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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)

No, he blanked redundant ELs. they aren't' inline cited, and in no way were they specifically tied to the contention within the article which he removed. I realize you don't want to hear anything about this but us fawning over you and gutting him like a fish, but that will not happen. ThuranX (talk) 21:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hezbollah userbox

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)

Please use the article subpage for on-topic discussion. --slakr 16:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I would love to, but unfortunately this problem is being reported by other editors, and is now duplicated at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents# User:Raggz is issuing threats. —Viriditas | Talk 06:39, 10 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)

This has now spilled over to Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion/Log/2008 January 9, with User:Ghanadar galpa claim that those who disagree with him as are 'CPI(M) members'. Moreover, launches the conspiracy theory that CPI(M) and CPI(Maoist) are allies, whilst disregarding the campaign of assassinations of CPI(M) cadres by Maoists. --Soman (talk) 15:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I can see that writing anything on this noticeboard is farcical. Either administrators are indifferent or they are asleep. The referral for comment has also achieved no results. Can someone suggest any alternative solution which could avert an edit war that threatens to spill over into a vast range of articles? (for instance, the likening of the CPI(M) to an entirely unrelated Italian terrorist group Red Brigade and the portrayal of the West Bengal state government as the Red Terror - both of which are absurd POV-pushing) If no-one is prepared to say anything, then I guess the situation will have to deteriorate to a point where enough people are aggravated into doing something.--Conjoiner (talk) 16:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

A user RfC might help. Otherwise keep on discussing it, insisting on sources, and such individuals eventually go away. Relata refero (talk) 13:46, 10 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)

Userbox

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

Consider the helpdesk for issues that do not require administrator attention. slakr

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)

WAS: This is not the place to discuss established policy. If you want to change that policy, start a discussion on Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content, though I doubt that it will get anywhere. Also, per llywrch, fair use may not have to be involved at all, but you still need a copyright tag. Finally, we need to know which creative commons license is used before we make any assumptions about the copyright status of the image (unless of course we can find proof of an acceptable license for the cover). --Thinboy00 @029, i.e. 23:42, 9 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)

The "suggestion for deletion" mentioned above has now been turned into an actual AfD, here, but the nomination appears to be incomplete. For obvious reasons I don't want to complete the nomination process or otherwise clean up the mess myself — can someone else do so, please? Thanks. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

There's quite a few SPAs showing up out of nowhere at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/R. S. Wenocur, if anyone wants to go sort the whole mess out. shoy 21:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Also User:MathStatWoman made a surprise reappearance there, after the mathematical hoaxes by now-blocked User:Alfred Legrand. These two editors corrected some of the hoax entries with their own user accounts, which seems to confirm Pete.Hurd's charge that one was a sockpuppet of the other. Mathsci (talk) 12:34, 10 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)"

(weird edit conflict) The terms "discussion page" and "talk page" refer to the same thing, at least for articles anyway, and usually everywhere else. --Thinboy00 @040, i.e. 23:57, 9 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)

Oh, I believe it. And that's because they have gone on deletion sprees as I and others have tried to improve articles. And ThuranX, you're wrong about your our pereception of what constitutes "real world information," but it's getting to the point where the best we can come up with to save articles from people like you is to say that "a real person is an actor on the show, that's real world info." Of course, even if that alone were enough, you people would still trash them anyway. ----DanTD (talk) 03:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

No, the best you can come up with is to find real world information about them. The actor voicing a character gets that mentioned on HIS page, and on the show's main article. What you actually need is something like production information, or perhaps a lawsuit over an episode, like Heroes premiere episode, Genesis. That articles' still not at it's best, but real world lawsuits resulting from that airing constitutes legitimate real world context. As to the football comparison, it's false on it's face ,as football constitutes real people playing against other real people, providing thousands of other real people with jobs. Football prompts the construction of notable buildings, creates massive income and expenditures for cities, meaning real world people pay taxes for traffic studies, police presence, inspectors, water and power outlays, and so on and on and on. The real world impact of football is so amply documented, and so easily citable, that I just pulled all that off the top of my head, and it's a horribly minute representation of the impact of football. And I don't even care about football too much beyond beer and subs for the SuperBowl. What you'd need to do for a cartoon is to state things like 'Group X objects to the positive/negative portrayal of magic and fairies on television, citing the core texts and ideas of the group protesting. The group effects protests of the following nature'. that's notable. "The cartoon innovated the animation industry by merging rotoscoping and Ralph Steadman's splotchy inking style by means of a complicated set of algorithms, as detailed in the november issue of UBerAniGeek magazine'. That's notable. 'Timmy saved the earth forty-three times and no one knows his goldfish are faireies' is not notable. Please, I beg of you, find sources in media, or in scholarly literature about the characters themselves, or their effects on children, or ANYTHING like this. Then we can validate the article about that character, that episode, or wahtever. ThuranX (talk) 04:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the above issues, I need to point out that TTN has twice nominated the episode Bells (Blackadder) for AFD in the space of less than 6 weeks. The first nomination (archived here) was made on Nov 24, 2007 and was closed on Nov. 29 as the result of a WP:SNOW keep vote. The same episode has been nominated again by the same editor on January 9, 2008 (see here). And at present it appears it'll SNOW again. Isn't there a policy prohibiting the repeated nomination of articles in such a short period of time after surviving an AFD challenge? If not, there should be. 23skidoo (talk) 15:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The first close wasn't a WP:SNOW closed. It also doesn't reflect a true consensue as most of the commenters were Blackadder fans. Therefore all of the keep arguments were WP:ILIKEIT arguements and weren't based on policies or guidelines. So it was bound to be renominated sooner or later. --Farix (Talk) 17:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

But seriously, most of these complaints about TTN is getting down right silly. It's nothing more then a lot of huffing and puffing because TTN is taking on their precious wall gardens which already are in violation of Misplaced Pages’s guidelines and policies. --Farix (Talk) 17:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

OK is the british Australian 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)

The notability guidelines are currently disputed - and folks are interpreting them how they want anyway. Referencing in an independent source is fine by me. I am also aware of books on Rowan Atkinson/Blackadder which a quick search with google will highlight in a few seconds, as well as newspaper articles etc. I don't own said books nor am I likely to go and buy them but there is enough for me to know 3rd party sourcing is out there. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:48, 10 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)

He has returned now and restored his "topdeely" template which asks particular people to stay off his talk page. I have nominated it for deletion at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User talk:Neutralhomer/TopDeely. Metros (talk) 22:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

As I have said on Metros' talk page....the same "incivility" can be said for those "Rouge Admin" userboxes or "rules" on other users talk pages. If one were to delete my "top deely" header on incivility alone, one would also have to delete several userboxes, several talk pages of "rules" and many other things

You can't call one thing "incivil" and not another when that other could be...and sometimes is...just as "incivil".

I would, though, be willing to make a compromise. The header be allowed to stay with altered text. Something like "Posts from JPG-GR, Betacommand, BetacommandBot and Calton are not welcome. Thank You." or "If users JPG-GR, Betacommand, BetacommandBot and Calton would kindly not post on my talk page, I would greatly appericate it"....or whatever. I just don't want these people posting on my talk page. Messages from these people normally come with a migraine for which I am trying to avoid. - NeutralHomer 22:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

BS, there is nothing wrong with the top section of calton's talkpage. I have something very similar. neither are incivil, yours is. β 22:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Why, cause it involves you? If it involved User:FrankQEditor, I betcha it wouldn't be that incivil. Also, when someone has an 11-step reason why you shouldn't post on their talk page and what they will do if you do...that is incivil...big time. So is that "BS" comment. - NeutralHomer 22:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Incivility continues

Neutralhomer's incivility has continued as seen here on my talk page (since removed from my talk page). I was accused of somehow blocking his IP abusively. He's been trying to bait me into more of an argument with taunting lines like "Let's see you get this one deleted". I'm obviously not going to block him myself, but does anyone else have opinions on this? Metros (talk) 00:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

NH has now apparently retired, after going on a speedy-spree on all his pages. However, he was kind enough to violate WP:CIVILITY one more time by posting this on my talk page. For those of you who don't speak Polish, that would be "fuck you." JPG-GR (talk) 05:50, 10 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)

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)

Well, no, because you're the only one appearing to be making such edits. My edits state facts which you obviously don't like Welshleprechaun (talk) 22:41, 9 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)

I think that 90.203.45.168 should learn the difference between POV and fact Welshleprechaun (talk) 22:43, 9 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)

Translated to "I am happy to work with other editors who agree with me". Corvus cornix_talk 18:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

agreed. A review of the article talk page shows he continues to single-mindedly pursue his agenda, despite continiued opposition by many others. He repeats his premise, and other statements as a response to any opposition, not unlike that annoying person, who keeps asking a question louder each time the answer is not the desired one. We've seen it on sitcoms plenty of times, and probably experienced it in proximity to small children and their parents. It's no less condescending now. Because he cannot be stopped, I'd support a 96 hour cool off block, so he can take the rest of the week, and weekend, to think about how to better approach the collaborative editing process.ThuranX (talk) 05:05, 10 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)

I kind of stumbled over this thread by accident... And there are some minor points I'd like to clarify.

As I had written in my unblock request, I had been blocked more than four hours after my last edit. Furthermore, I had reverted from three different editors who did not re-revert and who were probably unaware of the compromise solution that was being worked out, and to which they finally seem to have agreed to. The edit summaries and the following discussion with one of the editors here are pretty good indicators that this was no edit-war.

As for the revert after my unblock, it came after a long discussion with the editor who made the change (here, as is clearly mentioned in the edit-summary of the edit you yourself supplied!) in which he agreed to my revert.

Duke, for somebody who has that page on their watchlist, you sure missed a lot of edit summaries... pedro gonnet - talk - 10.01.2008 11:13

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)

New day

Her contributions today consisted of once again restoring articles that consist only of plot summaries, staying only slightly below the 3RR limit. Her comment here makes it clear that she has no understanding that nominating articles that contain text like "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" via A7 was wholly inappropriate. I think it's time for a bigger hammer.Kww (talk) 00:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Nobody should be edit warring over a speedy tag or a redirect, on either side, here. If it's contested, just take it to AfD instead of playing cops and robbers. This current handling is only going to cause more animosity on all sides. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:26, 10 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)

Since this is progressing beyond a strictly admin matter, I'm going to continue this discussion on the user's talk page. Natalie (talk) 18:03, 9 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)

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: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)

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)

I thought open proxies were only supposed to be blocked for long periods of time, rather than indef, since they occasionally are reassigned. But that obviously might have changed - I don't keep up on OP blocking protocol. Natalie (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the point in ever indef blocking an IP. Even if an IP is a long term problem then block of up to 6 months can be used. It is not hard to deal with a problem IP every 6 months. 1 != 2 18:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Indef-blocks of open proxies are generally deprecated. There is currently a discussion about indef-blocks and open proxy (Tor) block lengths at Misplaced Pages talk:Blocking/TOR nodes. -- zzuuzz 18:33, 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)

Thank you. That's fine. I tried to get him to tell me exactly what the problem was but perhaps there was a language barrier. I forgot to mention above that he also edited my page as User_talk:67.163.33.214. Thanks for your trouble.Tstrobaugh (talk) 16:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

He's still editing it . Could you at least put a note on his talk page to get him to stop? Thanks.Tstrobaugh (talk) 18:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

