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Nichalp's move of Burma to Myanmar

On May 12, Nichalp launched a straw poll on the issue of whether the article Burma should be moved to Myanmar (despite the fact that numerous previous straw polls and discussions within the past year had shown the community to be evenly divided on the issue). At the conclusion of the straw poll, it was evident that opinion was still evenly divided. The numerical result of the poll was 16 opposed, 17 in favor. More importantly, both sides were still strongly entrenched in their positions and both sides presented numerous opinions and facts in support of their side and how it related to Misplaced Pages policies. No unbiased reading of the debate could interpret it as anything other than evenly divided. One week after opening the "straw poll", with neither side moving any closer to consensus, Nichalp unilaterally decided that one side's arguments were more "clear and logical" than the other. He then used his administrative power to move the article (which had been protected against moves) despite the fact that there was clearly no consensus to do so. I believe this is a clear abuse of administrative powers and the move should be reverted by another admin. I would do so myself, but I voted in the straw poll, and thus have a conflict of interest. Kaldari (talk) 16:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

This move is long overdue and the original move to Burma had more anomalies than this bold and to be applauded move edit; lack of consensus should clearly mean the article stays at Myanmar and should never have been moved to Burma in the first place, a move which never had consensus either. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Note that Nichalp didn't just move the article, he invited the community to debate the issue and then ignored the debate to implement his own opinion. Such behavior is extremely insulting to the people who participated in that debate in good faith. Kaldari (talk) 17:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Kaldari you seem to contradict your own words. If people participated in the debate in good faith, then there would be a quite a few of them (over half of the people who have expressed opinion) that the name should be changed. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

'Be aware that Misplaced Pages is not a democracy: A straw poll is not a binding vote, or a way to beat dissenters over the head with the will of the majority. If a large number of people support one option but some don't, this doesn't mean that that's the "outcome".'HalfShadow 17:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, there was no "outcome" of this debate other than the fact that the community is strongly and nearly equally divided on the issue. Thus, no action should have been taken. As this was already well known from previous debates and polls, I can't see this "straw poll" as anything other than a pretense. If Nichalp was going to move the article regardless of the debate, it was not acting in good faith to initiate and advertise the debate in the first place. Kaldari (talk) 17:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, according to your own post, one more person was for moving than against, which sort of defeats your own argument. HalfShadow 17:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, debating first sounds like good faith to me, and no more of an insult than to those in the original debate whose views were also not complied with (and I dont believe either move insulted anyone of us wikiepdian editors). Thanks, SqueakBox 17:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make a right. Kaldari (talk) 17:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Kaldari, you assume that I used the straw poll to effect the page move. Unfortunately no. The straw poll was created to summarize the salient points of each editor for or against the name. I've said that in the poll itself. Please stop misinterpreting my poll. Rational points were given more merit than simple 'keep' statements. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:22, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess that makes my points irrational! You sound just like my beloved spouse, Nichalp. (Sadly, I lose all those arguments!). :-) --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 19:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that proper process was not followed in this case since there was no attempt made by Nichalp to negotiate or arrive at a consensus. He choose to stay out of the debate, even though his position is own well known when, as per Misplaced Pages:Consensus he should have participated in the debate and tried to negotiate or build a consensus. As a matter of practical fact, an alternative suggestion (separate Burma and Myanmar articles divided historically as in the case of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) was receiving some attention and could have emerged as a consensus solution when Nichalp unilaterally renamed the page. I've seen some of User:Nichalp's work elsewhere, have no doubt that he has the best interests of wikipedia in mind and refuse to believe that he acted in bad faith, but do feel that this action should be reversed and taken to WP:RM where it properly belongs. In the final analysis, Misplaced Pages lives and thrives on our (the editors) faith that due process will be followed in giving weight to our opinions and edits and, while Misplaced Pages can live with the possibility of an imperfectly named article, it cannot live with a breakdown in that faith. Thanks! --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 17:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd echo the view expressed by RegentsPark. I returned to the page today after viewing it yesterday pre-move and was very surprised to see such a politically-charged change being made on such slender grounds, especially while compromises were still unexplored. Webmink (talk) 17:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this move appears to be skirting process, but I don't really see that there's anything to be done about it. The article is really in the right place now -- like it or not (and I think that the "government" in Myanmar/Burma has absolutely 0 legitimacy), the name of the nation is both de jure (the UN recognizes the name) and de facto (Google has more than twice as many hits for "Myanmar") what the government changed it to. We shouldn't undo an out-of-process move that will restore something that is less correct. It would be as wrong as moving Ho Chi Minh City to Saigon, even though there are doubtless many Vietnamese who resent calling it that.

I think Regents Park's suggestion to have two separate articles, one for pre-1962 "Burma" and one for post-1962 "Myanmar, formerly known as Burma" (since it was until 1989). - Revolving Bugbear 18:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That was the unexplored compromise to which I was referring, yes. Both pages should link to Names of Burma which documents the origin and nature of the dispute well. - Webmink (talk) 18:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I commend Nichalp for this exceptional admin action. It is high time that the powers that be of wikipedia did something about situations like this where two opposing factions have equal votes but only one faction's arguments are in tune with Wiki policies and guidelines and the other faction knows it. Arguably, it should be a no-brainer, but the other faction is able to filibuster forever claiming "there is no consensus". Yes, "there is no consensus" would apply if it was a simple vote. Thankfully, it isnt. And if you disregarded the ILIKEIT, IDONTLIKEIT and DONT_LEGITIMIZE_THE_JUNTA votes, not only was there a consensus, but an overwhelming consensus to move it. So overwhelming, a bot would have moved it. Seriously! Sarvagnya 18:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The sad thing, Sarvagnya, is that an interesting alternative proposal was emerging and it could have formed the basis for consensus. On the whole, the discussion was remarkably civil, as wikipedia discussions go, with almost no edit warring. It might feel good to be triumphant and have your views codified in wikipedia, but do remember that wikipedia is an organism, each editor is equally valuable, and riding roughshod over a group of committed editors without even a token attempt at dialogue is not the way to keep this organism healthy. Sometimes, the means are more important than the ends. Thanks for your comments though. They are very instructive. Regards. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 18:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There are absolutely no grounds for this action by User:Nichalp. He moved the article bypassing the thoroughly discussed move proposal we had back in October (which was even praised by User:Jimbo Wales for being so civil and constructive) and bypassing the closing admin User:Duja who closed it as consensus to move to Burma. I contacted Nichalp and expressed my disagreement with his unilateral action. He explained that he acted against the entire process because he was allowed to thanks to WP:IAR, and that there was a straw poll somewhere that was mentioned at WP:CBB which, according to Nichalp, would be a more relevant place for advertising the discussion than WP:RM. He also says that he analyzed consensus in order to justify his action. I am quite shocked not only by his action, but also by his apparent refusal to acknowledge such a blatant violation of the process. Nichalp effectively reverted the in-process action of admin Duja who moved the article to "Burma", basing his decision to move the article back to "Myanmar" on a consensus that not only does not exist, as would not be valid even if it existed somewhere, because most of the community was deliberately left outside the process. Controversial move proposals have to go through process in order to legitimize any results, and that is only through WP:RM and a proper section on the article's main talk page. Not through an obscure subpage, advertised on an obscure bulletin. And certainly, not for someone who is not neutral on the matter to suddenly call it quits and enforce a page move. I am disappointed with Nichalp and request feedback on his action. Húsönd 19:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

AND, should I also add that this article was move-protected? Húsönd 19:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The subpage you refer to isnt/wasnt as obscure as you claim it to be. I only recently entered the discussions about the article name and I had no difficulty whatsoever finding the subpage. It is advertised right at the top of the main talk page. Anybody with an opinion on the issue would come to the article's talk page and the talk page would lead them to the appropriate subpage. Sarvagnya 19:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

While I, who have been discussing this for ages, didn't know about it. Users don't have to be watchlisting every single subpage of that article. Move proposals happen on the main talk page. Unless you have something to hide. Húsönd 20:00, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• This is just further reason why many regular editors do not trust the "powers-that-be" here. Nichalp decided that what he (and those agreeing with him by a 17-16 margin) overrode the WP reliance on consensus. Amazingly bad admin action on a move-protected page. Classic misuse of admin tools. Bellwether _C 20:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Husond's move back

I am not convinced that reverting Nichalp's move is wise. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I've just expressed my dismay on Husond's talkpage. Though I think Nichalp's action would have been better based on a fresh consensus-finding exercise, his analysis of the arguments was persuasive. That said, the discussion could have been signposted at WP:RM and Nichalp should have asked someone uninvolved to asses the result. Ideally, I would have thought a fresh discussion about the appropriate title for the article a sensible way to proceed. Given that Husond suggest Nichalp's action was a de facto wheel war, I am astounded that he has decided to reverse the move on a move protected page. I expect to see such behaviour from rather more hot-headed admins and seeing so rash an action in this case is, to say the least, unexpected. WjBscribe 00:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

With due respect, I think Nichalp's actions were unwarranted because he did not actively seek a consensus and moved a protected page. Nichalp should have reversed his move as soon as he found out that the page was move protected because that should be a no-no for any admin, but he did not. I think Husond has done the right thing. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 00:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Husond has reverted his move, acknowledging that his error, for which I am grateful. Now another admin, who was also involved in previous discussions about the page's name , MJCdetroit has moved the page. This is getting ridiculous. I am at a loss as to how to deal with the number of admins who feel there is an immediate need to move this move protected page. Block them/ ask ArbCom to desysop them? Both actions seem a little extreme but this situation is rather out of hand.... WjBscribe 01:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Wheel war

I'd appreciate opinions so we can nip a situation in the bud before it gets worse. If you check the move logs (Burma, Myanmar) of the two pages, you'll see that Nichalp moved Burma to Myanmar after a discussion that could probably be seen as no consensus for a move, yet he instigated the discussion so was clearly involved. Husond later moved it back to Burma, yet after concern, he was honourable enough to move it back. MJCdetroit has decided to once again move it back to the Burma title. yet, he has also been involved in the talk page discussion, opposing the ealier move. Now, this wouldn't normally be too bad, but it's been move protected all along, so only admins can move the page - yet we've still had a move war over this, by people that are clearly involved. Any thoughts on how to solve this? Ryan Postlethwaite 02:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, this is a situation that shouldn't have happened in the first place, by not being started. Nichalp should have measured the consequences of his unilateral move. That's not what WP:IAR is for, I am quite disturbed that he found grounds on that particular policy to excuse his move. I think it's only natural that admins will come and revert him. He did something wrong, others will fix if he's not willing to. I think that the only solution is to call on Nichalp to reflect on his actions today. If he acknowledges that he was wrong, then everything's fine. It doesn't cost a cent to realize and fix our own mistakes on Misplaced Pages. But if he doesn't, well, I think the biggest concern is on him who could not ponder the consequences of reserving the right to determine consensus all by himself and going against process. Húsönd 02:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• With status quo being "Burma", the most recent move(s) back to that seem much more logical and supportable than Nichalp's. Bellwether _C 02:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that the first thing to do is to make things as they were before Nichalp moved the article. For three reasons. First, because almost everybody believes that there was no consensus. Second, because Nichalp did not seek a consensus or attempt a negotiation. And, third, because any admin action on a protected page should be immediately reverted if that admin has not first sought consensus on the Admin notice board. Then, we should do what Nichalp should have done in the first place. Try to figure out where people lie on the various alternative scenarios proposed (Burma, Myanmar, split Burma & Myanmar), see which editors are not totally fixed on either end of the continuum and work something out in this middle ground. Most of us, IMHO (and I could be naive), are willing to live with any title provided it is not thrust upon us - I certainly am. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 02:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I support Husönd's action, Nichalp not only misrepresented the view of the "pro-Burma" camp and did a unilateral move, he refused to engage in any serious discussion about it. There is a flaw in the system. If English Misplaced Pages have a procedure for removing admin status, I don't think this would have happened.--Amban (talk) 02:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, people keep saying that Nichalp did not try and seek a consensus for the move: what is this Talk:Burma/Myanmar#Straw poll if not an attempt to seek a consensus? Perhaps that discussion should have been better advertised and perhaps Nichalp should have asked someone else to close it but at least he was up until that point uninvolved in this dispute. Husond and MJCdetroit (the admins who have moved the page back to Burma) were both involved in past discussions and strongly advocated Burma as the correct title. They are not only moving a protected page without further consensus but doing so when they are involved in the dispute. I find their conduct far more problematic than Nichalp's. WjBscribe 02:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I think Nichalp tried to seek a consensus, failed to generate one, and then decided to move the page anyway. It's difficult not to consider him involved in the dispute because I don't find it plausible that a person without a strong personal preference would have closed the debate in this fashion. Overall I support the move back under the general principle that in the case of poor/disputed admin action it is best to work from the original status quo rather than allowing the party at fault to effectively have their way. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

WJBscribe, I disagree with your view that the straw poll was an attempt to seek consensus. One cannot seek consensus by being uninvolved in the discussion. Building a consensus requires actively participating in the discussion, drawing out the different views, building bridges, and trying to work toward a solution. Starting a straw poll with the statement that the purpose is not to really do anything, disappearing for a while, returning and the unilaterally moving the page is not an attempt to seek consensus. I'm frankly surprised and disappointed that an admin and a bureaucrat would do such a thing and even more surprised and disappointed that other admins would not immediately revert that action. Frankly, I'm even more disappointed that Nichalp himself hasn't resolved the issue by returning the page to the Burma name. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 10:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have seen this kind of behavior before, and my conclusion is that admins wouldn't be so bold if they knew that their status were up for renewal every year, as is the case in other versions of Misplaced Pages. The relevant straw poll completely eluded me by the way, so I can't say this was very well advertised either. I have never seen this kind of behavior in other versions of Misplaced Pages and something is wrong in English Misplaced Pages, you'd better find a way to fix it. Asian-related pages have become soap boxes of different POVs to such an extent that it is pointless getting involved and sharing your knowledge and I have ceased to be involved in most of what is going on, because it is insane.--Amban (talk) 03:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

This is just not the comment I was expecting from you. You find our actions more problematic than Nichalp's?! How can fixing a blatant mistake, an abuse of the tools, complete trampling of process and consensus, be more problematic than a blatant mistake, an abuse of the admin tools, complete trampling of process and consensus? I am very, very disturbed by your opinion. In my view, mistakes exist only to be acknowledged and fixed. Húsönd 03:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Husond, I really think you need to take a step back. One of the things I have found most troubling is that you seem to be unable to look at this situation calmly - a sure sign you are too involved to be acting as an administrator here. I don't see the "blatant mistake" or "abuse of the tools" that you do, I'm sorry. Yes, I think Nichalp could have done a better job of advertising the discussion and that he wasn't the ideal closer of that discussion but I do not think his actions constitute an abuse of the tools. You seem unwilling to accept any view other than that Nichalp was totally wrong - I'm sorry but there are to my mind more shades of grey here. Yes, it could have been done better but I see no abuse so shocking that it needed to be reverted immediately by someone as involved as you are. If Nichalp's actions were so terrible, do you not think someone uninvolved would have undone them in the time between you posting about it to this board and deciding to undo them yourself? WjBscribe 03:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It's an unfortunate trap we fall into, believing that out-of-process actions are so serious that they require immediate fixing. Especially as it relates to actions requiring admin privileges, it's best to go ahead and take things slowly, even what's been done seems totally outrageous (obviously, I'm not talking about any thoroughly uncontroversial actions, such as reversing a move to "HEIMSTERN IS GAY!"). Fights between admins (between anyone, but especially admins) are seriously damaging to our community and we need to be willing to take things like this slowly and not let our shock and even anger take us to fights like this. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I reverted my move action per WP:UNINVOLVED, which leaves the page back to the move of Nichalp (Burma-->Myanmar) and back to the community to decide if that move has merit. —MJCdetroit 03:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Moving forwards

OK, aside from recriminations about who was right or wrong to move the page when, there remains the question of what title this article should be at. I propose that we set aside a page for a request for comment on this issue alone. Flag it up as widely as possible so as to attract as many users as possible who have not been involved in these disputes before. The discussion can run for a couple of weeks and be closed by someone who will assess the consensus. That person (or persons if necessary) should be generally agreed to be neutral and people should willing to accept their determination. I propose something along the lines of:

Misplaced Pages:Request for Comment/Myanmar vs Burma

This approach was successful in resolving the naming dispute over the city of Danzig/Gdansk, see Talk:Gdansk/Vote. A debate can be had an reviewed by neutral editors who can then form a view as to which arguments are more persuasive. Thoughts? Is this a sensible way to proceed? It seems clear that the usually processes have failed to resolve this dispute, with various discussions coming to different conclusions. This really needs to be settled finally. WjBscribe 03:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately the quite likely outcome of any discussion is an absence of settlement. So the real question is, do we enact an arbitrary settlement, or preserve the status quo (and which status quo?). The thing that makes Nichalp's action particularly troubling is that it smacks of an attempt to frame the debate around a new status quo, knowing well the fact that consensus for any change of the status quo is unlikely (as he was well aware, from the straw poll he has just conducted). Christopher Parham (talk) 03:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the status quo needs to be removed as a factor here for the very reason that we'd have difficulty deciding which status quo. My hope is that if we advertise this discussion as widely as possible and beg those who have never heard of this issue to read up on the arguments and come to an opinion, there will actually be a consensus one way or the other. I agree that the situation is problematic if neither there remains no consensus at the end of the new discussion. As a slightly flippant idea, if there is no agreement perhaps we should have the article at Burma for half of each year and at Myanmar for the other half... WjBscribe 04:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately removing the issue of the status quo from the discussion is next to impossible. At the very least, the page has to exist while the discussion you propose is taking place - at what title? The issue also faces the problem with any protection situation in that the side whose preferred version is hard-coded in place has little incentive to make a genuine resolution of the dispute. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

"at what title?" -- Make it simple, like an international politician would do it: Move the article to "Country_at_22N_95E", and create four links to this article: Burma / Myanmar, Myanmar / Burma, Myanmar, and Burma. That still won't satisfy people because they will say the article name starts with C which is closer to B so Burma is obviously being favored. I think that the strong of heart could probably ignore that during the naming discussion. Loren.wilton (talk) 04:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

What problem exists with Regent's idea of a Burma page for the preJunta nation, and a Myanmar for the PostJunta nation? Neutrally written articles about both will make the history and situations clear to all involved. Those who are (rightfully) morally opposed to the sadists ripping off the Burmese people will find even the driest writing of the events since the takeover makes clear what monsters be there. Such clarity will be available to all readers, who will then be free to form an opinion. It's an issue where it's very hard to form a pro-myanmar view, even while carefully following NPOV. Facts can speak for themselves. I support a split solution, and if this goes to such a RfC as mentioned above ,please copy and paste this there, or at least notify me abvout such a page, and I'll do it myself. ThuranX (talk) 04:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

What really needs fixing

What is really at issue here is not the name of the article, it is the manner in which the article was moved. Thus, WJBScribe's proposal for an RFC on the name of the problem is addressing the wrong issue. It is useful to step back and take a look at the facts, the nature of wikipedia, and, this last bit is subjective, what appears to be transpiring here. The facts are straightforward. Before these events began to unfold, there was an existing consensus on the article and there was no significant edit warring. Then User:Nichalp, who has previously expressed his dissatisfaction with the move from Myanmar to Burma, started a straw poll on the subpage of the talk page. He clearly indicated that the straw poll was not for decision making and did not advertise the poll on the main talk page (User:BaronGrackle did that later) or in other forums (though he did so on a community notice board after a suggestion was made). He did not participate in the discussion. He did not try to build a consensus. A vibrant and largely civil discussion was taking place and alternatives that could have formed the basis for an acceptable solution were emerging. It was at this point that he then moved the page (which was move protected with an edit summary explicitly requesting any move requests be taken to WP:RM). This is a clear out of process action and, intended or not, implicitly contains the bad faith assumption that the editors on the other side are unreasonable people and there is no point in talking to them.

If an ordinary editor (such as myself) had done a similar thing, a similar page would be full of admins demanding a block, reverting the move, and generally tossing around "off with his head" suggestions. That is not happening here apparently because a bureaucrat is involved. However, the fact that it is a bureaucrat that is implying bad faith (it hurts, trust me) and making an out of process move, it is the integrity of the process that is at question because, if the move is not reversed, it will appears that ordinary rules of behavior do not apply to bureaucrats. Am I to assume, for example, that it is a waste of time to argue an editing decision when a bureaucrat is involved? Since none of us have endless time, should we be constantly checking the position in the wikipedia hierarchy of each user we deal with when editing?

Misplaced Pages is one of the most creative undertakings for organizing human knowledge that I have seen but, any undertaking is only as good as its processes and, when the integrity of that process is open to question, it is best to quickly fix things. Ideally, User:Nichalp should himself make a good faith reversal of the move but that seems unlikely now and he seems to be on a wikibreak anyway. I understand that it is not easy to take on the political risk associated with examining and reverting an editing action made by a bureaucrat, but a debate and some action here is worth considering. It is my naive hope that an admin will treat this as important enough to move the article back.

I continue to believe that User:Nichalp has the best interests of Misplaced Pages at heart and believes that the original move was wrong under WP:CSB. But, just as an elected official in a democratic country should not take the law in his or her own hands, a bureaucrat should resist the temptation to do so. Frankly, I can live reasonably happily with a page titled Myanmar. It is much harder though to live with the realization that rules and laws are not applied uniformly or that citizens are not treated with equally. The proper place to build consensus is on the talk page of the article, and Nichalp should have first attempted to do that.

