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Viriditas again

Viriditas appears to be starting throwing his aggression around again at Talk:Tetrahydrocannabinol: . This is clearly inappropriate. Can someone nip this in the bud? I'm not sure how anyone is expected to interact with someone as hostile as that. Cheers, Second Quantization (talk) 23:24, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to defend Viriditas, he is certainly being very aggressive, but the "other side" could also stand to stop cherry-picking terrible studies to use as sources. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:32, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree. It seems almost like baiting to me.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:09, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

All involved need to just relax and smoke a joint (where it's legal of course).Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:54, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I assume I am on the other side? I picked some well cited papers (50-60 each) which discuss related topics, then I faced a barrage of attack. I didn't cherry pick them, (where are these alternative studies, indicative of the literature, that you say we are ignoring?) I picked the most highly cited I could find which were within ~5 years. I have no preformed views on this topic, and could not care less if cannabis is legalised or not. There is a reasonable discussion we could have about this topic, but Viriditas is jumping in with comments like: "Keep fucking that chicken and keep drinking what's left of that Kool-Aid, because pretty soon the cat's gonna be out of the bag, and you'll be the last one standing. Nobody is buying the propaganda anymore and pretty soon, you guys are gonna be out of a job. It's only a matter of time now. It's over guy, pack it up and go home. ", "But you'll continue to cite sources sans evidence that use the unscientific fear-mongering term "marijuana" instead of the medical term "cannabis" because those NIDA dollars have to keep rolling in and the DEA must meet their quota. Pure fucking nonsense. You're no skeptic, that's for sure.". How are we meant to address someone that claims that scientific peer review is a "Peer review, as in the political process which publishes anti-cannabis propaganda on a daily basis based on small sample sizes but won't allow pro-cannabis studies based on large sample sizes to see the light of day? You mean that broken, biased process which serves the interests of the government and the pharmaceutical companies, but not the interests of the public and patients? Is that what you mean?". Also "Where are all the bodies of the dead cannabis users and why are you hiding them?" Second Quantization (talk) 09:20, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems according to Viriditas I'm not cherry picking but that: "The cannabis literature is more than 90% negative and chock full of false assumptions, half-truths, and scaremongering because it is funded by first and foremost by drug "abuse' and drug control and prevention programs, and this starts at the United Nations and works its way down.". Seriously, when someone claims mass conspiracy in the literature ... There is no reliable source we can use to show anything, because he will instantly trump it by saying that's all part of the conspiracy. Second Quantization (talk) 12:35, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

This is precisely why I said you were ignorant. You appear to know absolutely nothing about the United Nations drug program which is seeking to outlaw cannabis in every country. This is reported on in reliable sources virtually every week. BBC did a story two days ago, and it's been all over the news since Uruguay voted to legalize it in 2013, which greatly upset the UN . There is nothing conspiratorial about this at all, you're just completely ignorant on the subject. The UN repeats misinformation and propaganda about cannabis to further their anti-cannabis agenda. Virtually every claim they've made about cannabis has been totally debunked by experts in their respective fields, so one wonders what's going on here. With all the problems in the world, with all the war (which the UN has totally failed in their stated mission to end) and hunger and suffering, one wonders why the UN is threatening other countries who legalize cannabis. To whose benefit? The only people that benefit from the criminalization of cannabis are 1) drug dealers, 2) the prison industry, and 3) authoritarian governments, who prefer to restrict the freedom of their citizens to alter their consciousness (cognitive liberty), which is ironically a violation of the human rights charter that the UN is supposed to uphold. This is an historical fucking fact, not some crazy conspiracy. Heck, you didn't even know we were discussing deaths from Marinol, yet you responded to the topic. And now you say you've never heard of Marinol? Is this some kind of a joke? Stop discussing topics you don't know anything about. You are wasting a great deal of time. Viriditas (talk) 09:33, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I took a random look at the article and this is what I found when I zoned in on what I find to be the most controversial claim:

Impact on psychosis A literature review on the subject concluded that "cannabis use appears to be neither a sufficient nor a necessary cause for psychosis. It is a component cause, part of a complex constellation of factors leading to psychosis." Arseneault, L.; Cannon, M; Witton, J; Murray, RM (2004). "Causal association between cannabis and psychosis: examination of the evidence". The British Journal of Psychiatry. 184 (2): 110–117. doi:10.1192/bjp.184.2.110. PMID 14754822. In other words, THC and other active substances of cannabis may accentuate symptoms in people already predisposed, but likely don't cause psychotic disorders on their own. However, a French review from 2009 came to a conclusion that cannabis use, particularly that before age 15, was a factor in the development of schizophrenic disorders. Laqueille, X. (2009). "Le cannabis est-il un facteur de vulnérabilité des troubles schizophrènes?". Archives de Pédiatrie. 16 (9): 1302–5. doi:10.1016/j.arcped.2009.03.016. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |registration= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)

This is what I see as cherry picking - the first source is a primary source journal. It is not a secondary source interpretation or analysis of the journal's contents or conclusions. This is a misuse of the primary source. We cannot make this claim: "A literature review on the subject concluded that...." and then make our own conclusions or analysis in Misplaced Pages's voice. Then the next source is a non English source and you will have to excuse me here but...why? The US and the UK have all done studies and there are tons of journals. Are we saying that there are no English sources of equal validity? This does seem outrageous to me and I can see why some would get a tad tired of having to deal with this kind of thing if it is persistent and I think it may be. Then, when I go to your talk page I notice what appears to be a non neutral notification to you about other contributions to these "Cannabis" related articles and in turn a quick discussion of "Ideological warriors pushing their viewpoints and ignoring the science because peer review is a means of subjugation by "the man" or whatever". You will excuse me if I say you been here long enough (since 2006) to know that you are bringing the attention to yourself in a manner that makes me wonder who is the one pushing what agenda. I suggest that this is a heated content dispute and you may want to take into consideration what it looks like to others and not just what others look like to you.--Mark Miller (talk) 12:49, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

"I took a random look at the article and ..." Erm, no one has claimed this article is perfect and I have never defended that subsection. The specific issue under discussion is THC and myocardial infarction. There is no discussion related specifically to psychosis, so I don't see why you are talking about it? I see no one who has defended that subsection and has nothing to do with the myocardial infarction which was. The validity of viriditas argument that there is a conspiracy amongst Stroke, Lancet etc to exclude pro-cannabis publications related to myocardial infarction is not related to the psychosis section. Second Quantization (talk) 12:56, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Whether it is a conspiracy or not, it is a historical fact. This was published in the Los Angeles Times eight hours ago: "For years, scientists who have wanted to study how marijuana might be used to treat illness say they have been stymied by resistance from federal drug officials...Researchers say...the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has long been hostile to proposals aimed at examining possible benefits of the drug...Suzanne A. Sisley, clinical assistant professor of psychology at the university's medical school...has been trying to get the green light for her study for three years...scientists have had difficulty getting approval to study how the drug might be employed more effectively...Federal restrictions on pot research have been a source of tension for years. Researchers, marijuana advocates and some members of Congress have accused the National Institute on Drug Abuse of hoarding the nation's only sanctioned research pot for studies aimed at highlighting the drug's ill effects...In the last 10 years, the government had approved just one U.S. research center to conduct clinical trials involving marijuana use for medical purposes...The scientist who runs that center, Igor Grant, said his success in getting Washington's sign-off was due in large part to something other scientists do not have: the full force of the state..."Every one of those studies showed, in the short term, a beneficial effect," Grant said. "There is very good evidence cannabis is helpful." Viriditas (talk) 09:11, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