You are right, I did edit your user talk page, and there is a language barrier. You didn't tell me the issue was resolved but rather threatened to block me. -Babelious 18:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to stress that I am only trying to help Tstrobaugh, and that he needs to take his userpage out of Category:User templates, and Category:Intelligence user templates. -Babelious 18:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no longer any need for me to edit hhis userpage, and therefore I shall not, just as I said on his userpage. -Babelious 18:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

He is now personally attacking me Tstrobaugh (talk) 21:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, it looks like the above message was posted in response to this message that Tstrobaugh posted. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 21:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

as you can see above Babel admitted there was a language problem, I thought he was serious and was trying to be helpful, could you point out the problem with my post that you apparently think warranted the response of "Mensa elitism"? Thanks for your input.Tstrobaugh (talk) 21:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think anything warrants incivility, even if it is mild. However, the comment that you posted on Babelious' talk page could be interpreted ad being mildly uncivil as well, which is why I referenced it. To be honest, I can't see why this issue is still open. Babelious already said he wouldn't edit your userpage again and since then he hasn't. It looks to me like the best thing would be for the two of you to both drop the issue and go your separate ways. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 21:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

In fact he even took my advice and put the user box up so I don't know what your point is.Tstrobaugh (talk) 21:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

My point was that suggesting he use {{User en-2}} directly could be interpreted as saying "you're not very good at English", which would be a mildly uncivil comment. So anyway, are you willing to drop the issue, since it seems to have blown over? Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 21:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

On a sidenote, you are more than entitled to remove anything from your user talk page if you don't like it, per WP:UP#CMT. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 21:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but he's edited my user page 16 times over the past 10 days, is your solution to just ignore it? For how long?Tstrobaugh (talk) 22:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Babelious said he would stop modifying your userpage, and he has not edited it since he said that. I'm assuming good faith on his part that he will be true to his word. He seems well aware that if he edits it again you will consider it vandalism and he may be subject to a block or other sort of enforcement. What solution would you propose? Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 22:10, 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)

Will, User John Celona did much more than try to add "three month". That is a huge misrepresentation -- pls read his edit history. He repeatedly added inflammatory material to the article and edit (without discussing it on the talk page) DESPITE being asked kindly to avoid such edits. He attacked every other editor on the page, and he made vindictive POV edits as a fighting tool. Have you actually looked at his edits? And yes, there WAS a consensus reached, which is why several editors kept asking John to respect the consensus. --Jkp212 (talk) 16:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Any fair reading of the Yarrow talk page shows Misplaced Pages at its best, including one RfC that reached a resolution, thru December 15th. From December 21st on, the date of John Celona's first edit that upset the work of a hard won consensenus, everything degenerates. In this case, reading the actual talk page, with a keen eye to the chronology, tells the story better than any recapitulation would. David in DC (talk) 16:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

On Dec 21, user Sarcastic Idealist asked John to avoid use of the word "molest" and other inflammatory language in edit summaries. He did so on the talk page, and John clearly saw this, and then went on to use the word and other inflammatory language in edit summaries numerous times. --Jkp212 (talk) 16:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No, the word "molest" is in any number of the verifiable links I posted on the disussion page. I believe 10 of them were posted. On the talk page, not the article. John celona (talk) 01:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the user in question is being somewhat tendentious (as is, truth be told, User:Jkp212 from time to time), but I don't think we're anywhere near blocking territory. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Amen to that: if anyone deserves to be warned about anything it is Will and Jkp212. They are trying to bite a newbie because he disagrees with them. Yes John seems to be seems to be a bit tendentious at times but he seems to be learning from his mistakes.

John Celona is adding to the problem by making WP:POINT edits to Gene Krupa and Charles Lahr. David in DC (talk) 02:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Willbeback and Sarscastic idealist But allow me to put things in another perspective by saying that John celona is a newbie who seems to be learning from his mistakes while David and Wkp212 are continuing to try and find ways to vilify him for haying opinions that are at variance with there own. : Albion moonlight (talk) 09:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Neutral Good

• Neutral Good (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• Waterboarding (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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)

For the record, that was forgiveness and understanding but not vindication - Alison 15:42, 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)

Notice how deeply involved Jechochman is in the article content. Though this particular page that we are reading right now has NOTHING to do with the content of that article, he brings the whole debate from that page here, where it is irrelevant. I will forego proving his contentions wrong, as they belong on that page not this one. But, the important thing to notice is how he is using wikipedia administrative practices to push around people that he disagrees with on the article. Before any action is taken based upon his words, his motives and demeanor should be examined as well. --Blue Tie (talk) 02:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Completely false statements by both Neutral Good and Blue Tie. I came into that article after an edit war I found via RC, and that Alison locked down. I stuck around, and occasionally helped out on talk over the months, and finally helped to get it unprotected--I have nearly no edits to the article itself, beyond gnome work like reference formatting. I have consistently asked for more people to look at and watch the mess on Talk:Waterboarding as the situation had begun to deteriorate: why would I do that, exactly, on multiple noticeboards over the past 6-7 weeks, if I was doing something illicit or trying to hide some nefarious activity? If there is some sort of contested situation I believe the only people who would not want more attention drawn to it are the people who are wrong, and arguing from a position either not supported by policy or by facts. I've told both Neutral Good and Blue Tie to get more attention from admins on the article themselves if they wanted. They complain rather loudly when I do so, myself. Why is it they want less attention drawn to Talk:Waterboarding...?

The waves of SPAs then all arrived en masse for whatever American election cycle reason. Either way, this has nothing to do with the waterboarding article specifically in this posting I did--it is not a content matter. It is about the aggressive SPA Neutral Good, who does not contribute to anything but one topic (Waterboarding), runs around this site in my wake, waging some sort of campaign against me. He appears to be either a troll or bad hand account. Lawrence Cohen 14:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

(conflict)

That "waterboarding is torture" is indeed reported by many reliable sources. That "waterboarding" is an buzzword that has a variety of confounding meanings with other tortures -- even within those hallowed sources deploring it -- seems to be irrelevant. htom (talk) 14:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

What does this have to do with Neutral Good running around Misplaced Pages, leaving nasty messages about me after receiving final warnings from two administrators, and complaining bitterly when I ask admins to review the only page he focuses on? Lawrence Cohen 14:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Neutral Good has spoken out (unfortunately in a sarcastic and confrontational manner) about a problem that has concerned many of us on the Waterboarding article. Please do not disregard what he says simply because of the way that he says it. Lawrence, Jehochman and their friends came up empty-handed on their first two Checkuser attempts, were partially (and only briefly) successful on their third and, despite all of their caterwauling, the influence of the Harvard Law students has been positive, thoughtful and well-measured. They are abusing the administrative processes in an attempt to WP:OWN the article, and should be banned from it for a week. Maybe even a month. Regards, Bob 68.31.166.239 (talk) 15:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC) This template must be substituted.

And now, if you don't mind, I'll respond to the preceding sneaky, underhanded attempt to delegitimize me by labeling my account as an SPA. I happen to choose to edit anonymously from an IP address, as I have every right to do. I happen to have an ISP that gives me a rapidly shifting IP address; otherwise, I could point to a trail of thousands of edits on hundreds of unrelated articles, going back more than two years. This SPA tag is precisely what I'm talking about when I say, "They are abusing administrative processes in an attempt to WP:OWN this article." There is a constant level of low-level needling and baiting coming from them and it is destroying WP:CIV. I will not tolerate being delegitimized in this fashion. Please do something effective about this sneaky little pack of trolls. Forgive me for this outburst, but they are really getting on my last nerve. Regards, Bob 70.9.48.23 (talk) 18:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: Temporary topic ban

OK, as I've become more frustrated with the ability of tendentious single-purpose agenda-driven editing to stall improvement of articles, I'm going to propose something here, as an admin uninvolved in this dispute. Neutral Good (talk · contribs), based on current contribution history, appears to be an aggressive single-purpose agenda-driven account with evidence of edit-warring and tendentious editing. S/he is by no means the sole problematic presence at the Waterboarding page, but his activity has been signficantly unconstructive and is unbalanced by positive contributions elsewhere.

I propose that Neutral Good be banned from article/talk pages relating to waterboarding, loosely defined, for a period of 1-3 months. This will provide an opportunity for this user to contribute elsewhere on the encyclopedia (they have expressed an interest in improving several unrelated articles: , ) and develop a track record of positive contribution. The waterboarding article will still be there in a few months. I'd like to hear thoughts on this proposal, ideally from uninvolved editors and admins. MastCell 19:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

As long as it is the first step, and that any other edit warriors who pop up get the same treatment, I would endorse this. SirFozzie (talk) 19:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Yesterday I protected the article again only a few days after it came out of the previous protection. It's clear that what we've been doing up to now hasn't worked. I don't know the positions or histories of the combatants, but any admin who has the fortitude to dive in and start topic banning (or blocking) the most troublesome edit warriors has my support. Raymond Arritt (talk) 20:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I like the imagination behind this solution. "If you aren't a single-purpose account, then prove it by editing other articles for a while." This solution should be used more often. -- llywrch (talk) 20:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Support a topic ban. I believe that without this editor the Waterboarding dispute will be resolved more quickly, and allow Neutral Good to improve unrelated articles in the meantime. henrik•talk 20:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

And what were the lot of you planning to do about the editors who "are abusing administrative processes in a campaign to WP:OWN the article"? Three-month article bans for them as well? That would be the only fair solution. If you're going to ban Neutral Good from the article for three months, ban the people who have been abusing admin processes in their effort to harass Neutral Good and others who disagree with them. Otherwise, you endorse abuse of admin processes, and you endorse this violation of the Misplaced Pages policy known as WP:OWN. 209.221.240.193 (talk) 20:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Suddenly, I hear crickets chirping rather loudly ... 209.221.240.193 (talk) 21:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry that 20 minutes were allowed to lapse before your comment got a response. I don't see evidence of "abuse of administrative processes in a campaign to own the article." I see a tense situation involving a number of otherwise productive contributors and at least one tendentious, single-purpose agenda account. My instinct is to remove the single-purpose agenda warrior from the equation temporarily and allow the other editors, who generally have track records of constructive collaboration and encyclopedia-building, a chance to work it out. On Misplaced Pages, it's very easy for one person shouting at the top of their lungs to drown out 10 people trying to be reasonable. If you have actual diffs and a more compelling argument that some sort of abuse of process is taking place, then please present them, but rhetoric alone is not particularly convincing. MastCell 21:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I couldn't help noticing that the endorsements of a block for Neutral Good were coming like machine-gun fire about two minutes apart, and in fact encountered an edit conflict with one another; but the moment I suggested some equity, the machine gun fell silent. If you want diffs, I'll look them up tonight and post them on your Talk page in the morning. Fair enough? In the meantime, try reviewing the Talk:Waterboarding page and the edit histories of Badagnani (talk · contribs), Inertia Tensor (talk · contribs), and Lawrence Cohen (talk · contribs) over the past couple of weeks. That's where I'll be looking. Thanks. 209.221.240.193 (talk) 21:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Inertia Tensor (talk · contribs) certainly looks bad from a brief skim, but has not edited in the past 2 weeks, so I'm not sure what you expect me to do with him unless he acts up again. I'd recuse myself from any action regarding Badagnani (talk · contribs), since I seem to recall we've had some fairly heated discussion on diet-related articles. Lawrence Cohen (talk · contribs) has a track record of positive collaboration and encyclopedia-building, including several FA/GA's, and I don't see anything in his contribs there warranting sanctions, though diffs are always welcome. MastCell 22:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've gotta stick my nose in this. I keep seeing SPA being thrown around as a pretty bad thing over and over lately. It is not inherently a bad thing. It is not against policy. Some here do seem to be trying to turn it into a bad word though. Arkon (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