Perhaps I am naive and Misplaced Pages is no different from, say, Encyclopedia Britannica where editorial decisions lie in the hands of a few editors. Perhaps I have just learned an important wikilesson on what really lies behind WP:NBD. I apologize for any unintentional harshness but I think it is usually better to, politely, say what you think. And, if you've read this boring piece to the end, thanks for the patience! --Regents Park (Chase my ducks) 13:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

What the RfC does do is try to separate the issue of content from that of conduct, which you're addressing here. That is no bad thing. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 14:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that. However, what I'm trying to say is that if conduct is not addressed first, then content cannot be meaningfully addressed because the process continues to be broken and a broken process cannot effectively address content. --Regents Park (Chase my ducks) 14:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I also believe that Nichalp has the best interests of Misplaced Pages at heart, however, I am dismayed at his decision to act unilaterally and I believe it was a mistake on his part. Because some of the people who were supporting keeping the article at "Burma" were raising issues that had nothing to do with policy, I think Nichalp was able to convince himself that the entire pro-Burma camp was not worth taking seriously. The fact is, both sides have compelling policy-based arguments in their favor (and lots of arguments that have nothing to do with policy). The outside-of-policy pro-Burma arguments should have been challenged by Nichalp if he believed them to be irrational. Instead he simply used them to dismiss everyone on that side of the argument. That is not seeking consensus, that is acting like a dictator (benevolent or not). I believe that Nichalp's action should be reversed until the naming matter is better resolved. However, I would not support taking further action against Nichalp, as I believe he was not intending to create a problem, he was just acting naively. Kaldari (talk) 16:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I second RegentsPark's excellent analysis, that's precisely what I think. User:Christopher Parham also accurately synthesized the situation at User talk:WJBscribe . Nichalp has excused his action with his right to use WP:IAR and his right to determine consensus all by himself, and WJBscribe insists in dismissing the controversy by focusing on the reaction to Nichalp's move, not on that very move itself which after all caused all of this, thereby condoning it. WJBscribe insists that only an uninvolved admin should revert Nichalp. Almost everyone agrees that Nichalp's move was wrong and violated both process and consensus, but days are passing and no uninvolved admin seems to be willing to revert it. Treating this like a dead raccoon is obviously a good way to avoid a possible confrontation with a bureaucrat, but from so many hundreds of admins who vowed to respect and comply with community consensus, I was hoping to see at least one or two come forth and stand against a blatant violation of the very core of Misplaced Pages. Húsönd 17:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The meaning of consensus is debated in this case. 08:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Meanwhile

Please move the page back to the previously held status quo (Burma) pending further dispute resolution. Administrators should feel free to revert other administrators who seek to be disruptive. There's nothing really more to say. --Dragon695 (talk) 19:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I supported "Burma" in the straw poll, but have only made two comments. Am I sufficiently uninvolved to move it back to Burma? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally I think so. But I don't think others would agree. Húsönd 21:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

At the very least, I am tempted to undo the multiple moves made by User:MethMan47 to propagate this change across other Burma/Myanmar related pages; given the level of dispute over changing just the main article, it was unwise to take that change as a basis for making many other changes, all of which are going to be disputed for the same reason. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Editors who feel this is a case of "two wrongs"

How many of us feel that, even though we agree with the outcome of the move to Myanmar, and even though we feel the October move was without consensus... the recent move was also done through questionable means? I'd support a revert; but I'd also like a similar process to be done, this time on a more well-advertised page and with a more disinterested editor closing it. How do the other Myanmar-namers feel? -BaronGrackle (talk) 21:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I recall one or two unsuccessful move proposals that were intended to move the article back to Myanmar following the October move. Húsönd 22:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you recall "one or two" because the first was squashed as a speedy close—it was proposed on the belief that the October move had been done without consensus; unfortunately, the Myanmar-namers went about the process the wrong way, and now many editors falsely perceive "Burma" as some sort of long-established status quo on Misplaced Pages. The second attempt you recall was allowed to exist because time had passed since October. The "Burma" majority (majority, not consensus) that had previously been galvanized by the atrocities against the monks had by this point completely vaporized. A moderator closed the poll at "no consensus" when Burma was ahead by one vote, after which it was revealed that one of the votes had been a typo meant for Myanmar; so there was an exact tie, with more votes trying to come in after the close.
I feel confident, however, that if a disinterested moderator were to look at any of these surveys, from October to today, he or she would find that while there are exceptions, the vast majority of Burma-namers voted explicitly for reasons that are contrary to Misplaced Pages policy. I feel he/she would reach conclusions similar to Nichalp's and be inclined to make a similar decision. However, since Nichalp was the one who made that decision, we have this new disagreement. That is why I'd support a similar process to be repeated; so this can actually be a consensus, instead of making it so that Burma-namers will repeat the same arguments Myanmar-namers have voiced since October. -BaronGrackle (talk) 22:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It was "squashed as a speedy close" just like any other move proposal that is created right after the closure of another proposal simply because one side is not satisfied. That side is welcome to request comment on the adequacy of the closer's decision, but not to attempt a counter-move proposal. That's just WP:POINT disruption. A period of at least one month, preferably two, is strongly recommended between move proposals. I totally support a new move proposal to verify the arguments from both sides, but it would have to be a proper move proposal. Not a subpage straw poll closed by the its proponent, who happens to be not that unbiased after all, and who will stick to WP:IAR in order to bypass consensus. Húsönd 23:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

{{fact}} This is the English Misplaced Pages. The correct policy is to use the English name. Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom use the name Myanmar. Myanmar is the phonetic spelling of the ethnic language name of the country, but we don't use ethnic language namings as names, otherwise Germany would be named Deutschland. That is all that matters, the stuff about the Junta is tangential to the issue, really. --Dragon695 (talk) 23:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Erm, let's leave that for the talk page of the article. The subject here is not which name is right and which is wrong, but Nichalp's inappropriate move. Húsönd 23:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Response from Nichalp

First, sorry for the delay in replying. I had internet connectivity problems. I'm also sorry this had to spiral out of control.

1. Next, there is a mention of the fact that I have abused the admin tools to move a protected page. Let me clarify that when I moved the page, there was NO alert that the page was protected. So, I moved the page without the knowledge that it was protected. This should end the debate to speculation.
2. About not listing it in WP:RM: This is what it says on RM: In some situations, the value of a move may be under dispute, and discussion is necessary in order to reach a consensus. There is no obligation to list such move requests here; discussions of page moves can always be carried out at the article's talk page without adding an entry. This page may be seen as a place to advertise move debates that would benefit from wider community input, or for users to request assistance from administrators in moving pages. -- As per this statement on the RM page, please do show me where I have contravened such a policy.
3. As I have listed out my reasoning for the move.
4. What is under debate is the methodologies I used to determine consensus, and the way we need to proceed forward to resolve such issues.
5. Since this has spiralled to such an ugly issue, I think that the best way forward is to revert the my move (done already) and start the debate afresh and have a set deadline. I have no issues with starting afresh provided that:
6. The closing admin arbitrates on fact, logic and wikipedia policies, and not just numbers and emotion.
7. As involved party in this dispute, I recuse myself from suggesting any further. However I do wish that my comments are mulled over.

=Nichalp «Talk»= 08:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Your move hasn't been reverted, which I think is likely to cast a pall over any attempt to move forward. I would suggest that you revert it yourself pending the further discussion. Christopher Parham (talk) 12:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well I've been seeing the article on Burma since morning. check log The log shows that it has been moved from Myanmar to Burma. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It's currently at Myanmar; the most recent log entry is here. The Myanmar log only shows half the story, the other half is in the Burma log. (Move logs entries stay with the title, not the page being moved.) Christopher Parham (talk) 14:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Solutions?

Instead of the bickering about the move change that is past I propose we move forward in the following manner to resolve the issue:

1. Set up an uninvolved three-member committee (a single person would be accused of bias) experienced in closing contentious debates.
2. Open up the debate. Set a finite date for closure. (1 month is suggested above)
3. List it on WP:CBB, and WP:RM, and the talk page of Burma/Myanmar. (satisfies the criteria for all)
4. The outcome of the debate would be to determine which of the two names gets the article title, rather than a consensus to determine an appropriate page move. Else the outcome cannot be said to be neutral as consensus to move a page is more difficult to achieve given the current status quo climate.
5. For the outcome to be neutral, the committee decides on the fact, logic and adherence to wikipedia policies and conventions, not numbers and emotions. They have to file a report at the end of the month and allow 2-3 days feedback from the community before closing it.
6. From what I have seen, two wikipedia policies are up for debate (common name vs naming conventions)

Do let me know if this is favourable to all sides? =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

At the very least the poll ought to have been on the talk page of the article not on some other page, It is a long standing custom that changes to the page are discussed on the articles talk page not on some other page.

It is also customary that if a move is made with WP:RM that a move back must be made with a WP:RM request. Therefore I am going to move the page back and if you wish to move it again then please put in a WP:RM request. As WP:RM says "If there is a clear consensus after , the request will be closed and acted upon. If not, the administrator may choose to re-list the request to allow time for consensus to develop, or close it as "no consensus"."

If you wish to change the WP:NC before putting the page up for a move, then go ahead and have a debate on that page first. But until such time as there is another WP:RM request and there is a consensus to move the page the page should remain at Burma. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The fundamental problem is the name of the article. For a RM, a clear consensus to move the page needs to be present. So, to establish consensus for a page move, the side advocating it would be at a clear disadvantage. This so much so because filibusters from the keep side of either name will always prevent the name from being changed. I'm ok with article anyname so as long the end result is not decided as per the RM procedures as that would give a distinct advantage to one side. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that if consensus either way is impossible to reach - which it may be, if compromise is not feasible and community opinion is evenly divided - an alternative process is needed to determine the best solution, though I don't know at this time what the best process would be. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

(Response to Nichalp's proposed solution) I think that the article talk page is still the best place to seek a consensus. But, it needs to be moved back to Burma first (preferably by Nichalp so that there is appropriate closure). --Regents Park (Chase my ducks) 14:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The Problem with any "Solution"

Nichalp, the problem is that you made the move and NOW you want to have a neutral third party, and go through the correct process. AFTER you already made your move! What a joke! Now Husond is obviously over reacted and I think being almost uncivil in his attacks against you, but at the core he is right. After you make the move you want to do the right thing, but why not before? Revert your move and then enact your "solution"

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm seeing the article at Burma/Myanmar log log =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Should have read this first. Apologies. Nichalp, the article is still at Myanmar. I'm not sure what the log is showing (perhaps the redirect page, no that doesn't make sense) but, I think, everyone is waiting for you. --Regents Park (Chase my ducks) 14:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Box Benefits

Not 100% sure what is happening but as I understand it the issue is around sockpuppetry.

I'd appreciate an admin having a look at the history between "Baseball Guy", I HATE CAPTCHAS, etc. and Libr0 as the userpage of the above user is currently accusing the account of being a sock of Libr0 and may in fact be being used the userpage as a battleground. I can't locate any current SSP case against Libr0 to merit the tag nor can I find the I HATE CAPTCHAS SSP case that existed previously.

A bit of wikidrama perhaps but, one that is relatively easily resolved (my limited experience says) depending on what the outcome of SSP case(s) was/were. Thanks. Jasynnash2 (talk) 07:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Having had the misfortune to be involved in that, Libro0 accused I HATE CAPTCHAS of being a sock puppet, and got him banned for that. I'm still not completely convinced he was. During the argument between Libro0 and IHC, Baseball Guy appeared and edited some of the same articles. Libro0 immediately accused him of being a sock. I don't recall that being proven. IHC then accused Libro0 of being a sock based on a misinterpreted comment. Box Benefits wandered by and so was also summarily accused of being a sock. In the end I believe everyone had accused everyone else of being socks.

I'd really like to see a checkuser on all of these guys and sort out who (if any) really are socks and who aren't, and put the whole thing to bed. Loren.wilton (talk) 09:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I Hate CAPTCHAS (talk · contribs) was blocked as sockpuppeteer, two other socks were blocked (as Spotteddogsdotorg socks) but checkuser would be useful to confirm whether the more recent accounts, which have not been blocked, are sockpuppets. The relevant sockpuppetry cases were Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/I Hate CAPTCHAS and Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Bolly Nickers. --Snigbrook 18:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

At least five users appear to be socks, including Baseball Card Guy, it wouldn't surprise me if more accounts had been created. Probably time for another case to be created at WP:SSP (or maybe take it to WP:RFCU) if it continues. --Snigbrook 15:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Liguria

Would appreciate some advice on possible copyvio uploads by Liguria (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The user is uploading duplicate copies of an image for use on the article Khmer sculpture. The initial upload was stated to have come from an art catalog, but when the copyright status of that was questioned the user began uploading duplicate copies claiming {{PD-self}}. Every time a copy is deleted or the status of a new copy is questioned, the user simply uploads a new copy with a different name. I've tried to communicate with the user but get no response. Kelly 14:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I've been communicating with the user. It seems like this user is quite overly zealous to get their images on wikipedia. One is currently as "possibly unfree images", and I have told the user to wait for the outcome of that discussion. The other one came from the Italian Misplaced Pages, and seems fine as {{PD-art}}. I'm going to mark this as resolved, but if other editors want to examine the situation, or monitor for future uploads from the account, please feel free to help!-Andrew c  22:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The user is continuing to upload copyright violations despite warnings and discussion. Kelly 16:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Flurry of apparently related anonymous (possible open proxy) edits

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I perceive a large amount of anonymous editing -- from IPs that I suspect to be open proxies -- on pages related to Westchester County, New York and on pages edited by users who have edited in Westchester County articles, and I believe that these edits are part of the ongoing campaign of disruption by blocked user and confirmed puppetmaster Jvolkblum. Jvolkblum has earlier been confirmed or suspected of editing from open proxies; similar behavior to what I'm describing led to the blocking of Special:Contributions/203.162.2.137. Here are some specifics:

• Special:Contributions/210.2.128.106 - Anonymous user of an IP registered in Pakistan who has recently developed an intense interest in the affluent suburban enclave Wykagyl, New York and opposing the deletion of a New Rochelle, New York-related article created and tended by sockpuppets of JVolkblum (article edit history).
• Special:Contributions/222.240.212.17 - Anonymous user of an IP registered in China whose interests and esoteric knowledge of New Rochelle closely mirror those of the user above.
• Special:Contributions/189.60.13.41 - Anonymous user of an IP that may be registered in Brazil but appears to be an open proxy, whose editing interests are (1) arguing about issues related to the zip code of Wykagyl, New York, and (2) adding "citation needed" templates (including the format {{CN}} that has been favored by Jvolkblum and his socks) to articles for Tennessee cities and towns that have nothing in common other than appearing on the list of my last 500 or so edits.
• Special:Contributions/203.81.238.4 - Anonymous user of another IP registered in Pakistan whose edit history is exclusively focused on adding citation needed templates to various other Tennessee cities and towns where I have edited recently.
• Special:Contributions/210.212.86.165 - Anonymous user of an IP registered in India whose only edit was to revert an edit by User:BlueAzure in Wykagyl, New York‎.
• Special:Contributions/122.50.167.233 - Anonymous user of another IP registered in India whose edits have focused on documenting that various notable people graduated from New Rochelle High School.

I have trouble accepting that people from distant parts of the world have developed a sudden interest in wealthy suburban enclaves of New York City, with a side fascination with adding improvement templates to articles for Tennessee cities and towns... --Orlady (talk) 17:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Another is Special:Contributions/124.36.28.100, IP in Japan whose only two edits have been to restore content previously added by Jvolkblum puppets. --Orlady (talk) 17:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

COMMENT - You have noted quite a number of edits, none of which appear counterproductive or particularly malicious as you are claiming. Everyone can contribute to Misplaced Pages, regardless of whether they choose to register. If the edits were vandalous acts, investigation and admonishment of the IPs would be justifiable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.95.10.229 (talk) 18:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC) — 201.95.10.229 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

I guess it's complete coincidence that the above IP has been editing articles for Tennessee cities and towns (see Special:Contributions/201.95.10.229) as well, and from Brazil no less! Wildthing61476 (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

On the subject of coincidences, Special:Contributions/83.43.189.147, apparently in Spain, is another brand-new anonymous contributor who is determined to add a high density of "fact" tags in Tennessee geographic articles (specifically in the Tri-Cities metro area). In response to the comment by that anonymous user from Brazil who says none of those edits appear counterproductive, I note that some of the edits, particularly in Wykagyl, New York, would have been interpreted as edit warring if they had involved a single contributor, instead of multiple IPs. Furthermore, I don't believe that festooning articles with "citation needed" templates is generally regarded as productive activity (and even when only one such template is added to a short article, it can look rather pointless, as in Olympus, Tennessee). I believe these edits are Jvolkblum editing from open proxies with the goal of disrupting Misplaced Pages and harassing those Misplaced Pages contributors who took issue with the more damaging forms of vandalism committed by Jvolkblum and puppets. --Orlady (talk) 20:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Now an anonymous IP user (Special:Contributions/82.119.123.188), apparently in Slovakia, has started a series of edits to Kingsport, Tennessee, adding one "citation needed" template in each edit. (The article needs more citations, but the choice of places to add these templates is arbitrary, not correlated with the places where sources are particularly needed.) --Orlady (talk) 22:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest filing these IP addresses at WP:OP. We could thus take advantage of Jvolkblum's skill in finding open proxies, and get them added to the list of blocked proxies. Semi-protecting all the articles these IPs have targetted is another idea. For those not up on the Jvolkblum issues, see Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Jvolkblum and Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Jvolkblum (7th). EdJohnston (talk) 04:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I filed these addresses at WP:OP, and the bot that performed the checks found them to be clear. I'm puzzled by this result though. Some of the links in the bot reports that I checked (I did not look at all of them) indicate that some of these IPs are blacklisted as spam sources and others are blacklisted as open proxies. Additionally, another user reports that he ran port checks and found some issues. --Orlady (talk) 16:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

ClueBot can't detect certain types of proxies, so it is very possible for him to throw out a false-positive. -Jéské 17:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: Peter zhou's Socks, China, and Names of China

reposted to bottom of page: 01:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
reposted to bottom of page: 13:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
reposted to bottom of page: 20:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

For the past year, Peter zhou or whatever alias he goes by, has been creating a large number of sockpuppets, most of them "sleepers". To this day, I believe that over 150-200 socks have been uncovered (through your neighbourhood-friendly checkuser and through his own choosing - aka his sock edits, usually we find them by the shipload) and blocked. About 6 months ago, I indef protected (expiry date later set at 2008-07-17T04:02:12 (UTC) by User:CBM) both the China and Names of China articles to prevent Peter zhou from using his socks to disrupt the articles. Unfortunately, four months later, my fellow sysops such as User:Doc glasgow (who has now scrambled his password and is assumed to be retired...iunno) and User:Happy-melon decided that the move was "ridiculous", and unprotected the articles (I understand why they did it, so I'm not holding a grudge against them). As soon as they did that, guess who showed up. Thats right: Peter zhou. Clearly the whole WP:RBI simply does not work with this individual. A more permanent solutions needs to be created, as I am the only sysop at this moment (other that User:Alison who is the neighbourhood-friendly checkuser I was talking about and blocks some of the ones she can find and User:SchmuckyTheCat who is very helpful in reverting him - but doesn't have the blocking tool) blocking the sockpuppets of Peter zhou. This is becoming very frustrating as it seems that there is no end to the sockpuppetry. So at this point in time I am asking the community's help and for suggestions on how to deal with this situation. nat.utoronto 20:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

If the IP is blocked how can this individual create new accounts? I thought that wasn't possible. Badagnani (talk) 20:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

He uses several IP ranges which cannot be ranged block as there will be way too much collateral. nat.utoronto 20:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That seems an awfully large hole through which mischievous editors may game our system. How has such a situation been handled in the past? Badagnani (talk) 20:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Usually, it seems that such concerns here simply wind up with 'shit happens, keep working hard.' ThuranX (talk) 23:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

(EC with above, reply to Badagnani) Usually by semiprotecting the article, then playing whack-a-mole with the socks when they come out of the drawer. Its tedious, but not much else can be done where the rangeblock becomes prohibitively large... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 23:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I went and looked, and this entire thing started with a content dispute about whether or not to include a connotation of the Mandarin name of China preferred since the start of Communist China; a period of over 50 years and supported with sources. Why it's impossible to find a compromise is beyond me, but it should've been done then. It looks like most of this fight was between two users. What a stupid waste of everyone's time. Why doesn't someone open Peter's talk page and work something out there? Let him know he's got one opportunity to work this out as a compromise, or else he can move on, but persistent vandalism will eventually result in some of these big ranges being blocked, and that's that. This kid gloves approach is showing itself to be a big pile of horseshit, because it doesn't stop the vandals, and it doesn't allow compromise to be found. It's ridiculous. ThuranX (talk) 23:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

From what I have read about this user's conduct, I would not support giving him a 151st chance, or whatever number it is by now. Badagnani (talk) 23:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, ThuranX, is that this started way before I got involved in using my sysop tools to block his socks. As well, he's blown his chances already. The problem doesn't quite stem from the fact that he wishes to change the content but his past attitude toward other people, as well as the fact that he has consistantly violated WP:SOCK even after been told not to. This situation has led me to full protect the page a few months ago, although certain people disagree with that move and through me the WP:RBI book at me (which clearly doesn't work on him). And seriously, this is much worse than the time when I had to deal with User:TingMing.

To be clear, what I would prefer is a reinitialization of the full protection until such time that PZ would stop creating hoards of sleeper socks, but then again, I'm sure some people out there would disagree with such an action. nat.utoronto 01:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, since we can't perma full articles, you're just gonna have to either whack-a-sock forever, or figure somethign out. That said, this section can be closed, nothing the admins can do here. ThuranX (talk) 03:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

ThuranX, there have been several attempts to communicate with this fellow both before and after. At first he would talk, but then he just became belligerent when called on the lack of quality in his sourcing. His only edit seems to be sourced, but that source is not reliable - particularly compared to what we currently have as sources. The sourcing is to a writer of throwaway travel/language/etiquette guides who also seems to think himself a martial arts expert. Compare that to multiple academic sources and the sourcing doesn't stand up at all.