That does not say what you think it says. It does not support the specific conspiracy you were advocating that positive research about the health risks can not be published. Funding in relation to exploring medical research is a different but unrelated issue. I should also note your hypocrisy. You said "But you'll continue to cite sources sans evidence that use the unscientific fear-mongering term "marijuana" instead of". That article only uses that term when referring to cannabis. You berate me for the very things you do while yet again conflating separate issues. Second Quantization (talk) 10:01, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I have not advocated any "conspiracy", that's your claim, and the source says exactly what I just quoted to you verbatim; how could it say anything else? It most certainly does support the idea that "positive research about the health risks can not be published" and I quoted it directly from the article: "Researchers say...the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has long been hostile to proposals aimed at examining possible benefits of the drug...Federal restrictions on pot research have been a source of tension for years. Researchers, marijuana advocates and some members of Congress have accused the National Institute on Drug Abuse of hoarding the nation's only sanctioned research pot for studies aimed at highlighting the drug's ill effects", emphasis added. Of course, I'm sure you'll continue to misrepresent this until the end of time. There are roadblocks in the US to publishing "positive research about the health risks", and if you had bothered to follow the saga of just two scientists quoted in that article, Suzanne A. Sisley and Igor Grant, you would have acknowledged your mistake. Exactly what do you think the sentence "scientists who have wanted to study how marijuana might be used to treat illness say they have been stymied by resistance from federal drug officials" refers to here? It refers to the inability to study and publish positive research. Would you please stop whatever it is you are doing and actually educate yourself on the history of cannabis research in the US? I mean, just this once, try to educate yourself. You say you have no clue as to what Marinol is, yet you participate in a discussion about it without even educating yourself on the topic. Do you think some people might find your behavior frustrating, perhaps even disruptive? Viriditas (talk) 10:11, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't get you at all, you claim peer review is meaninglessness because journals won't publish positive research, and you argue about the NIDA despite none of the sources being funded by the NIDA. You take the claims of Cannabis advocates at face value. You continue to focus on medical usage studies not getting funded and extrapolate wildly from an article in the LA to attack all peer reviewed papers in this area. Now you are using the very marijuana term that you attacked me for: ""But you'll continue to cite sources sans evidence that use the unscientific fear-mongering term "marijuana" instead of the medical term "cannabis" because those NIDA dollars have to keep rolling in and ...". The studies are not funded by the NIDA. Your issues are irrelevant. There is no evidence of a conspiracy amongst journals (some of which aren't even based in the US) to exclude positive research. Second Quantization (talk) 10:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

You are just continuing your content dispute here and I was avoiding that by using a completely different sampling of the article. I suggest DR/N.--Mark Miller (talk) 13:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

By looking at samplings of the article rather than Viriditas' behaviour you are turning it into a content dispute. I am concerned with the aggression by viriditas, as shown by the diffs above and the claims of conspiracies. It's purely the behaviour that I am concerned with, and that should be under discussion here. Second Quantization (talk) 13:43, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Seriously though...that Marinol section has a huge chunk sourced to About.com. More eyes are needed on that article. The argument on the talk page seems to have wandered a bit and it does indeed show that individual primary source studies are being suggested as references and your own (or other's) interpretations or analysis of them are being used. Don't. Per WP:RS/MC: "Ideal sources for biomedical assertions include general or systematic reviews in reliable, third-party, published sources, such as reputable medical journals, widely recognised standard textbooks written by experts in a field, or medical guidelines and position statements from nationally or internationally reputable expert bodies. Being a "medical source" is not an intrinsic property of the source itself; a source becomes a medical source only when it is used to support a medical claim. It is vital that the biomedical information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge." I don't think that is happening in that discussion. Also...everyone needs to stop talking down to each other.--Mark Miller (talk) 13:51, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I have already left a message on Viriditas' talk page but your behavior will be looked at as well and I do think there was some baiting going on and a little bit of "I don't hear you". Look, it wasn't sweet roses but it wasn't a personal attack in my view but a rather odd analogy with terms you simply zoned in on. Tell me...do you really think he was calling you a chicken fucker?--Mark Miller (talk) 14:00, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Mark, I don't think your message on Viriditis's userpage, in which you tell Viriditis that you "agree with him entirely", think his "chicken fucking" insult was "hilarious", and that he is "free to ignore" your tentative advice to edit himself was helpful. It only encourages disruptive behavior. It also seems unfair to the other participants in this discussion, because your language here strongly implies that you admonished Viritis, but the language of thea actual note borders on encouraging him. Formerly 98 (talk) 10:47, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

He wasn't referring to me since he made the statement on the 11th and I had never commented on that talk page until the 12th ... Second Quantization (talk) 14:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Undoubtedly more eyes are needed on that article, and I encourage people to edit it, including yourself, so that's it is compliant with WP:MEDRS. Now you draw a comment, this time, about the Marinol section. I know nothing about Marinol before, my comments have not been about it, and I am not particularly interested in learning more about it (if there is something big in the USA about Marinol; I'm not American). My issue was with the myocardial infraction content related to cannabis. I have never edited the Marinol section nor proposed edits to that section so it is of no relevance to me. My comment "edit looks good" is in reference to: .