SPA's are not inherently bad. Some of our best articles are written largely by SPA's. However, SPA plus soapbox plus tendentious editing is a noxious and all-too-common combination. MastCell 22:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Neutral Good has already explained, on Talk:Waterboarding, that he had an extensive history of editing as an anonymous IP. Again, that is not inherently a bad thing, nor is it against policy, but some her do seem to be trying to turn it into a bad word. 209.221.240.193 (talk) 21:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Leaving aside the SPA issue, are Good's edits tendentious or needlessly provocative? Looking no further than his contributions from today, I see edits along the lines of this. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah not a particularly good comment. However, considering the heat on the topic, my completely uneducated, uninformed, worthless opinion is that it isn't worthy of a topic ban of any sort. Arkon (talk) 22:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Support ban as a marginally involved editor with this page watchlisted for a while. ➪HiDrNick! 02:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that a 3 month ban for violating something that is not policy (SPA) is extreme. If the problem is WP:TE, I was unaware that TE was a policy either. If you are going to exercise a ban, it really should be for something that the community has agreed to by policy. But realizing that wikipedia does not always operate by either consensus or policy but on some other indescribable basis, I would at least suggest that there should be better evidence of evil than has been presented here. The frustrations of two highly biased admins (at least on this topic) who are pushing other editors away from that page should not be sufficient testimony for extreme actions. I do not like to communicate the way that NG does, but as with Arkon, I just do not see a serious violation in his comments. And I believe it is incorrect to say that NG was the cause of most of the protections on the article and it is inconceivable that he is the only cause ... yet he is the only one accused. I get the feeling that this is a case of scapegoat.--Blue Tie (talk) 03:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I think every good editor agrees that incivility and disruptive editing are not helpful or wanted on wikipedia. Accusing admins of being biased is not going to help. They are chosen for their track record in good editing practice. If you find yourself in confrontation with one you should be questioning your behaviour and your bias. In my opinion there is clearly enough evidence on the talk page. --neonwhite user page talk 03:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

You're damn straight, Blue Tie. Here's what I've seen in Internet communities and this one is no different. The trolls pick on the new guy. The new guy reacts a little strongly. The community, to the astonishment of the new guy and any detached observers, rises up in defense of their trolls because they are, after all, THEIR trolls. Neutral Good (talk) 03:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, on the other hand, you sort of play right into it and do yourself no favors by calling people trolls. I suspect, like many people, you are getting emotional over these things (feeling targeted can do that too). I recommend that if you feel emotional, you take some time off to cool down. --Blue Tie (talk) 03:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I take time off to cool down on a regular basis. In fact, I just came back around Christmas from (approximately) two months of Wikibreak and saw this mess. I also take at least two eight-hour periods off every day, to work and to sleep. There appear to be several editors on the article who don't even do that. Neutral Good (talk) 03:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

A BETTER PROPOSAL would be to instead LOCK the article and the talk page thread each for 16 hours each day to allow editors a hance to cool off and relax withoitu worrying that the others guys are fucking around with the original ocntent. Smith Jones (talk) 03:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

That makes no sense. Tendentious editing is a subset of disruptive editing. Which is a guideline. As I said, Neutral Good is not the only problematic presence on the article, nor is s/he the root of all evil. On the other hand, the other editors currently involved generally have a track record of being able to work collaboratively elsewhere. Neutral Good has a track record of unmitigated tendentiousness. The idea behind the topic ban is not to excuse everyone else, but to a) temporarily remove a particularly inflammatory and unconstructive presence, and b) to give Neutral Good a chance to build up a better track record of collaborative editing on other articles before returning to waterboarding. Trust me, the article and the issue will still be there in 3 months. MastCell 03:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I see a problem with you last statement based upon the history there. Previously (before I edited there), there were apparently disputes. Supposedly they came to some consensus. Some of the editors now claim that regardless of right wrong, left right, etc. they are simply seeking to preserve consensus. The argument boils down to "We already decided so it must not change". If that philosophy prevails, then when he returns in 3 months, the chorus will be "We already decide now go away". I must have missed it, because I do not see NG's edits as being especially bad on that page, and I think it should bear some weight on the matter that he was, almost immediately accused of being malicious (as I recall) based upon the fact that he was new but seemed to know wiki-editing. When an editor is greeted with that, and treated badly by a small mob, their reaction to that treatment can look like tendentious editing. And perhaps it is. But it is not exactly one sided.

I believe a real solution to the problems on that page would be to ban anyone who insists on only one form of wording and nothing else. The only folk left then would be those who are willing to consider other wordings. Such people are able to negotiate and eventually come to consensus. People who are intractable, not just on principles but on exact wording cannot come to consensus if anyone else disagrees with them. That is a big part of the problem there. --Blue Tie (talk) 06:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

A summary of the problem

Yes, it's long. Sorry. Please read it anyway.

The problem is that Waterboarding is a massive hot potato in the current American election cycle, which is attracting more and more people that want to install an American-centric POV onto the article, irregardless of minor details such as the fact that American politics are a tiny fraction of what has significance and weight in Misplaced Pages articles. 144 sources say Waterboarding is torture, a solid half dozen to a dozen say it's not. The ones that say "not" are all American, right-of-center types. One political viewpoint of one idealogical bent getting to install modern American POV onto a topic that dates back to around the year 1400, predating the United States, is the problem, but no one is hardly willing to come out and say that in the interests of WP:AGF. I'm going to suspend AGF a moment here, which I know I shouldn't do, but someone needs to try to summarize this mess. If this goes to Arbcom this is probably going to be my statement.

That is the crux of the entire problem--it's a pure push to minimize and downplay the wording and effects of the article, specifically in calling waterboarding "torture". That simple facet is a content dispute, but an extremely, extremely weakly positioned one, that virtually every new person to the waterboarding page has agreed is a weak position--the views of the American Right are a lone viewpoint in general, and the view that waterboarding is not torture is a very, very small minority viewpoint. Various courageous warriors however are trying to inflate this fictional disparity into something on the level of the debates on abortion, Holocaust denial, or global warming. It simply isnt. It's a small number of Americans saying that after 9/11, it's not torture. It doesn't work that way, because that violates NPOV. It can argued it may be disputed in some American political circles, but it's preposterous to say that globally waterboarding is contested as a form of torture. Any suggestions that the article and in particular it's lead reflect a global world view primarily are met with scorn. One person even was so bold as to say that foreign opinion is irrelevant, because they haven't been through what we Americans have.

That is the problem: a tiny minority group of very vocal tenditious editors are insisting that a minority American point of view needs to have elevated, weight-enhanced authority to preserve NPOV. Everyone else says that in the interests of NPOV, the exact opposite needs to happen, with the minority American POV (that is held by very few sourced, notable authorities) being relegated to the WP:FRINGE side of things per WP:WEIGHT. Neither side is willing to budge, and with each verbal body check it just gets worse each day, until the past 24 hours when we finally had people running around virtually waving their arms screaming "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" in all directions, on every side, following the Harvard class experiment that en masse decided to decend on the waterboarding debate to weigh in (just when you thought it couldn't get any more bizarre).

Before waterboarding was on the news media every day the page and talk were quite manageable. Things went downhill civility-wise here (no offense: just saying this based on chronology, not saying they were directly responsible) after Neutral Good arrived; after 209.221.240.193, a confirmed IP address of User:BryanFromPalatine/User:DeanHinnen arrived, and several weeks after Blue Tie arrived further. Those were the basic landmarks for downward progress as I recall. Add in the confirmed per User:Alison sockpuppetry involving Shibumi2 and others, and the random ever changing massive cloud of Sprint Wireless IPs that sometimes (but not always) calls itself "Bob" was just the icing on the cake. Other than that, debate had been quite civil, barring the occasional drive-by lunacy, until roughly the past three weeks.

I am routinely astonished that one side of the debate goes ballistic with anger and innuendo whenever any user attempts to get more eyes on the problem. I and others have been derided for having the nerve to ask in places like the RS noticeboard, Fringe theory noticeboard, and here on ANI, and was accused of using requests for more people to review a situation as an attempt at canvassing. If some were so convinced that they were truly defending Misplaced Pages in the name of NPOV, why would they be so upset at the fact that I wanted more people to review the situation? If the defense of NPOV was true, then all the "new" people would side with the correct side of the NPOV debate here. The fact that nearly every single "new" person has sided with the "Is torture", global sourced view, over the past week since this got wide exposure after civility went out the door, has caused civility on the talk pages to completely flush itself down the toilet in response. Make of all that what you will. Lawrence Cohen 07:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The problem has nothing to do with the Election Cycle. The fundamental problem is simply that the issue is disputed in society at large and wikipedia, for better or worse, reflects society. However, that basic problem is compounded when editors not only refuse to assume good faith but actively look and seek for ways to discredit anyone who disagrees with their perspective. The post above is an example. Sure... he does not "say" that certain people are responsible, but he names names, one after the other, of people who disagree with him and says the last one "puts icing on the cake". It throws gas on the fire for an admin to take a strong partisan view and then post about the guilt all around him, while he and fellow sympathizers are innocent victims tolerating hoodlums. One would think that only the people who disagree with Lawrence are causing problems. I guess if everyone who disagree with him would go away, things would be just fine. But that works both ways. Sure, he's not canvassing for support. He's just dragging the content debate from that talk page over to this one -- and complaining. No, that's not canvassing. That's getting "more eyes". Look at how hard he tries to convince everyone here that his position is the right one... even before you get to that talk page! But its all in the name of keeping you neutral when you arrive. And to emphasize how neutral his position is, he asserts that all the new people agree with his view. He then asserts that these new people joining up on that side have enraged some small minority to ferocity, apparently because they are somehow outnumbered. Well, from the perspective of editing suggestions for the articlethat is simply not so. New editors have stated that the firm stance that the article takes "Waterboarding is torture" is not correct and should be adjusted. In fact, there really has not been a terribly uncivil situation on that page that I have seen. It has been very active. Sometimes heated. But the uncivility has not been all that bad until tonight when an admin imposed new rules on the page, but then did not enforce them -- leading to a sense that things were "unfair". THAT is the problem and it will soon die away. But meanwhile, Lawrence comes here and salts the well against the people who disagree with him by claiming that they are unreasonable, uncivil and basically horrible --- so all fair minded admins can know exactly what they should do or who they should target when they arrive if they are even remotely sane or good people.

Other than the fundamentally difficult nature of the topic, the most important contribution to that article's heat has been a constant drum-beat of subtle and overt provocations and bullying actions by admins who take a strong pov in the debate. Perhaps due to the nature of the issue, it is impossible for an admin to be unbiased. But I do not agree with the causes that Lawrence postulates above. --Blue Tie (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 08:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

What you decline to mention was that this fake consensus was the pre-made meatpuppetry from Harvard, that has already been discredited here: those people are all the admitted Harvard classmates that made a decision ahead of time, in real life, then all came to Misplaced Pages to post that very section. Abusive meatpuppetry. Lawrence Cohen 14:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I originally got involved after a posting by Lawrence on WP:RSN asking for uninvolved editors to contribute. After watching for a few weeks, I will agree with him that the presence of certain editors is extremely disruptive to the consensus building approach. Almost every posting by a certain editor is designed to drive other editors apart and provoke confrontation and endless argument. The endless contributions from anonymous Sprint wireless IP addresses, the confirmed sockpuppeting from those addresses, Neutral Good's Request for Adminship for the sock-puppeteer, the support of those addresses here etc. I don't know how these editors are connected, but it seems to involve Free Republic somehow. While all of this is going on, any attempt to build consensus will fail, and editors will be driven away from the article.

