criticism of Sylvia Browne, Talk:Homeopathy, and others. A quick perusal of his contributions shows a dedicated single-issue editor, who has apparently take it on himself to champion psychics and quackery. Natalie (talk) 16:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, I didn't see a notification of this discussion on his talk page or its history, so I have notified him. Natalie (talk) 16:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

tha nk you for notifying me it is very rare that i am actual giveen an opportunity to explain myself and i appreciate taht this was brought to my attention by you instead of me having to find about thismuch later. i have already addressed your decision to label me as a psychic and a quacker on the numberous other article talk pages that this has been done to me. Smith Jones (talk) 22:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This recent edit summary stuck out on a quick review of his recent contribs. As did this one: "correcting retatard spelling errors" (sic). Or . In general, I'm not getting the picture of an especially constructive editor. MastCell 16:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, he was warned about personal attacks shortly after those edits, and hasn't made the same types of statements since. This sort of jibes with the impression I've been getting that there's some sort of real communication hurdle here, short of his soapboxing and misunderstanding of the purpose of Misplaced Pages. I initially thought screen reader and bad computer transcribing because of the numerous spelling and formatting errors, but since then I've noticed other issues that wouldn't be explained by being blind. Smith Jones takes most things incredibly literally, including policy suggestions. The best conversations I've had with him consisted of him suggesting some sources, and myself or someone else explaining exactly what was wrong or right with those particular sources. We may be being trolled, but it's also possible that this is a non-native English speaker, someone with a learning disorder, or a very young person. Natalie (talk) 17:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

i am not a troll. i am a Native English speaker, i do not have a learning disorder, and i am over 18 years of age. I am not blidn either. i have been suggested to get firefox because it has a spellchecker but this is evidently not the case because i am Having severe difficulties atually finding the spellchecker. i amdit that sumtimes my spelling is not very clear but that is becuase i have ahrd time keeping my thoughts straight at time sand i should problemably slow down while i Am typing to make sure that spelling errors. i would appreciate it if someone would explain to me how the spellcchecker is supposed to work because i have not noticed on even though i took advice from someonere here to get a spellchecker which i have not until yet been able to operate. i know firefox has one and it used to work for me but ti have not been able to activat eit since. Smith Jones (talk) 22:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Also notice the mess that this user made on talk:Homeopathy with absurd claims regarding a pharmaceutics company. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

i thank you for your politeness and respect towards my work and i hope that you are treated with the same dignity tin turn in the future. Smith Jones (talk) 22:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Associated vandal sockpuppetry

Hotel9999 (talk · contribs) and Hommee111 (talk · contribs) are both apparently creating nonsense articles and have correlated edit histories. Can someone address this? Seems like blatant vandalism across multiple new accounts. Maybe worth a checkuser as well to see if any additional vandal users/IPs have gotten without notice yet. Many thanks, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 03:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:RBI. Plonk. — Coren  04:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Current DYK Main Page Image vandalism

The image Image:1939 Time Capsule Cupaloy.gif on the main page for DYK is being vandalized on Commons. I uploaded the original there, but the vandal reuploaded the cat instead. I know normally the image is moved to WIkipedia from Commons and protected, but I am not sure how to do that. Could someone please help, thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>° 05:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The image was protected at the commons. See . - Rjd0060 (talk) 05:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>° 05:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Normally, when an image from the Commons is posted in the DYK template, the updating admin needs to upload an identical copy of the image to Misplaced Pages, specifically. The Misplaced Pages copy of the image will be protected because it's on the main page, which has cascading protection. The image on Misplaced Pages gets tagged with {{c-uploaded}}, which notes that it's protected. Once the next DYK update is done, the Misplaced Pages copy of the image gets deleted, and then the Commons version of the image shows through (so to speak). There are instructions on how to do this in comments in the source of the DYK update template. --Elkman 05:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User 757-223ET threats and vandalism

This user has made a veiled threat on my talk page. I believe this user was banned as User:767-249ER for vandalising a number of pages and making threats to me and a number of other users. The following message appeared on my talk page:

>>>>== Message: ==

Hack is BACK!

--757-223ET (talk) 04:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)<<<<

I would like to request that the matter be handled by an administrator because if I issue another warning, I will just be continually harassed by this user and from other IP addresses, as has happened in the past. Thank you. J Bar (talk) 05:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Controversial userbox

This userbox, located in User:MQDuck/userboxes/Right To Resist, supporting Iraqi insurgency. Please delete this userbox. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think it's worse than a number of other boxes on this page. Though of course a better answer would be to delete the whole lot of them so people could concentrate on, uh, building an encyclopedia. BLACKKITE 09:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• The text of this userbox is "This user recognizes the right of Iraqis to resist occupation."
• This userbox is supporting Iraqi insurgency, in other words supporting terrorism.

This userbox cannot be tolerated. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 10:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• • Deleted as unhelpful. Although "terrorism" is subjective - that's what we called "George Washington" a few years back. But, looking long and hard at this user's contributions, I find it hard to assume other than a deliberate attempt to provoke drama. In a more rounded user's own space, I'd allow more latitude.--Doc 10:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

In the future, please consider templates for deletion or criteria for speedy deletion instead of reporting here. --slakr 10:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Since we've had several UBX issues of late, it might be worth leaving a reference to this here in case anyone's forgotten it. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 11:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Another controversial userbox

I started a discussion about one I saw subst'ed on a userpage here:

User talk:Piercetheorganist#A userbox to which some may take offense

It may not exist elsewhere.

ScienceApologist (talk) 08:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

There is more than one problem with this user's conduct. (Edit: I didn't see it before but this user was just blocked for a week so that may or may not have anything to do with this users judgement) — Save_Us_229 09:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

He has now made a response to my attempts to get him to mitigate his activities basically to the tune of "no". Should we remove the userbox for him? Can I get some administrator attention on this matter? ScienceApologist (talk) 16:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I have left a message informing him that it has to go, and reminding him that his userspace does not belong to him. If he doesn't remove it himself I'll take it down. Natalie (talk) 16:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It's worth mentioning that Kubigula and I removed these charming sentiments twice last week. Acroterion _(talk) 17:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Per the user's request, I am deleting the whole userpage and usertalk. Pastordavid (talk) 17:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_oxymora_2

This afd was closed today as delete by a non-admin. However, it seems that the page survived deletion as it was nominated again today as Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_oxymora_(2nd_nomination). The latter was closed (but it seems something is wrong with the closing. Would an admin look at both afd's and see what is wrong with them? Thanks.--Lenticel 09:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

 Done A user had closed the first AFD as "delete" despite not being an admin so couldn't actually delete it. That was reversed and for some reason a second AFD had been opened. All fixed now. Neıl ☎ 09:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we need to put the resolved box. --Lenticel 09:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

If it makes you happy ;) Neıl ☎ 10:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Repeated reverts of sourced statements, harassment, and tendentious edits by Biophys