WP:ANI is not the place to discuss the conflict between the most accurate translation and the most common translation. His edit doesn't do it either. All this guy does, and has been doing for months is come back with throwaway socks and re-make the same edit.

IMHO, we need someone with CU that will take the IPs and access log information and contact someone at the ISP. Not a throwaway ignored email to abuse, but an actual contact. It's either that or someone is going to block a /16. Last time someone did that and blocked every Kinkos, Starbucks, and all of T-mobile. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Well, those are the available options. Figure out how to work with the guy, whackamole, or block the chain cafes. fine by me, i'm not playing whack-a-mole with the guy. But perhaps instead of obstructing his edit, enable it. Help him find some reliable sources for that. Challenge him to find a different source. It's up to you how, but if you all want it to stop, you're gonna have to work with him in some fashion. Otherwise, reconcile yourself to one of the two other options. ThuranX (talk) 04:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

"Mr. ISP customer service representative? Yes, hello, I'm from Misplaced Pages. I'm a CheckUser on Misplaced Pages, as a matter of fact, you see, and... nono, a Check User. C-H-E-C-- yes, yes. No, haha, I know you don't service the Czech Republic. See, Mr. ISP guy, a CheckUser has been run, and it seems that one of your customers continues to insert incorrect information into our 💕 that anybody can edit. We have access logs for the past six months, and we were wondering if maybe you'd like to comb through them and-- well, yes, I understand sir, you're a very bus-- well, uh, no, sir, no real law has been-- yes, I understand, sir... I was just thinking that maybe-- ah. Uh... well... sorry for wasting your time, sir-- no, I don't need a free trial CD, thanks anyway." --Badger Drink (talk) 03:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Nat, please block the entire range. When someone asks why as it causes huge collateral damage, you can point to the non-helpful responses to this ANI thread. This was brought up, maybe several times, several months ago on ANI as well. Months of this is long enough. Playing whack-a-mole with sockpuppets for a year when no other admins take an interest is what causes burnout. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Sorry, but I don't have the ranges that Peter zhou operates on. That information is limited to the checkusers only. What we need is more sysops watching the articles China and Names of China as well as checkusers that are specifically dedicated to weeding out these socks. nat.utoronto 14:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

What I am also trying to say is that there is only one sysop and one checkuser (who is also a sysop) to deal with this sockmaster. And we are definitely not "super computer people" and don't have the energy or the time to be constantly monitoring the articles 24/7. nat.utoronto 15:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not an admin, but I will put the pages in question on my watchlist and will help out with reversion and sock-reporting when I can.

What is up with ThuranX's dismissive attitude? It is clear Nat and Schmucky have already done their homework and have come here in desperation for additional ideas. For the sake of argument, let's even assume that Peter zhou is right, and that his sources are reliable -- this kind of remarkably persistent abuse of sockpuppet accounts is terribly damaging to the project, and even if we could make a compromise with this guy (which seems doubtful based on N & S's descriptions) it would set a bad precedent: "If you get in a content dispute and people won't compromise, all you need to do is keep creating socks and wait out any full protection on the page, and eventually they'll be willing to make a deal."

I don't think full protection is the answer, but Schmucky's idea of trying to contact the ISP is good. It may not work, but it's at least worth a shot, I think... --Jaysweet (talk) 14:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Zhou's sock's edits are so WP:DUCKy, I don't see why a CU would be necessary for doing the blocks. I wonder if we could get a consensus-agreed page that basically says, "If a user makes this particular edit, they are automatically up for indef banning as a zhou sock, and a report to WP:AIV is sufficient." That way at least, non-admins like me could get the socks quickly and efficiently blocked...? --Jaysweet (talk) 14:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

A CU is not needed to make blocks, but are needed to weed out the ones that are "being saved for later use". nat.utoronto 15:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Okay, so if I see this happen, should I report to WP:AIV, or WP:SSP? The latter seems to take a while to get serviced, so I'd rather use AIV. And if so, what should I say? If there's only been one edit -- and not an obvious vandal edit at first glance -- it will be hard to convince an admin to block unless there is a concise page I can point to? --Jaysweet (talk) 15:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the slowness of SSP and the "not vandalism" single-minded response are both failures of those noticeboards. I suppose using SSP is a good idea, eventually someone will get around to it. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

My attitude is based on the fact that Misplaced Pages policy is currently insufficient to deal with this sort of problem, and most content disputes are resolved through long discussions. Further, the 'even if he's right, he broke a rule so he must be banned and ignored' attitude gets this project far more shit than accolades, and until we get down to the business of facts and figuring out which facts to use, instead of bullshitting the bureaucracy game, we won't get far. I suspect there's a simple compromise solution that Peter Zhou would accept if asked, because socking for months gets tiring. I'd suggest unprotecting his talk, and just asking the guy how the two sides can resolve this. I would, and have, suggested blocking huge ranges, but it's not going to happen. So as I said before, current policy gives you two realistic options. Suffer forever, or keep trying to get him to realize his current source is shitty, and help him find a good one. If no good one exists, then you've got better graounds to keep out his edit, at which point he transistions from 'good intentions, bad style' editor, to outright griefer vandal. At that point, you send him to grawp, and move on. ThuranX (talk) 21:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

An approach I've used at evolution to deal with Tile join sockpuppets was to create the unprotected Talk:Evolution/draft article and fully-protect the main article. That way anybody can edit the draft, but only admins can transfer these edits to the main article. See a discussion of how this has worked in practice here. This is a temporary solution until flagged revisions arrives, but you could try this with China. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

May I ask why someone feels it is necessary to keep reposting this section at the bottom of the page? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't do the reposting, but I assume it's because the person who did wants to actually get this resolved. It's not unusual for unresolved threads to drift up the page and get ignored and finally archived without discussions reaching a logical conclusion. --71.205.224.78 (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the bot archives based on time of last post, not on location. Moving to the bottom doesn't change that. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, Nat (geez, that sounds weird coming from my mouth), I'll watchlist the articles and help out. I remember Peter and how persistent he can be. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 21:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Heimstern!...I mean Nat...lmao.... nat.utoronto 02:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Tee hee. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Solution Suggestion 1

• As TimVickers has suggested, we could do the following to deal with PZ's socks:
  1. Full protect China and Names of China
  2. Create Talk:China/draft article and Talk:Names of China/draft article as an unprotected versions which could act as the buffer to which changes could be made to
  3. From there, sysops could transfer changes to the protect article

  This is a temporary solution until Misplaced Pages:Flagged revisions is implemented on English Misplaced Pages.

Comments

• Fully protecting such a high profile article as China is probably impractical and sends the wrong message. We don't do draft articles in mainspace either. Come up with something else. Exxolon (talk) 22:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Now we have the WP:IPEXEMPT ability we could hardblock the ranges he's using and unblock individual accounts who have shown to be good faith contributors. Exxolon (talk) 23:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• The autoconfirmed level has also just been changed, which could help a great deal. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

User:65.46.253.42 and User:TheMathPeople

This is a formal written request to block this ip, and this user which are probably the same. They appear to be vandal/bad cop accounts exclusively. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 23:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

There was a thread not to long ago about this. Let me see... Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive416#MathPeople... six and half a dozen, I'd say. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 17:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Personal attacks from User:Haiduc

• Makes vandalism accusation after unreliable sources (personal websites, US News and World Report to verify a scholarly claim about Shakespeare) removed:

• Is warned by another editor:

• Persists in calling edits vandalism, also calls them ignorance, persists in referring to me with male pronouns, in spite of the fact that he has been told I am female (why I don't know): -PetraSchelm (talk) 03:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Haiduc does not characterize your editing as vandalism in the third diff. In fact, he says that I "may well be right" that your changes do not constitute vandalism. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 03:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

His edit is titled "vandals" (and is grossly incivil on two other counts...) You "may well be right" isn't exactly an admission that he is in error/has violated the NPA policy..-PetraSchelm (talk) 03:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• He's also up to five reverts on Historical pederastic couples now...-PetraSchelm (talk) 03:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

  Five consecutive reverts. WP:3RR: "Consecutive reverts by the same user with no intervening edits by another user will be counted as one revert." --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 03:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

  • He's still edit warring (6 consecutive reverts)--that's why I added it here since there's no 3RR report to make. Undoing all of another's edits and calling them vandalism, and then adding additional insults at an article he thinks he WP:OWNS. -PetraSchelm (talk) 04:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Good morning. Petra, your persistent removal of material after you have been warned that it is based on the work of bona fide scholars, especially in the absence of reasoned discussion, borders on sabotage. If it is no longer viewed as vandalism by strict Misplaced Pages rules, then I apologize - I have been here a long time and have not kept up with all the changes in Misplaced Pages culture. Please do not misinterpret this statement as approval of your behavior. I am sure you recall that the last time you attacked an article on which we were both working you ended up being blocked for a week. Let's hope that this will not happen again. On the other hand, I do have to say that this time your comments have been more moderate than the last time, and you seem to be doing more research before coming to conclusions. I would like to think that you will eventually become a serious and productive editor here. In order for that to happen you will need to do even more research, and you will need to be a bit more respectful of other editors' work and responses. Haiduc (talk) 12:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You are well aware that calling another editor's edits "vandalism" is completely unacceptable. You need to stop doing several things, immediately 1) WP:OWNING a collection of articles 2) attempting to enforce the "ownership" by personally atacking editors with the audacity to challenge your "ownership" by criticicizing bad sourcing, such as personal websites and tabloid journalism used to verify scholarly claims, etc. There's a lot of OR and speculation in the articles, as well as NPOV problems. ( If I were you, I would also stop referring to me as "he," as I interpret this as misogynist.) All of the articles you think you own are going to be throroughly reviewed by me, and I have sought outside input from several Wikiprojects and noticeboards as well, and will continue to do so. If you persist in ownership behavior and personal attacks while these reviews are happening, expect to find yourself here every single time. You were blocked for a week for a "nasty personal attack," don't let it happen again. -PetraSchelm (talk) 13:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Link to discussion about dubious claims and dubious sources which Haiduc has shifted from calling "vandalism" to calling "sabotage": http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Historical_pederastic_couples#Shakespeare -PetraSchelm (talk) 14:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • And Haiduc has an unfortunate history of making ad hom attacks in lieu of arguments when reliability of sources are questioned on "his" articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Pederasty#The_.22Encyclopedia_of_Homosexuality.22:_reliable_source.3F.3F -PetraSchelm (talk) 16:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
    • All these allegations are nothing more than your personal opinion on the matter. Enhance your calm, please, you are starting to sound hysterical. --Dragon695 (talk) 23:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Just a note to indicate that I am aware of the above remarks. I decline to comment further. I will make an exception in the case of the gender issue. Petra, as you are probably aware, Misplaced Pages aliases are intrinsically ungendered, no conclusions can be drawn from them. While you are welcome to be whatever you are, I based my opinion about your probable gender on the pugnacious tone of your dialogue and your interest in articles dealing with male homosexuality. Such qualities do not a feminine countenance evoke, at least not in my mind. At any rate, I did not mean to give offense so please forgive me if my words rubbed you the wrong way. Haiduc (talk) 00:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
        • • I have an interest in articles relating to child abuse, specifically, making them more neutral against a particular lobby. You have already been told repeatedly that I am female. I could easily prove it any number of ways, by showing up at the meetup June 1 etc, but why should I have to, or anyone have to--I tell you what my gender is, and you don't call me anything else, period. Your reasoning for why I am not female is extremely sexist and offensive. It's also totally bizarre--I have yet to see anyone else on Misplaced Pages tell women they could not possibly be women, etc. It's definitely a hostile environment for women in some ways, but you are an extreme case.-PetraSchelm (talk) 01:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Rosencomet, canvassing and COI

reposted from archive to bottom of page because still unresolved: Pigman☿ 04:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Rosencomet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has apparently once again solicited off-wiki for people "to open new Misplaced Pages editor accounts" to come support him and help protect "his" articles. See the "Attempted Vote-Stacking, Again" section here. This is not the first time he has broadly appealed for help off-wiki on a large scale. I have confidential but trusted info that he did this kind of canvassing with an email to 30 people in the Fall of 2007. He has been repeatedly warned about engaging in canvassing, by multiple admins.

Despite consistent warnings from a wide variety of editors (dating from the very beginning of his time as a Misplaced Pages editor in August, 2006) about his conflict of interest in promoting the Starwood Festival, Association for Consciousness Exploration (ACE), and people he hires for these events, he has continued to engage in this behaviour. These comments and warnings are so numerous, I'm just supplying a link to his archived talk page and letting the TOC there speak for itself rather than citing specific diffs.

User:Rosencomet has been reasonably found to be (see the Starwood Arbcom finding of fact.) "...is the conceiver and a founder of ACE, the Chameleon Club, the Starwood Festival, and the WinterStar Symposium, and is both the primary event organizer and product manufacturer for ACE." (from the ACE website) He is also the executive director of ACE and he handles public relations/communications aspects of the organization. (see paragraph #4 here and the ACE website link above in this paragraph.)

Please note also that /Rosencomet personally sells books/CDs/DVDs/items at the ACE website and store. If any doubt exists about his COI, see this book excerpt with Mr. Rosenbaum's photo and compare it to this ACE CyberCatalog page. Note the caption saying "When you phone A.C.E., ...you'll probably be talking to THIS MAN" (emphasis in original.) Interestingly, since I referenced this webpage in my COI Noticeboard posting in mid-Dec. 2007, Rosenbaum's picture is no longer featured on the current version page. I had to go to the Internet Wayback Machine for a cached version from July 2007. (Unfortunately the picture doesn't seem to be in the archive cache anymore although the element properties clearly show the link to www.rosencomet.com/catalog/images/biopix/jeff.jpg.) The picture was the same in all versions of this webpage available on the Wayback machine from Dec. 2003 through July 2007 and to 20 Dec 2007 when I last accessed it. In other words, the picture of Rosenbaum (which was on this web page for at least four years previously) was changed within the month after I made reference to it in my COI statement (which Rosencomet was aware of), a strangely coincidental occurrence.

As I indicated at the top, Rosencomet's level of ownership of articles he has started or contributed to is quite high and readily apparent. Changing or deleting info in his WP:OWNed articles usually calls forth aggressive challenges from him and sometimes wikilawyering. He continues to assert that his judgment is sound concerning inserting references to his organization and events into articles.

AfDs for any articles in which he has a vested interest invariably results in new SPA accounts voicing opinions and the re-emergence of the Ekajati sockdrawer, resulting in a time drain on editors, admins and checkusers. Now he also admits that he is canvassing to affect AfDs for articles he wants to save.

Despite being warned exhaustively by editors, admins and Arbcomm, and in defiance of COI admonitions by all of the above, he rarely ventures outside his walled-garden area of interest: promoting the careers of those who appear at the Starwood Festival, or whose books and tapes he sells on the rosencomet.com website. Over his time on WP, he has has proven to be a tendentious and disruptive editor.

I have ideas about actions I'd like the community to take but I'd prefer to hear feedback and suggestions from others before I voice them. Pigman☿ 04:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Rosencomet says I misrepresented his letter asking people to become editors to vote with him. I reprinted the letter on his User Talk page in dispute of his claim of misrepresentation. He has deleted it. So, reluctantly, I reprint it here:

From: Jeff (SURNAME REDACTED) (mailto:REDACTED)

Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 2:43 PM

Subject: Misplaced Pages Cabal Alert

Dear Folks,

You are all people I have approached about helping me preserve the articles on Misplaced Pages related to individuals and subjects important to our community. If anyone receiving this has not logged in to Misplaced Pages as an editor, please do so. It's really easy, and you become one right away. But please, use a nickname rather than your own name, like almost everyone else does. Believe me, there are some people who take this stuff way to seriously, and will hassle you about your activities; plus, no one can challenge you on Point of View or Conflict of Interest issues if you remain anonymous.

If you have already become an editor, I urge you to edit...anything! Even correcting typos or grammar here and there will establish you as an editor; if you don't, when you vote on something they'll put a flag next to your name that says "this editor has provided few or no edits besides this issue", which is a way of saying that you're not really an editor, but probably just a sock-puppet (fake additional account) for some editor who wants to pad the votes. We are not doing that; you are real people, not dummy accounts.

There are two articles nominated for deletion that I'd appreciate help on. First, go to their articles, click on the words "this article's entry" in the box at the top explaining that it has been nominated for deletion. That will take you to the deletion nomination page for that article. Please register a vote to keep; to do that, you must hit "edit this page" at the top, then click your cursor right below the last person's entry and add Keep - This subject is notable enough. Keep should have three apostrophes before and after it. You can word the last part any way you want, or expand on it and say why you think so, although someone may argue with your reasoning if you do, and you may not want to keep checking back and responding. After your entry, remember to print four tildas like this (EXAMPLE REDACTED), which will add your Wiki name and entry date to the vote. If you have the time and interest, you can actually try to improve the article with new citations and data, but this stuff happens fast so first register your vote RIGHT AWAY.

The articles nominated for deletion are Dennis Chernin and Nicki Scully. Please feel free to read the articles as they presently exist first, and see if you agree that they are worthy of inclusion; I am not trying to twist your arms on any of this. I'm just trying to make sure our community has some folks looking out for our interests on Misplaced Pages and expressing their opinions. Also, there are a couple of editors who have a problem with articles either written by me or associated with Starwood, and others who have issues with Pagans, hippies, New Agers, or whatever they perceive these folks to be, and even three people working together is a lot on Misplaced Pages.

Other articles tagged as having questionable notability include Philip Carr-Gomm, Richard Kaczynski, Skip Ellison, Morwyn, Vivianne Crowley, and Chas S. Clifton. Most were tagged by the same person who nominated the other two. He also tagged Nevill Drury (if you can believe it), but retracted it for now. He succeeded in deleting the articles of Phil Farber (author of Futureritual), Pamela Ball (author of over fifteen books on New Age and magical subjects), and Halley DeVestern (who sang with Big Brother & the Holding Company the year they did Starwood). He and his little group successfully deleted the following as well: WinterStar Symposium, Jeff Rosenbaum, Victoria Ganger, and Taylor Ellwood, and tried unsuccessfully to delete Sally Morningstar and Matthew Abelson. They've also been deleting mentions of Starwood and WinterStar wherever they find them using one excuse or another.

Please feel free to contact me about any of this, either by phone: cell - (REDACTED), off - (REDACTED), or e-mail me either here or at (REDACTED).

Thanks for your interest. I will continue my efforts to keep articles about prominent members of our community present, up-to-date, and free of slander on Misplaced Pages, and monitor subjects like "witch" and "psychedelic experience" for misrepresentation. Thank you for any help you can give me.

Ad Astra, Jeff

This is a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger situation for me. I have nothing against him as a person, and I think he has done some good work here on Misplaced Pages, as well as for the Neo-Pagan community in general. I just wish he would listen more carefully to those who've tried to reason with him with regard to appropriate Misplaced Pages practices and manners. -- Davidkevin (talk) 15:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment I’m afraid this will take a while to respond to, so I will ask you to bear with me. I am also not nearly as experienced and skilled as Pigman in diffs and retrieval of text, nor can I compete with his wikilawyering, but I will just have to say my piece and improve it later as I have time.

First, the e-mail that Davidkevin posted here was a PRIVATE one to friends that was not addressed to him, and I feel it is improper for him to print it ANYWHERE without my consent. Unfortunately, someone forwarded it to him and others without asking me (for which he has apologized). It cannot be judged out of the context of numerous conversations I have had with the people it was actually sent to. I think it is unfair to include it here, and wrong of him to have posted it at all, with full knowledge that I opposed his doing so.

Second, the above statement by Pigman contains several misrepresentations. I do NOT personally sell anything. To do so, I would have to profit in some way, which I do not. I sell nothing I own, and I’m not an employee of ACE, nor am I (or anyone else in ACE) paid for the work I do. We are all volunteers. Even if I took an order over the phone for a book, to say that disqualifies me from writing or editing an article by that author would be like saying a clerk who works at the desk of a Borders or Half-Priced Bookstore can’t edit an article about any author who’s book is sold there, or artist whose CD is sold there. Worse, in fact, since he IS paid. I get nothing from editing these articles. I also do not hire speakers or acts; ACE does, by general vote of its members, one vote each.

Third, I don’t see how my e-mail can be called canvassing according to the definitions on Misplaced Pages:canvassing. It says: "Canvassing is sending messages to multiple ‘’’Wikipedians’’’ with the intent to inform them about a community discussion." It doesn’t even forbid canvassing; in fact, it has a section about how to do it if you DO canvass. The page discusses conversations with ‘’’Misplaced Pages editors’’’, not encouraging new people to become editors and get involved. Yes, I may have gone a bit far by giving specific examples of deletion nominations I disagreed with and thought my friends who I had prior conversations with would also be interested in. However, I specifically said "Please feel free to read the articles as they presently exist first, and see if you agree that they are worthy of inclusion; I am not trying to twist your arms on any of this. I'm just trying to make sure our community has some folks looking out for our interests on Misplaced Pages and expressing their opinions." This was a private conversation with people I was encouraging to become involved in Misplaced Pages, with examples of why I thought they should, and was part of a larger discussion which should NEVER have been posted without my permission on Misplaced Pages. (This is the reason I resisted being outed as to my identity by Pigman and wished to remain anonymous; I’m sure anyone aware of Newyorkbrad’s recent problems would sympathize with that, and understand why I recommended any new editors use a nickname.)

My intent, which would be clearer had this e-mail not been posted out of the context of the larger conversation I was having with the individuals I sent it to, was not to vote-stack but to get more people in the communities I relate to (such as the Neo-Pagan, magical, multi-cultural and consciousness exploration communities) involved in Misplaced Pages. I think more people in all sorts of smaller-interest communities should do so: Native Americans, Santerians, Voudon, the polyamory community, those interested in entheogens, etc etc – communities where under-representation, misrepresentation and misinformation are a problem. I felt that in this case there was a small group calling all the shots, and more people with experience and knowledge in the fields would help matters. But I did NOT want them to simply support my votes or opinions, and I told them so emphatically when I first broached the subject with them; I trusted their judgment to edit responsibly.