I also agree with Lawrence (and disagree with Blue Tie): this disruption is completely about American politics. There are absolutely no citations from before 2001 questioning the status of waterboarding as a form of torture. The dispute is wholly as a result of its use by the CIA, and those who wish to justify that use. Chris Bainbridge (talk) 12:40, 10 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)

Yes, the IP check section is what I was referring to. I am no expert on ranges, but is there no way to knock out most of those with a range block? - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the point in IP checking, since it's hardly likely Awbrey doing this. There is an oustanding request over on WR for anybody to come over here and disrupt these articles. It's more likely these people are meatpuppets. And what purpose does doing an IP check accomplish, anyway? The vandal will get blocked, the pages reverted, rinse, repeat. Corvus cornix_talk 18:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Last time CheckUser was run it turned up a number of sleepers. Awbrey is clearly not going to give up, this obsession behaviour is part of what got him banned, so it's not a waste of effort to run checkuser when a new batch of socks starts to mess about - better than locking the articles, since that reduces the chances of their being expanded and/or merged. Andif anyone feels like starting that logic of Charles Peirce article to merge the stubs on terms only he really used, now would be a good time :-) Guy (Help!) 23:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

i have nto been folowing the controsversiy but it hitnk that it would be betetr if jon awbery were listened to. he might have some valid auobjections to the way wiki proceudr eworks sna dit would be betert to listen tohim and get his input to se eif he is genuinely trying to be construcitve or is actually just an ordinary vandal. if he is genuniately trying to be constructive, then it would be best to appease him by bbaning all of his sockpuppets except one andf orce him to use his remaining account to take on a leading role in repairign adn reorganizing the articles he damaged. i am a firmly believer in diploamcy as a way for encyclopedic success sand he current fascist slash-and-burn tactics of only hunting down the symbtoms of a potential vandals' behaivor rather than the root cause is antithetical to both the idea of fredom of speech and that of diplomacy. Smith Jones (talk) 23:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, from what I gather from all the activities of the sock/meatpuppets, they seem to be blanking the pages based on a remark made by SlimVirgin on User talk:Jimbo Wales Awbrey's work; according to them, she said "... it's probably all original resource for which a realiable source might be hard to find." Awbrey took offence at that comment and instructed users on WR to blank the pages. Am I correct? GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 00:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

iv that is indeed the case that it would be beter for this issue to be taken to arbitration betwen slimvirgin, jw awbrey and this thugs, and user; jimbo whales to discuss this issue. baning random sockpupets wll only increase teh amount of restnetment int hte atmosphere, leading to a rbeakd own of order on wikipeida and a lot of hurt feelings on either side. it might ahve the neegative efect of even driving away awbrey and causing him to even stop blanking th pages, which would be an unfortunate since the loss of ANY editor, no mater how seemingly problematic, robs this encylcopedia of a valuble and priceless source of experince, dedicaiton, and wisdom. Smith Jones (talk) 00:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this is more of an overreaction to one editor's comment by another editor. I don't think ArbCom is required for something like page blanking and simple vandalism, even if it is on behalf of the author; I'm fairly certain that Awbrey's work on the logic articles (in fact, pretty much all of his article space) Never mind, it was universally agreed upon that that is not true; only logic-related articles were useful. GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 02:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC) was much appreciated; however, in Misplaced Pages- and other spaces, he created several disruptive pages (see here for the discussion that let up to his ban). Wiki-editors make comments that others construe as offensive. Maybe we should accept that everyone here does not know everything and move on. ArbCom is not needed for something like this. Awbrey was warned to stop with the "project-spam" and didn't. GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 02:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

you may be right about arbcom but then again i never actally mentioned Arbitration Committess- that was an issue that you brought up, wich many people might see as a strawman argument. when i said the word 'abritration' i meant an informal dispute resolution betweenthe two users either on the talk pages, on this page, or privately via email or osme kidn of chat program. obviously slimvirgin and awbrey are having an intense, unresolvable dispute regarding whether or not certain thigns should have been said or not said, but that does not mean that we should rnadomly accuse someone of vandalism and block the to solve the problem. arbitray rule-enforcements only isnpire resentment and lead to further vandalism and bad faith assumptions down the road. the best and the onyl realy moral and decent path is conflict resolution that invovles both parties on an equal disucssion ground rather than having one person act as an inquisitor and the other serve as a tdefnese. this is really disturbin and if the behaivor does not stop then a permanent ban from the internet might be required but it woudl bemuch better if this can he headed off since it would be far beter to have awbrey continue to blank pages here than to have him banned forever and lose anoter great mind that can help use improve this encyclopedia for both our generations and genreations to come. Smith Jones (talk) 03:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... From what I can tell, the general term for taking something to the Arbitration Committee is "arbitration." The more general term is "dispute resolution," which is I now see what you actually meant. Also, as said above, it may not be Awbrey himself that is doing this, but rather a parade of meatpuppets. The proposition about letting Awbrey come back to edit is an interesting one - however, this is a community thing, so the Misplaced Pages community should be the one to decide whether or not Awbrey merits a second chance. As an aside, this is getting a bit long, maybe it can be moved to a user talk page? GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 05:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

One slight complication is that Awbrey apparently has, or has had, some sort of proxy- or account- sharing arrangement with other abusive users such as MyWikiBiz - previous checkuser requests have come across nests of sockpuppets that seemed to have both Awbrey and MyWikiBiz sockpuppets intertwined with each other. But either way, if a sockpuppet is disruptive, we can simply block it no matter who it is. :) krimpet✽ 05:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Raggz is issuing threats

User:Raggz appeared a week or so ago on the State Terrorism by the United States page and began making massive deletions. At one and the same time he claimed to be a new user, while also justifying his deletions with wiki-policy notes -- "WP:NPOV", "WP:OR", and so on. Regardless, today he issued a clear threat on my talk page, saying that if i did not allow his deletions then he would "pursue other means". In light of the recently exposed cabal headed up by MONGO, Tom Harrison, and Morton Devonshire, i consider this threat to be a grave and actionable matter. While it may be the case that Raggz is unaffiliated with this group, his recent behavior follows the same modus operandi and line of argument that has characterized this group over the last few years. I am here formally drawing attention to it; any feedback would appreciated. Thank you. Stone put to sky (talk) 04:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Stone, perhaps you should read WP:NOT and WP:NOR, it would be a good start for you of what the project is all about. Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox for POV pushing of fringe views. While we have articles on fringe views in the world, we do not ramrod them into mainstream articles to suit our fancy. Interesting you should comment on other user's behavior, ie: making comments like this as an SPA. It looks like Raggz is trying to work with others here. I suggest you do the same. JungleCat Shiny!/Oohhh! 04:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

That "threat" looks innocent enough; "We may debate these issues on TALK and there strive for Consensus, or I will need to seek an alternative solution." Looks like he's threatening you with Dispute Resolution. Pairadox (talk) 04:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

And also note the assumption of bad faith by Stone put to sky, "n light of the recently exposed cabal headed up by MONGO, Tom Harrison, and Morton Devonshire." Um, citation needed anyone? Like A Rainbow (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

As a note here, Ragzz and Stone put to sky are currently engaged in a content dispute in the article Allegations of state terrorism committed by the United States, which, as no doubt most of you regulars know, has a long and checkered history. The thing really ought to be scrubbed out with a mop as it is STILL full of WP:SYNT violations. But anyways, with regards to these two users, well, look at the article's talk page. Jtrainor (talk) 05:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The issue is disruptive editing by Ragzz, not a content dispute. Have you seen the outrageous claims he has made on this page? Please read it. —Viriditas | Talk 21:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

See also: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/User:Raggz

Raggz has issued the same threats against me, and new single-user accounts are popping up on article talk pages. There are arbcom rulings against removing well-sourced material. Raggz is not a new editor, and I'm wondering how many editors have to come to this noticeboard before someone admits there is a problem; there have been at least four different editors in the last 48 hours who have commented about the disruption Raggz is causing in multiple articles. Raggz has had a year to learn the policies and guidelines and still doesn't understand them. When confronted with this, he has stated on the incident sub-page that he has a traumatic brain injury. I don't know if this is true or an attempt to elicit sympathy for his edits, but Raggz needs help, either from administrators or a mentor. The problem is, that in addition to his disruptive behavior, while Raggz deletes sourced material he also adds unsourced OR. I propose that Raggz both discuss his deletions before making them, and add sources to any new content that he writes. This will partly solve the problem. —Viriditas | Talk 20:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I've looked at Raggz' edits to the article I linked above, and at least the recent ones (modifying the intro) seem to be in good faith. Jtrainor (talk) 22:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

On Raggz' talk page, you have referred to the concerns about his editing as nothing more than "wild accusations". Since you are such a staunch defender of this user I would like to ask you to consider becoming his mentor, or at least find him one that will guide him through the forest. —Viriditas | Talk 06:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Rationale for the Iraq War

The content deletions with and without edit summaries are continuing on Iraq War, and Rationale for the Iraq War, except this time, a single-purpose account named User:Ryder Spearmann which showed up out of the blue to work with Raggz is now helping him disrupt multiple pages, claiming that there is "tacit formal consensus" to remove all criticism from the article.. This is the exact same behavior Raggz had been engaged in earlier in the day in the same article and previously in other articles like Human rights and the United States‎ where he removed criticism wholesale and claimed he had consensus on the talk page to do so. Raggz also used the same wording as Ryder Spearmann to justify his wholesale deletions just a few days earlier, claiming, "Tacit consensus may be reached when the discussion settles out..." According to arbcom, "Removal of sources is generally met with bans on editing the articles in question in conjunction with penalties issued for POV editing". These two users, User:Ryder Spearmann and User:Raggz are working together to disrupt multiple articles by removing sourced content and claiming consensus between the two of them as their justification. —Viriditas | Talk 07:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Deletion & Redirecting of an Article Without Consensus

moved to talk page for continuity of discussion, especially as discussion was complete here.

Ursasapien and WP:EPISODE

As some may be aware, there has been a lot of discussion of late over whether WP:EPISODE should exist as a guideline or be merged into Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). The guideline was tagged for merging on December 21st by User:Ursasapien . Discussion commenced and there was no clear consensus for a merge (equal number of supports and objectors with valid arguments on both sides. Despite the lack of consensus and on-going discussion, on January 7th, Ursasapien decided to "be bold" and redirect WP:EPISODE to the MOS with the edit summary of "redirect per WP:BURO and WP:CREEP.". It was reverted as vandalism after a few hours, but Ursasapien just redid it minutes later now claiming it was based on consensus. His redirect was undone by a different editor and a note left on Ursaspien's talk page. On the 8th, Ursaspien tried a different tactic and replaced WP:EPISODE with a "disambigutation" page. I reverted as, again, there was no consensus and the discussions were still on going.. I also left a note on his talk page. He redid within minutes, and a different editor reverted moments later.