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

Biophys has persistently reverted sourced statements in the article Patriarch Alexius II, he has circumvented coming to a consensus on the talk page by making unilateral edits, and has engaged in personal attacks and harassment. The most recent example of such reverts can be seen here. Please also see the talk page for that article Talk:Patriarch Alexius II Frjohnwhiteford (talk) 11:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This is already on Misplaced Pages:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Patriarch_Alexius_II - can we keep the discussion to one location, please? Neıl ☎ 12:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Fake articles and vandalism relating to Victoria Beckham

miranda 16:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Articles relating to Victoria Beckham that are constantly deleted and resurrected by the same three users ( Girls alouds biggest fan, Surfer-boy94, & 59.100.199.1 -- who are all quite possibly the same person) include the following:

Open Your Eyes (Unreleased album) - which has been deleted at least 4 times as per: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Open Your Eyes (Victoria Beckham album)

The Hustla‎ (unreleased song; fake single with fan-made cover art)

I'd Give It All Away‎ (unreleased song; fake single with fan-made cover art)

Aswell as vandalism to:

My Love Is For Real (Victoria Beckham song)‎ - (adding fake fan-made cover art and making up dates and "info")

Template:Victoria Beckham (adding links to all said fake articles)

My constant attempts to simply add redirects to Victoria Beckham have been futile as one of said users just reverts.

These articles are nothing but fan made nonsense with fan-sites and music blogs as the "sources", if any, aswell as links to illegal download sites. Something needs to be done to keep them deleted or a constant unchangable redirect without being resurected yet again.

I may not be completely familair with the exact term, but is salting the fake pages in order?

Celebrity-Benji (talk) 13:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Protection of the redirects would be adequate. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 13:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd go for salting, personally. -- lucasbfr 13:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, if the songs are fake, there's no valid reason to have a redirect. —Random832 14:04, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well the tracks are real, but only in low quality internet-leaked versions, they were never planned as singles or included on any album. Celebrity-Benji (talk) 14:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I've deleted the redirect from the supposed album title, since if there's no such album it shouldn't exist - if the songs themselves are real then i guess there's no reason to delete those. It's possible that without a place to put an album article the users will run out of steam; if it continues the redirects can be protected. —Random832 14:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well thankyou very much for your help Celebrity-Benji (talk) 14:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The redirects have been protected to save theem being speedied when recreated - no point in not doing so. Neıl ☎ 16:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, the page has been revived via Open Your Eyes (Unreleased Victoria Beckham album) before aswell. Is it possible to have this page salted aswell, to avoid another possible recreation? Celebrity-Benji (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 14:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

 Done by User:Nat at 14:36, 8 January 2008. -- lucasbfr 15:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

List of Scottish monarchs‎

Edit war in progress here. Admins with no previous involvement required. Regards, David Lauder (talk) 14:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The reverts are between Micheal Sanders and Deacon of Pndapetzim. Volunteers? - Mtmelendez 14:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

FYI

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

The freeprs have once again made an official declaration of war against wikipedia, and have announced a "freep in" of the Barack Obama article. This time there is no way for wikipedia users to go to their site and appeal their "action alert", as the thread was already deleted. Despite it being a short lived thread, I fear the damage is already done.--ανωνυμία 14:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

You're talking about Free Republic trolls, right? The article's already semi-protected, and any established accounts effing around with the Obama article can be blocked. It's no big deal. Neıl ☎ 16:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Just block on sight. The end. Natalie (talk) 16:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Just block on sight? This is proof of bias. The Barack Obama article has some POV and incivility to those who try to correct the POV. It's too much trouble to fight so I haven't looked at the article in a long time. BTW, I am an admin but don't want trouble. Notrouble (talk) 17:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

And I have a bridge over the East River that you may wish to purchase. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

If you want proof, I can block you. However, I do not fulfil "please block me" request. If you vandalize some user pages and immediately fix them, I can block you for vandalism. Do you want to be blocked for 31 hours? Or indefinitely? Notrouble (talk) 17:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to be blocked. I'm addicted to this place... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec x2)How about proving it by signing into your admin account and posting here? And blocking Freepers on sight isn't bias if they're starting another one of their campaigns to vandalize around the encyclopedia. They've already given up whatever assumption of good faith they deserve by trying to convince people to vandalize. If a new accounts adds sourced, balanced content to an article, they won't be blocked. Simple as that. Natalie (talk) 18:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Mordechai Gafni

User:Fructify, the subject of the article (presumably) is blanking the page and replacing it with an unedited essay about how great he is, how "though he is imperfect, he is just as imperfect as ML King and Jack Kennedy", and is indeed so perfect that everyone is jealous of him and wants to be like him. I have reverted him 3 times now. Does 3rr apply in this kind of case? Lobojo (talk) 16:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

No. I have blocked Fructify (talk · contribs) for 24 hours to prevent further edit-warring, and will try and explain to him why on his talk page. If he continues when the block expires, he will probably be indefinitely blocked. Neıl ☎ 16:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I've passed this onto WP:BLP/N for a more indepth look. Neıl ☎ 16:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User Xixaxu is using my talk page for his personal affairs

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

User Xixaxu contacted me by the matter of my recent edit in Český Těšín () article describing some details , which I accepted and I did not interfere that article anymore. Then he came with accusation of Darwinek , which I ignored. Then I contacted him that I don't want to be involved party in the case and despite I politely asked him not to post on my talk page anymore and after he got a general restriction notice by loeth, user Xixaxu continues posting on my talk page content far behind the civility. , and .

I do not wish him to use my talk page for spreading personal attacks, uncivility and accusations. ≈Tulkolahten≈ 18:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked Xixaxu under the "East Europe" Arbcom clause for continuing his aggressive behaviour after the warnings. But I note Darwinek's behaviour wasn't exactly stellar either. I've so far only given him a warning, but somebody with more knowledge of the context may want to give another look at his case too, since he has a well-known past history of incivility issues. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, the main point of problem was Xixaxu with the personal attacks on my talk page, and from his actions it seemed he doesn't want to stop. ≈Tulkolahten≈ 19:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Alliance for School Choice

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

I need some advice about how to deal with current situations surrounding this article. The Alliance for School Choice article was created yesterday, by Alliancesc (in my mind, that suggests a large breach of WP:COI to start with). I tagged it as failing CSD A7, but this tag was removed - fair enough. A different editor has since tagged the article for notability, COI problems and added a wikify tag, but Alliancesc repeatedly removes them, despite a warning I placed on their talk page. I don't particularly want to be involved anymore, save replacing the tags when they're removed, as Alliancesc makes it clear on the article's talk page that they think I'm obsessed with getting it deleted. I feel that it probably should be deleted, but my view is now tainted by the way that Alliancesc has behaved, and I doubt I have a neutral point of view of the article any longer. Something needs to be done, though, as this user is insisting that the tags be removed, and the article not deleted (though perhaps it qualifies for it), but the tags are most definitely necessary. If an experienced admin could take a look at both the article and user, and take appropriate action, I'd be very grateful. _TheIslander 18:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User blocked for username violation. Alliance for School Choice article deleted under WP:CSD#G11. Other spam contributions by user reverted. Thank you for the report. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 18:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Resolved tags removed. The article is not deleted. Corvus cornix_talk 18:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Article didn't get deleted because of some sort of Twinkle fluke, but User:Addhoc has done a wonderful job of cleaning it up and sourcing it, so I don't feel it qualifies for G11 anymore. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 18:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