I have not proposed any changes to the article as of yet, nor have I made any changes to the article ever. I'm perfectly capable of being reasoned with, and if someone can dig out secondary sources they think are better from the literature I'm perfectly happy with that. I haven't made up my own mind what the article sections should look like. That is why I notified wikiproject medicine to hopefully attract some medical editors who would be more aware of the best sources in the literature: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Cannabis. I highlighted a section of a peer reviewed article (the part of the paper which describes the literature generally), and some others that may be relevant and all of which had a decent level of citations (~50-60 from google scholar) which I had obtained through Google scholar. I think my editing history shows that I don't have some sort of secret ideology against cannabis (in fact I'm in favour of the legalisation of and taxation of cannabis, but that doesn't mean that this scientific literature shouldn't be accurate summarised with regards to heart attacks). The criticisms being thrown around by Viriditas are that there is a conspiracy (read his comments) within the literature itself followed by lots of invective. Constant claims of conspiracy amongst reliable sources, and ceaseless hostility are behaviour issues. Second Quantization (talk) 14:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Uhm...the section this entire transaction took place in is the "Marinol, Cannabis, and Mortality" section of the talk page. If this is your claim: "I have not heard of Marinol before and am not particularly interested in learning more about it " then I suggest you stop further discussion in that section and leave it to those who are interested in the subject in question. I am sure you are a reasonable editor and you do seem highly intelligent...I just don't think you know what you are doing and where you are doing it at, at the moment. I really don't know what else to say.--Mark Miller (talk) 14:33, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

That is the section heading but not what I discussed (I don't think I have commented in that section about Marinol at all), there are two edits under discussion as far as I can see 1. 2. . My comments are related to the later, not the former. I see well cited papers about THC generally, cannabis specifically, in the area of myocardial infarction. It seems there is some weight to mention something about this. I responded to claims of conspiracies about these sources and that I am a bad skeptic etc. It is unreasonable to have people respond to peer reviewed sources with claims about conspiracies etc. Second Quantization (talk) 14:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Hey, there's a bad astronomer, so why can't you be the "bad skeptic"? Think about it: major street cred, hot chicks/guy magnet, whatever. It's a bit sexier than "Second Quantization" (you don't get out much, do you?) Anyway, it's not a conspiracy. Scientists who study cannabis in the U.S. are only able to get permission if their study results show something negative about cannabis, no matter how contrived. Researchers who want to study positive aspects, such as the benefits of medical cannabis, have been blocked by bureaucratic processes run by agencies who want to keep the drug illegal and classified as lacking medical value. I gave you a link to today's Los Angeles Times article up above as a source. This is common knowledge. Viriditas (talk) 10:01, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

You were/are alleging a conspiracy amongst journals, not a lack of funding into medical applications. Second Quantization (talk) 10:03, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

In regards to this I suggest you create a separate section for "cannabis / myocardial infarction " and then I am requesting that you copy paste the exact sections of the source that I presume are journal articles and not individual studies as it is clearly being challenged and I myself cannot access the source. Accessibility of a source is not a requirement, but since it is being directly challenged you are required to show exactly what passages are being summarized and how the sources are being used. This may not settle your distress about the editor, but I feel it is the source of the issue as you have explained it and I for one want that settled as clearly it is at the center of this. Don't hurry or anything. I'm outa here for the rest of the day and will be returning later this evening.--Mark Miller (talk) 14:54, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Respectfully, Mark, I think you missed the point here. I don't think anyone came here asking you to immerse yourself in the content dispute, but simply Mark, if I could redirect here, I believe the main point is to address disruptive editing. The timeline, from my POV at least, looks like this:

1) I noticed a section in the article that claimed that smoking cannibis was safer than using Marinol. The supporting reference was a FIA document in which cannabis activist group asked the FDA for Adverse Event Reporting System data on deaths from Marinol. The document stated that five deaths had been reported, and pointedly stated that these were merely case reports, and no conclusions could be drawn regarding causation. Since the supporting reference was simply case reports, I deleted the comment.

2) Viriditas reverted my edit, offering "Nothing is being compared. It is a documented fact that high does of Marinol lead to death. It is also a documented fact that high doses of cannabis /does not/. End of story, no comparison was made." as his only explantion.

3) As his explanation for the reversion was did not address my explanation for the edit (He simply insisted that the inadequately sourced statement was true), and he did not engage on the Talk page, I undid his reversion and explained myself on the Talk page.