Despite now having four different editors undoing his actions and even more telling him to stop, he continues to try to argue the case. He claims he is "enforcing" policy and removing "guideline cruft". He is deriding those who have undone his edits as a "local consensus" and only acknowledges arguments supporting his own position. He also put in a call for more comments at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). In his message there, he blatantly lies by falsely claiming there was consensus for his actions and in claiming that the people who reverted his edits never participated in the discussion (while at the same time claiming two of the people who have reverted his attempts to clear WP:EPISODE as supporters of his efforts on his talk page). (historical links in case of changes: talk page discussions and his post on the Fiction MOS talk page.

At first, Ursasapien was given the benefit of the doubt, probably because he's only been editing for about a year and seemed to be acting in good faith, but his actions are becoming more and more disruptive. He waited just long enough on his last revert to not quite fit 3RR, but he continues to ignore multiple editors telling him he is not acting appropriately. I feel at this point an administrator needs to deal with this as he has made it very clear that he does not care what other editors think or what consensus is dictating. Collectonian (talk) 07:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Response by Ursasapien

I have been editing WP since September 7, 2006 but many of those edits were before I registered. I have been very active in television projects but I have varied interest. There was a long discussion regarding whether or not WP:EPISODE violated WP:BURO and WP:CREEP. This led me to propose a merge and redirection of the disputed guideline into WP:FICT and WP:WAF. Further discussion ensued, but since it was over the holiday break, it was agreed that discussion should continue through January 7th. Discussion appeared to have ended by January 2nd. The discussion seemed to be split between those who saw the merge as a good idea and those who said, despite this guideline violating policy, they liked it or needed it and it should be kept. I boldly implemented policy and consensus. I was reverted. I discussed and made the change again. I was reverted a second time. I reopened the discussion and answered objections. I got further guidance and won over those who had previously objected. I boldly attempted to implement the change again but was immediately reverted. Despite Collectonian's contention, I feel I have not been given the benefit of the doubt, have been sujected to bad faith, and have been treated uncivilly. My actions were done in good faith but I misinterpreted suggestions and, apparently, moved too fast. I have not been "disruptive" by any stretch of the imagination. I consider this report to be vindictive and just another attempt to wear down opposition to policy violations. However, I have agreed to wait for further discussion and to get another editor to make these corrections. Ursasapien (talk) 08:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we need any admin action here. We're all a little frustrated about these things, that's all. Given a little time, this should be fully resolved on WT:FICT, WT:WAF, and WT:EPISODE. -- Ned Scott 09:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I might agree if Ursasapien had acknowledged he made an error and acted hastily. However he continued reverted despite multiple editors telling him otherwise and only stopped when he would have violated 3RR. He also continues to state that he is only enforcing policy, despite not having a clear agreement that WP:EPISODE violates any policy, and seems to be out to make a WP:POINT more than anything. He continues to discount the words of other editors, repeating the same mantra over and over. Perhaps he will be more willing to acknowledge and adhere to remarks of an administrator. Collectonian (talk) 09:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I meant for the sentence, "My actions were done in good faith but I misinterpreted suggestions and, apparently, moved too fast," to be an admission that I messed up. I have not seen an apology regarding your incivil discourse, assumptions of bad faith, and vindictive filing of this request (despite the situation already being resolved). You appear to discount everything I have said and assume the worst motives on my part. I welcome an administrator looking at our respective post, but I think it is a waste of time as this "content issue" is resolved, for now. If you have a problem with my editing, I encourage you to work through the steps of dispute resolution. Ursasapien (talk) 10:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing vindictive in my filing. I don't ANI people just cause I don't like them. I feel your actions need reviewing and possible admin comment or action. You decided on your own that consensus had been reached, when it clearly had not. You decided to take action against the guideline and what that action when be (without even knowing the proper way to do it). You then continued trying to remove the guideline after you your first attempt was undone and you were told no, consensus wasn't reached yet and you shouldn't be doing it by no less than four editors. You arbitrarily decided that discussion from December 22nd was no longer relevant to justify your saying that those who reverted hadn't participated in the discussion (when, in fact the comments are recent enough to still be very much relevant). While you stopped shy of breaking 3RR, I feel you were disruptive to the point of needing administrative attention. This isn't a content issue, it is a much bigger issue regarding your inappropriate actions regarding a Misplaced Pages guideline that some could view as vandalism, and your snide and uncalled for remarks against anyone who reverted your efforts.

I also find it disturbing that you are keeping an "interesting editor list" that seems to be more of a like a list of editors you don't like, and it seems odd that you would have such a list for any good purpose considering the remarks and diffs you've made by some of them. Collectonian (talk) 16:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that has to go. Considering I had to remove a whole two people from -my- userpage listed under "list of people whom I think should not be able to use the edit button", that is way in excess. Jtrainor (talk) 02:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a long history of editors keeping list of other editors. This list serves many purposes. This list has nothing to do with editors I like or do not like. To be honest, some of the list was used to compile evidence of incivility. Others are editors that I truly admire and wish to emulate. Some editors turned out to be sockpuppets, as I suspected. Perhaps the list needs to be trimmed a bit, as some of the editors are no longer interesting to me. There is nothing derogatory like Jtrainor's list. I find it disturbing that Collectonian's assumptions of bad faith have now sent him on a witch hunt. Ursasapien (talk) 05:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

For future reference, I'm a she not a he. I am not on a witch hunt. I stumbled on the list after you added me to it. Collectonian (talk) 06:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Sock puppet, edits despite COI warnings, biased article

I have been trying to 'clean up' the Council for Refractive Surgery Quality Assurance article and have encountered lots of problems in trying to do so by user Ghagele (talk · contribs). I have recently created a descriptive paragraph on the talk page to describe the issues I see thus far: Talk:Council_for_Refractive_Surgery_Quality_Assurance#Conflict_of_Interest_Analysis.2C_Editing_History_and_Glenn_Hagele

All in all, Ghagele (talk · contribs) has received two warnings about editing the CRSQA article and has continued to do so with no administrator intervention, to my great, great surprise. He has also now unknowingly admitted to using his IP as a sock-puppet to circumvent the warnings to edit the CRSQA article by editing the talk page without logging in as Ghagele.

I am desperately looking for some logical administration on the subject, as I believe the information I have provided on the talk provides provides premises for some pretty obvious actions. --SirDecius (talk) 07:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I see implicit threats of legal action from Ghaegel by extensive references to legal action against web site operators elsewhere, and a discussion by both him and SirDecius about the true identity of Misplaced Pages users. 12:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC) With respect to the article itself, attention is being paid to it by another admin. DGG (talk) 12:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi DGG - If you are referring to Bearian he has declared: 'I'm moving on. I will not bother changing anything more' as per my talk page, which is why I have requested additional assistance. Thanks for your response, and I believe this will be my last attempt at cleaning up that article. --SirDecius (talk) 21:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:SirDecius appears to have strong feelings about the Council for Refractive Surgery Quality Assurance and in the last month has edited little outside that area. The spirit of the WP:COI guideline indicates that editors with strong views should work very cautiously on articles relating to their intense interests. Over at the article talk page I offered to make a compromise draft that was as neutral as possible and avoided WP:BLP problems. SirDecius has so far not agreed to support this plan, yet he has made several requests for admin help. I encourage him to return to the Talk page conversation in a cooperative spirit. SirDecius strongly supports the inclusion of a link to an external website called http://www.usaeyes.info that describes the CRSQA as a 'cynical marketing ploy' and asserts that Glenn Hagele is engaging in false advertising. I have tried, so far in vain, to persuade him that BLP is not happy with this kind of a link. EdJohnston (talk) 21:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Primetime

Primetime (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is back. Or more precisely, he never left. Recently-discovered sock puppets included one that started editing the day after his last socks were discovered, back in May '07. Under his new name, Gnfgb2 (talk · contribs), he was engaged in contentious editing, several noticeboard disputes, and even aspired to become an admin. Now that he's been discovered again he's going on a rampage. He's been vandalizing my user talk page, such as user:Differing_views. He's also been reverting every edit I make, going back 50 edits at a time using popups and possibly a tabbed browser, such as user:Ourshalf_ourshalf. It turns out that he's been creating dozens of sleeper sock accounts dating back months. The history is mostly in Checkuser #13 and Misplaced Pages:Long term abuse/Primetime. A number of admins and editors have been helpful in fixing the recent damage. Thanks to Irishguy, Pairadox, Kurt Shaped Box, MBK004, SqueakBox, SirFozzie, Random832, Durova, Bielle, Lcarscad, Bongwarrior, Jersyko, Luna Santin, Slakr, 12 Noon, and everyone else. I've moved my talk page archives and history so that there's nothing left to vandalize. I'm not sure what else we can do about this guy. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 07:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Jayjg

On 3rd January I suggested here and here the deletion of this section on the Khazars page and it’s replacement with a summary on the grounds of relevance (for it’s current detailed form). Some editors agreed and the section was deleted by another editor. Several editors disputed and reverted. These editors gave reasons such as the deletion violated WP:NPOV and was WP:Fork but none addressed the issue of relevance. I replied to this stating I had no problem with the reliability of the sources used but that my concern was that the section was being used to reach a specific POV not proven by the evidence given by the sources. I had already given a RS that reached this same conclusion so my concern had a basis apart from my own OR. I pointed out that a WP:RFC would not be reliable due to WP:COI and asked for reasons for relevance instead. At this point Jayjg posted basically accusing me of anti Semitism. Jayjg posted the following examples of edits I had made over the previous year as proof of my “interests”:

• I claimed Israeli’s were responsible for 9/11.

The edit actually made no claim of responsibility and Jayjg ignored other 9/11 edits I made that debunked Israeli involvement such as this this one, this one and this one.

• Israel was culpable in the liberty incident. .

This was a reply to a question from another editor in talk and I made no claim at all.

• David Irving is a legitimate historian .

I claimed he was a "British" historian discredited for his views on the holocaust. The dispute was over whether he was discredited for everything else not related to Jews.

• I ”Passionately” defended Ernst Zundle on the Zundle talk page .

I was defending the inclusion of NPOV content not his views. In the previous edit I said Zundle was "an idiot with ridiculous ideas" which supports this.

• Jayjg claimed that because I had edited the Hamas and Ahmadinejad articles this was a clear indication of my bias. However he did not point out any edits as proof.