206.207.175.135 (talk · contribs)

206.207.175.135 should be blocked. Please check history in article such as Elvis Presley and Nintendo DS. Thank You Sahilm (talk) 19:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• Simple vandalism. Hit him with the appropriate vandalism warnings, etc. Not an ANI incident. Argyriou (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Page move vandalism at 19:26, 8 January 2008

Urgent a mass coordinated attack of page move vandalism has occured! Blueanode (talk) 19:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, umm...WTF just happened there??? Gromlakh (talk) 19:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

All done and dusted. Blueanode (talk) 19:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Rodney_mayes

This user's page and talk page should be deleted, per WP:MYSPACE. The user and talk page contains personal information (telephone #). Can some one do this? miranda 19:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

And while we are on the subject, someone please delete this and this. miranda 19:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for oversight, second door on the right. Argyriou (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Argyriou, I e-mailed them almost a week ago concerning this information with the Example page. Nothing was done. miranda 19:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I took care of the user page and talk page. I'm assuming deleted pages don't need to be oversighted (oversought?) because regular users can't see them in the edit history, right? --Elkman 20:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yep, only admins can see deleted pages. miranda 20:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, they could still be oversight-ed if the user whose personal information is there doesn't want admins to view that information. - Rjd0060 (talk) 20:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The two links in Miranda's second sentence probably ought to be oversighted, though I don't know the policy on oversighting spammers. One wants to submit the email address of the spammer to other spammers, but one isn't sure what to do with the phone numbers. Perhaps put them down on a drawing for a time-share? Argyriou (talk) 23:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

user:tell the trooth

This user should be blocked as he/she has been vandalising several pages for the past few days. The user enters the same content coming from the same unreliable source to all of the articles he gets a hand on (see his contributions) . He's even been warned by an admin. not to add commentary or his own personal analysis to Misplaced Pages articles, but seems like he's going to continue to do so.--Harout72 (talk) 20:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

A block can not be put upon this user, the user has only been told two times for adding unreferenced information. Sure you have the diffs, but the user has not been properly warned. The user needs to be given a full set of warnings for a block to be placed. The only thing that can really get them block is if they start threatening people or are proven to be a puppet or master. Rgoodermote  21:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Reisio ignoring consensus on Flag of Italy

This user repeatedly refused and ignored the consensus found on Talk:Flag of Italy against his own depiction of the Italian flag, featuring a grayer shade of white. I am noticing him here due to his latest revertion of his own version, so I am asking for an intervention from another admin as soon as possible. (I am an admin as well, but I already tried to deal with him with little success) Thank you. --Angelo (talk) 20:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Article reverted as user is clearly ignoring consensus. I will monitor situation further. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 21:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

As can clearly be determined via Talk:Flag of Italy and User talk:Reisio#Your_edits_in_Flag_of_Italy, Angelo.romano does not have a particularly good understanding of Misplaced Pages policy, including that of Misplaced Pages:Consensus, which states, among other things, "In essence silence implies consent if there is adequate exposure to the community." He had little success "dealing" with me because he kept presenting fallacies that I called him on. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

::::REISIO i HAVE red the debate on teht talk page and you are clearly in the wrong. i recomemnd that you back off, remember to keep a cool head, and comeback to wiipedia when you are ready t o cooperate you with your felow editors. Smith Jones (talk) 01:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Ha, look who's talking — nice formatting. If anyone can present a logically sound argument as to why I shouldn't include that image, I'll happily not. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

the reason why you should not add that article is becuase the re is CLEAR ocnsensus on User:angelo romano's talk page stating than the sum of editors who were working on that article agre that it should be included. NOONE on that article aggress with you, and while i will assume good faith is looks very bad for you. if you dont go back to the flag of italy talk page and try to work things out WITHOUT edit warring you could ned up on the administrators noticeboard again, which would make me ver angry with you and your work. Smith Jones (talk) 02:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

My posit stands. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I have attempted to work on this, but Reisio remains recalcitrant at the Commons, the Italian Misplaced Pages, and the English Misplaced Pages (I also found the image added at the Dutch Misplaced Pages by an IP). From what I can see, he is ignoring the consensus, or simply interpreting the consensus the way he sees fit.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

¦ Reisio (talk) 06:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now it's enough. I am going to warn this user per WP:NPA. --Angelo (talk) 08:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

WB/UPN Intrastate Template Deletion resulting in inadvertent CW Intrastate Templates deletion

(Brought up again from Sunday, has not been looked at yet.)

A group of since-confirmed "clean-up" sockpuppets brought up a discussion on TfD on December 25 about deleting the intrastate templates used in articles relating to affiliates of the now-defunct UPN and WB networks. Even if the deletion was suspicious, the vote went to deleting all the templates since they were hardly being used in any articles now and cleanup would have ensued eventually, since The CW network took over many of those station affiliations and CW state templates were added to every CW affiliate station article after its September 2006 launch.

However a side effect of the deletion going through was that unknowingly, all of the WB and UPN intrastate templates were redirected by the cleanup sockpuppets to those of the CW intrastate templates, which weren't under any discussion at all. Because they were RD'ed, most of the intrastate CW templates were then deleted accidently, leaving only ten remaining according to Category:Intrastate CW Templates. I do not contest the WB/UPN deletions (I voted yes within the discussion), but would like the other 40 or so CW templates restored as soon as possible. WP:TVS, of which I'm a member of is concerned about it, and I mean no harm in bringing this up; I suspect the deleting admin at the end of discussion didn't even know about the redirects to CW templates, but since this affects at least around 150 pages, needs to be rectified. Thank you. Nate · (chatter) 21:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Block of Giovanni for ArbCom enforcement

I have blocked User:Giovanni33 for 24 hours for "fail to discuss a content reversion" at New antisemitism per ArbCom enforcement here. Details are at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Giovanni33-John_Smith's#Log_of_blocks_and_bans. – Quadell 22:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

65.121.24.98 indefinite block nomination

Please check 65.121.24.98 's talk page. As you can see the person has been blocked (temp) 4 times and is still vandalizing pages. I do request that this person get an indefinite block to help keep the pages of Misplaced Pages vandal-free. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sahilm (talk • contribs) 22:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

You can not indef an anon unless they are static, just report to WP:AIV. Rgoodermote  22:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

If the whois search is right, this IP belongs to Lowell Observatory. Rgoodermote  22:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It's been blocked by User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry for six months; after reviewing its contributions at length, I was generally inclined to do the same (albeit with account creation enabled). – Luna Santin (talk) 23:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Also IP's can be blocked indefinitely if they are open proxies. Oysterguitarist 05:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I forgot about open proxies, been a long time since I read anything on them. Rgoodermote  13:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

URGENT: User:IlIlIlI0's deleted contributions - possible security breach

Without saying too much, you need to take a look at this (now blocked) user's deleted contribs.