Fourth, I disagree with Pigman’s opinion that I should not edit any article either of an individual that has appeared at an event I have worked on, or insert a mention of a Starwood appearance or connection where it is appropriate. The arbitration did not come to that conclusion, and when I specifically asked one of the arbitrators, Fred Bauder, to "state for the record that I am not violating the arbitration, and am not disallowed to edit articles by either speakers or entertainers simply because somewhere in their appearance history there was one or more appearance at the Starwood Festival or WinterStar Symposium, events run by an organization I am a volunteer with and neither receive payment from nor hire for. I also need a statement that there is no reason I can't edit an article about a Llewellyn author." His reply was "You are welcome to edit any article, including articles about associates, provided you cite reliable sources. It is best to not rely on personal knowledge."

Fifth, the history of my interaction with Pigman shows, IMO, that he has his own POV issues with Starwood, and that while he invokes the specter of the "Ekajati sockdrawer" (none of whose actions I am responsible for), he recently went on a tagging spree with help from Mattisse, who’s many sockpuppets don’t seem to bother him in the least. Mattisse, if you recall, was a primary cause of my problems in the first place. Most of my links to the Starwood website were in response to her citation request tagging spree just days after I began editing on Misplaced Pages. She not only used sock-puppets to multiple-tag and vote-stack, she actually created fake articles and blamed them on me! (For instance, Anne Hill, Musart, and Children of Earthmaker) So Pigman called her out of retirement, so to speak, as it relates to my editing, and along with Kathryn they tagged, edited, and deletion-nominated dozens of articles I wrote in a few days. My reaction was NOT to engage in revert wars, but to ask three different arbitrators for help. (Here’s a link to the letter I sent Fred Bauder at that time. I also contacted Thatcher and Newyorkbrad)

As an example of Pigman’s POV issues concerning Starwood, he has made statements about Starwood concerning his opinions of its connection to drugs and sex (made under the guise of discussing whether mentioning youth programming was "promotional"), implying dangers to children, offering no factual material to back these slurs up. (Kathryn agreed with his statements, and she offered to pass on "info" about the same to an editor privately, away from the sight of Misplaced Pages editors observing the conflicts you two have had with me. In fact, she claimed to have "a bunch of info about this", which she characterized as "the unpublished reports of multiple friends and acquaintances over the years". She evidently doesn't mind going off-Wiki to promote her positions.) All this can be found on the Starwood Talk Page

I realize I am far from a perfect editor, but I feel that I am being judged by someone who has set himself up as if he were my parole officer, watching me all the time, and creating a hostile environment in which I sometimes overreact and beg for help from wherever I can find it. Whether it's an occult author that’s never been to Starwood or something as innocuous as Marvel Comics mutants or Turkish Taffy, I can expect an edit from Pigman or Kathryn immediately after mine. Pigman has actually set up a watchlist User:Pigman/Starwood-Rosencomet Watchlist on my editing! They still act like all I do is promote my events, when I have hardly written a new article about anyone who has been to Starwood in nearly a year. They set the bar so high, that they claim that since ACE got permission from Llewellyn Worldwide (the world’s biggest and oldest occult publisher) to reissue a few cassette tapes back in the eighties, I should not be allowed to edit any articles by ANY author who’s ever been published by Llewellyn. He deletes any mention of Starwood wherever he finds it as undue weight, even if the subject of the article posts his disagreement, as with Paul Krassner (who has been at 6 out of the last ten Starwoods, and written articles about his experiences there in The Nation Magazine, Ariana Hufington’s Blog, and High Times). Also, he treats guidelines as laws and disagreement as aggression, and ignores it when an arbitrator supports my side of a disagreement. On some complaints, Thatcher has told him more than once that what I edited was not a violation of any policy, and he has ignored it. He has even warned me against disagreements discussed on talk pages, when that’s exactly where the arbitration told me to have them.

In December I created an alphabetical sample of the kind of editing I have done since the arbitration . I include it here to show that I have NOT been aggressively editing, revert-warring, or limiting my edits to Starwood-associated articles. I will provide an update soon, showing that aside from some disagreements on certain existing Starwood mentions (mostly resulting only in discussions on talk pages and deletion nomination pages), I have not been creating new articles linked to Starwood or inserting them into articles. I have mostly been creating new articles about occult authors who have NEVER been to Starwood (like Nicholas R. Mann, Al G. Manning, Vivianne Crowley, Ed Fitch, Prem Das, Laura Huxley, Sally Morningstar, Gabrielle Roth, Dorothy Morrison, Luisah Teish, Nevill Drury, Chas S. Clifton, Morwyn, etc), and adding material to beef up articles threatened by deletion. Pigman keeps characterizing me as a big problem, aggressively and contentiously editing and disrupting Misplaced Pages. I deny that; I have had few conflicts, almost all reactions to his (and Kathryn’s) behavior towards me, mostly kept on talk pages. I have also sought help from arbitrators whenever possible, and would very much welcome any further help to deal with conflicts when they arrive. -- Rosencomet (talk) 18:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary break after really long posts

It is hard to make a single comment on all of this, but I did spend a good while reading this so I'll at least start out with something. If Rosencomet actually believes that that email is acceptable in regards to wikipedia policy, then that is problem #1. It effectively becomes a message to wikipedians because you are encouraging them to become editors, then telling them exactly how to vote in your favor. It is the ultimate bypassing of consensus. I see on the AfDs that meat puppets have arrived in response. Rosen may choose to continue doing this in the future, maybe more discreetly so we don't find out about it here...oh well. However, if you are actually defending such a thing, then this becomes a blockable offense. I will comment more later, this is just a start. I also encourage both Rosen and Pigman to condense further responses so people can actually read this. -- Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 19:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Off-wiki canvassing via private email communications is definitely sanctionable on-Wiki. See: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/CAMERA lobbying. -- Lawrence Cohen § t/e 19:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not going to defend it. I simply ask where in the canvassing rules it mentions anything about conversations with people who are not editors when you talk to them? A technicality, perhaps, but when can you forbid conversations with non-wikipedians, or sanction for them? In any event, I will certainly be more careful in the future about anything that seems to push anyone, even a non-editor, to edit in favor of a particular position. However, in the context of the prior conversations I have had with the specific people this private e-mail went to, they would tell you that I made it clear that I wanted them to edit as they saw fit and vote their conscience, not follow my direction. And I hope you are never called to task for the content of your private mail. -- Rosencomet (talk) 20:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It is wikilawyering to suggest that by mailing people who are not then contributors to become editors and to vote or edit in a certain manner is not covered by WP:CANVAS. The intent is to vote stack or otherwise disrupt the usual WP processes, and might be considered more serious as you are seeking both accounts previously unknown to the community and also suggesting how they may appear to be more neutral in their contribution history - a clear attempt to promote an agenda over the process of consensus. My opinion is that you should be indefinitely blocked for these serious matters. -- LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

We can't sanction for talking. I can mail all my employees right now to say, "Hey check out this cool article on Misplaced Pages," or to discuss Misplaced Pages issues. But as soon as I send the email that says or implies "Also, check out this debate(s) to support me or our interests", I lose in epic fashion and should be banned. You did just that--in my opinion, this is a blockable offense. We have no way of knowing now how corrupted consensus and integrity of the articles may be now, but we do know that you have at least once done this. See again: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/CAMERA lobbying. You did the same thing that CAMERA did, essentially. -- Lawrence Cohen § t/e 20:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

When Rosencomet says he has had few conflcts on Misplaced Pages, please see ], during which Rosencoment ongoing supporters User:Hanuman_Das, User:Ekajati, User:999 and subsequently others -- see: Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Ekajati -- were found to be sock puppets. I realize that by bringing this up, Rosencoment will accuse me of sock puppeting because of a screwed up episode that lasted two months some two years ago involving some of my family, never repeated. I learned from this and paid the price, including over six months of daily harassment from Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Ekajati that continued even after the Starwood Arbitration. -- Mattisse (Talk) 21:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

* Addendum: Nearly all the above mentioned sock puppets were almost exclusively editing Rosencomet/Star Festival articles, voting in those articles' AFD's, etc. -- Mattisse (Talk) 16:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Go here, click here, vote keep...lose in epic fashion, indeed. I'm tempted to make a joke about the email being a copyvio - it certainly is a textbook example of canvassing. -- SHEFFIELDSTEEL 21:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It's no joke. Copyright vests to the authors of the email, which was sent privately to private individuals. The author of the email has noted above that he has not given permission for its reproduction. The fact that another individual violated the copyright and sent the email w/o permission to several mailing lists does not mean that the email can now be freely reproduced w/o permission from its author. I thought Misplaced Pages admins were much more savvy about copyright than to violate and then joke about it like this. 70.243.80.195 (talk) 11:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

(undent)Since some opinions have been expressed, I might as well say I also consider it a blockable offence as well. I have to say even I am surprised at the specificity of Rosencomet's letter above concerning actions to be taken. I suspected as much but didn't have that info when I brought it here. I also see that Rosencomet's real world identity has (mostly) been redacted above. Since this info was already explicitly established as part of a public Arbcom case and is extremely pertinent to COI issues, I didn't see it as an issue of "outing" but perhaps my judgment is flawed in this case. In any event, I don't think I can block Rosencomet due to my lengthy and extensive interactions with him. If there is a general consensus for blocking him, someone else will have to push the button. Cheers, Pigman☿ 23:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

After viewing the input of editors so far, I feel that enough have expressed their opinions that what I did was a violation of the policies against canvassing. I must apologize for having done so. I can only say that I did not read it that way, and was unaware of the Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/CAMERA lobbying case (though I've got to say that comparing that case to what I did is like comparing a war to an argument). I truly meant to encourage friends of mine that had expressed an interest in my stories about my work in Misplaced Pages (of which I am proud, despite my stumblings) to get involved and help improve and support articles about people and subjects important to the communities we share. I see that the way I went about it, and particularly my specific mention of articles nominated for deletion that I hoped would be kept (even though I specifically told the folks I contacted to review them and vote according to their own judgement), evidently crossed the line. Both articles have been deleted; ironically, Nicki Scully probably would have survived if not for my blundering.

I am contacting each person I sent my e-mail to and asking them to ignore it, telling them that what I did turned out to be a violation of Misplaced Pages policy, and that there is a case against me for having sent it out. I accept that I owe the Misplaced Pages community an apology, and offer one sincerely. I can only say that I felt that an undue number of articles I had created, mostly NOT related to my personal activities, were being tagged and/or nominated for deletion on notability issues, including several I thought were extremely notable, and I thought this was once again a campaign by an editor with a history of conflict with me to attack articles not because they were actually non-notable, but because I had written them. In the past, I have tried to ask arbitrators for help in such cases, and either gotten no response or, in some cases, been told that my editing was acceptable, but the editor(s) in question simply ignored the arbitrators. When I tried to get help from other editors, I was accused of canvassing. For the sake of fairness to the subjects of the articles, I had hoped that more eyes on the issue would be a help, and I have always wanted more involvement in Misplaced Pages by people from the communities these subjects are important to, so I thought sending out this e-mail was a good thing all around. However, I accept that my actions were improper, and I can only apologize, retract my e-mail from those I sent it to, and promise never to do it again.

Over the past many months, I have written many articles about individuals who are unrelated to the events I work on. I have created little or no new links to the ACE or Starwood pages, and no external links, though I have vigorously discussed the merits of deletions of existing mentions and wiki links on several talk pages and deletion nomination pages. In a very few cases, like Firesign Theatre, I followed up such a talk-page discussion with a revert of a deletion, but not more than one revert. An examination of my work since the arbitration last year will show that aside from talk pages and deletion pages, the vast majority of my work has been to either add to and improve articles (especially ones tagged or nominated) or to write new ones unconnected with my personal work. I can supply records of this if asked (and given time).

I can only hope that I will be allowed to continue to edit here. I truly believe I have been an asset to Misplaced Pages in the fields of my interests, and occasionally elsewhere. I have spent hundreds of hours just adding to bibliographies and discographies, finding citations and references, expanding and wikifying text, turning in-text notes and links into proper references, and other just plain work. I have never visited the articles of those I've had conflicts with and tagged them or treated them the way I saw myself treated; and I realize that articles don't belong to anyone, but I'm just saying that when I have had a problem it has been reactive, not proactive. I am not here to cause trouble or vandalize or disrupt, just to write and improve articles. With very few exceptions, I think my editing has improved a great deal over the last year. I sincerely hope I can continue to contribute, and I will seek to get a better understanding of Misplaced Pages policies. I hope I can get the help I need to operate appropriately and find the resources I need when an honest disagreement exists about good-faith edits, and I will refrain from ever violating canvassing policies either on or off Misplaced Pages. -- Rosencomet (talk) 17:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Recommended actions

By my reckoning, no one has defended User:Rosencomet's actions, four editors have clearly recommended a block, one editor has less clearly stated what Rosencomet did was "a textbook example of canvassing" without specifics of action and one edtitor's opinion seems unclear on actions to take. While Rosencomet's apology above is a consideration, I also note that here, Davidkevin says that Rosencomet's letter was posted to 4 Yahoo groups. This genie doesn't go back in the bottle that easily. This is not an isolated event and his actions over the past two years have generated a number of RfCs, mediations and an Arbcom case. My recommendation is a minimum three month block and if I had my druthers it would be for much longer or permanent. -- Pigman☿ 18:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Could you link to the arbcom case? -- Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 18:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Certainly. The evidence page is here. The main page is here. I'll save you the trouble of going through this rather lengthy and convoluted case and say the proposed remedy in relation to Rosencomet was the following: "Rosencomet is cautioned to avoid aggressive editing of articles when there is a question of conflict of interest. If edit warring or other conflict arises, it may be best to limit editing to talk pages." -- Pigman☿ 18:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Um, it's probably worth mentioning that I was the one who brought the case to Arbcom in the first place although you can see that many other people participated. Please also make a note of the Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Ekajati to be clear who was defending Rosencomet's actions in this case. -- Pigman☿ 18:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment I only sent the e-mail to a few friends. Only a half dozen received it, and none have expressed an intention of becoming editors. Unfortunately, one of my friends didn't understand that it was not meant for the general public, and HE forwarded it to the yahoo groups without my consent (and he has apologized), where Davidkevin read it. I have sent an e-mail to the people I originally contacted saying that my e-mail had violated wikipedia canvassing policies, and that I had apologized on wikipedia, and urging them to ignore the first e-mail. -- Rosencomet (talk) 19:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment having no one to advocate for me, I would repectfully point out that this case involves this e-mail and it's violation of wiki canvassing policies; at least, that's the only current evidence being considered. It has nothing to do with an Arbcom on activities that took place in 2006 during the first 4 months of my editing which doesn't mention canvassing once. Also, I had no knowledge of Ekajati's sockpuppets, nor were they the only editors in support of my position in the Arbcom or the two mediations that preceded it. Within days of my first edit, I found myself to be in the middle of a war between two people using an army of sockpuppets: Ekajati and Mattisse (see Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Mattisse. I didn't even know what the word meant. If you read the decisions, you'll see that it also said:

"Rosencomet was initially unaware of important Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines like reliable sources, verifiability, autobiography is discouraged, notability, and others. He has made good faith attempts to understand policy and particpated in a MEDCAB mediation over the issue of links. His editing has improved significantly and his range of editing has broadened.

Passed 4 to 0, 16:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)"

Pigman's right about one thing; it was a convoluted case decided at the end of March 2007 that covered activities starting from August 2006, and I don't think it can or should be re-tried via a snapshot now. I don't think this decision should be about everything I have ever done or been accused of doing since becoming an editor, or whether Ekajati or Mattisse had more sock-puppets, nor should that Arbcom be selectively re-hashed by the one who brought it as part of this case.

I made a serious error in sending this e-mail out. There is no question of that. But unless some objective analysis of my editing since then is conducted, I don't think the Arbcom should be mixed in here. -- Rosencomet (talk) 20:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Your editing has always been borderline tendentious and tending to promote your own interests, so that at least has not changed. -- Guy (Help!) 21:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Disclaimer: I mediated (for a while) the case that wound up at the ArbCom case.

I think a block would be, at this point, needlessly punitive. Pigman is right -- the genie doesn't go back in the bottle. Blocking Rosencomet, for any length of time, is not going to undo the damage, both realized and potential, in this incident. But it's also not going to teach Rosencomet anything that he isn't already being told by a flood of editors -- myself included -- in varying degrees of detail and empathy. And since the incident in question is one that is off-wiki in nature, a block inherently cannot be seen as preventative.

An indefblock, as suggested by Pigman above, I think is grossly inappropriate, since Rosencomet does seem to actually want to do better. Does he fall (far) short of the mark at least some of the time? Obviously, as this incident evidences, yes. But his apparent desire to be a positive Wikipedian, no matter how misplaced his efforts, makes an indefblock inappropriate.

That renders any block levied at this point in the process, after the incident is by and large over, purely punitive. And I would like to remind all involved here that we don't do that here and we shouldn't do that here.

Here are my suggested constructive solutions which would both be in keeping with policy and would help Rosencomet grow as an editor:

1. topic ban, either for a defined length of time or until marked improvement is evidenced.
2. mandatory mentorship, either for a defined length of time or until marked improvement is evidenced.

I suggest specifically that these two be simultaneous.

I, of course, welcome comments on this proposal. -- Revolving Bugbear 21:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment: I need to make it clear (and I apologize for not having made it clear already) that I am only a member of two of the four YahooGroups to which the letter was posted, and that in the two in which I saw the letter it was in fact Oberon Zell-Ravenheart who re-posted it, not Rosencomet himself. It very well may be as Rosencomet says, that it was Oberon's idea to do the reposting, not Rosencomet's -- I've known Oberon personally for 36 years and he is both a man of immense good will and also occasionally a man of impulse. I have no doubt that he thought he was doing a good turn.

Even if it was originally addressed to specific individuals and not intended for group publication, however, the letter as it is written, seen out of the context of being part of a chain of correspondence, still thoroughly appears to be an attempt to "ballot-stuff" in an edit dispute, and inappropriate by the rules under which we all are supposed to work as Wiki-editors.

Having occasionally corresponded with him, and seen some of his interactions with other editors, I don't think Rosencomet had evil intent. It appears to have been a "doofus" kind of action, something of which I don't doubt we all have been guilty at one time or another in one context or another -- Goddess knows I certainly have, both here in Misplaced Pages and in plenty of other places, too.

I agree that banning is merely punative and only grossly instructive at best. I think, with no intention of being patronizing, that mentorship is a much better solution for Rosencomet -- if I had had such, perhaps I wouldn't have made as many mistakes as I did when I first took up here.

I don't think a topicblock is appropriate as there are subjects about which he is knowledgable, where he can greatly improve articles. Under active mentorship social errors such as this current situation can be avoided, and we all win.

I wish him nothing but well. -- Davidkevin (talk) 23:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I certainly have no objection to dropping to topic ban suggestion if there is agreement that Rosencomet can trim the things that have been getting him in trouble. My suggestion for a topic ban was more out of caution than anything else -- there are some people whose patience is running extremely thin, and it would be disastrous for a boneheaded but well-intentioned move to wrench an otherwise positive mentorship. But like I said, if it's not necessary, that is of course fine. - Revolving Bugbear 23:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

(Response to Revolving Bugbear's 21:32, 16 May 2008 post above which I took far too long to write.)

With all due respect, Revolving Bugbear, I think you are wrong. Yes, a punitive block/action is never appropriate. We do not block punitively; blocks are only to protect the project, not to punish. However. I know I also weigh the editor's history (if any and if I can) leading up to any incident. This is not Rosencomet's first incident of canvassing (see from Dec. 2007). I also have concrete evidence that he sent a different email to 30 recipients (in Dec 2007, IIRC), again canvassing off-wiki for support. I can quote from that email if requested to do so but my source has requested confidentiality.

Over the many months of my interactions with Rosencomet, I have consistently provided him with polite help, links to appropriate policies and guidelines, explained situations when he was unclear about WP process or protocols, etc. I briefly explained how to provide a statement in the request for arbitration, an arbitration case I myself brought against his actions, particularly reminding him to keep it under 500 words because I was aware of his tendency to write at length. While certainly not a mentor to him, I've done my best to educate and tutor him in the mysterious ways of Misplaced Pages during our exchanges. While Rosencomet and I have often been in conflict and at odds over these months, I've always hoped he would eventually shed his ownership issues with articles and develop an understanding of WP:V and WP:RS as well as other policies.

Instead he has developed an ability to wikilawyer: to disregard policy, to ignore or creatively "reinterpret" well-established WP guidelines to serve his goals, to claim community consensus is actually a cabal organized against his work here. To put it plainly: He doesn't play well with others. That is not a blockable offense. But serial violation of the same policy, particularly when blocked for it the first time, is. Pigman☿ 00:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You are right, Pigman, you were not a mentor to him. That's what he needs -- focused, exclusive, intense guidance. With all due respect to you, and without calling your actions into question at all, you can't really expect to be instructive to someone when you are in conflict with them. Rosencomet has expressed to me that he feels that "no one is in his corner". That may be a situation of his own making, but he realizes that he needs to change the way he does things in order to be accepted and productive. That can be shown to him, but not, to take your example, by a party to an ArbCom case essentially filed against him.