I was, and am, deeply offended by being accused of anti semitism on such flimsy grounds. These were obviously the worst edits he could find as he had to go back up to a year to find them which would have taken considerable effort. The accusation seems to be for no other reason than an attempt to discredit my work and I asked for an apology. I also asked for an explanation of why the section is relevant. Not only did he not apologise but replied to me saying “the section is relevant and should remain. Please respect that consensus”. I have used Jayjg's talk page before when we've had conflict and his "I am right, you are wrong" attitude has led me to believe doing so for this would be a waste of time and also pointless as he has offended me in public. This arrogance has upset me to the point that I am reconsidering continuing with WP if this behaviour is condoned. Because of the high profile Jayjg has on WP I feel I can expect to now be dismissed as an anti semite whenever I try to edit anything remotely controversial in future. Something should be done to censure Jayjg and clear my name with the WP community. Thank you. Wayne (talk) 09:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Wayne, as I'm sure you're aware, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is perhaps the most bitter dispute on the Internet, and tempers will flare. Personally, I've decided to steer clear of it for now, despite having some expertise in that area, because I'm sick and tired of being accused of bias. It becomes especially difficult when an administrator is making the accusation against you. Please be patient. If an admin hasn't addressed this situation within the next few hours, I'll try to get someone's attention. Neutral Good (talk) 10:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Before this thread gets out of hand (not aimed at the above comments but at the usual result of threads regarding this) you may wish to take part in the ArbCom case regarding this and present your evidence there. EconomicsGuy (talk) 10:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Instead of focusing on one editor, these types of conflicts need to have a permanent neutral mediator assigned to the articles to maintain stability on a daily basis. I recommend that the Mediation Cabal and the Mediation Committee get together to try and figure out a solution. —Viriditas | Talk 11:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I have just given an outside opinion on the articles supporting the inclusion of the material as supported by the scientific consensus--basically supporting Jayjg's position. But the comment made by Jayjg is entirely out of line, and seem to represent a straightforward personal attack. No WP editor should be making dubiously based accusations of anti-semitism about another editor on an article talk pafge. If I were to do it, i would expect to get immediately blocked. DGG (talk) 13:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi DGG, can you point/link to the post where Jayjg accuses this user of anti-semitism. I don't see it above. TIA --Tom 16:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Wayne appears to be referring to this edit. Thatcher 17:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

That's quite unfair a comment to make. It goes against both WP:AGF and WP:NPA. Also, this issue was discussed in the Arbcomm on Allegations of apartheid. At the time, editors expressed concern about the chilling and poisonous effect such comments have on the editing environment. Jayjg's name was mentioned at the time, but the arbitrators chose not to include anything on the subject in the Proposed decision. The entire case was closed without any conclusion. Perhaps this should be taken to the Arb Comm currently in place for Palestine-Israel articles here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiamut (talk • contribs) 23:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

If any more parties are added to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict RfArb, I think the conflict itself will end before the RfArb for it does. -- tariqabjotu 00:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you suggest be done then, Tariqabjotu? Tiamut 00:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Ban them all and let God sort it out. --Carnildo (talk) 06:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Everyone has a personal bias. From each person's point of view, one's own views are precisely neutral and everyone else has some bias or other. To interpret what Jayjg wrote to be an accusation of anti-Semitism, one would have to make the unwarranted assumption that Jayjg thinks everyone who has a bias other than pro-Israel is anti-Semitist. Please assume that Jayjg is assuming good faith. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Can a personal attack be in good faith? If I showed a marked bias then maybe, but I ask you to check the above edits and decide if they support what Jayjg intimated they did. The problem I have is that most editors wont check them but accept Jayjg's word that I'm anti semitic. I'm sorry but anti Semitic is the only word I can find that applies to these "interests" I supposedly have and is a word many who read his post will assume. Wayne (talk) 08:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Please strike out the words "Jayjg's word that I'm anti semitic" in your comment above or provide a supporting diff in which that word and that allegation actually appear. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this is hardly the first time that User:Jayjg has made accusations of this sort. WP:AGF isn't set in stone (it's a guideline, not a policy), and it shouldn't be used as an excuse to defend indefensible personal attacks. CJCurrie (talk) 02:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Jayjg's comment doesn't actually accuse Wayne of anti-Semitism, but it continues the use of subtle and condescending personal attacks that Jayjg uses to attempt to obtain the upper hand in content disputes, in addition to off-wiki canvassing and cabalism (). Since the "Allegations of Israeli Apartheid" ArbCom decision apparently hasn't stopped this nonsense from Jayjg and his associates, then perhaps it needs to be brought to the ArbCom's attention again. Cla68 (talk) 02:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

persistent posting of personal/unsourced information on a BLP

a block of user Lewinsky and IP 60.242.9.146 is requested for repeatedly posting personal and unsourced information on the page of Evan Thomas.

77.185.56.213 (talk) 12:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the IP complaining here should list both User:Lewinksky and User:Lewinsky in this complaint. both are SPA accounts. ThuranX (talk) 12:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

And maybe they should be informed as to why the info is being removed? So far there hasn't been so much as an edit summary explaining why, much less a comment on the article talk page or to any of the offenders. AN/I should not be the first recourse. Pairadox (talk) 13:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

A note is on teh article talk now. should further edits occur, I will bring them here. ThuranX (talk) 21:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I apologize. You'd think I kibbitz here enough to check the edit dates more carefully. All this happened in August, not this week or month. I think an admin can mark this resolved, and we can be done with it. ThuranX (talk) 05:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Please delete User:8thstar/ubx/Dead Marxist

This userbox was deleted at MFD recently, was recreated and deleted again per CSD G4, and has been recreated yet again. Please delete it again and prevent recreation. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 16:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Already deleted. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and salt it; since its deletion via WP:MfD it's been recreated twice. I also warned its creator to stop remaking it and visit deletion review if s/he disagrees with the verdict from MfD. MastCell 18:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Probably a good call, that. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 18:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Rather than opening up a new section, I am opening this one again as this is related. Following the deletion(s) of the above userbox, 8thstar has now come up with the following gem;

User:8thstar/ubx/Marxist

and inserted it into every user's page who used the previous one. Inappropriate? Pointy? Tarc (talk) 20:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Definitly inappropriate; however I'm struggling to think what it breaches. I'm not too familiar with the finer points of userspace policy... Blood Red Sandman 20:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems disruptive to me. Blood Red Sandman, I don't know if it violates any specifically laid out rule about user space, but there is a general prohibition against editing other people's pages, mostly out of courtesy. Obviously that doesn't count if someone is violating another, more important rule, on their user page, such as the fair use policy. But I think in this case the user is not right to be adding this to multiple user's pages. It also seems deliberately disruptive for the purposes of making a point. Natalie (talk) 20:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no such prohibition, only a very, very general sense of "hey, don't be a jerk about it". I've never thought twice about editing someone's userspace; it's whether or not the edit is constructive that matters. In this particular case, the edits to other peoples' userspaces are perfectly valid, as he's only fixing a broken transclusion. The only objectionable element is what he's adding (a T1 speedily deleted userbox), not the editing in and of itself. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not actually the original deleted userbox, it's a new one created in response, it appears, to the deletion, that is being added. Blood Red Sandman 20:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

EVula, I guess I'm a little confused then, because a user's editing each other's pages when there isn't a compelling reason to (reverting vandalism, removing fair use or attacks, and so on) is generally treated as unwelcome. Obviously, I'm aware that no one owns their own user space or has ultimate control over it, but I've always gotten the impression that unnecessarily editing someone else's user page is considered rude. To clarify, I didn't mean prohibition in the sense of a policy, more like an aspect of etiquette. Natalie (talk) 21:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

There are some users that, yes, specifically ask people to stay out of their userspace, but fixing broken links is different from, say, changing actual content on a page. By your own examples, I'd consider fixing a broken template a "compelling reason" (though not quite on par with removing vandalism or Fair Use imagery).
I suppose it can be considered rude, but I think it is too trivial to even call that. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I was certainly aware he shouldn't be adding it to other user's pages. Shall we get to rollbacking the additions? Blood Red Sandman 20:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Reads like a WP:POINT violation, for the sole sake of spite and disruption. ThuranX (talk) 21:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Sort of a canonical WP:POINT violation, as he was politely directed toward WP:DRV to address his grievances and is instead spamming a userbox claiming he's been censored. This is on the heels of recreating the MfD'd userbox twice, necessitating its salting. I've blocked him for 24 hours; I'd suggest going ahead with the rollbacks. MastCell 21:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I've started removing them. This would have been quicker if the closing admin on the XfD had removed the links to the deleted userbox, though. Natalie (talk) 22:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Controversial userbox

User:MQDuck/userboxes/Right To Resist

I just wonder that how after deletion this userbox can be restored. This userbox is clearly supporting Iraqi insurgency. How this userbox is being tolerated? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how a userbox that only states a belief/opinion that isn't hate filled or otherwise offensive is against the rules. I wonder if anyone would be so keen to delete one that supported the French Resistance? Otolemur crassicaudatus seems to be on missions to delete anything his/her sensibilities doesn't agree with. The consensus spoke in the DRV. Leave it at that. --WebHamster 22:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The userbox was restored following the deletion review. Whitstable (talk) 18:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

You can still take it to WP:MFD. Hut 8.5 18:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Take it to WP:MfD is you disagree with the box and the community will decide. CharonX/talk 23:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Harassment Notice

Yes, I am currently being harassed by the admin known as Jeske. He has recently threatened me for no reason on my talk page and merely provided a very vague reason why. Someone apparently vandalized my talk page, yet he chose to accuse me of it days after he gave his threat. Now, he has been trying to bait me on and on into arguments with him, and I have my best to avoid him. Yet, he is always around no matter where I go.V-Dash (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Jéské Couriano has been notified of this discussion. - Rjd0060 (talk) 19:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear. Why not forget about this dispute and go edit some articles? What you're doing here certainly does not look like you're trying to avoid him. Friday (talk) 19:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

:( It's no use Friday... Wherever I go, he's there right behind me...V-Dash (talk) 19:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• For background see Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/V-Dash. Corvus cornix_talk 19:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Just for the record, my eyes just sort of glaze over when I read "admin harassment" and it isn't followed by diffs showing the accused administrator's actions. Can you provide said diffs? EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Although not an administrator, I would like to note that, having witnessed these clashes from the very beginning, I do not believe Jéské to have done anything wrong. V-Dash has claimed above that Jéské "threatened" him for a vandal's comment, yet this diff and the several subsequent edits show differently. Jéské merely warned him against making further personal attacks after it came to his notice when another user, User talk:Orange Boomerang removed that comment over a month later (for the record, after Orange Boomerang removed that comment, V-Dash posted on their talk page stating "stay off my talk page." V-Dash's conduct towards other editors has been poor at best, and I do not think it is surprising that conflict has arison. V-Dash has previously accused Jéské of Wikistalking, created at least one sockpuppet in an effort to have Jéské banned, has created several other sockpuppets used for other purposes, and has dared Jéské to ban him at several points in time; something that Jéské has refused to do because he is a part of the conflict.

Having observed this conflict from the moment that it started to the present moment, and V-Dash's conduct to other editors prior to his clashes with Jéské, I do not believe that Jéské has harassed V-Dash at all. I am under the impression that Jéské has dealt with the situation admirably considering all that has occurred, at one point even offering to protect V-Dash's userpage from the heavy amounts of vandalism that were occurring from anonymous IPs; an offer that V-Dash was quick to accept. MelicansMatkin (talk) 21:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

One thing that I think is telling of V-Dash's attitude is his userpage; in it he states that " is always right." Further, other users have come in - I believe them to be GFAQs members - and have stated (with accuracy, as I have noticed) that V-Dash has selective vision and flat-out disregards anything that does not fit with his view or involving his behavior (as can be seen on my TP). Also, as his RfC (and the evidence on it) points out, the assumption of good faith between V-Dash and I was never reciprocal: V-Dash always jumped to conclusions and accused me of sockpuppetry, WikiStalking, and trying to get him banned (while the latter has merit, I only asked for bans because it was, and still is, becoming increasingly apparent that V-Dash is merely being disruptive now).

While I have blocked V-Dash in the past twice - once before the conflict (a 3RR block on Pokémon Diamond and Pearl) and once even more recently (a mistaken block I later rescinded after checkuser confirmed he was not SPD V (talk · contribs) - initially "Inconclusive"), each time I made a mistaken block I rescinded it. Part of this problem is GFAQs user PolluxFrost (Dash Jr (talk · contribs) here), whom seems to know how V-Dash acts and uses this information to successfully impersonate him via sockpuppetry. Not helping the matter is the fact that V-Dash feeds them by cursing them out on his user talk page and their own TPs.