I have already requested oversight for these deleted edits - but I feel that the affected users need to be made aware of this. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well I checked the two admin accounts that i recognised, and neither password worked. It may not be as urgent as thought. Viridae 22:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I checked the top three, didn't work. Woody (talk) 22:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

That would be because I just scrambled them. Viridae 22:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I wanted the cat one! Phaedriel doesn't even have a cat. El_C 22:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Worth running a checkuser to try find out who was behind that? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Harvard class project disrupting Misplaced Pages via meatpuppetry on articles

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

Jehochman stumbled across this, and asked me to bring it to ANI. Please read Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Shamulou first. Next, read this page on Harvard.edu (archive link):

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ipc/?title=Group_4_Dispute_Results&oldid=2120

The Waterboarding article here, and it's RFC, and talk pages, have been a constant stream of SPAs, and confirmed sockpuppetry. We now have this evidence that a class orally agreed to take on the waterboarding article (see that Harvard page, search for "oral"), and we have such lovely gems as:

"Should we weigh in on whether Misplaced Pages should keep the statement "waterboarding is a form of torture"? If so, what is our position? Khoffman 19:53, 7 January 2008 (EST)"

Combined with the fact that the recorded on-Wiki at Harvard material is only part of the information (they say they are discussing the article), we have no way of knowing just how tainted the entire Talk:Waterboarding and RFC process there is (it's been incredibly, incredibly contentious and rancorous). What can or should be done here? I have no idea what to do with this page anymore and have gone out of my way to step away from it, after the waves of SPAs basically became too much to handle, and various admins began to try to organize discussions on there (Jehochman, Henrik). Lawrence Cohen 22:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

At Jehochman's request, I'm trying to keep an eye on it. El_C 22:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

According to the syllabus, this assignment is due at midnight. So maybe this will be over soon. Perhaps someone can contact the professor(s) and explain to them how the assignment has disrupted our normal working processes. Since the assignment was to "try to help resolve the dispute via the talk pages" perhaps we can suggest how the students should be graded, as well. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Found this at the assignment page here "Your group is free to coordinate your comments as little or as much as you want. You can decide to include comments on the talk page from individual group members, or from the group as a whole." (italics mine)R. Baley (talk) 22:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Notice there are actually six active groups. -- SEWilco (talk) 22:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Several of them went after other RFCs, from a quick glance. Lawrence Cohen 23:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) WP:BITE not. Full disclosure: Jonathan Zittrain and I were classmates long ago. As a courtesy that we should extend in any similar situation, I request that the students who were involved in this incident be warned rather than blocked. They will hopefully become ongoing contributors to Misplaced Pages. Nonetheless, we need full disclosure of what happened, and some sort of remedy for the mess at Talk:Waterboarding and Talk:Waterboarding/Definition (the RfC page). Jehochman

Suggest Jonathan Zittrain be whacked over the head with an entire case of frozen WP:TROUT and we all move on. Raymond Arritt (talk) 22:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• Let me get this straight, a group of Harvard law students teamed up to work on a Misplaced Pages article? And this is a bad thing? ˉˉ╦╩ 22:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

When they coordinate their views in class and then represent that as multiple independent positions on-wiki, then yes, that is a problem. henrik•talk 22:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Their coordination was not backed by malicious intent and the discussions documented on their wiki are not dissimilar from the ones encouraged on ours. Leave all the wikipolitics alone for a second and consider whether we want to encourage content contributions and thoughtful debate. If even one of those students enjoyed the experience or learned from it, then our whole free content encyclopedia concept was in some small way a success. ˉˉ╦╩ 23:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, the assignment is to jump in to hot-button disputes. When a group of inexperienced users arrives at a disputed page, it doesn't tend to resolve conflict, it exacerbates whatever problem already exists. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I must say I'm a little confused, it would seem to me the best way to resolve an ongoing dispute (particularly one that is 'hot-button' and has had little progress) would be to have a group of independent, rational, minds try and craft a solution that might work for everyone. Perhaps by attempting to reach rough consensus (instead of insisting that one party must be wrong or right) we took the wrong approach, but I'm not sure what the problem is proposing a solution (on the talk page mind you, no substantive edits were ever made to the main article, just some grammatical corrections). Kevparks (talk) 00:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Let's (since this is a talk page we can be informal) just say that it appears to be a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Misplaced Pages rules about sock & meat puppetry. I suppose that as lawyers they're going to have to learn about those differences. I'd really rather that they hadn't used us to practice on. I suppose it is better than waterboarding us, whether or not it's torture! htom (talk) 22:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but it looks like a straight violation of meatpuppetry rules. Outside and undue influence, coordinated viewpoints, and so on, all entering an already contentious and overheated article RFC. Lawrence Cohen 23:02, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)I'm still unclear as to why this is meatpuppetry/sockpuppetry. It seems the accusation was based on some misinformation, which I hope to clear up. First, these are all individuals, not clones, and no one is using a false identity. Second, no one was asked to take any position other than through the normal channels of persuasion and argument otherwise found on this site. There are two things that would give me pause were I in your position, namely the wording on the course website and our group page implying that we can post as a group and decide on a single position. Since we did not decide to coordinate our efforts as suggested by the assignment (i.e. posting as a group) the first concern is not implicated by our actual behavior. And the comment "What is our position" was written by someone new to Misplaced Pages before we did any actual editing. Since I had been researching Misplaced Pages dispute processes and policies, I made clear to the other group members that they must voice their own opinions as individuals to avoid violating these.

Keep in mind that none of the edits done before noon were by any of us, it is only a few posts under "Another attempt" that were made by group members. And yes, this assignment will be done at midnight.

I have heard some deeper, more valid concerns voiced here, namely that the very idea of a class agreeing to work on a single dispute violates Misplaced Pages norms in general, and that newcomers who know each other IRL are likely to agree with each other out of courtesy, or for other reasons. These are valid objections, and if these are sufficient for asking us to refrain from participating, then I would agree to cease voicing my own opinions on the matter. However, I think it more likely that law students are simply likely to share views in general, having the characteristics that brought us here to begin with, which is a separate concern, albeit one that might also invalidate our participation.