4) Viriditas responded by calling my arguments "bullshit", reiterating his claim that "high doses of marinol kill people", once again not addressing the sourcing issue, and called me a "chicken fucker". I think if you will read his response again, you'll agree that it was pointlessly insulting, and that it once again completely failed to address the explanation for my edit. I pointed out that it was a non-MEDRS citation and could not be used per the source itself to prove marinol "kills people". He simply insisted that marinol does kill people and insulted me.

5) At this point (to be honest, I was pissed at his behavior), I went to the literature and dug into some of the issues behind the safety of smoking cannabis. Its quite possible that my motivations at this point were somewhat vindictive, but it is also very clear at this point that there is a basis for a content discussion about including this material in the article. Viriditas has responded to every attempt to rationally discuss this by engaging in personal insults and other disruptive behavior.

From my point of view, we can handle the content dispute among ourselves so long as everyone debates in good faith and treats each other with respect. You have made it abundantly clear that you regard my position on the issue of cannabis toxicity with skepticism. It is also possible that I am guilty of baiting Viriditas to some extent. But nobody likes to be called a ignorant, a chicken fucker, or to have their painstaking efforts at literature review summarily dismissed as "bunk. Give it up and go home". Nor can one reason with such a person and achieve consensus.

I respectfully request that you I think the main thing is that we address the behavior issue here. Once that is done, we can settle the content dispute among ourselves. If you want to block me for a few days for my role in this, that's fine, I'll take my punishment. But order needs to be re-established if Misplaced Pages is not to become a version of Lord of the Flies.

If the content dispute is to be discussed here, I'd like to make the point once again that unlike marinol, cannabis (as least in the smoked form) is not an FDA approved drug, and has not been through the usual clinical development process. While MEDRS generally indicates that the best sources are meta analyses of phase 3 trials, no phase 3 trials have been performed on smoked cannabis. Nor have phase 2 trials. If we are not going to include any remarks on the potential risks of smoking marijuana in the article, because the sources fall short of the aforementioned standard, then we really shouldn't be saying anything about it's potential benefits either, as these lie on equally shaky ground. And then we will not have an article at all other than the chemical structure of THC. On the other hand, if mainstream opinion expressed in review articles is that marijuana may be useful for epilepsy, and may increase one's risk of heart attack, it may be reasonable to include both of these mainstream views in the article, even if both are based on weak underlying data. Someday large randomized clinical trials will be performed, but for now, the data available is all there is. Respectfully Formerly 98 (talk) 05:59, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Sheesh. "Keep fucking that chicken" means "keep up the great work", it does not mean "keep having sex with animals". Look it up yourself. And try to read for context. Viriditas (talk) 06:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry V., I'm an old man and do not keep up with the latest slang. And in particular, the following comments seem to support that your comment had a less benign intent than you are claiming above. How do any of the following comments support concensus building?

Frame it anyway you want out of context, but there is no consensus that cannabis causes the strokes and heart attacks you are proposing, which is precisely the problem. You're only as old as you feel. I feel about 1,500 years old, if that makes you feel any better. When I was a kid, we kindled fire and hunted buffalo, and we liked it. Viriditas (talk) 08:23, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Nobody is buying the propaganda anymore and pretty soon, you guys are gonna be out of a job.

• Your so-called "evidence" is pure bunk. Give it up.

• You're content to cite political propaganda as fact

• But you'll continue to cite sources sans evidence that use the unscientific fear-mongering term "marijuana" instead of the medical term "cannabis" because those NIDA dollars have to keep rolling in and the DEA must meet their quota. Pure fucking nonsense.

• Someone is vastly ignorant in this discussion, and it isn't me

• At what point did you stop critically evaluating the medical literature and start accepting it without question?

• Don't let little things like facts get in the way of reality. You seem to be ignorant about a great deal.

• Sorry, we're not buying the usual round of bullshit. Sell your pharmaceutical snake oil elsewhere.

• Your argument from ignorance stinks.