In closing, I have little doubt that this AN/I thread is an attempt to get me sanctioned because I have told him - in no uncertain terms - that he will end up blocked and/or banned if he continues on the way he is now, and he decided to ignore that warning. What little good faith I had in him has vanished, and I thus made the RfC to bring this to wider attention. Any more discussion from me on this matter will take place there. -Jéské 23:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Personal atacks

User:Theaveng is being disruptive to the discussion on Talk:Comparison of high definition optical disc formats and is now engaging in personal attacks with rather vulgar language --Ray andrew (talk) 21:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I've warned him. In the future, try venues like WP:WQA, since this does not (strictly speaking) require admin intervention --Haemo (talk) 21:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, he did remove those comments himself moments later, and you never told him about bringing this to WP:ANI. --Haemo (talk) 21:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Trenton, Ontario

Previous ssues with revisions to this page and vandalism on my userpage were dealt with when the user's IP account was blocked two days ago. However, it seems that s/he is back and operating from another IP. An attempt (and all previous attempts) to communicate have gone for naught, and there is consensus from other editors that the IP user's edits are not constructive. I've reverted the edits a number of times, as has another editor and it's getting nowhere. Would it be possible to request semi-protection for the page? Thanks. Blotto adrift (talk) 21:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the page for 2 weeks. Hopefully they will find a new hobby. In the future, you can use WP:RFPP for these kinds of requests. --Haemo (talk) 21:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, looks like we conflicted. I was gonna semiprotect the page for a week, and I've blocked the offending IP for 24 hours. But whatever is fine with me. MastCell 21:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Much thanks. Next time I'll use WP:RFPP, sorry about that. Blotto adrift (talk) 21:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Good luck. MastCell 21:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration

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.

No administrative attention required... involved statements usually go before uninvolved statements, but it's really not a big deal. Further discussion can take place at the RfArb talk page. MastCell 00:06, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I have made a staement as an uninvolved at the Above. Alison has inserted Here name (with no Comments) above my statement. Thus gives a false impression of the synchrosity -Is this acceptable? Aatomic1 (talk) 23:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why not, Aatomic the edits in question were, A) Alison inserting herself as an involved party (as she was the one who created the RfC in question on the user), and B) Alison placing a placeholder statement as an involved party (she's not feeling well, and wants to add her statement as an involved party when she can think straight. SirFozzie (talk) 23:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

My point entirely - She jumped her place.Aatomic1 (talk) 23:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No, she is an involved party. She SHOULD appear before uninvolved parties. Horologium (talk) 23:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, the proper place to bring this up would be on The Request for Arbitration Talk Page,not here, I would think. SirFozzie (talk) 23:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Aatomic1 - could you not have asked me directly instead of marching over to WP:ANI? I'd have been happy to clarify the matter. As an involved party (I filed the unsuccessful RfC in an attempt to resolve the issue), there is no "place jumping" - Alison 23:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Then I should be grateful if you would point me to the relevant page. Aatomic1 (talk) 00:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this is silly. Place jumping? Are we 5? Lawrence Cohen 00:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Please note that User:Aatomic1 is now doing the rounds of the Arbitrators that have accepted the case, making similar noises. - Alison 00:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone seen a clue-by-four lying around? We seem to be in desperate need of one today. MastCell 00:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Considering the past (recent) history between Aatomic1 and Alison (Alison placing Aatomic1 under probation under the terms of "The Troubles" ArbCom, and Aatomic1's protests after the fact), this is rather WP:POINTy, don't you think? I've tried to provide him with the propler place to complain if he wants (the Arb Talk Page).. but.. well.. you see what's going on. SirFozzie (talk) 00:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Any can read the timestamps. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Static IP persistently vandalising after expiry of block

• 208.108.81.37 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 00:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The 24h block expired November 10 2007, and it is a shared IP (see the IP's talk page). — Edokter • Talk • 01:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

User:5dsddddd

Hello. 5dsddddd has made an unblock request. He was blocked for making a disruptive sock puppet. He says that he will "I will help translate articles. (english -bulgarien ). I will fight vandalism and also review articles. I will help stop sockpuppetry and assume good faith."

There's a few problems I have with this. Before his block, he did his share of vandal fighting. And although he states he wants to crack down on sock puppetry, he appears to be using a sock puppet 69.113.203.57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) himself. Perhaps another admin could weigh in on this? Thanks. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 01:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

My impression of the original unblock request could probably be summed up quickly: neither particularly hopeful, nor particularly hopeless -- sort of a nether spot where I'm not entirely comfortable unblocking or leaving them blocked, at least not without more discussion. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

To be honest I think the 1 week block is fair. Considering that the account is blocked for 3 more days, if someone wants to unblock feel free. -- lucasbfr 11:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Cityscape

A vandal moved Cityscape to a nonsensical title, a move which I reverted. However, I believe two identical page histories now exist, one with the spurious title. Maybe someone can remedy this? Thanks, JNW (talk) 02:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Nope, sometimes there are problems with the display of the page history after a page move or a history merge. Setting the history length to anything other than the default of 50 usually fixes this problem. However I've deleted the redirect. Graham87 02:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! JNW (talk) 02:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at this...

Recently, I filed an SSP case against a user. This evening, upon returning to Wiki, I see that the case has been closed by one Ember of Light. I've checked the list of admins, he / she is not on it. First question: shouldn't this SSP case have been closed by an admin? Secondly, the SSP template was removed from the puppetmaster userpage. Second question: shouldn't the template's resulting "confirmed" page have been updated to reflect the additional confirmed sockpuppet instead? Next, there is absolutely no indication that either user has been blocked, however Ember of Light states that the puppetmaster account has been blocked for a week. (Please see Talk page discussion, and the archived case at EoL states the user blocked for a week. Could an admin that is experienced with the particulars of closing an SSP case please take a look at this? On the face of it, this looks like the case was closed by someone inexperienced in dealing with these instances... Edit Centric (talk) 03:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Last time I'm doing this: Talk:Waterboarding (again)

Tonight's reading of total warfare:

First read: Talk:Waterboarding#New_rules_for_this_article

Second read (next section down): Talk:Waterboarding#Violation_of_new_rules_on_Waterboarding

I expect this to end up at Arbcom in 1-2 weeks in a major politically motivated mess if something isn't done. I have no idea what needs to be done. I'm very sorry if people are sick about reading about this; I'm not going to touch that page again myself. It's a complete madhouse now from crazy IPs and SPAs. Lawrence Cohen 03:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I'm going to piggyback on MastCell's suggestion above for Neutral Good. Would there be a general suggestion to set three-five NEUTRAL administrators (one who have not posted on the article) who would be willing to act as monitors for this article, say till the end of Feb 08? Let's say any monitor can place any particular edit-warrior or incivil account on probation, to be defined as 1 Revert per week on Waterboarding and any article that can relate to waterboarding, as well as civility parole? If some one on probation continues to edit war, then they can be topic banned or blocked. I'm willing to volunteer, but there needs to be consensus on this. SirFozzie (talk) 03:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I won't object to anything up to and including riding crop beatings at this point, to be frank, and will only watch that page. I pre-authorize ANY admin to block me 5 minutes as a reminder if I post on Waterboarding or any talk pages under it between now and the 2008 Elections are over here in the US. I really want nothing to do with it again. I would also recommend this parole thing for the article and related pages to last until November 4 2008, by the way. Lawrence Cohen 03:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I've returned the article to full protection again after only 5 hours. When (if?) the article next comes off full protect it needs heavy oversight by the rougest of admins. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I think SirFozzie is on the right track. I wouldn't oppose his suggestion, but the problem with appointing "neutral" admins to arbitrate is that inevitably they will get sucked in to the dispute. I don't think we need a protracted course of hand-wringing here. In a bar fight, the bouncers don't wait for consensus to develop and for the combatants to agree on a neutral set of referees. They just grab people, starting with what appear to be the worst offenders, and eject them to go home and sober up. I've given my reasons for starting with Neutral Good (talk · contribs). But s/he is obviously not the sole problem, and if it becomes apparent in his absence that someone else has taken over the role, then we can go from there. Also, 3 months away from waterboarding is not, pardon the expression, torture. Misplaced Pages is full of things to do. Work on something else for awhile, then come back. Anyhow, that's my 2 cents. MastCell 03:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, protecting gives us some breathing space to discuss how to make work on the article more productive. Of course, you can't *actually* work on a protected article, so when the time comes to let consensus do its work again, the article will have to be unprotected. <scratches head>

So the "new" (actually very old) rules don't look too bad. Those might help. Also, splitting out the controversial material from the article might sound like a bad idea, but it might help as a temporary solution. That way you can have a pretty solid article about waterboarding before 2001, and we can later figure out a way to include information from 21st century sources, once people are done fighting over it.

Does that make any kind of sense?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 04:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh man. Why aren't we just throwing them into an arena? One side can be the Jets and the other the Sharks. Best dance number gets their way? ...no? then how about heading to ArbCom, and ULTRA-LIBERALLY topic blocking all involved, including the mystery IP. This is as bad as the Irsaeli-Palestinian Conflict mess, which has also made it to ArbCom. I think community patience withe POV warriors of all stripes is wearing thin. This is as serious an issue as is the constant litany of excuses and policy-wonking that gets some editors 50 to 100 chances to get away with bloody murder, and I suspect we've got three or four major issues that should also go to ArbCom. I kind of wish we could have a consensus by polling page, where we could get registered editors to vote on things like " per these 10 sources, Waterboarding is Torture, per these 10 sources, waterboarding is just plain silly fun. Waterboarding is A) torture, B) silly fun, C) a disease caught from tacos.

Really, this needs the long term examination of a group of serious, trusted, generally outsider editors, which is what ArbCom is. ThuranX (talk) 04:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not in favor of jamming to arbcom, though I consider the recent influx of arbiters to be fantastic. But I happen to believe a firm application of wikipedia policy fixes the problem without any need for rancor or appeal to any higher authority. If I have a blind spot that is making me silly in all of this it is simply that I really believe that the fix is already found in policy.

With regard to outside editors something interesting happened. A group like that did look at the article. Although not trusted, they were reasonable and took a serious look. They came up with a solution to the core issue. They came up with this. I found it interesting in that it would require everyone to bend and I thought of the old hack about compromise -- a solution that makes everyone equally unhappy.

I have thought about mediation, but I despair that it would not work. Some people are not willing to consider any alternatives to their perfect ideal. There is no way that they will compromise. I think the fastest way to get consensus would be to ban anyone who refused to consider various alternative wordings. If the only editors left were people who ... while retaining their views, were also open to alternative wordings (and compromise) the article might be workable. --Blue Tie (talk) 04:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm open to an experiment of that nature. We'll have to try some things out sooner or later, right?