However, if these "general social norms" are what is being violated here, I would ask that the approach being taken be softened. Since it is not at all clear to me under the current circumstances that we are indeed "meatpuppets", I would ask that people stop posting things such as "Confirmed Meatpuppetry" and the like. It appears as if the accusations here are especially harsh, and might stem as much from the fact that our opinions as to a fair resolution differed as it did from objections to our behavior itself. -Lciaccio (talk) 23:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The waterboarding article in particular was an especially bad selection for this ill-advised class project. The article has had a steady parade of sockpuppetry, and single purpose accounts that have been congregating there, leading to already raised temperatures and unpleasantness. The sudden appearance of another batch, at once, and with similar lockstep positioning and reasoning had about zero chance of going over well. Lawrence Cohen 23:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(further comments) I am not amused by this whole mess. The Waterboarding debate has to date been very contentious, with strong opinions, heated arguments and a lot less-than-constructive comments. One should note that this article has been a near constant source of problems for a long time now. New SPAs have been showing up regularly, and multiple warnings and several blocks have had to be issued so far. The process to build consensus is just barely moving along, due to problems like this. henrik•talk 23:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• Whatever you want to call it, this little "experiment" at our expense was extremely disruptive. Sometime within the next hour I'm going to protect the article to prevent further disruption, unless convincing arguments are made to the contrary. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I was going to chip in for the kids but sounds like (Lciaccio above) the Harvard Lawyers can speak for themselves adequately. If they can't manage it, I'll go get some Duke Lawyers to help them out :-) Pete St.John (talk) 23:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's also keep in mind that there are six different groups from this same class working on at least five different articles. Links to the individual groups can be found here. Pairadox (talk) 23:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how protection is warranted, since none of us ever touched the article. All we did is voice our views on the talk page. -Lciaccio (talk) 23:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Your contribution history shows three edits to the article. So much for "none of us ever touched the article." Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot about my own minor edits. I changed:

"Representative Ted Poe stated on Glen Beck show in response to the question "Do you believe waterboarding is torture?", Poe state "I don't believe it's torture at all, I certainly don't." " to

"In response to the question "Do you believe waterboarding is torture?" on the Glen Beck show, Representative Ted Poe stated "I don't believe it's torture at all, I certainly don't."

I don't generally keep track of the edits I make to fix grammar or wording problems. And this was an attempt to fix very poor English based on my own anal nature, having nothing to do with the project. -Lciaccio (talk) 23:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

No, they haven't done any substantial changes, Lciaccio is correct in that. She did a few minor changes fixing typos, correcting grammar and other minor edits, but that isn't something we should discourage. Thanks for fixing those problems. :-) henrik•talk 23:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• It should be noted that, of the 6 groups, the waterboarding group (Group 4) appears to be the only one that caused serious disruption to Misplaced Pages. Group 2 should be commended for openly stating their assignment and affiliation and discussing issues appropriately on the HD formats talk page. That said, I think we should ask the professor not to assign this in the future. The potential for trouble is just too great. *** Crotalus *** 23:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the behavior of Group 2 was exemplary. Had the waterboarding group behaved similarly I would have had absolutely no problems with the assignment. henrik•talk 23:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Why not contact the press? If we could assume that Harvard-trained lawyers were all altruistic, honorable, and on the right side of every issue this would be an innocent thing. However, the last thing we need is a class of alpha lawyers who feel that organized efforts to manipulate reference works is a legitimate tactic. There are more of us than there are of them. Let's just hack Lexis and change some Supreme Court rulings on Fair Use law to our advantage, shall we? Wikidemo (talk) 23:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps Wikidemo should review the Bite policy. -Lciaccio (talk) 23:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Gee, dodging the question like that and turning against the questioner almost think you were a lawyer or something. Oh wait... Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

There's no need for comments like that, Wikidemo and Raymond. We can't assume that new users should be instantly familiar with every bit of etiquette and culture on this site. henrik•talk 23:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, he/she knew enough to cite WP:BITE... Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

As an alternative suggestion - why not write a very polite e-mail to Mr (or is it Prof?) Zittrain, or whoever set the assignment, explaining what our concerns are about the project and suggesting he considers these when setting future projects - eg by encouraging students to become familiar with Misplaced Pages rules and avoiding off-wiki collaboration. I reckon this would do the trick just as effectively as any public fuss. As for what has happened already - well, it's over now.Hobson (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, that would be the best solution. Jehochman says he's acquainted with the prof, so maybe a personal note would be the best approach. Most of the groups weren't disruptive, so clearly it wasn't a deliberate attempt to disrupt and the prof just needs to make sure everyone knows the ground rules. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Lciaccio isn't a new user, s/he's been around for a few years. It's surprising that s/he didn't understand that the sudden arrival of the law students at the RfC would naturally result in sock/meatpuppetry concerns, but perhaps s/he hasn't edited enough on contentious subjects. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Nope, generally I just try to fix up articles. I tried to review some disputes over the last few days to become familiar with the process, but I guess they weren't contentious enough to prepare me. -Lciaccio (talk) 00:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I have tried to answer every question posed to me, and I don't believe I have dodged a single one. Wikidemo's comment was not a question, but a snipe. I know in other online communities and in real life, it is proper to point out when this is happening. I didn't realize Misplaced Pages's etiquette and culture dictates otherwise. But perhaps I should have followed my mom's advice there; it seems a better policy to smile and ignore such comments. -Lciaccio (talk) 00:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I don't think WP:BITE applies to groups of lawyers-in-training coordinating to perform edits, however innocent their motives may be. We might as well credit them with constructive knowledge of the rules and the consequences of breaking them; after all, in their future profession ignorance of procedure is no excuse for not following it. They didn't get into Harvard by being helpless newbies. The assignment has to do with understanding how Misplaced Pages handles disputes. Might as well show them to the real Misplaced Pages, not a watered-down version. Nobody is going to suffer any real consequences here. I am half serious that we don't want to expose one of our most serious vulnerabilities to the very group best equipped to exploit it, that a small group of intelligent people acting in coordination and adept in the world of rules and argumentation can easily manipulate our articles, and thereby affect public perception. They may be idealistic now, but a few years out in the world and a more cynical lawyer would use the same techniques with bad motives. If that made the news it would be all the more salient a learning exercise. Wikidemo (talk) 00:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• (ec) These pages need checking:

From Group 1

From Group 2

From Group 3

Group 4 is waterboarding.

From Group 5 this page

From Group 6 possibly lots of pages, this one 1st (congressman Jon Porter)

R. Baley (talk) 23:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• Jehochman pours everyone a cup of tea and hands out AGF-flavored scones. These are students. We hope they have learned something—that online communities do not like being experimented upon. If you wish to learn about us, participate sincerely, observe and even write about what you see; but do not provoke conflicts or violate social norms by conducting breaching experiments. I hope to speak with the professor and give him some ideas how to conduct this exercise in the future in a way that will avoid disruption. Happy editing, all, Jehochman 00:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Tell him that next time, when his students arrive bearing gasoline... They should, out of courtesy, not add it to any of our very largest bonfires. 00:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

tl;dr, but will try to read in a second here. Just wanted to throw in my voice that I don't see anything wrong with this situation, whatsoever. These students are still individuals, and simply because they're a group in the real world doesn't make them meatpuppets. What would the difference be if they were all Wikipedians who first discussed something on one talk page, then went to another, larger discussion? I imagine real-life collaboration with fellow Wikipedians to be something that will only increase, and will be to Misplaced Pages's benefit. Treat these individuals just as you would any other Wikipedian, and lets not assume meatpupetry every time a project is taken up off-wiki. -- Ned Scott 00:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Suspensions. Since a number of people here are recognizing that there has not been outright malice or sockpuppetry, is there a call to undo the five suspensions? I'm obviously biased here, but that seems excessive under the current circumstances. -Lciaccio (talk) 00:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Link to thread posted to WikiEn-L. 00:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• (ec) I already requested that the students who were involved in this incident be warned rather than blocked. Lciaccio, when one person who holds a certain belief finds a few friends who agree, and gets them all to create accounts and stack one of our discussions without any sort of disclosure, that's a problem. If five people want to join Misplaced Pages, great, but they should edit independently, or they should disclose the relationship. As remedies, I propose that the No Canvassing template be added to Talk:Waterboarding and Talk:Waterboarding/Definition, and that the comments of the parties involved here be noted to say that they were acting in collusion. Jehochman 00:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