What are you trying to accomplish pushing for this block? Whether or not you think he's any good at it, he clearly shows a desire to improve and to understand, so this is definitely not an indefblockable offense. So what, exactly, will this block accomplish? There is no instructive or corrective merit to a block here. What good will it do, other than to satisfy a few users who are irritated? - Revolving Bugbear 12:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I take your point. At best, I've just been courteous and occasionally helpful to Rosencomet; this is not, in any imaginable way, equal to mentorship. I can, however, take issue with "he clearly shows a desire to improve and to understand." (my emphasis) I'd say he expresses a desire to improve right here, right now, on ANI, faced with a block. Is this a failure of WP:AGF on my part? Perhaps, but as I said above, I also look at his history and explanations in relation to the canvassing. He was brought up once here at ANI for doing it on-wiki. If that was the extent, I'd be more lenient. We now have two separate instances of canvassing off-wiki that we know of. Above in this thread, he tries to wikilawyer and split hairs about whether he was really canvassing. While the CAMERA incident isn't close in scale to his known canvassing violations, it is related.

As Guy mentioned above, Rosencomet has also been a tendentious editor during his 20+ months on WP. I believe this is related to the tactics he then uses (canvassing, for example.) I agree an indef block is extreme and not appropriate. My suggestion was three months because I see such canvassing as quite antithetical to consensus on WP. His record of policy violations on WP, which includes letting others use his account, has been remarkably consequence-free for him. When caught on one thing, he stops that thing but, lo and behold, he's caught on a different violation a few months later. This is my point: He games the system by playing at being the ignorant victim. What editor of 20 months and fairly extensive WP experience doesn't know such canvassing is a policy violation? After being warned once before, four months earlier? Pigman☿ 19:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Correction In December Rosencomet was warned three times about canvassing, and referred to the relevant policies: . He then says "I have looked over the material about canvassing. ... I do not see this as canvassing, and I certainly don't see it as a "blockable offence". Then once again he was reminded that he's been warned, and given the policy: "Misplaced Pages:CANVASS#Responding_to_disruptive_canvassing. The relevant section is this: 'Users with a prior history of disruptive canvassing, which they have previously been asked to discontinue, may be blocked immediately without further warning, if such an action is deemed to be necessary.'" - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 02:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment These are all about the same incident. You are making it look like this is a record of three incidents of canvassing, which is not the truth. Rosencomet (talk) 08:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I must disagree with Pigman when he says that he has been civil and polite to me. On the contrary, I have felt that he has treated me as if he were a parole agent, constantly watching, watchlisting, and commenting on my every edit. He, Kathryn and Mattisse have gone on two sprees of tagging and deletion nominations in the last few months on articles I've written, once tagging about 35 in the space of a few days. I have NOT engaged in revert wars or contentious editing; in fact, I have reserved myself to the talk pages and deletion nomination pages, and asked for help from arbitrators. Over the past six months I have written almost entirely articles that are NOT related to Starwood or ACE, but because they are mostly associated with Pagan and Magical people and subjects, Pigman has treated my editing as if they WERE Starwood related. I have not inserted new Starwood mentions into articles, and in most cases I haven't even argued, as mentions from before the Arbcom have been stripped from article after article, even though they were IMO appropriate in several cases. I either discussed it on talk pages or provided citations to support their inclusion; and if they were still reverted, I did NOT reinsert them. It seems to me that my editing has approached the norm in wikipedia, except for the constant pressure Pigman, Mattisse and Kathryn insist on exerting.

My editing HAS changed drastically, but these three not only refuse to see any of it, including the dozens of new non-Starwood related articles, but they are trying here to re-try me for activities that have already been settled in the Arbcom that ended in March of 2007. This is like double jepardy; except they are selecting particular one-sided pieces of that case without anything from the other side, and acting like I'm editing the same as I did back then, with no defense for me. And they are ignoring the fact that the results of that Arbcom were that my behavior was at least partly due to the fact that I was plunged into a contentious battle between two multiple sockpuppeteers starting when I had only been editing for a few days, that my editing had improved since then, and that I was free to keep editing as long as I don't do it aggressively; which I have not. My only real conflicts have been with these three editors since then; they refuse to let me be, refuse to recognize any improvement, refuse to stop trying the same Arbcom that they were dissatisfied with the results of, and they are hooking a lot of you in by presenting just parts of their side of that Aerbcom. I would ask you; if it is so clear cut, then why was the decision what it was? Please ask the arbitrators who voted 4 to 0 if this rehashing of that case is fair or balanced.

He and Kathryn have consistently claimed that I should not be allowed to edit any article by a Llewellyn author or anyone ACE's bookstore has ever had a book for sale by, even though an arbitrator, Fred bauder, has explicitly said that this is not true and that I am free to edit any article, even those of associates, as long as the edits themseves are responsible and not original research.

I am placing in Revolving Bugbear's hands an assessment of the editing I have done since the Arbcom. I've given him a sample of every article I've written alphabetically from "A" to "J" (the first ten letters). It includes 37 articles, 4 that have been deleted, 3 within the last couple of weeks. I will supply a similar assessment of ALL my edits if need be. You will see that all the new articles since March 29, 2007 are not Starwood or ACE related, and that I have not inserted any new mentions of the same into any old or new articles in the list, or revert-warred on any of them. You will find vigorous dialogs on talk pages and deletion nomination pages, but that's any editor's right.

I am asking for time to present you all with a better picture of my editing since the Arbcom, to show you that I have improved and want to improve, and that I have at times been provoked into reacting against uncivil behavior done with a polite note and a smile. I mainly want to show you that this should not be a case of evaluating everything I have done since I began editing, but I should be judged as someone who has tried hard to change and has done a lot in that area (don't take my word for it, let me document it for you). But I blundered badly about this canvassing thing; I realize that and I truly apologize, and vow not to repeat it. And I certainly need mentoring in how to react when I perceive myself to be treated unfairly without violating policy. I feel like for the past six months I've been harassed, and I am only told what I should not do or should not have done about it, but never what I CAN or SHOULD do about it. Rosencomet (talk) 08:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Support block

I have experience of trying to work with Rosencomet. He may mean well, but in practice he wears out any and all opponents by attrition. He wore me out. As long and as copiously as he has edited here, he still seems unaware of, and uninterested in, the practice and culture of the place; the meatpuppet e-mail posted above is a good example of his methods, but far from the only one. I read with interest his post above, which sounds rather like this is the first time anybody's ever tried to explain basic policy to him: I hope I can get the help I need to operate appropriately and find the resources I need when an honest disagreement exists about good-faith edits. This elicits benevolent assumptions of good faith from many who have posted above. However, my experience of his editing techniques is not "an honest disagreement about good-faith edits," I wish it were. Instead it resembles that of Pigman: I've done my best to educate and tutor him in the mysterious ways of Misplaced Pages during our exchanges... Instead he has developed an ability to wikilawyer: to disregard policy, to ignore or creatively "reinterpret" well-established WP guidelines to serve his goals, to claim community consensus is actually a cabal organized against his work here.

I support Pigman's proposal for blocking Rosencomet for at least three months. Revolving Bugbear asks what good a block will do. At a minimum, it will free up the time and energies of good editors, which Rosencomet uses up. These people could and should be writing articles, rather than struggling to contain his tendentious editing. (Please read Pigman's post immediately above carefully.) -- Bishonen | talk 22:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC).

If you feel that saying he "expresses" a desire to improve is more appropriate, I will concede that point. However, the distress he has expressed to me seems rather genuine, and I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on that. Maybe he's struggling with some of the policies, maybe he really never got around to reading most of them (you'd be surprised), or maybe he really does think he can weasel his way around them...in any case, I think a focused effort to make him aware and respectful of these things will show improvement. I could be wrong, but I think it's worth a shot. -- Revolving Bugbear 22:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I support a block as well--and to my mind, the only course here is indef. In light of the fact that a) he previously was blocked for sharing an account and b) he's been warned before for canvassing, I'm of the mind that it's time to close the door. -- Blueboy96 22:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

--Support Block: Short list of Misplaced Pages attempts to educate Rosencoment--

Conflicts arose around the large number of articles associated with Rosencoment's Starwood Festival and his apparent control of other Misplaced Pages articles listed on the Starwood Festival and related pages. At one point, there were over 145 links from Misplaced Pages articles going to Starwood Festival commerical links selling CDs, tickets etc. Rosencoment and those later found to be socks repeatedly replaced these commercial links when they were removed. There were also other problems such as WP:COI. Regarding attempts to reach an understanding with Rosencoment over policies and guidelines in editing on Misplaced Pages, please read a sample of energy of editors that has gone into such attempts:

• Starwood Festival Talk Page
• Starwood Mediation 1
• Starwood Mediation 2
• Starwood arbitration (December 2006) request, Evidence , Workshop,Proposed decitions

It was during the Arbitration that it was revealed that major supporters of Rosencomet at that time were Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Ekajati

If you want to see the scope of the number of articles that Rosencoment and supporting socks were WP:OWN at that time, please see Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Mattisse where many (but not all) of the articles covered by Starwood Festival are listed. –Mattisse (Talk) 00:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It was also revealed in the same Arbcom that the problem began when Mattisse, using a host of sockpuppets herselfCategory:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Mattisse, tagged almost every article I had written in my first few days of editing with requests for citations. I did not know at the time that links to the Starwood website to support what I had written were not acceptable, and I was being told by Ekajati and Co that they were correct and that Mattisse was the problem. It was easy to believe, especially when it turned out she had written additional dummy articles and attributed them to me on various editor's talk pages! Some still exist today. I didn't even know what a sockpuppet was when this was happening; I thought these were all different editors, and that there was nothing clear at all about what I should or shouldn't be doing, since all these people who had been there before me disagreed with each other about what was a good or acceptable edit, source or citation. And whenever there was a RfC or a nomination for deletion, there was vote-stacking going on from both sides that I had no clue of; it turned out that Mattisse often voted on BOTH sides of the same issue? (I'll be happy to dig up some examples if you like.)

Please don't allow Mattisse to make this case about a re-vote on the Arbcom that involved activities nearly two years old now, especially by only introducing the parts she likes. Either read through the entire two mediations and the Arbcom, or ask the arbitrators to comment on this; ask THEM if there wasn't plenty of blame to go around for that fiasco. And allow me to document how different my editing has been since then, despite the fact that Pigman, Kathryn and Mattisse, refuse to see it. And let me demonstrate that I not only want to improve, but that I have been working on it. That's all I ask. -- Rosencomet (talk) 08:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support block. Mattisse's links are quite illuminating, and I well recall my interactions with this editor.... The purpose of the encyclopedia and that of Rosencomet are at odds with each other; Rosencomet views the project as a means to publicise his endeavours without regard to WP standards of impartiality or conflict of interest. -- LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support indef-block. Rosencomet's actions, and the diffs provided by other editors, speak for themselves. I have also attempted to educate Rosencomet about policy, repeatedly, for almost two years now. I believe he simply does not care about the Misplaced Pages community, nor the quality of content on Misplaced Pages, and is only here to promote his own interests. His canvasssing e-mail of December offered suggestions to 30 people of how to game the system and subvert consensus. He was warned three times by two admins, briefly blocked for it by another admin, and now has done it again. What I have seen is that, when caught, he often expresses remorse and promises to change; then when people have moved on to other things and he feels he's not being watched, he returns to violating WP:COI, WP:RS and WP:V and lashing out at those who remind him of WP core policies. I do not believe he will change; I do not believe he wants to change. -- Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 00:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• Both Pigman and Kathryn have alluded to a December e-mail that only they know of from a source they refuse to disclose. I really don't think that's fair, and I think I should be allowed to face my accusers. This sounds like something that may have been trumped up by someone who doesn't like me, perhaps even among the folks I work with. One or two of them have issues with me, and one of them is in complete control of our yahoo groups and outgoing mail; and my only email address is associated with a website he can alter as he wishes. I ask you to discount any discussion of some e-mail they refuse to produce or source, and which may even (through no action of theirs) be bogus. And in point of fact, though I have in my geek-like way bent many an ear about what I've been doing on wikipedia and how much I'd like some help with it, I know of none who has shown an interest in giving up any of their time to work with me. They just don't see what I find so interesting about it, or why I'm willing to take the stress and keep at it. -- Rosencomet (talk) 08:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support indef-block. The assumption of good faith gradually dwindles over time if the editor concerned keeps up the same behavior. It had seemed to me that he was mellowing out in January, 2008 around the time of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jeff Rosenbaum (2nd nomination), but evidently this did not continue. We have to assume that people *know* when they are using Misplaced Pages as a vehicle for promotion of their business enterprises. Nobody should be surprised when such a thing is pointed out. -- EdJohnston (talk) 01:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me demonstrate to you that I have not been using wikipedia promotionally. Let me show you all the articles I've written since the Arbcom that have no relation to Starwood or ACE, and the dozens of deletions by Pigman, Kathryn and Mattisse of such mentions dating from before the Arbcom closed that I have simply stood and watched, or only commented on from talk pages. Instead of simply accepting their claim that I'm as bad as ever, let me document the truth. -- Rosencomet (talk) 08:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

As this all seems to have appeared here quite quickly, let me add my belated opinion. Going strictly on what I see above and with no previous experience, I would be against an indef block, neutral on a reasonably short defined-length block, and for mentoring. While there are some indications that Rosencomet may well be gaming the system, there are also some indications that maybe he really didn't think he was breaking the rules in this canvassing. I believe it is possible to read the policy in such a way that it implies that canvassing is only bad if it occurs on-wiki. I'm not saying that is the intent; clearly it is not; but nonetheless I think it could be read that way. Since I have no previous experience with this editor and not seen claims that he is directly responsible for any horrible offenses, I'm in favor of giving him at least one more chance. (It is not clear to me the mentioned socking is directly his fault; it appears to me to be overly-enthusiastic supporters of his. I may be wrong in that, but so it seems to me at the moment.)

I also want to point out that the letter actually asked people to become worthwhile contributing editors to Misplaced Pages, and then additionally asked them to stuff some votes. The second part is bad. I don't believe the first part is, and in fact I consider it positive. If the people became editors and failed to vote, they would have been respectable editors and not meat puppets. If they voted as asked, but before voting examined the case and decided they believed they should vote in favor, then I question whether the vote would have been in bad faith, and hence whether they truely would have been a meat puppet. Indeed, they might have decided to vote against, despite having been asked to vote the other way. So even though the request was wrong, in the end it may have been a net positive gain to Misplaced Pages in the form of a few valuable new editors. -- Loren.wilton (talk) 05:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Rosencomet's multiple requests to "document the truth."

"And let me demonstrate...let me document the truth." -- Rosencomet, nobody is stopping you from presenting any evidence you think will support the case you want to make. You want to say something, say it already...but if I may make a friendly suggestion, be as brief as you can. Your tendency to over-write works against you. It's not fair, but it's a fact, so get whatever else you need to say posted in as concise a manner as you're able so that it can be considered and final consensus reached. -- Davidkevin (talk) 04:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if mentioning this will be helpful or not. Rosencomet has recently (21 May 2008) done an analysis of many of his article edits on his talk page here. Although lengthy, I think it is illuminating. I particularly encourage checking the edit histories of the articles against his descriptions as well. Pigman☿ 05:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about anybody else, but I've looked over the list and spot checked the histories and it appears to be accurate. You, Pigman, appear to be attempting to re-try this user for pre-arbitration activity. Could you please document recent (say since the beginning of May) contentious editing??? Specifically, can you show a single edit since the beginning of May in which a Starwood link is added? 70.243.80.195 (talk) 10:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point of this incident report, which is focused on allegations of canvassing. It is not helpful for anon. IP's to comment on Rosencomet's case. If you want to help him, register an account and become an active part of the community. Viriditas (talk) 12:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Summation 2.0

Current opinions are: 9 in favour of some form of block, most seem to favour an indef block. 2 opinions in favour of no block with Rosencomet entering mandatory mentoring. Is this an accurate representation of the opinions? -- Pigman☿ 04:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not certain if you're including me in that vote or not, but if you're not, I am Against Block, Against TopicBlock, and For Mandatory Mentorship. As the person who first reported this current incident, I never meant that he would or should be blocked or banned -- in fact, I warned him that this might happen and was trying to get him to pull back before it did, never intending for this to snowball the way it has. (Perhaps I was naive.)

I think a block will only increase the feelings of persecution Rosencomet already exhibits. That solves nothing and helps nobody.

Regardless of that, if consensus is for a block, at least make it temporary, with the mentorship attached to it upon his return. Very few actions are unforgivable, and this isn't one of those; very few habits are unchangable, and this isn't one of them. Err on the side of mercy, please. -- Davidkevin (talk) 08:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: I forgot to list User:SheffieldSteel's comment calling Rosencomet's actions "...a textbook example of canvassing." While that isn't explicitly a call for a block, I'd say it falls closer to the "block" end of the spectrum than the "no block" end. -- Pigman☿ 05:33, 18 May 2008 (UTC) I've struck through this comment. I specifically said he didn't voice an opinion on blocking but adding my interpretation was uncalled for. His words speak for themselves. I apologize. Pigman☿ 17:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I object to putting words into SheffieldSteel's mouth, as it were. If he/she has a vote, let her/him express it rather than anyone make an assumption. -- Davidkevin (talk) 08:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Davidkevin -- I myself agree that it was "a textbook example of canvassing", and I am obviously against the block. Intuiting votes from people who haven't expressed them is not a good idea. - Revolving Bugbear 12:50, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Is this phase II of votes for banning? -- Badger Drink (talk) 08:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

* Beaver Drink, if you have a point, please make it. I wrote above that I support Pigman's proposal for "at least a three-month block." That was because it felt strange to explicitly support indefinite blocking when Pigman, who opened the thread, called it too strong a remedy. But I've changed my mind: I, too, support an indefinite block. I don't believe Rosencomet wants to change, either. I believe he's gaming our good faith. -- Bishonen | talk 08:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC).

• Has Bishzilla hacked your account again? My point is that this whole thread seems to be dominated by one editor and his dogged pursuit of a certain accomplishment - in this case, getting Rosen banned. It reminds me of the Gordon Watts days of old. I'm not informed enough to make a "vote", but this leaves a slightly odd taste in my mouth. Maybe Pigman should take a break and let other editors catch up on this. --Badger Drink (talk) 08:58, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• Bishzilla admin, wienie 'shonen not admin. Little beaver have point in referring to Zilla? bishzilla _ROARR!! 11:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC).

Pigman, you are coming off as rather aggressive in this matter. I think it would be good of you to take a step back from leading the charge. This thread does not need to be pushed along by the person who initiated it -- whatever your intentions (and I am willing to extend you a thousand times good faith on this), it gives a very inappropriate appearance. - Revolving Bugbear 12:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I was not trying to rush a decision or stifle discussion. If I seem aggressive, my sincere apologies. I did not think summarizing opinions was a call to end discussion or take action, only a helpful recap of discussion to this point. And, yes, I was including Davidkevin in my summary. I did neglect to note that Davidkevin and Revolving Bugbear both seem to be against a topic ban as well as being for mentoring. Now I'll take Revolving Bugbear's sensible suggestion and step back from this discussion. Pigman☿ 17:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not against a topic ban -- I think it may be an alternative to a block, but am not committed to the idea. - Revolving Bugbear 17:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I am surprised that anyone particularly wants to hear my non-admin opinion on this, but here goes anyway. With Rosencomet's tenure on Misplaced Pages, many editors would have had time to gain admin or even bureaucrat status, yet this one still doesn't seem to understand that canvassing is bad. My good faith interpretation, after reading the discussion above, is that educating this editor as to how Misplaced Pages works is taking too long, since it is apparently necessary to run through every rule in the book, explicitly telling them "do not do this", and even then the lesson does not always sink in the first time. Stating my bad faith interpretation at this point would be doubly redundant, since you can guess what it is, and since I believe that the good faith disruption by this editor is causing more trouble than their contributions are worth. Whether that justifies a ban or a block is for the admins to decide. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 18:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Rosencomet denies knowing that this is against policy- obviously anyone with common sense might think it is, plus Rosencomet has been here years so can't claim to be ignorant of policy, and has been advised about canvassing before. This is WP:MEAT and he will have heard of meatpuppetry before. I would suggest at least a ban on editing articles about which he has a WP:COI, we will then see if Rosencomet has it in him to be a keen editor on other articles. Or maybe then Rosencomet will suddenly be less interested in wikipedia. Sticky Parkin 01:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Support immediate ban on editing all articles where Rosencomet has a COI in addition to mandatory mentorship. If the mentor feels Rosencomet should edit talk pages per WP:SCOIC, then this should be allowed but watched carefully. And, if after three months, Rosencomet has shown a significant improvement in his editing and understanding of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines, then he should be allowed to appeal the ban in order to edit articles based on the "non-controversial edits" clause in WP:COI, but only after an editor review subject to discussion by the community. But, if Rosencomet engages in any bad behavior outside of his mentorship, then an indefinite block should be on the table. If Rosencomet cannot agree to these simple, fair, and equitable terms, then I support a three month block. Viriditas (talk) 09:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I think that either a ban or a block is necessary, to prevent further disruption, and it doesn't matter if the user is acting in good faith or not. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 17:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Complete lack of evidence

I've reviewed all the recent posts under this thread by Pigman, and I find absolutely no documentation of recent "aggressive editing" by Rosencomet. I find a lot of vague references to activity dating from 2007, but that is almost six months ago. Where is a list of diffs showing "aggressive editing" since, say, the beginning of May? Precisely how many "aggressive edits" have been made recently? We simply don't know, b/c Pigman hasn't provided any documentation.