Since people don't typically enjoy being banned on an experimental basis :-P, It should be made easy for anyone so banned to get themselves unbanned again after a short period of time for review.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 04:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

And if any old group of uninvolved folks can't get anything to move, even though they certainly COULD have socked in a new consensus, (and we're glad they didn't), then there's really nothing left but ArbCom. as to "the recent influx of arbiters" we're getting dismissed left right and center, be the editors like myself, or admins. It doesn't matter WHAT happens. There are some editors who refuse to see waterboarding as torture. Why we can't get a simple solution is beyond me. The 'controversy' section title, as edited by Black Kite, seemed a great approach, as it could detail the US government's position on the issue, and how that has changed since it was considered torture. We could detail how the US Gov't now describes the differences. But we can;'t even get that. This (article) is circular, pointless, and aimless. Let's get Arbcom here. ThuranX (talk) 04:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Read this, posting a diff because it'll get archived sooner or later. The problem is that both sides fundamentally see NPOV differently. Unless we get everyone and their second cousin to watchlist this, and weigh in on the NPOV matters, and the true, real way of how NPOV should be is held up by everyone with no way around it (either way, "is or isn't torture"), this will never end without arbitration since people are digging in deeply with political stances. It's an absurd binary question, based on sourcing. Is it, or isn't it? If the US conservative POV has more weight, it isn't. If the global, sourced historical worldview has weight, it is. Neither side is willing to give an inch, and the various uncivil people are just making everyone go round the bend, making things worse and unproductive. Lawrence Cohen 07:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I too came to this article as an uninvolved admin. See Talk:Waterboarding#Protection. It is becoming more obvious that the only way of fixing this problem is via ArbCom, who, especially with the newly elected arbs, I have every faith will see through the fog created by a number of users.BLACKKITE 07:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow I had it on my watchlist and was meaning to keep an eye on it, since I knew it would remain a mess, but that really getting ugly now... And that's probably a sock fest. Since I think any controversial measures will be contested up to arbcom anyway, it might be a good idea to launch the case. -- lucasbfr 09:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I have now done so. WP:RFAR#Waterboarding henrik•talk 11:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

User mixtape-review-board

Mixtape-review-board appears to be a sockpuppet of mixtapes. The evidence is on talk:DJ Emir. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonwatson69 (talk • contribs) 03:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Request for rollback review

• El_Greco (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi) | give rollback

I fight vandalism on a daily basis. Atleast half of my edits on a daily basis are unduing some sort of vandalism. _{El Greco} 00:17, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this, you have a 3RR block from September. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

 Not done Visit WP:ANI and get consensus, and this will be done. GDonato (talk) 00:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment for review I don't think a 3RR I had with an IP user, who unfortunately got on my nerves should be the deciding factor in RFR. How many users haven't had an encounter with 3RR? I've cooled off since then and will discuss any content related issues. I felt there were too many photos on the Athens page (sort of making it look like a tourist advertisement) and the IP user disagreed, but in the process which spun into a 3RR the IP user kept reverting actual edits, and that's basically what happened. As per my reason above, I fight vandalism on a daily basis. Atleast half of my daily edits are some sort of vandalism related, and I watchlist 1,200 articles (so I can see a lot of it). I mean the first thing I do when I log on to Misplaced Pages is check my watchlist for vandalized pages. _{El Greco} 03:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, the rollback tool is about judgment, and rightly or wrongly there are some users who question yours. My advice: sit it out for a while, ask again later. - Philippe | Talk 03:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

(u)The block was back in September, El Greco's explained what went on, and, appears to understand how to handle the situation in the future. Also, I've looked through a couple pages of El Greco's contribs, and, they seem to use "Undo" just fine. I see no reason to withhold rollback. SQL 12:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Consensus discussion ignored

At: Chris Crocker (Internet celebrity) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article came off full protect today and not long after, Reginmund (talk · contribs) removed a section that he has been quite uncivilly fighting on the article's talk page to remove and which is why the article was on full protect in the first place. The consensus discussion on this particular section he keeps removing has not reached a consensus but he took it upon himself to remove it anyway as soon as the article was finally unprotected, and when he did so, he cited "no concensus". As I understand it, content is not to be removed until a consensus is reached and the discussion closed, which is not the case here. This diff is where he removed the content after the article was unprotected. This diff is where I restored the content because the consensus discussion was still ongoing. This diff is where he has removed the content again.

An admin needs to restore the content pending the outcome of the consensus discussion and I feel the article should go back on full protection. -- ALLSTARecho 04:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

So you're saying is that the article is currently The Wrong Version (tm)? Admins are not empowered to rule on content disputes. FCYTravis (talk) 05:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The article is in fact unprotected since 09:12, 9 January 2008. -- lucasbfr 11:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

IP user being problematic

This isn't really vandalism, so I brought it here and not WP:AIV. There is an IP user, 24.59.103.158 (talk · contribs), that continues to revert edits of other users, and refuses to engage in any talk page discussion, despite repeated attempts to do so. The issue is largely around the article American football. Several users collaborated at the talk page, and decided to make changes to the article. These changes represent a full consensus at the talk page, and this IP user simply reverts them without edit summary or comment. Good faith would at first indicate that the user disagrees with the changes, but despite MANY attempts to get them to take it to the talk page, they simply refuse to do so. What can be done? Can an IP address be blocked for this? Its usually not more than 3 times per day, but it is still disruptive and has been going on for several days now.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I already submitted this user to WP:AIAV. Some users have to be blocked for a very short time just to get them to notice that they have a talk page. -- kainaw™ 04:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Also - as far as I care a violation of the 3-revert rule is vandalism. -- kainaw™ 05:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

He's still at it. I continue to leave messages at his talk page, and I don't want to get nailed for a 3RR myself, but this is getting annoying. What can be done about this? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears he has a 24-hour block now. -- kainaw™ 05:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe that will get his attention. I would still like to keep this "on the record"; this users has shown this behavior over several days, he may continue the same behavior once the block expires. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

user Countdowncafe

I am not sure whether this is the right place to report this. Countdowncafe is adding external links to articles which are pointing to his own site. This is clearly against Misplaced Pages:El#Advertising_and_conflicts_of_interest. The importance of the links which the user is adding is being debated at ]. He is basically adding links to movie trailers on a movie article. I tried talking to the user on his talk page but was not able to convince him. Can someone help me in getting him to follow the policy?. Thanks. Anshuk (talk) 04:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Alfred Legrand

This user has major problems keeping things civil and avoiding personal attacks. He just left this on my talk page. In addition he has been leaving uncivil remarks and personal attacks on User:ImmortalGoddezz talk page. I believe he deserves an immediate block. Please see Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#uncivility.2Fattacks for more info. Bstone (talk) 05:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the notability of R.S. Wenocur (the subject of an article whose deletion seems to have led to this mess) but, I fully endorse a block. Alfred's been warned many more times (9? 10?) than regular vandals without any sign of improvement. --Kyoko 05:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The user has been indefinitely blocked. -- ALLSTARecho 05:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

There is already a thread about this user, related issues and possible sockpuppetry above. Mathsci (talk) 13:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

User:86.162.214.179 reverting my edits to Tony Hawk's Project 8

Basically, in the article, someone put that 2 extra skaters, Neversoft Mascot and Voodoo Doll are available on the XBOX 360, however, I have the game, fully beaten and they aren't there. Then User:86.162.214.179 came along and re-added back in. I asked him not to revert my edits, but he's done it twice now, so I figured I'd report him here. 70.49.204.73 (talk) 06:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Ehud Lesar

User:Ehud Lesar was blocked, then unblocked, and then reblocked for allegations of being a sock of temporarily banned User:AdilBaguirov. The block was made on arbitrary basis, without a single proof supporting such allegations, just because some admins believe that the 2 users might be related. However checkuser showed no relation between these 2 users: I don't think that permanently blocking people without any reliable evidence is appropriate. I would like to ask for independent investigation of this situation. I believe that before blocking people some sort of an official investigation should be conducted to verify any connections between the two accounts. However this was not done, and this block is highly questionable. Thanks. Grandmaster (talk) 07:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser cannot prove a negative. This report is worth a look. (I speak this neutrally). Durova 11:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

But that report cannot be a proof of anything. It is just a collection of unrelated diffs, put together with an obvious purpose. Has anyone tried contacting Ehud and verifying his actual personality? I just received a communication from Ehud, he told me that he is willing to provide any information that admins may require to ascertain that he is a real person, not related to Adil in any way. Grandmaster (talk) 11:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Also note that Fedayee's accusations were rejected by the admins at WP:AE board: Grandmaster (talk) 11:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Liite Buddhism

Article tagged with AfD and that has been removed.Awotter (talk) 09:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The deleting user was warned on her/his talk page. If it doesn't happen again, I'd say let the matter drop. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 10:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Article was G12ed. -- lucasbfr 10:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

And recreated as Local Church of Witness Lee, it appears. Pairadox (talk) 11:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Can someone else have a look at this? The copyvio and self-admitted OR problems are the same, but I would like to have someone else review this matter (I deleted the article the first two times). Kusma (talk) 11:06, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Unless we doubt his story that the blog's his, I don't see a speedy rationale. I've opened an AfD for the new page; if it results in deletion, any future clones can be G4'd. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 11:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Local Church of Witness Lee, if you're interested. MER-C 11:27, 10 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)

(Restored from archive, still hoping for some help.) - jc37 11:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Heliac

• Heliac (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi) | give rollback

I'm an avid vandalism patroller, who has been forced into early retirement by recent developments in popups that make them broken in internet explorer 6, my browser of choice. This new privillage would allow me return to wikipedia. I promise never to use it abusuively. thank you--Heliac (talk) 12:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

• Whilst I take your comments on board about your browser, I am nervous that you have made no edits at all in around seven months. Reversion is not the only thing to do. I am concerned that you will have sufficent policy/process knowledge due to your apparent extended break. This is not an out and out decline however, and I would appreciate other admin input. Pedro :  Chat  12:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

 Not done extended break only just returned. Gnangarra 13:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Where does it say that's a valid reason to decline? all you're doing by setting this precident is encouraging anon vandalism, by showing them what rediculous hoops you have to jump through to get an effective, internet explorer 6 compatible revision tool.--Heliac (talk) 13:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Alas, there isn't really a lot of hard and fast policy associated with this process at the moment. The best I can advise is to take this thread to WP:ANI for a further review. Sorry. Pedro :  Chat  13:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Edits from today ( ) leave me with little faith in your ability to use this tool correctly. John Reaves 13:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the concern here is that a user's recent contribution history (say, 3-6 months, per the talk page) is what admins review in granting or declining Rollback tools. In this case, unfortunately, there is not much in that time period to review. As Pedro rightly notes, there isn't much firm policy on the matter, either. My recommendation, and this is purely as a non-admin, would be for you to edit without the tool for a while, showing that not only are you back for good, but that you are familiar enough with policy to properly deal with vandalism. Then, I'd re-request, and see what happens. Best, UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 13:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Echoing John's comment, above, I'd note further that IP edits are not always vandalism, and that you should show that you are exercising due diligence in making sure that you are reverting vandalism, and that your reversion properly removes the vandalism (instead of keeping it, as with this edit). UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 13:56, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Whilst I stated originally that my comments were not an "out and out decline" I'm afraid that the diff's given by John would harden my position in delcining. I do understand the browser issue, but that is not enough reason IMHO. Sorry. Pedro :  Chat  —Preceding comment was added at 14:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

DYK late

It's way late again and we have a big backlog, which means that more users are missing out on promotions. Any chance someone here could post it? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 13:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Blocking User:UzEE on Checkuser findings

I usually directly block, but the check is 4 days old and I fear this might be taken as punitive if there is no discussion beforehand. User:UzEE was reported at WP:RFCU by User:Smsarmad for vandalizing his, and an other user's page. (case). Where it gets interesting, is that User:Smsarmad was blocked for a week at the end of December for oh wait abusing multiple accounts after being reported by User:UzEE (RFCU case). My guts tell me to block User:UzEE also for a week, but I'd like to have your opinion first. -- lucasbfr 13:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Note: Previous ANI case about this issue -- lucasbfr 13:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment - Well all I would say is that I would abide the decision of the board. UzEE (Talk • Contribs) 14:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

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