  • All their accounts are currently suspended. And, once again, what you are alleging never happened. We all went into this without an opinion on the matter. -Lciaccio (talk) 00:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I've always thought meatpuppetry was when you found people to support your view for a specific reason, for a gain of some sort. This sounds more like individuals developing a micro-consensus, then presenting those arguments to a larger group. Considering they were not perviously involved in these disputes, they'll actually more likely to give an honest, neutral, response to the discussions. -- Ned Scott 00:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Another thought, after reading even more about this, browsing the assessment pages, and seeing what was actually done.. It seems to be that it is the regular Wikipedians that have ownership issues. Nothing bad has happened, there is no actual break in policy, and as such we are in no place to ask them to stop or to stop them by force. Monitor the situation if you wish, but do so fairly and with an open mind. It doesn't matter if these were heated debates or not, anyone at any time is welcome to become involved. We don't own the articles, nor do we own the debates. -- Ned Scott 00:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Ned, this set up warning bells for many users because one editor already was caught up by Checkusers for abusing multiple accounts to sock puppet a certain position in the debates and RFC, and very aggressively at that. There is a very, very aggressive SPA account active on those talk pages who went out of his way to insist that the confirmed sockpuppeter was misrepresented, and that editors at his university were all just doing a school project (UPenn, in that case). Then mere days later, these new Harvard users all showed up, at once, with relatively the same shared positioning. A multiple of new accounts all moving in force together, when this article has this ongoing SPA/trolling/sockpuppetry problem: how was this supposed to look and be read? As far as ownership, I challenge that. If some users (not sure who you were implying there) wanted to play ownership of that article, it certainly wouldn't be the handful that are trying to constantly get more people to look at the cesspool it's been turned into. Lawrence Cohen 00:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

So they still didn't do anything wrong, but had unfortunate timing and an unfortunate target article? Shame on them... -- Ned Scott 00:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they waded into a snakepit with no idea of what they were getting into. For a professor to ask students to edit Misplaced Pages is not necessarily problematic (we had no problem with the minor edits on Day 1 of the assignment); to explicitly send them straight off to dispute resolution — one of the nastiest aspects of our community — was irresponsible. It's irresponsible because it puts the students in an unfair position where both their actions and motives will be questioned, and they will be mistaken for sockpuppets. It's not fair to Misplaced Pages either; we were trying to judge consensus among Wikipedians, and single-purpose accounts only impede that process. *** Crotalus *** 00:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Some of their suggestions are very good. For newbies, they're doing pretty darn good. -- Ned Scott 00:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I well understand the reasons that the opinions of new users should be given less weight, especially considering the risk of canvassing and sockpuppets present in single-purpose accounts. But does their lack of editing history make their views of so little weight that the mere act of posting them to a discussion page is grounds for suspension?-Lciaccio (talk) 00:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Only group 4 was disruptive, as far as I can tell. The others, 2 in particular, did fairly well. The problem is: what happens if this sort of assignment were to catch on? We can handle one class, but what if there were 100 of them? Even if 5/6 of the groups behave themselves, that still leaves 1/6 causing disruption, and multiply that by all the potential classes out there and we've got a real problem. *** Crotalus *** 00:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that would become a real problem. Remember, this is all being documented for their assignment, and causing intentional disruption is a good way to fail that assignment. By it's very nature, we're guaranteed that these situations will be reviewed by other people, and are far less likely to go unnoticed than some disruptions we've had. I actually hope this does catch on, and that they (while likely learning ways to help avoid the panic) do more projects like this in the future. -- Ned Scott 01:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure we do. As the collective community (or members of it) that compose Misplaced Pages and the Wikimedia Foundation, we do indeed own the articles as long as they are on Misplaced Pages. Of course, all of our contributors become part of that community (unless they remove themselves by their actions). WP:OWN is aimed at individual action, not collective, and WP:CANVASS and policies on meatpuppetry reflect the community consensus on these types of activities. 00:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The community welcomes these editors with open arms. It is specific individuals that have the OWNership issues. -- Ned Scott 00:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• I'm very surprised that (as I noticed from the discussion above), we don't have an article on Constructive knowledge, an important legal concept. Maybe some of these editors would be interested in writing that? *** Crotalus *** 00:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm inclined to mostly side with the students and professor. I think the one thing that some of them did wrong was not be up front about their assignment. Other than that, I don't see any good evidence they were coordinating to promote a particular POV or intended to be disruptive. If the parameters of the assignment included that they should be making their own decisions, following our policies, and not intentionally disrupting Misplaced Pages, I don't see how having a few fresh, knowledgeable, and intelligent editors hurts anything.

I also don't see how WP:CANVASS applies, since there isn't any solid evidence presented that the intent was to votestack. This whole thing feels a little too hostile to newbies who don't get started under our terms, IMO (WP:BITE). Sχeptomaniac 00:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

certainly they are votestaking, in the sense of conspiring to promote a favored view:

"Do we want, though, to make a suggestion about the multiple graphs right away in the first posting? My only thought is that we might want to have several options to lay out, possibly even with pros and cons. Or that we devise a plan for sequencing our mediation, based on what we believe the reactions may be. " (group 2) What can be clearer--they are planning to systematically present their group position though individual contributions in such a way as to have the best tactical results. sure, one can plan to present a cross-examination in such a way--it's legitimate legal strategy; they have their rules; we have ours. They either didn't bother to inform themselves of our requirements for ethical participation-- or decided to ignore them. Whichever it is, it doesn't look good. I know what grade I'd give this group DGG (talk) 01:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we forgive any transgressions as long as they report back that Wikipedians take neutrality and integrity of articles very seriously. Good writers + good thinkers = good citizens, usually, and the plan was slightly misguided but not ill of motive. Also move to ask the professor to extend the assignment deadline a day and award extra credit for anyone writing an article on constructive knowledge. Wikidemo (talk) 00:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I think they took neutrality and integrity into account well enough, but didn't take into account the strong desire for transparency you find in many here. A lack of transparency is often interpreted as an intent to hide something around here. Sχeptomaniac 01:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Their plan was incompetent--would they practice in a jurisdiction and not bother to read its rules? DGG (talk) 01:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Their plan wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad at all. It was panic and bad timing, which no one can fairly be blamed with, that caused the initial disruption. Now that it's cleared up, I see no issue with their actual behavior, nor did they actually break our rules. -- Ned Scott 01:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm still unclear on how this "disrupted" the discussion. It seems to me as if the only actual disruption was the accusation of meatpuppetry itself. -Lciaccio (talk) 01:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Can we close this and move on? Quite apart from the class assignment, I'm now aware of what a mess the Waterboarding article is. It came off protection just recently and the edit warring has started right back up. Editors there are begging for it to be protected so that things can be worked out, and I'm inclined to agree with them. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