And if there was an arbitration case with a clearly defined warning against "aggressive editing", why is this issue being brought up here? Why isn't the alleged "aggressive editing" being documented for the arbitrators to review? It seems that the correct venue and process would be to go to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration#Clarifications and other requests to clarify whether Rosencomet's recent editing behaviour crosses the boundary set by the arbitrators, and/or to go to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement to request enforcement of the prior decision, wouldn't it? 70.243.80.195 (talk) 12:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

You're giving us a red herring. This incident report is concerned with canvassing and COI. Please address those two issues. Viriditas (talk) 12:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Point taken on canvassing. COI was dealt with in arbitration and was not considered to be as serious as Pigman makes out to be. Rosencomet was simply cautioned not to edit aggressively. Speaking of red herrings, if the issue is canvassing, then most of Pigman's posts about past behaviour, etc. are also red herrings. Since blocking is not punitive, and Rosencomet seems simply to have misunderstood, why not simply ask if he will refrain from canvassing in the future? Since that is really the only current issue here? 70.243.80.195 (talk) 12:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the arbcom "caution". My understanding is that Rosencomet has been asked several times not to canvass, and the block hinges on this fact, as he continues to do it. Are you implying he has not been warned about canvassing in the past? Kathryn NicDhàna has provided diffs above showing at least three prior warnings. Viriditas (talk) 12:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, here is the only decision in the case. With respect to canvassing, I think it is being blown out of proportion due to a third-party forwarding the email to the several lists. A lot of requests for help are made by admins and others through back-channel emails. If he emailed a half-dozen or less people who did not respond, then no disruption was caused by him. All the disruption was from people who received the forwarded email on several mailing list, which cannot be laid at Rosencomet's feet. I don't see why anything more than a "do you understand now and will you refrain" should be required. 70.243.80.195 (talk) 12:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and the links Kathryn provided to "warnings" are misleading. It was one warning and then the following discussion with respect to a single incident of on-wiki canvassing. WP:CANVASS does say "Wikipedians" which should be changed. Whether Rosencomet is "wikilawyering" or had a misuderstanding is certainly an arguable issue, but I see that no one has bothered to clarify the policy page itself.... 70.243.80.195 (talk) 13:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and Fred Bauder clarified the Arbcom decision here, saying to Rosencomet, "You are welcome to edit any article, including articles about associates, provided you cite reliable sources. It is best to not rely on personal knowledge." 70.243.80.195 (talk) 13:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. It's a bit disingenuous to delete the evidence of Rosencomet's canvassing from this discussion and continue to comment about it, so I've provided a link to the evidence in the page history here. There is a big difference between requesting help and telling people how to vote and this type of canvassing and vote stacking has not stopped after Rosencomet was given at least three previous warnings. Like I said above, I support a temporary ban on Rosencomet's editing to articles where he has a COI (subject to review after three months of good editing) and mandatory mentorship. Do you think it too much to ask that Rosencomet actually work on Misplaced Pages articles unrelated to him or his organization for three months? People with a COI shouldn't even be editing these articles in the first place. As the arbcom warning suggests, when problems arise Rosencomet should confine himself to the talk page and refrain from editing articles where he may have a COI; And, we have a problem. Blaming others for this problem isn't helping your case. The best thing Rosencomet can do right now is put a wikibreak template on his user page and voluntarily leave the project for at least a month. The more you keep talking about this, the worse it's going to get. Viriditas (talk) 13:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but no conflict involving the editing of articles has arisen. The conflict only involved AfDs. So why should canvassing involving AfDs affect the ability to edit articles which has been repeatedly affirmed as appropriate as long as that editing itself is not aggressive and relies on reliable sources? Has any evidence been presented of recent aggressive editing or addition of unsourced material? And the copyvio should be referred to the oversight committee, not linked to.... You are aiding and abetting a copyright violation which should never have been acceptable. 70.243.80.195 (talk) 13:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

While e-mail is technically copyright-protected, the claim of copyright violation in this case is a red herring. Copyright law is about protecting the commercial interests of authors, it's not about trying to hide information. Ordinary e-mail has no commercial value, nor is ordinary e-mail a "secret". Thus it can be cited freely, as long as attribution is provided and the work is not claimed to be someone else's. Baseball Bugs 14:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

In that case, add me to the list of people who support a three-month block. I've had enough of this. Viriditas (talk) 14:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Canvassing is against the rules, and if the editor in question has continued to canvas despite repeated warnings against it, then some kind of sanction would seem to be in order. Baseball Bugs 14:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I'm not saying he shouldn't be blocked. I'm saying it should be referred to the arbitration committee rather than a gangrape by admins some of whom are violating the user's copyright, privacy, and intensionally misrepresenting the facts. 70.243.80.195 (talk) 14:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

As noted above, your argument about copyright violation is bogus. Baseball Bugs 14:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it isn't. There has to be commercial value to collect damages, but an author still has complete control over the republication of their work, regardless of its value. I'll take it to the copyright page where perhaps there will be less ignorance of copyright law. 70.243.80.195 (talk) 14:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Knock yourself out. An ordinary e-mail's contents are fair game as long as they are properly cited. And the vital part of the author's identity was hidden, so his privacy was protected, which is possibly more than he deserves. Canvassing is against the rules. Hiding behind a bogus copyright claim, in order to hide the evidence of rule violations, is a good candidate for Joke of the Day. Baseball Bugs 14:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

(un-dent) Thanks for reverting this astonishing statement of bad faith, but even when worded politely your comments are serving only to obfuscate the issues. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 14:39, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Question

Is Rosencomet three times faster than a regular user? Jtrainor (talk) 22:00, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'll bite: how "fast" is the average user? Viriditas (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a joke only a Gundam fan would get. Look up Char Aznable. =p Jtrainor (talk) 02:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Long term edit warring at Criticism of Bill O'Reilly

An editor, User:Jimintheatl has been repeatedly inserting material into the article that has been against consensus and a possible blp violation. He has been relatively civil on the discussion page and has trying to work with other editors but still keeps putting some version of his inclusion before there has been any acceptence of it. Another user, User:Commodore Sloat has joined this user to keep insisting on this inclusion even though the current consensus is against them. The article has already been locked once due to this edit warring and may need admin intervention. I was hoping to not have to come here but the discussion has been gradually degenerating. Please advise. MrMurph101 (talk) 04:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No comment on the content, but isn't the article title itself a violation of WP:NPOV#Article naming? Ros0709 (talk) 06:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it is time to run it through the afd process again. I don't see much encyclopedic content being generated, the article is simply a laundry list of attacks against BOR from the political left in America. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 06:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A This is a content dispute and B go ahead and do an afd if you want to do all the other "Criticism of" articles, everything from Criticism of Adobe Flash to Criticism of YouTube. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 07:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

For most of the editors involved, the content dispute has been resolved. The only reason that content is still changing is that one editor refuses to accept a consensus that he does not agree with. If this is not the proper venue or obtaining help with that issue, could you direct us to where we should be instead? Croctotheface (talk) 07:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Am I hallucinating or does it say in your original post that there are two editors who take User:Jimintheatl's position in this content dispute, he and User:Commodore Sloat? The talk page looks one hell of a lot like a content dispute to me. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 07:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that Sloat accepts the consensus. That leaves, as I said, one editor who does not. There was/is disagreement over content, but the editors reached a consensus. Jim refuses to abide by that consensus. If that's a content dispute, OK, but I had always believed that content disputes end when consensus is reached. Can a single editor keep that from happening just because he doesn't agree with the result? Croctotheface (talk) 07:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

(in response to go ahead and do an afd if you want to do all the other "Criticism of" articles, everything from Criticism of Adobe Flash to Criticism of YouTube.) Well, those are probably worthy of investigation, but for this specific case I further refer you to WP:WAX and, because this is about a person rather than a 'thing' and extra care is needed, WP:BLP. I reiterate, I have no input regarding the article at all. The title does concern me, though, for the reasons at WP:NPOV#Article naming: it rather assumes a POV. I would suggest "Appraisal of..." instead; I also agree this is probably not the place for this discussion, so I'll make the same point on the talk page. Ros0709 (talk) 13:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This is absurd. I have been trying to de-escalate the edit war on that page and I come here to find myself accused of being a source of it? Please be sure to take notice of the rather arrogant edit-warring approach to this page that was taken by Croctotheface, and do read his comments on the talk page. Over and over he refuses to answer arguments about the content dispute and instead insists that he doesn't need to respond to arguments because he has "consensus" on his side (e.g. a group of editors willing to revert as a block until they tire out their opponents). Nevertheless, some progress had been made on the page about the time this was sent to ANI -- at least a big portion of the content dispute had been settled with a compromise that was apparently found to be reasonable by both sides. I think an RfC or mediation would be a good idea for this page; there is a small clique of editors that appears to have a lock on it at this point. I'm not sure ANI is the right place for this dispute since it is clearly a content dispute, not a BLP issue or an "incident" per se. csloat (talk) 10:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Usually persons trying to cool down a revert war don't take a side and revert war.... Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 14:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

And you'll notice that I stopped participating in the revert war. Please Kyaa stop insulting me. Thanks. csloat (talk) 16:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Your last revert against the consensus on the talk page wasn't even 24 hours ago.... I'll stop pointing out where reality doesn't mesh with your story when you start acting in the manner you are attempting to portray yourself, csloat. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 17:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I missed the link to the offending diff in your attack on me; can you provide the link to exactly which revert you are talking about? I stopped reverting after my block and worked with Croctotheface and alongside the consensus, and was actually successful in getting a paragraph that we both agreed upon about the controversial material. I suppose you could say this was a partial revert but when Croc reverted me I offered a different wording rather than a revert, and Croc agreed with the new wording as a compromise. It is possible you have me confused with Jim, who did revert a different section of the article (the part that you say was against consensus). But the edits I made in the past 24 hours were neither reverts nor against consensus. Do you agree to stop insulting me and making false statements now? Thanks. csloat (talk) 18:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It is true, csloat has stopped edit warring after his block so out of good faith I will withdraw any accusation of edit warring by him. I still feel I did the right thing by reporting the issue here since this has been going on for a couple of months now and feel it needed attention. FTR, I reported this due to the edit warring not the content issue which is still under discussion. MrMurph101 (talk) 21:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for acknowledging the error and acting in good faith. Hopefully Kyaa will do the same. csloat (talk) 22:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess Kyaa won't. Oh well, the facts speak for themselves. csloat (talk) 06:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Antifeminism

There's trouble in this topic. Someone keeps reverting the content that is substantial even though the sources are holding up and even though they are objective. And instead of adding something she or he is just leaving blank spaces behind creating a joke of an article instead of leaving the previous informative but perhaps not perfect article to be edited instead.

Antifeminism

Sorry I'm new to this :) I think wikipedia is a great project but there's a chance of it becoming 1984's reverting history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.100.111.208 (talk) 11:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This is not an incident that requires immediate administrator intervention. You should start a discussion on the talk page first, spelling out why you think those sources are reliable. Kevin (talk) 11:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is a content dispute. For what it's worth, I've restored much of the earlier content; at least some of the earlier reverts were small-minded at best, notably this one, but it was two months ago, so no need making too much of a fuss right now. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

User unleashes sporadic personal attacks

Once an active user, Langloisrg (talk · contribs), after getting tired of editing wikipedia in Sept. 2007 stopped editing and in Feb. 2008 said that was my fault. It was really shocking to me and I asked explanations because I had no issues with him. In Apr. 2008, his first vandalism occurred, very personally directed. I did no actions here back then. Yesterday, another bunch of attacks came: first a personal attack (what a work!), and then reverting some edits made by me: , , and then attempting a dubious AfD of a page recently created by me.

Now after this latest bunch of events, I feel really disturbed. I don't want to see such things happen on wiki. My request is to block the user indefinitely, as it appears is not going to continue with constructive work.

Thanks, --TheFEARgod (Ч) 11:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I've issued a warning for the personal attack. This editor seemed to be constructive in the past, so perhaps we should see if the warning works. Kevin (talk) 12:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like to state that the reason I got tired of editing was because every time I created an article the feargod deleted or reverted it with extremely rude comments.. I admit that some of the articles needed work and that the format may not have been correct but rather than explain to me what was wrong and how to do it correctly he would simply blast me with rude comments and treat me like I was an idiot. Also he frequently made POV comments whenever I would add info regarding a military op or Iraq related article. It became very obvious that this user wa anti US, anti Iraq War and anti military. Personnel I think that someone needs to give him or her some lessons in tact. Don't take my word for it go back and review some of the comments that the fear god has left on edits and you'll see what I mean.--Langloisrg (talk) 13:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

your baseless accusations cannot justify your lunatic vandalistic behaviour. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 16:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Your personal attack above is also unjustified. Kevin (talk) 01:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course YOUR going to say there baseless there about YOU, I would expect no less from someone who obviously has their own agenda about what Iraq war related information should be on wikipedia. If anyone puts something in an iraq related article that doesn't portray the US as a bunch of warhungry criminals you jump in and delete it as POV.--Langloisrg (talk) 17:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Langloisrg -- if you feel TheFEARgod has behaved inappropriately, the thing to do is file a report on this noticeboard or seek arbitration or otherwise follow the WP:Dispute resolution process. However, the personal attacks (such as adding "asshole" all over TheFEARgod's user page) are not acceptable no matter what. In fact, they would not even be acceptable as retaliation for a direct personal attack -- if, hypothetically, TheFEARgod were to respond by calling you an asshole on your user page, he could be blocked for that.

If you want to seek resolution over the perceived injustices you allege, please follow the directions at WP:Dispute resolution. However, if you continue the personal attacks you will be blocked without further notice.

I will repeat this message on your user talk page. Thanks, and have a nice day. --Jaysweet (talk) 17:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Whether you block me is irrelivent, all I have to do is create another USERNAME. Besides it has become apparent to me that the majority of the editors with high participation rates only want to create drama and bicker and banter about what is or isn't MOS or some other wikirule. Rather than be an online compendium of human knowledge has turned out to be nothing more than a good guy club full or clicks and anyone new who hasn't been editing for year and knows all the rules is written off as a vandal. By the way the first time I even heard of this page was when the link was left on my talk page. Thats part of the problem, wikipedia has become such a sea of pages and articles and forums with subpages branching out like spiderwebs its nearly impossible for a new user to get any resolution on a problem. As far as the activity on the feargods page it was easy to fix and I felt a great deal of stress relief so I will be good on the vandalism for quite sometime.--Langloisrg (talk) 17:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

PCPP (talk · contribs)

Since January, this user has continuously blanked the article Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong about a notable organization that has survived AfD and redirected the article to Reports of organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners in China in order to minimalize articles concerning the persecution of the Falun Gong. The user consistently makes pro-China edits and engages in edit-wars. I'm including the diffs below to how many times he has redirected this specific article after AfD despite warnings to stop:

Again, this behavior has been going on for 5 months now with no end in sight. --Ave Caesar (talk) 13:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

By his editing patterns and comment on his user page, I highly suspect that Ave Caesar is the same as Nonexistant User Strothra, and Veritas, who is know under different aliases and has previously blanked the userpage of Bobby Fletcher, and later MFDing it for linking to his personal blog critical of Falun Gong.

My problem is that this article was created by Fnhddzs, a single purpose account, and later HappyInGeneral, another SPA and admitted Falun Gong practitioners previously involved in an arbitration case Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Falun Gong, to make a WP:POINT and a WP:WALL, who previously created several other such articles deleted by admins ie Clearwisdom and Yale Falun Gong club. I do have problems with this article on its notability, and has presented my views on the talk page of the respective article (Talk:Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong) on why it fails WP:ORG (eg only 25700 results from the Google test, and little mainstream news coverage), and hasn't been edited for months since the AFD. He also has a history of WP:CANVASSing, his friends has swamped my AFD with attacks on my intents instead of addressing my points, and currently has canvassed the FLG SPAs to this page. , , .

The nominator seems to have problem distinguishing between content disputes and clear vandalism, and has previously nominated me on ANI, which was later rejected by an admin for being a content dispute . I do have problems with the content pro-FLG SPAs add to FLG articles, and as per the Falun Gong articles being placed under WP:Article probation and must confirm to WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:RS. I have expressed my problems with certain content and phrases failing to adhere to the guildlines on the talk pages, , , however, Ave Caesar, his previous identities, and the FLG SPAs, keeps reverting my edits and call it vandalism.--PCPP (talk) 16:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Rather than just criticize the person who opened this complaint, it would be more helpful if PCPP could explain why he thinks there is consensus for his redirecting of Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, something that he did eight times. If the article survived AfD, it would be normal to leave it alone. (There is no evidence that I can see on the article's Talk page of a consensus for redirecting). Your actions appear to be subverting the result of the AfD. EdJohnston (talk) 19:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment: AFAICT, there are two fundamental issues here. As part of their propaganda battle, Falun Gong practitioners have set up newspapers, TV stations, and other front organisations such as COIPFG and World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG). The root cause, in my view, is the existence of a Falun Gong cabal which is seeking to use Misplaced Pages to further counter-attack and obtain a "right of reply" against the propaganda onslaught of Chinese Communist Party (CCP), quite often ignoring or severely bending wiki policies and guidelines, most obviously WP:NPOV and WP:SOAP, and occasionally also WP:RS and WP:A. The majority of these users are not interested in editing any other articles on wikipedia, because that does not further their cause. Some pro-FG editors engage in edit wars when sourced material which does not find favour with them is inserted - the Falun Gong foot-soldiers do come in and out, consistently using the undo button, reminding all that any good work not meeting their own criteria are easily rejected and reverted; I have found and corrected numerous inaccurate attributions and what I suspect to be deliberate misquotes in this family of articles. I have noticed that the environment is pretty hostile: no sane editor hangs around the Falun Gong related articles for long - perhaps that's already an indictment of my own sanity ;-) - so the family of articles by definition attracts cranks or ardent supporters or opponents, consequently creating a vicious circle of a very polarised article prone to edit warring.

The second issue is PCPP's own editing style and apparent inability to adhere to acceptable editing etiquette.In general terms, whilst I would only agree with perhaps 20% of his edits (both in terms of content and number of edits), I also find the remaining 80% (and edit warring with FG editors) rather counter-productive if not disruptive - but I would remind you that it takes two to tango. I suspect his faulty approach may be fuelled by indignance (shared by myself) that FG propagandists be allowed to create their own sanitised walled garden of articles through which they can launch their attacks on their sworn enemy, the CCP. Using WP as a platform, they reply to all the criticisms against them citing their own sources such as The Epoch Times, Clearwisdom, the "Falun Dafa Information Centre", WOPIFG and CIPFG.

I also do not agree with the AfD decision, which I feel was not decided on the merits of the subject in question, but was heavily influenced by the strong FG presence as well as by the actions of PCPP, which appeared to have turned a number of other editors against him. However, I would agree that his editing behaviour warrants taming. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment: There may be some value to what confucius is saying, but it's mostly irrelevant to this case, and should be dealt with separately. It confuses the issue to bring up perceived problems in other editors. On the whole, attacking people's motivations is also not a valuable approach. The target here should not be the perceived ideological alignment, but the specific problematic edits, use of sources, and what have you.

A major problem with PCPP's style of editing is that he only does it once in a while. He will come along and do a whole bunch of reverts on articles. I'd say it's more like 90% useless or downright disruptive, 10% useful, or 'okay'. Usually I just revert him. I used to ask for comment on the talk page or ask him to stop doing it, but since whenever there is a backlash he disappears for months at a time, I started just riding it out. Now it's come to a head again, and while this discussion is going on he has gone again and done the same thing, , , , (a favourite), etc.. Usually the changes are vast, and he never seeks to discuss them. Because of this I stopped bothering to discuss either and just hit the undo button. I think this is also wrong, and now I will initiate a discussion on each of those pages as a gesture of cooperation. I also actually recognise the need not to simply revert when there are some legitimate changes among a whole bunch of simple deletions of sourced paragraphs he doesn't like. That is also something I once attempted to build a bridge over--that is, to pick through the changes and put in the good ones and leave out the bad ones. But after a while I got tired and felt like I should not have to deal with that, that he goes away after being reverted a few times, that he never discusses edits anyway, and that it's just easier to simply revert. This is lazy and not in the right spirit of civic cooperation, so I will also try to do better here.

I don't know what citing SPA here is supposed to do. I only edit Falun Gong pages because that's my priority and I only have a certain amount of time I can commit to wikipedia. I'm interested in other things. When these pages are done I'll pursue my other interests. What's the point of these recriminations? No one is here saying PCPP's a communist agent. We should be looking at the edits themselves here, not bandying around these blunt stereotypes and personal attacks. PCPP needs to change his style of editing and start making a meaningful contribution to these pages.--Asdfg12345 05:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Update: I noticed I had already left such a note on several pages and it had gone unanswered, so I must not have done as bad as I originally thought. I had been threatening an RfC on his behaviour for a while but never got around to it. I hope something will be resolved here.--Asdfg12345 05:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

My problem is with your systematic reverts of all of my additions just because you don't like one or two of them. Considering that you never gained consensus to add materials that are of questionable POV I find it hypocritical for you and your buddies to jump on me and go on a reverting spree, while turning a blind eye to Dilip rajeev's much more destructive edits, and when in fact the terms of the article probation specifically prohibits you and other SPAs from making systematic reverts. I indeed have tried to discuss changes and sections which I feel are biased ,, but your typical response is that they are sourced and thus should remain, when in fact the article probation stated that such additions need substantial response before being added. Most of the changes are really ridiculous, such as weasel word eg persecution vs crackdown, Chinese government vs Chinese Communist Party, reports vs allegations, etc. Sorry, but considering that my motivations were attacked in the AFD by FLG SPAs, and that the content disputes were called vandalism, I have every right to question your motives.--PCPP (talk) 06:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment: The 'issue' from a Misplaced Pages point of view I guess it's rather simple. What is destructive editing and who is doing that. Are we able and if not why are we not able to edit and construct the article in a civilized manner. Personally I would very much like if more of you could keep an eye on the articles and make sure that the conduct is OK, sources are proper that there is no OR, etc (basic Misplaced Pages policies). Normally I understand that is a lot to ask, but consider that there is a genocide going on, and one of the stages of the genocide is exactly misinformation. (I know that Ohconfucius will jump because I'm using the word genocide but please take a look at the definition of the word. I believe I'm using it correctly). --HappyInGeneral (talk) 12:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Various blocks

PCPP (talk · contribs) has been blocked for 48 hours by Blnguyen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). Asdfg12345 (talk · contribs) has also been blocked for 48 hours by yours truly. Block reviews and thoughts on further application of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Falun Gong are welcome. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 10:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Andreasegde

This user seems to hold personal grudges. He began attacking me early this month. Told to calm down but continued, calling me a vandal for apparently believing McCartney is dead.