At the very least, the instructor should have his grade knocked down for not doing enough research about the assignment he was giving, not providing his students with the tools needed (links to relevant WP policies), and failure to consider the impact of this assignment on Misplaced Pages itself. Bad teacher, no donut! Pairadox (talk) 01:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hardly. Their impact has been mostly positive, rather it's the over-reactions of experienced editors that are causing the disturbance. I strongly encourage them to do this again, but for their own sake, try to avoid freaking out the natives. -- Ned Scott 01:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

it's positive in the sense that now we are aware of the effect that there can be from groups plotting off-WP to affect our editing, and they've been transparent enough to give us actual examples of how such a group operates and thinks. I would personally deal with it here by deleting all discussions on the affected pages from the point they became involved. I've cited one example of a literal plot, and there have been others mentioned above. It will be a useful ethics lesson to all. Careless teacher, careless students. But then, i am not from harvard, so I wont make jokes about it. DGG (talk) 01:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

If you want to be a fool and disregard their good advice and neutral insight, go ahead. Off-wiki collaboration does not equal evil plotting. -- Ned Scott 01:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, that was a lot more harsh that I meant. I understand why you feel it was manipulative, but disagree that it actually was. -- Ned Scott 01:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Alleged meatpuppet speaks out

I resent the implication that this was meatpuppetry or that we conspired to vote-stack or to disrupt the normal workings of wikipedia. At all times our intention was to put forth a good faith effort to resolve the current dispute. Because the page was (as has been noted) something of a mess, we felt that the best way to do this would be to first discuss our impressions of the arguments that had come before, and what sort of compromise could be reached. We saw requests for valid sources of a dispute about whether waterboarding is torture. We saw that those sources had been offered and largely ignored. We pointed to the most obvious instance of this ignored offering, and suggested a fairly neutral solution. Because we are separate and distinct people, we posted our opinions separately and distinctly. It was never our intention to inflate our authority by doing this, but only that it be given exactly the weight that one experienced user and several new users' opinions should be given. We encouraged and anticipated comment by other wikipedians, and were perfectly prepared to be outnumbered. The reaction I've seen by wikipedians has been appalling, and has certainly curbed my desire to express my view in any future dispute. I acknowledge one fair point from our various detractors: it may have been a better idea to declare our group project outright. We discussed it, and the reason we decided against it was because we wanted to avoid distraction from the actual issue under dispute. I see that this has happened anyway, and I regret that. Lastly, (though the posting of this comment will render it redundant,) I just wanted to let lciaccio know that as far as I know none of our accounts were actually suspended. Vhettinger (talk) 01:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Outside view

I am of absolutely no consequence to this discussion, but the concern I see among the "regular" Wikipedians here is one of transparency. Had the participants announced their presence and intentions, as one group apparently did, I would imagine this would have been a non-issue. Gladys J Cortez 01:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Bingo. Give that lady a cigar. And with that, I'm gonna close this thing. Back to work, folks. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Gladys here, and Ned Scott above, re -outside groups bringing micro-consensus to the table, not premeditated COllusion of the MeatPuppetry variety. Asserting athat all the groups were homogeneous of opinion seems fatuous at best. I'm not thrilled about the potential for abuse, but here we've got Jehochman saying he can, essentially, vouch for the professor's intent being non-malicious, and a group of students who were open. It's entirely possible the level of candor was open to interpretation, and if we get 30 Harvard eggheads as regular editors, good on us, it'll help balance out the flat earthers. (SAT vocab and pithy references? you bet. got to look best when the bean-town brains show up.) ThuranX (talk) 01:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:TheOnly ones has issued a slew of disparaging personal attacks at me

It started when he called me an "obese mallpunk kid". After asking him not to call me names, he followed up by calling me "Warped Tour Kid" in two seperate edits. This gave way to him saying about me " You could always go listen to your Green Day CDs while the big boys contrib to the articles."

I'm getting pretty tired of all this abuse. Hoponpop69 (talk) 23:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, he reminds me of a sockpuppeteer who constantly creates new accounts to add his own POV to what genre bands are or aren't. When confronted, he always resorts to juvenile personal attacks by calling others "kiddies" and whatnot. I can't recall who the puppeteer is right now. I will try and remember if no one else can. IrishGuy 23:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Daddy Kindsoul. Will 01:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Obvious sock; identical pattern of edits and not very imaginative in his invectives. Indefed. — Coren  01:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Babelious keeps editing my user page

I'm not sure if he's clueless or a sock trying to bug me. Could someone intervene? Thanks.Tstrobaugh (talk) 23:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Your user page contained some misplaced <noinclude> sections that you'd apparently manually cut and pasted from various userbox templates. Those sections caused your user page to appear in a couple of categories meant only for templates. Babelious was apparently trying to fix that, but his/her edits seem to have included other, unnecessary, changes. I have edited your user page to remove those misplaced <noinclude> sections, but have left it otherwise unchanged. I hope we can now declare this issue resolved. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Learning Opportunity

I do not want to bother my local friendly admins with my curiosity so I'll ask here. Is this ok? Brusegadi (talk) 23:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Erm.. no. Reverted. — Save_Us_229 23:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User:S Seagal's talk page comments

User:S Seagal has left some rather uncivil comments on my talk page. Brief explanation of the history: I tagged Anti-Pakistani sentiment for G4 speedy deletion and left this note on the article creator's talk page. Seagal responded with this, to which I responded with this "no personal attacks" template. Seagal once again responded, with this.

It seems like reporting it at WP:AIV would be overkill since mine was only the second warning for personal attacks, but it's clear that any further attempt on my part to communicate with this user would only cause further provocation. Could someone with more experience with this sort of thing perhaps issue another warning, or give me advice on what I might do?