I was new to such a long article and misguided by the size tag seen while editing. He and another user corrected me about this two months back. But now Andre is trying to claim the article as seen in the above diffs. He just abuses though I make lots of useful edits. He later called me very clever, by seeming to be a concerned editor, and does not reply to accusations (not replying in any way at all) but continues to slowly destroy what a lot of people have worked on. It's a clever strategy, albeit very destructive. It's a new form of vandal. I was on vacation when all this happened. User:Betty kerner said that I should be reported here but there are no signs of me trying to damage the article. I was just unaware on how to edit it.

This is not only on the Talk but on Paul McCartney too. This was where I expanded a sec using its main article. It was perfectly neutral writing with proper sources But he summarised the sec by an edit summary that I expand on Paul is dead, so I am a vandal. He's also attacked on my talk as I don't expect a reply from a vandal (who is registered, and gives himself so many awards). He then tried to provoke another user by calling me a self-elected vandal, who likes awards, albeit given to himself. What a high-fallutin' dipstick. (About awards, I have actually received all four and can show the diffs; the badges and ribbons are self-awards.) I am now just too intimidated to contact Andreasegde by sending him warning templates. Ultra! 15:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Andreasegde (talk · contribs) is a long time contributor to various subjects relating to The Beatles, including the four principle members, their manager, some of the earlier members, and other individuals associated with the band ( see this count. He has amassed over 3,000 edits to Paul McCartney alone) some of which he has got through GA - and truthfully it was largely his efforts in both supplying references and text and cajoling other editors to contribute - who has an intolerant attitude toward "poor" edits. Frankly, if you happen to believe that Macca is dead it was extremely unwise to attempt to insert it into the article, since it is extremely unlikely that the standard of source would be sufficient to satisfy Andreasedge (or indeed any hamster who could read). This editor does not profess to WP:OWN any Beatle related article, but poorly or non sourced content is often swiftly reverted and the contributors held in poor regard - it is unfortunate, but true, that Andreasegde has not the best bedside manner in such discussions. However, Andreasegde is a good contributor. I trust his judgement.

nb. I have let him know of this discussion. LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The user is a vandal (but only against Paul McCartney). Look at the history pages.--andreasegde (talk) 19:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

His judgment in editing may be fine, but leaving comments such as " You know where Mummy's apron strings are when you want to complain, do you not? But you know how to be merciless when editing. Who took the ball away when you were young?" on another editor's talk page, regardless of any provocation, is conduct to warrant a block to prevent more of the same. LHVU, any better ideas how to deal with this? He was prev. blocked 24hrs for this sort of thing in April. 20:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

May I add, I too made some edits to Paul McCartney and got a nasty note from User:Andreasegde. See for details. He acted like a bully on issues of content, whether he was right or wrong. And he was not always right. I don't think that User:Ultraviolet scissor flame actually believes Paul McCartney is dead, and attacks on his/her and my character are not helpful in building consensus and making articles better. maxsch (talk) 21:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

By way of rejoinder, I, myself, User:Diligent Terrier/Florentino floro and Maxschmelling, has a pending debate with maxsch, since almost daily, all my edits are are edited or reverted by this user. But my own human nature and patience compelled me to observe Wiki rules, and I never attacked, but just ignored this user, by correcting the bad or wrong edits, if any, and asking opinions from other editors. User:Andreasegde had and has great contributions to Misplaced Pages, and I myself is dwarfed by Andreas' tireless efforts here. --Florentino floro (talk) 10:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What Maxsch points out is clearly uncivil, breach of WP:AGF and biting newcomers on the article. I guess this is his way of making 3000 edits to McCartney. Ultra! 14:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it is fair to say that without Andreasegde's tireless efforts, a whole host of Beatles-related articles would be paltry shadows of what they are or would simply not exist. That's not ownership - he is generous and welcoming to people new to articles that he works on, if they are constructive and not damaging to the hard work that many people have put in. He has worked long and hard with a group of editors to develop balanced, interesting, comprehensive, well-referenced pieces not only about the four principals, but also about many related people and subjects, making the Beatles portfolio of articles quite thorough and impressive. Along the way there have been countless vandals and tendentious editors who have sometimes made it impossible to continue editing there - I have personally experienced some of this. Yet Andreasegde has always called them out and come back to put more work in, to preserve the integrity of the articles. He does it with his own brand of humor and expression which some may not immediately grasp, but in my experience it is indeed done with humor and while I might agree that occasionally he could be more diplomatic - can we not say that about most of us? - my observation is that he's usually spot on in identifying problematic edits and editors whose contributions harm the project, and has been a force for collaboration and cooperation among editors who work to improve it. I haven't looked into the specific circumstances that led to this AN/I comment yet, but, like Less, I trust Andreasegde's judgment and suggest some lightening up here. Tvoz/talk 00:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment needed on User:Pure wines

I have no idea if we allow this kind of user pages, comments? The user have also added the same like to a mainspace page, I have reverted and notified the user that this is not allowed. --Stefan 15:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the userpage under CSD G11: Pure Advertising. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 15:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I guessed it should be deleted, thanks! --Stefan 15:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Problems with today's featured article

There is a on-going dispute, some editors think that the article is written like an advertisement, has POV issues or is not sourced enough. Insertions and removals of {{advert}} have led to the full protection of the article. The situation requires external views. Cenarium (talk) 16:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Fully protected by Raul654 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) Tiptoety 16:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It's part of the problem, isn't it? I don't think that the removal and reinsertions of tags warranted a full protection, particularly when the article has a lot of discussed issues. Cenarium (talk) 16:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No, protection is the solution for dealing with people who disrupt articles the day they are on the main page. Raul654 (talk) 16:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Disruption yes, but not legitimate concerns, as the vast consensus says these are. It would be good to hear from an admin who's not directly involved. Lampman 16:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

These should not be categorized as "disruptions." On the talk page, it seems that everyone but the two editors who made the article are expressing concerns. Dwr12 (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur. The advert tag has been replaced recently once by lampman (talk · contribs), Lampman should have been warned for 3RR and blocked if necessary, protection was uncalled-for. There is an overwhelming consensus that the article has several problems that need to be addressed. Cenarium (talk) 16:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, block the disruptive editors and let the ones who are discussing continue to edit if consensus finds a need to, but do not lock the article to the whole world just because there are a few users being disruptive. Tiptoety 16:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think my edit was disruptive; it was based on new information clearly presented on the talk page. I did not re-insert it after it was removed, out of fear of starting an edit war (I guess I decided to be the bigger man...) I received no block or warning, probably because my edit was clearly warranted and had wide community support. Instead we got an ill-advised, unilateral decision, that practically everyone disagrees with. Lampman 17:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A not-so-small problem is that the editors complaining on the talk page and disrupting the article aren't exactly engaging a full understanding of policy or guidelines in their arguments, or even consulting the sources; they're just generally complaining that THEYDONTLIKEIT. Last time I checked, my query about what makes the article an advert hadn't been answered, nor whether they equally believe we should only run science and history articles on the main page, and never products like books, films, albums, video games, or anything else that they might construe as an advertorial without accurately engaging WP:ADVERT or WP:NN. If this sort of disruption based on partial understanding of policy and guidelines continues, it's a real disencentive for editors to write featured content about anything that could be construed as a company or product, and some of the article detractors have gone so far as to claim that Raul or I have some nefarious interest in using the mainpage for advertising (<sarcasm on> reminder to call my stockbrker </sarcasm off>). Very strange stuff, and certainly not a motivating factor for editors who work hard to bring articles to featured status. There may or may not be a need to block for disruption, but there's clearly a need to protect and give some of these editors time to cool down, and perhaps read and engage Wiki policies and guidelines.. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The issues of the article have been made explicit on the talk page Talk:Elderly_Instruments#POV, the sources have been discussed (Bluegrass for example). I have no problem with companies on the Main Page (BAE Systems was fine), nor with films or whatever. SandyGeorgia, you are essentially referring to Talk:Elderly_Instruments#Nice_Advertisement, be aware that the situation has much evolved since. Resorting to veiled attacks on other editors' competence and intentions is not the way to resolve the conflict. As I said, it's the first time I'm involved in a dispute with today's featured article, and I do share concerns that editors expressed on the talk page. Cenarium (talk) 17:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a strawman argument, where the worst arguments are used to represent an entire side. Plenty of issues have been raised, concerning POV language, unreliable sources etc. In addition to strictly following policy, there's such a thing as sound judgement, well explained in the essay Misplaced Pages:Common sense and decision making. Featuring an article about a company, where the only major sources are minor niche journals of unknown reliability, is just not very smart. When everybody else is marching out of time, you might wanna ask yourself if it's you there's something wrong with. Lampman 18:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If this company's sales jump due to this article, its authors will have met their goal. Baseball Bugs 17:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's kind of insulting to the creator, Laser brain (talk · contribs), who from a glance at his/her contributions certainly doesn't seem to be working for the company or otherwise involved. Assume good faith, please. It seems that any time a company article appears, it gets lambasted as an advertorial, which cheapens the substantial amount of work the creators and editors do to get them through FAC. Tony Fox (arf!) 18:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, Laser Brain has done a great job. My beef's not with him. Lampman 18:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Likewise, these accusations are unfounded and nonconstructive. It seems to be a current practice to attack featured articles on companies or remotely commercial subjects, regardless of their merits. Even though this one has real problems, Laser Brain has indicated that he was willing to address them, which gives him further credit. Cenarium (talk) 18:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Commenting only on the protection, I do not think this was necessary or appropriate. I'm not going to unilaterally unprotect, but I do think this would be the best course of action. Repeatedly adding the advert tag was disruptive and anyone who persisted with that should be blocked. However it appears the article was being improved prior to protection. Some real issues (particularly with respect to "peacock terms" and the like) were brought up on the article talk page and it seems like some work was being done to correct those issues. My understanding is that full protection of the Featured Article should be a rare occurrence, and I don't think the circumstances warrant it in this case. No FA is perfect when it hits the main page, and while I don't agree with all of the concerns brought up on the article talk page, some of them had merit. In that situation, protection is a bad idea as there are other means for dealing with editors who are editing the article in a disruptive fashion.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the use of wikipedia to sell products. It's against the rules. If the consensus is that there are problems with the article in that regard, the user should focus on fixing those problems, rather than spending time posting messages on user pages alleging personal attacks. Baseball Bugs 19:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think there's a simpler solution. We should simply establish a rule that articles about commercial products and existing companies are not eligible to appear as the featured article of the day. The article is well-written and informative, but that isn't the issue. The issue is that allowing commercial-related articles to be the feature article of the day is too much of an incentive for self-promotion. --B (talk) 19:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good rule. It will get muddy very quickly. For instance, Super Smash Bros. Melee was recently on the main page, but I doubt that Nintendo has any reason to embellish the article for their own benefit, when they spend millions of dollars on their own marketing campaigns? And yet, the article is well written which is why it is a Featured Article and it is placed on the main page as a service to readers to highlight some of Misplaced Pages's best work. Gary King (talk) 19:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Its a very nice promotional piece for the company. I would expect it to increase their business. It is amazing that this business has no problems, no criticism, and no negative aspects in its entire history. It reads more like an article about a major advertiser in a publication which relies on advertising revenue, than an encyclopedia article. How exactly is it that articles get picked to be "Featured?" Edison (talk) 19:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Article's are picked to be Featured at WP:FAC. Gary King (talk) 19:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

FYI. Raul has unprotected per a note I left on his talk page. Advert tagging will be met with blocks though.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Spam is spam, no matter how well written it is. Baseball Bugs 19:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a garden-variety content dispute, nothing more. Why are adminstrators revert-waring on this article, and why are those on one side of the dispute being blocked? I was under the impression that tag-warring was not exempt from 3RR. ➪HiDrNick! 19:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

My assumption is that they've got egg on their face from having promoted spam to featured article status, and such a tag on a featured article makes wikipedia look stupid. It's only for one day, then it will blow over. But maybe they'll be more careful in the future. Baseball Bugs 19:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Who are "they"? It is a long-held convention that we don't put maintenance tags on the featured article of the day while it is on the main page. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less. The purpose of a maintenance tag is to alert editors to a problem, but the featured article of the day has so many eyes on it that such an alert is unnecessary - you can just talk it out on the talk page. I almost never agree with Raul, but I fully agree that anyone adding a maintenance tag to the featured article of the day is being disruptive and if they persist should be blocked. --B (talk) 20:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, if articles requiring maintence tags were not featured on the main page, this would not be a problem. I don't expect anyone to bat 100% in selecting articles for the main page, but when mistakes are made they should be corrected. Not like this. ➪HiDrNick! 20:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow. This is hardly "promoted spam," it's an editor's good-faith work to develop a featured article. I really think you're taking some unnecessary swipes at the editors involved, and would suggest an apology is in order. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I can understand a featured and deeply sourced article on a commercial topic like iPod, Tesco or Swatch but I don't understand how this made it to the front page. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Much as it pains me, I find myself agreeing with both Baseball Bugs and Gwen. No disrespect to the writers, but while this is certainly GA material I don't see how this ever made the main page. — iridescent 20:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

For those of us who are lazy, is there a diff to who proposed it and any discussion that took place? I guess it really doesn't matter, though - it isn't going to be changed and the problem will solve itself in 4 hours. The question is what standards we would like to adopt for the future. Complaining after the fact doesn't do anything. --B (talk) 20:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

As an outside observer, this certainly is an interesting precedent, although I feel that the article in question is on a different level from the article that some people have mentioned appeared on the main page about the knifemaker, Ernest Emerson, a few months ago. Gary King (talk) 20:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Generally, when I think that a today's featured article should not have been featured, it has no articles, or only a few, in other languages. It's a good indicator I think. I am against a general rule on articles on commercial subjects for inclusion on the MP, but I think that they should be particularly reviewed. I also think that the process should be completely revamped. Cenarium (talk) 20:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's an interesting way to look at it and on a certain level, I agree that it is a useful rule-of-thumb. But, as the people who support this article's placement on the main page have noted, there is no rule that states commercial subjects are not allowed on the main page. I also think that it is fruitless to even try to create a rule like that; a lot of controversy and opposition will no doubt ensue. I think the most logical route, especially on a wiki, should be to go with the simplest solution. In the case of main page articles, the simplest solution is to allow any FA articles to be shown. If we begin to limit any type of article, then it will be difficult to figure out whether certain articles that are on the edge of an unsteady criterion should be shown. Also, it can be argued that if, say, all company articles were not allowed, who's to say that articles such as Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder, does not indirectly advertise for Microsoft? Etc., etc. Gary King (talk) 20:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) For what it's worth, I didn't request that this be put on the main page but I'm glad it's there. I've gotten a lot of great feedback and that's what I'll carry away from the day. --Laser brain (talk) 20:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A FAR would have given feedback too, and avoid all the drama. Then, an appearance on the Main Page would have been more 'pleasant' for everybody. I think that a recent FAR should be a criteria for appearance on the Main Page. Cenarium (talk) 20:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The article was promoted only two months ago, and articles that are promoted in such a short period typically do not go to FAR that soon. Gary King (talk) 20:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure would be nice to see more of these names actually participating in the FAC process. Maralia (talk) 20:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point. Some of the people involved in this have also pointed out that they are not even aware how articles are promoted to FA; no doubt that knowledge would have been useful. Gary King (talk) 20:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll be pleased to participate in the FA process when I'll have more experience in article writing. In the mean time, I still can give my outside view, for what it's worth. Cenarium (talk) 21:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Now that you say this, I'll try to participate in some FAC, even though I am not a FA writer, I think that I can give constructive criticism. I'm particularly puzzled by the fact that the FAC has been closed within 10 days, which led to protests. Cenarium (talk) 22:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect, misinterpretation; there is no requirement, rhyme or reason that any article must go through GA on the path to FA. That was and remains a misunderstanding, GA status isn't related to FA preparedness, and the discussion you linked had no relevance to FA criteria. GA is not a community process, provides no guarantee of quality as it's only one editor's opinion, and it has nothing to do with FA or FAC. It would be most helpful if the people commenting on community processes would actually engage and understand these processes and Wiki policies and guidelines before disparaging another editor's hard work with the frightful bad faith accusations we've seen in this discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, I am assuming that you are responding to Iridescent's comment? The placement of your comment made it a bit confusing to follow the discussion. Gary King (talk) 22:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The placement of my comment is right under the comment I was responding to, as it should be. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The GA process was never mentioned above... Oh, I see, in the linked thread. Gary King (talk) 22:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

At the very least, I find comments on the ANI page by editors who are active enough in the policies of Misplaced Pages, not understanding the process of FAC to be disheartening. I beg for feedback on the articles I write to make sure I resolve as many objections to article content and style as I can before I nominate anything for FAC. As what has been displayed in this thread, all anyone has to do to be able to review FACs is read and have an opinion - anyone who has posted in this thread is qualified to review FACs and have input as to what gets passed. Articles are the lifeblood and the entire purpose of this site; at WP:FAC, WP:GA, and WP:PR all are woefully short of people willing to give their opinions on what they would like to read in an article. Because the same few people do the reviewing, despite how thorough, fair, or tough they are, it bends articles to reflect a limited view of what qualifies as Misplaced Pages's finest work. Please participate. --Moni3 (talk) 22:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I realize that now, I'll try to participate. Cenarium (talk) 22:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

(To SandyGeorgia) I just give you a link and you say that I misinterpret ? The third comment of Edibility holds and are backed up by the later discussions in the talk page of the article. 10 days for a FAC is short from what I can see. The alleged frightful bad faith accusations are somewhat misplaced. I don't understand your attitude, the today's featured article has problems, as pointed out by various editors, and it's fair to try to find an explanation for that. Cenarium (talk) 22:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You posted a link to a discussion from a editor stating that articles should be GA before FA, and stating there were "protests": incorrect on both counts. And there have been frightful bad faith accusations: look at the statements from Baseball Bugs (above). No admin has yet issued a warning for that statement, and Laser brain has justifiably left the building after enduring an entire day of bad faith attacks on his work. The various talk page statements that imply that Raul or I are promoting advertising on Wiki are equally bad faith, and not surprisingly, all of these claims are being made by people who haven't participated in the processes of promoting articles to featured status. (I believe the common term for this is armchair quarterbacking?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Right, there has been a lot of bad faith accusations, it seems to be common for this kind of articles, and I condemn this. But constructive critics has also been given, and you cannot deny that this article has problems, which is unusual for articles on the MP, thanks to thoughtful consideration. Edibility protested, on credible grounds, saying that the FAC has been "rushed". And what happens now validates his concerns, the GA matter is anecdotal. Cenarium (talk) 23:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, it would be helpful to engage and understand the processes you are commenting on: first, Edibility did not "protest", whatever that means. Second, Edibility thought GA was a prerequisite for FA, which is incorrect. Third, Edibility thought WP:V required that sources be available online, which is a misunderstanding of our most fundamental policies. You've linked to a page, concluding it was evidence of a problem in the FAC, when it evidenced ... nothing. But I'm glad you're now recognizing the reason another one of our core policies is WP:AGF, because after the insults Laser has endured today, and the astounding assumptions of bad faith all 'round, I'd be surprised if anyone ever wanted to submit a company or product article to FAC again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If "protest" is too strong, then at least, Edibility has emitted concerns on the way this FAC has been handled. I cite "But I'm concerned that Laser brain is trying very hard and quickly to push this article to Featured Status with little time for evaluation. The article is a borderline advertisement for Elderly Instruments with many uncited statements and marketing terms. Laser brain is the only significant contributor to this article.". The events of yesterday tend to agree with most of this assessment. I recognized the AGF breach some times ago by the way, see . It is time to recognize that yesterday's featured article was somehow problematic too. Now it's over. Cenarium (talk) 00:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll try again: Edibility has emitted concerns on the way this FAC has been handled. No, he didn't. From many of your statements above, it appears that you're unaware of how articles become featured, in fact, unclear on the difference between WP:FAC and WP:FAR or WP:TFA/R; a review of the instructions on all of these pages might be helpful. You suggested above that articles should be submitted to FAR before appearing on the mainpage; I can't decipher the benefit of reviewing articles twice (at FAC and FAR) before putting them on the mainpage. Here is the misunderstanding of the criteria that Edibility put forward on the FAC: The article was never submitted for good article review. I'm not sure, but I think it needs to go through good article before going for featured article. (Sorry if I'm wrong about this -- just please correct me kindly.) Many of the article's sources are not available online, so I think others who have access to the sources should confirm the article before it gets featured status. Articles do not need to go to GA before appearing at FAC, GA is not a community-wide process (GAs are the opinion of one editor) and GA has no bearing on or relation to the FA process, and sources must not be available online. Edibility was not expressing concerns about the FAC process and he did not "protest"; in fact, he didn't even enter an Oppose on the FAC. Edibility was expressing a lack of knowledge of the FAC process and WP:V policy. If Edibility "protested" the article, Edibility could have entered an Oppose on the article's candidancy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I am perfectly aware of the difference between FAR, FAC and TFA/R. I suggested that a recent FAR be a criteria because articles may change in a few months (the FA status may be revoked, we have numerous FFAs), but if the FAC was recent, then it's not necessary of course. Again, the sentence I cited speaks for itself. I suppose that Edibility refrained from commenting because he thought that he was a novice. The GA question is not very important in this. Personally, I would have opposed per 1c and 1d. I have no problem with the FA process in general, but in this particular case, I think that it has been a little speedied. Cenarium (talk) 13:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Note that if the community chooses TFA, as proposed at , a recent FAR becomes unnecessary, since the article will be reviewed and subsequently improved before appearing on the Main Page. Cenarium (talk) 14:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that this is another highly questionable FA which should not have been promoted to the main page and bring s Misplaced Pages into disrepute, in this instance as a purveyor of well-written ad copy. But the real problem here is that editors are not allowed to made editorial evaluation at FAC based on overall article content. That is not an ANI issue, but an FAC issue and the discussion should take place there. Clearly FAC needs a revamp if this is the stuff that makes it through. While we all appreciate the work done by Raul and SandyGeorgia, they should not be forced into the ridiculous position of having to defend in every instance articles that are promoted based on flaws in FAC itself. We put a blatant advertisement on our front page. That suggests that wider policy concerns ought to be at play here. Eusebeus (talk) 04:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Huh? FAC needs a revamp? Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you participate in this article's FAC? If not, there is no way you can be justified in saying "the real problem here is that editors are not allowed to made editorial evaluation at FAC based on overall article content". dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 06:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Huh? FAC does not allow editors to make editorial evaluation at FAC based on overall article content. Can you please justify that obviously incorrect statement?Balloonman (talk) 06:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Huh, when I spoke of a revamp, I referred to the TFA process, see this discussion. Cenarium (talk) 13:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

My incredulity at FAC process needs a revamp by someone not involved with it was accurately expressed by dihydrogen monoxide and Balloonman. The FAC process starts with a ton of research. I suggest anyone who considers the FAC process as faulty or lacking significant procedure should go there right now (here's the link to make it easier WP:FAC), read the nominated articles and acquaint themselves with what currently functions. Then feel free to make suggestions on the talk page. This is my second post at ANI - I can imagine if I participated in a thread about how dysfunctional ANI is, I'd get a monitor-full of how I need to know what I'm talking about before I make a fool of myself. --Moni3 (talk) 14:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, when I spoke of a revamp above, I referred to the TFA process, my opinion is shared by users significantly involved in FAs, see the discussion I linked above. I have no general objection to the FAC process, though I think that this one shouldn't have been promoted to FA status. But this kind of things happen, in any process, and editors have a right to disagree with a promotion. Cenarium (talk) 14:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Time to give up on this never-ending circle of misunderstanding. Cenarium is now saying that choosing mainpage TFAs by community consensus (even though s/he finds fault with the same community consensus which promotes FAs) will lead to: the article will be reviewed and subsequently improved before appearing on the Main Page. Where on earth did you come up with this notion? There is no evidence that any such thing will happen, and I am aware of exactly one case where it did happen, because of FAR regulars (Monarch of the United Kingdom). Considering that there are only a handful of editors on Wiki who do this sort of work, period, it is astounding that anyone thinks that adding an additional review step will actually result in article improvement prior to mainpage appearance, particularly when one of those editors who did help with this sort of work (always in short supply) has now left the building (hopefully temporarily). Cenarium, please engage and understand processes before opining on them; clearly your understanding of the reviewer shortage that impacts all Wiki content review processes (not just FAC and FAR) is lacking, and these proposals to add more process when we're already lacking reviewers show a clear lack of understanding of the issues and processes. How can the same person who criticizes a consensual and open process that results in articles being featured then advocate for the same sort of process to choose mainpage TFAs, while claiming against all evidence that such a process will result in article improvement before mainpage appearance ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

"WhatsUpPussycat?"

User:WhatsUpPussycat? seems to have created an account only for the purpose of adding an article to AfD. In this edit, that user changed all the keep votes to delete votes, i.e. he or she changed other people's votes. The edit also purported to close the discussion with a delete decision. If I recall correctly, the participants, including the nominator, are supposed to recuse themselves from closing the nomination. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

AfD speedy-closed as keep. -Jéské 17:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Cyberanth

Editor Cyberanth was blocked for sock puppetry but appears to have returned, persisting in making the same edits, in violation of the block, under the usernames User:Daimerej, possibly User:Tucu, and possibly IPs 74.233.86.145 and 64.66.192.62. These identities are making the same edits, have started at roughly the same time, and bear a striking resemblance to Cyberanth. He also basically conceded his identity here Trilemma (talk) 18:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If there is a CU available...I recommend taking a look. Tiptoety 18:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Daimerej is undoubtedly CyberAnth. I'll say "probable" to Tucu. I also found Ssewen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who is also blocked. I haven't blocked Tucu. Sam Korn 22:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Matt Sanchez back? Probably. Attacks? Definitely

Someone see the history of User talk:69.86.53.26. No doubt this is Matt Sanchez evading his Wiki-ban, again. I'll leave that determination to a check user. As for the attacks, this one should be dealt with accordingly. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ 18:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the talk page with the attack and will semi protect it if the attacks continue. —Travis 18:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sock accounts editing on alternative medicine

Tim Vickers (talk) 22:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

While preparing a this user RfC on User:TheNautilus, another editor pointed out that this editor is a sockpuppet account of User:I'clast, eg diff. Could some uninvolved admins see why this user is using two accounts to edit this controversial set of articles. Looking through their contributions there seems to be little overlap except for the general subject area, but since neither account is linked to a real-life ID I'm suspicious that this might be an attempt to avoid scrutiny, or to operate TheNautilus as a "bad hand" account. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

After comparing contribs for the two I'd tag this as "very likely." There's a good deal of overlap in topic areas and strong stylistic commonalities in their edit summaries. Raymond Arritt (talk) 19:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at this comment and this comment. These two accounts have the same unique type of writing style. And take a look at the edit summaries of these two comments. Both accounts used the abbreviation ps. Take a look at this TheNautilus comment. I'cast replaced TheNautilus signature. This is a potential violation of sock because the editor is splitting up contributions to avoid public scrutiny IMHO. QuackGuru 19:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

What do people think I should do? Should I switch the RfC to the sockmaster account, or wait until this has been resolved and then restart the RfC? Tim Vickers (talk) 19:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

For now, at least one of the accounts should be blocked but which one? QuackGuru 19:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Please provide more deatil on how he or she is using the accounts disruptively. Are they voting on the same things or commenting on the same pages to make it appear as if they have consensus? Simply having more than one account does not violate the sockpuppet policy. Mahalo. --Ali'i 19:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have explained the trolling problems before to other editors"speed bump & fire break for trolls" setup, since September, 2006, including to QG, as well as some admins and higher up even longer ago, near the outset. I consider QG's various comments here, , and before, to be without good faith and his actions serial harrassment.--TheNautilus (talk) 00:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm asking for other people to investigate their reasons for doing this. If it were a simple case of using socks for double-voting or talkpage disruption I'd have blocked them myself. Judgments on if people's use of multiple accounts complies with, or violates our policy need to be made by uninvolved editors. In the meantime, what do people advise I do with this RfC? Is there any point in proceeding with this on a sock account? Tim Vickers (talk) 20:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see obvious abuse although I haven't spent hours combing through every edit. I'd put a note on the RfC that this appears to be an alternate account of I'Clast. If approached in a non-confrontational way it's possible he'll own up, and maybe even explain the reason for having two accounts. There could be a simple and non-controversial reason as Ali'i implies (maybe one to use from home and another from school, or whatever). Raymond Arritt (talk) 20:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Raymond, I'd wondered about a work versus home account, but the very lack of overlap in the articles edited makes that unlikely. These two accounts are being kept separate for some reason. Could you talk to him about this? I'd trust your judgement and neutrality. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Reading I'clast's old talkpage posts I notice this concern has been raised with him before. link. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

They are alternate accounts of the same editor. I'm not aware of them being used abusively. I don't think there's been any effort to conceal this, though neither has it been advertised. As to the reasons why this editor uses two accounts, you'd have to ask him. I think that if you're proceeding with the RfC, best to note that I'clast/TheNautilus are the same editor and compile diffs etc. accordingly. MastCell  22:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll do that. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This is pure harrassment. My 66.58 IP range is long acknowledged on my User & User:Talk page (see above at the top of the User and Talk pages) and other places by others to reduce stalking, including recurring, especially troublesome trolls, finally banned, and blooming trolls. Some sr admins and Wiki bureaucrats have long been informed of my duality situation, directly.

I re-edited my own signed edit, where the old browser on the machine doesn't always show the current, correct ID / IP state without explicitly logging out, signing back in. Tim, despite whatever his merits on other subjects, is POV pushing some really poor references that have no underlying WP:RS substance despite their publishers imprint, using known, cranky, bigoted authors who were previously publicly rebuked in Science (journal) by an officer, later president, of the National Academy of Sciences (wow!), misstating circumstances in edit (e.g. there has long been no concensus over Tim's changes), misstating the nature of the science disputes, and ignoring more detailed, accurate sources. Now we see stooping to an unworthy AN/I over a simple logging error on a Talk edit *already under my own signature*. See also WP:HUSH.--TheNautilus (talk) 00:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they are both his accounts, the I'clast username being devoted to chiropractic. I don't recall any misuse in the sense of voting fraud or such like. I suspect a number of users who usually rub shoulders with him here are aware of this use of two accounts, but for others it is no doubt confusing. The various IPs have also been known by me for some time now. They should have been signed later, but that has far from always been done, which could lead editors to cry misuse of an IP sock. I have recognized the IPs and have therefore done nothing.

Both accounts exhibit similar types of failures to understand policies and frequent attempts to squeeze crystal-ball-synth-OR into articles. The "truth" as understood by him is more important than what the sources say, so contorted crystal-ball-synth-OR occurs to justify inclusion of some sources and deletions of sources he doesn't like. The RfC will no doubt discuss this. -- Fyslee / talk 02:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'clast handles even more politicized articles, where science is often on vacation and trolls aren't. Actually I do not edit chiropractic and only occasionally vote on related chiro articles that seem have issues that slop over to other areas. Because of the problems with integrating disparate and contradictory mainstream sources, I rely on Jimbo's "source research" and other provisions to reconcile discrepancies to the most current & complete. This has enabled productive collaboration with the more mature and sophisticated researchers. My primary "problems" have been with less mature (recent) students and non-technical editors who can't distinguish scientific misconduct, scientific quackery, bigotry(severe bias) and repeated misrepresentations very well, even when the NIH, Cochrane or PNAS papers confirm them. Some old commentators, abusively name calling personal enemies, imprecisely identified parties or practices in one or two rancid paragraphs in non-peer reviewed blurbss, sometimes without a single external reference or relevant data, is *not* a superior science reference as claimed by Tim. Some of my accusers here appear to selectively ignore WP policies, facts, mainstream science & scientific methodolgy that seriously conflict with their prejudices.--TheNautilus (talk) 06:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I recommend that any further discussion takes place at the RfC, which is now filed at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/TheNautilus Tim Vickers (talk) 02:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Threat by new editor to kill anyone who edits his article.

See July 10 1992 (since deleted: only admins can view) and this threat by Cane61 "i will kill any one who touches this page" : . Suggestions? Just warn, or block? Edison (talk) 19:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Block. This is a threat on the order of the cover of National Lampoon one time, showing a dog with a gun at its head: "Buy this magazine or we'll shoot this dog." Baseball Bugs 19:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with block. Too much to do, no need for this to be prolonged under some ill-conceived banner of "good faith". Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyone who makes a threat of bodily harm (1) forfeits all "good faith"; and (2) has virtually no likelihood of becoming a useful editor. Kudos. Baseball Bugs 20:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Puzzling user page and talk page moves

What is going on when several user pages are being redirected or moved? I wanted to post a warning on a talk page of user Sheryl De Villa about repeatedly inserting a paragraph on who the subject of Vanessa G. Sotto is dating, per WP:BLP but it is hard to get to the talk page of user Sheryl De Villa. User talk:Sheryl De Villa redirects to Imelda Salvador which in turn redirects to X Lala x. There are several other article moves and redirects in the tangled skein. See ] and. A user talk page gets redirected to an article and then to another article. Edison (talk) 21:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a newbie thing. The userpages have been restored, several redirects and one article have now been speedied, leaving one article for consideration. -- zzuuzz 21:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The last one has been deleted, I suspect that it was a hoax, the imdb profiles were not related to the subject of the article. It's also consistent with the edits of the user, and the general disruption unusual for a genuine newbie. Cenarium (talk) 21:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Hot potato on the 3RR noticeboard

Your attention is invited at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Boodlesthecat reported by User:Piotrus (Result: ), which concerns a continuing edit war at Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. (I know you are asking yourself, what could possibly be controversial about a topic like that?)

A previous block of the same editor reported here was commuted to time served, since it was thought to be unfair to sanction only one side of the dispute. This leaves the question still open as to what other sanctions should be imposed. The just-unblocked editor has continued to revert. I suggest that an uninvolved admin might wish to apply full protection to the article. There are some overtones of a dispute between nationalities. Further background can be found at Talk:Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. Personally, I believe there is some logic behind the position of User:Boodlesthecat, but he shouldn't continue to revert war. EdJohnston (talk) 21:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Update. User:Moreschi has blocked the editor involved, though wisdom may be needed to figure out how to make this article neutral in the long term. EdJohnston (talk) 21:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I also blocked one of his opponents, who did 4 reverts. Why the hell can people just not go to RFPP and ask for a brief protection to stop the edit-war? Moreschi (talk) (debate) 21:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Many just don't know about it. Myself, I could hardly believe a user who was just unblocked from a 3RR violation on this article and asked to behave nicely would go all out like this. And once he did, since he is the only editor responsible for destabilization, blocking him is a much better solution than protecting the article: why prevent all editors from working on it of it is only one of many who is ruining it for everyone else? PS. The cabal accusations on his talk page ("concerted gang edit warring that Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus is leading") are amusing :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Obvioustrollisobvious

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

Does anyone recognize whose sock drawer he crawled out of? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

"Lol wut" is a mark of Grawp (talk · contribs), but I don't see other similarities, so it doesn't prove anything, I have no idea. The warnings of the user were excessively harsh and many times inappropriate. Starting like that is unusual for a new editor, I agree that the user is probably a sock. Cenarium (talk) 23:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

similar to Knickerbockers (talk · contribs) both pretending to revert the same IP vandalism on Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Performance that it is likely they had previously done while logged out (Knickerbockers as 24.127.47.143 on 1 March, and now Obvioustrollisobvious as 212.139.122.11, also the same vandalism was done by Imightjustfail (talk · contribs) whose user page redirects to the penis article. If not Grawp then another vandal who is aware of Grawp, Encyclopedia Dramatica, etc. It may be a good idea to delete or hide the vandalism to stop articles being reverted to it again. --Snigbrook 23:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, indeed, I missed the edit, the diffs should be deleted. Cenarium (talk) 00:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Contested protection

In the aftermath of the incident discussed just above, with one overeager editor blocked for 96h for 10RR (yes... 10RR), we are now in disagreement over whether this article should be protected or not. User:Gamaliel, also involved in the discussion and editing, has just protected it. I believe that the protection is unnecessary, now that the user who was revert warring has been blocked, particularly as to my knowledge not a single revert war was carried out which did not concern reverts by or reverting of the user who is now blocked. I think we should now let the interested editors edit the article - I do not think there is any likelihood of a new edit war, the remaining editors seem to be willing to discuss the issue at talk and not to overstep WP:BRD too much. Alas, User:Gamaliel has overturned my unprotection and criticized me for it (even through he himself is also involved in editing of the article). Thus I'd like to ask for a review of the situation: with the reverting user blocked, I see no need for protection (protection is necessary when many users revert without breaking 3RR thus destabilizing the article; here we have a simple case of 10RR violator who was primarily responsible for the destabilization).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I visited this article after a post on the BLP noticeboard. What I found was a group of editors whose nationalist fervor appeared to override their judgment. Both sides were uncivil and combative, and I've been making attempts to get everyone to use the talk page and discuss the issues involved. Other new editors have arrived from the BLP noticeboard as well as the RfC I encouraged one editor to open. However, the edit war is still flaring, as witnessed by multiple blocks for 3RR violations. After two editors were so blocked today, I decided to lock the article and encourage the parties to discuss their differences. It was immediately unlocked by Piotrus. This action was only the latest improper action he has taken in regards to this article. He has taken clear sides in the editing dispute, which is fine if he is not acting in an administrative capacity,. but he is trying to wear both hats. He has been repeatedly uncivil to an opposing editor, and while that editor is far from innocent and blameless, my attempts to get Piotrus and other editors to be civil to him (and vice versa) were met with accusations by him that I was "endors a combination of censorship and personal attacks". Prior to my involvement, Piotrus threatened this editor with a block for removing a blatant BLP violation in the form of an appalling attack on a living individual on the talk page. Piotrus' response to this is only that the editor he threatened is a mean instigator of trouble. After I locked the article today, he immediately unlocked it, an improper action given his deep involvement in the article and his animosity towards the other editor who was blocked today. (My involvement in the article editing has been limited to tinkering with the refs and adding a small quailifier ("he claims") to a appallingly POV sentence.) Overall, Piotrus has been an obstacle to restoring civil collaborative editing on this article and has repeatedly used his administrative position inappropriately. Gamaliel (talk) 23:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Translations:

1) "multiple blocks for 3RR violations": Translation: "two blocks". Well, "three", including the same user (Boodlesthecat) twice.

2) "has taken clear sides in the editing dispute". Translation: has criticized an editor (Boodlesthecat) who was revert warring and highly incivil (ex. accusing them of "Jew bashing trolling") that if he does not stop violating our policies (WP:3RR, WP:NPA, etc.). That editor was defended by Gamaliel.

3) "has been repeatedly uncivil to an opposing editor" (no diffs provided, presumably Boodlesthecat?). Translation: ] has repeatedly told the editor who was edit warring and harassing those who disagree with him he will be blocked if he continues his behavior (and lo, he was. Twice. Not by Piotrus...).

Overall, I find Gamaliel activity not the best example of admin's behavior: incivil, revert warring editors should be warned, not appeased and encouraged, whether one agrees with their POV or not. And protecting the article after the principal revert warring editor was blocked, in his version, and wheel warring over it, is hardly showing a proper admin judgment, either.

PS. In any case, I don't want want this to turn to discussing of Gamaliel's actions (everyone can make mistakes and I have not heard anything bad about his judgment before), but the article should be unprotected so that we can benefit from the recent influx of BLP/RfC editors who may want to edit mainspace, particularly as there is no indication any edit warring will resume (at least, not for the next 3 days, until the user blocked for edit warring block expires).

--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Encouraging all parties to be civil to one another is not encouraging or appeasing anything, and Boodles' wrongs don't give you license to threaten him, restore BLP violations, or generally act as you have.

As you should know, a page should be protected regardless of whether or not the "right" version is the one protected, barring blatant violations of core policies like BLP of course. See "The Wrong Version". Gamaliel (talk) 23:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The page should not be however protected by an admin who was involved with editing it. It looks pretty bad when you protect the version of the blocked editor whom you refused to moderate, whom you defended in discussion and whose POV you appeared to support with your talk comments and edits.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't refuse to moderate anyone. Please show where I refused to do so. I have been counseling him to act differently, to file an RfC (which he listened to) and to stop edit warring (which he did not listen to). I have advising you to act differently as well, advise you have totally ignored. Asking editors to be civil to him is not defending him personally or taking his side, it is following policy. Asking editors to explain their reverts of his edits when they don't use an edit summary is not defending him personally or taking his side, it is an attempt to encourage collaborative editing. Your stubborn insistence to see every step I take as a defense of Boodsy is one of the things that is preventing you and your supporters from becoming more civil and working with other editors on this matter. And you know full well my editing was limited to tinkering with refs, which hardly disqualifies me from acting in an administrative capacity, and hardly excuses your repeated violations of administrative policy and propriety. Gamaliel (talk) 23:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

My followers? I see where it is going and I am disappointed with your attitude. In any case, I have said all I wanted to say with regards to this article and your judgment (if you had tried to moderate Boodsy, good but I told you you should have been more stern - his 10RR is proof that he took your light moderation as encouragement as I predicted he would). Assuming the article is unprotected, I expect the interested editors involved in it will be able peacefully and produce a good version soon - assuming that no more edit warring occurs. I also hope there will be little need for my further input (as without Boodsy there is hardly anybody left to moderate). If however the article is left under protection, BLP/RfC people lose interest and Boodsy returns in a week resuming where he left off, we will be back to square one and see 3RR and ANI soon again.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I support the lock, which should have been done earlier. Also, I've made a suggestion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#Edit_restrictions_following_edit_war_suggested to put at least three of the involved editors on the edit restriction list at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren. "Any editor working on topics related to Eastern Europe, broadly defined, may be made subject to an editing restriction at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator.". While Boodlesthecat is a newcomer (to me) who overdid it by far, both Poeticbent and Piotrus are very experienced editors and no strangers to controversial Eastern European matters. They should have known better, and should join the two dozen editors already under edit restriction. Also, Piotrus mentions WP:CABAL once again, knowing very well about the concerns in this regard. -- Matthead  Discuß   00:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Borderline link spam from 121.241.8.6

The user at 121.241.8.6 (talk · contribs) has recently added a large number of unnecessary links, all apparently advertising web pages within www.mypopkorn.com. In no case can I find any addition of contextual information explaining the need for the link. I recommend that all recent edits from this IP address be rolled back. Rahul (talk) 23:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Todd apparently gave the IP a final warning. Its blocksville for them if they continue to insert it again within the next 24 hours.¤~Persian Poet Gal 02:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

If it starts from another IP address or an registered user or whatever, suggest Misplaced Pages:Spam blacklist as the current usage isn't that great anyway. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

This guy....

I have a feeling that he is MaskedSuperAgent. MSA is known for changing one of my posts to sound like I attacked him. He is known for assigning hostile motivations to our posts like thisSimonKSK 23:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

Resolved

Resolved – IP blocked 31 hours

Resolved – blanked - oversight informed Agathoclea (talk) 15:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Resolved.

Resolved – deleted version userfied --Rodhullandemu 15:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

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