I'm afraid this may come off as rather petty, but based on the user's history of incivility (as documented on the user talk page) I doubt that just ignoring it would have a positive effect on the user's future behavior. --Icarus 00:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I gave him a stern final warning. — Coren  01:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

death threat made by IP 69.124.121.251

In [http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Samuel_Adams&diff=prev&oldid=183081562 this edit], an IP (69.124.121.251) made death threats against a named person. Can one of the admins follow up on this? -- Why Not A Duck 01:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

IP blocked & edits deleted. Thanks for reporting it, ˉˉ╦╩ 01:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Repeated Vandalism by 209.152.67.222

This user's contributions are purely vandalism and he needs to be blocked to prevent further blatant vandalism. Unreal128 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems to have stopped, and you can report vandals to WP:AIV. Oysterguitarist 05:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User John Celona

I would like to request a block for this user. He has disregarded the consensus for an article which took days to determine, has blatantly used inflammatory/hateful language on edit summaries despite requests from other editors to stop, and now he is making POV edits in a vindictive way. Others have experienced the same thing, pls see: http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:John_celona -- there are many editors who have asked him to stop with the repeated bad faith accusations -- pls see Peter Yarrow talk page...Oh, and I forgot to mention that he has made several edits to the article using a suspected sockpuppet, pls see: http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:David_in_DC#Checkuser_.3F--- --Jkp212 (talk) 03:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe I made exactly one post having forgotten to sign in. So much for sock puppets. User Jkp212 should be blocked as he has posted inflamatory language falsely claiming that a judge claimed a 14 year old girl "coerced" a 30 year old man into sex. This is not true. In fact, the child "resisted the advances" of the molester. ,, Despite being asked four times to provide a source for this alleged quote (made at 20:00 on the Peter Yarrow discussion page) user Jkp212 is unable to provide such a source.John celona (talk) 04:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I dispute Jkp212's primary charge, that John celona has disregarded consensus on . The minor content issue in question (whether to describe a prison term as "short" or "three months long") hadn't been specifically agreed-upon. Regarding the other charges some diffs or other evidence would help. Editing without logging-in isn't sock puppetry unless the editor attempts to make it appear that he's different people to violate 3RR or skew consensus. I don't see any blockable offense. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 07:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/BillCJ

Hello. Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/BillCJ was created recently. It is malformed, and BillCJ has declined. One strange thing is the nom on the RFA. His only edit outside the RFA was notifying BillCJ. Anyway, could someone please close it? Thanks. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 03:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

As there was no follow-through after this, I'm being bold and considering this an odd form of vandalism and simply deleted the malformed page. If there's a serious nomination, it'd be welcome - done correctly. SkierRMH (talk) 04:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It is warming, however, to be niminated. User should be grateful, as he could have been nominated. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 04:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the nominator is a long-term stalker and troll of BillCJ, given the note at the top of the latter's talk page. Hence the brusque treatment. -- RG 11:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Neutral Good (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Can someone please tell this person to lay off the accusations, innuendo, and personal attacks? He has received final warnings from two admins (Henrik and Jehochman) and is still continuing. He just caused Waterboarding to be reprotected a 5th or 6th time with another edit war. More chestnuts:

• here
• here

He had posted the same text on Ned Scott's page here on ANI, and then pulled it. I have several times publically asked this person to stop with this poisonous atmosphere, and have largely abandoned that damned page because of his POV pushing and harassment. Lawrence Cohen 04:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Lawrence is leading a cabal of meatpuppets from the Blackwater Worldwide artiole, pushing his own POV with a Caterpillar bulldozer (which is what attracted my attention in the first place), and trying to intimidate editors who disagree with them by making false accusations of sockpuppetry, in an obvious effort to WP:OWN the article. An illustration of how Lawrence tells you only half the truth: both Henrik and jehochman have taken his side in this content dispute. Lawrence is in the habit of marching over here to WP:ANI or WP:RFCU on an almost daily basis, telling half the truth and spin-doctoring it as well, in an effort to get editors who disagree with him blocked. I survived two consecutive findings of  Unrelated on RFCU within a week. That is the Misplaced Pages equivalent of a body cavity search. And I'm supposed to just shut up and take it? Get him off my back, and stop him and his meatpuppets from WP:OWNing the article. Allow me to thank any admin in advance who is contemplating an effort to get Lawrence Cohen and his meatpuppets under control. Neutral Good (talk) 10:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not an endorsement of Neutral Good's methods but I have a problem with this posting by Lawrence. Both Lawrence and Jehochman are active and biased editors on the article in question. They disagree with Neutral Good. I have detected a consistent pattern on the part of Lawrence and Jehochman to eliminate people from the article who disagree with them using administrative measures and influence to the point that it may reach to harassment and could cause someone to say the sorts of things that Neutral Good said. Other editors that Lawrence and Jehochman agree with are left untouched by these complaints even if they are also problematic. Jehochman has engaged in general threatening of editors on the page on very flimsy grounds. Lawrence has engaged in personal attacks. If I were another neutral admin, I would proceed cautiously and not automatically assume that either Lawrence or Jehochman come with entirely clean hands to the matter.

Incidentally, I consider the edit war to be the result of actions by another editor, not even mentioned here, who initiated edit changes witout consensus. However, Lawrence happens to agree with this other editor so he could not be the source of the problem. --Blue Tie (talk) 11:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Blue tie, I disagree strongly with your analysis. In the case of Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/GooseCreek I identified a group of checkuser confirmed sock puppets. In a second case Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Shamulou I identified yet another group of editors who had collaborated off wiki and then put forward a proposal without identifying their connections to each other. Both situations were serious violations of policy. Alison decided to unblock Shibumi2 early because he had come to an agreement with her via email. That may be forgiveness, not vindication. Jehochman 14:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm only peripherally acquainted with this article, but the claim by User:Neutral Good that it was POV-pushing that "attracted his attention" to the article strikes me as rather rich, given that he is a single-purpose account, 99% of whose edits are to this article and related talk pages. BLACKKITE 13:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources almost unanimously state that waterboarding is torture. A few fringe sources, as well as editorials and political pundits claim that waterboarding is not torture. Blue tie and Neutral Good have been attempting to synthesize the viewpoints of these different sources to say that the classification of waterboarding as torture is controversial. This is not a verifiable fact; it is their own original research. As a matter of verifiable fact, there is no legitimate dispute that waterboarding is torture. (See Talk:Waterboarding/Definition, the RfC page.)

Misplaced Pages is not a battleground, but Neutral Good in particular appears to be to making it one. He appears to endlessly argue against consensus. His editing has contributed to the article being protected endlessly. Jehochman 14:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Jon Awbrey and socks at it again

Hello, this another request for page protection due to vandalism from Jon Awbrey and socks he has instigated here. Could someone please get all the pages that are unprotected? You can find them in this user's contributions. Thanks, GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 04:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Was an IP check ever done here? - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by that. Most of the users anyway are now blocked and tagged with {{sockpuppet|Jon Awbrey}} , but more and more keep getting created. I thought IP addresses of usernames could only be obtained by checkusers - correct me if I'm wrong. There were a few IPs originally, but I can't find them. Let me look for some. GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 06:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser can indeed find the IP addresses of usernames - there's an IP check section on WP:RFCU. Jon Awbrey has been suspected of using 12.75.19.10, 217.237.149.143, 12.75.18.31, 12.75.20.26 and 12.75.22.13 which looks like a dynamic range to me. All the articles he blanks are now semiprotected so he's forced to use sleeper socks to blank the pages. Hut 8.5 07:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)