• Unbelievable. You actually appear to be ignorant of the most demonstrable medical conspiracy of the 20th century

Please sign you comments. I am losing track of who is saying what here. --Mark Miller (talk) 03:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

The bulleted items above are quotes from Viriditis in the discussion on the tetrahydrocannibinol Talk page and were posted here by me. Formerly 98 (talk) 10:39, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, taken completely out of context by you. Nice work. Viriditas (talk) 10:41, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, why don't you tell us then exactly what context justifies calling a fellow editor a "chicken fucker", repeatedly calling everyone who disagrees with you "ignorant", making personal attacks, and the like? In particular, how does it help build consensus and make the editing process more effective? Formerly 98 (talk) 10:53, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

You were not called a "chicken fucker", and I've already answered this above at 06:43, 14 March 2014. Furthermore, you have made no effort to build a consensus of any kind. You reverted two different editors and then quickly injected POV about cannabis causing heart attacks and strokes. If you were trying to build consensus, you would have reverted once and then quickly gone to the talk page to discuss it. You didn't do that. You reverted two different editors twice without discussion because you felt that they were unfairly representing a synthesized THC product produced by the pharmaceutical industry to replace cannabis, a product that doesn't work and has been implicated in multiple deaths, according to the sources. As an act of revenge editing, you then proceeded to add without consensus the statement that cannabis is associated with heart attacks and strokes, a statement that has poor evidence to support it and is highly controversial. At no point did you ever make an edit based on any kind of consensus, so please stop claiming that you did. You engaged in outright POV pushing, removing negative material about a pharmaceutical product intended to replace cannabis while adding speculative, negative material about cannabis in its place. Viriditas (talk) 11:02, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• To the best of my understanding, my reverts were within the rules described at WP:BRD. And I clearly was active on the Talk page, otherwise we would not be having this discussion.

• You're back to the disruptive editing behavior of insisting that "Marinol kills people", arguing off-topic from the actual issue, which is that the supporting reference was not MEDRS compliant. If you find a MEDRS compliant source for that statement, you can add it to the article, and I'll be the first to defend your right to do so, as long as you do so in a way that does not involve making comparisons that are not supported by the data.

• I've freely admitted here that a small part of my motivation for continuing to dig into the cardiovascular AE profile of cannabis after that first exchange was that I was angry. (But you'll notice that the sentence I added describes "possible association" and does not go beyond the strength of the supporting evidence.) I apologize and will endeavor to do better in the future. You, however, are still insisting on your right to behave abusively to other editors. That's where the problem lies and what we would like to see changed. Formerly 98 (talk) 13:36, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• What is this, an episode of Fringe? Quick, someone tell Walter that Formerly 98 has crossed over from the other side where in his alternative world, BRD means revert-revert-POV push-without discussion. Viriditas (talk) 02:29, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I became curious about the surprising claim that "fucking the chicken" means "keep up the good work", so I Googled it. The phrase originates from something newscaster Ernie Anastos said to another person who misspoke on air, and Anastos did compare the phrase to "keep up the good work", but he was making the comparison sarcastically, not as a compliment. It is a sarcastic phrase applied to someone who has put their foot in their mouth in public. Here's a link: . Now if you look at the context of the diff in which Viriditas said it, it's obvious that he is not saying it as a compliment, and it becomes equally clear that his attempt here to re-frame it as a sincere statement of "keep up the good work" is not accurate. It is clearly a confrontational use of a phrase that is either (depending on one's cultural inclinations) vulgar or blunt. It is not conduct that helps move a discussion towards consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:53, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Nonsense. Formerly 98 had no consensus to edit war and revert two different users. Formerly 98 had no consensus to add controversial content claiming cannabis causes strokes and heart attacks. Yet you are here complaining about me not helping move a discussion towards consensus? Crazy. Viriditas (talk) 02:47, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Please review WP:BRD. I don't think you'll find "edit-warring" defined as "any edit that Veritis disagrees with", as it seems to be used here.

You didn't engage in BRD at all. You blanket reverted two different editors and then added controversial content, without consensus. But somehow, this is my problem? Viriditas (talk) 12:04, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to assume that the unsigned comment is from Formerly 98, and I'm replying, instead, directly to Viriditas' reply to me, but more to communicate with administrators watching here, than simply to him. I don't know whether Formerly 98 had consensus or not. My comment was about Viriditas' use of the phrase "fucking the chicken", and his subsequent assertion here at ANI that he was merely telling Formerly 98 to "keep up the good work". I suggest that administrators evaluate for themselves whether or not Veriditas' new comment is consistent with any of the following: sincerely saying "keep up the good work", showing an understanding of the complaints of editors here, showing an understanding of the reasons for the previous block, or helping move discussions towards consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:03, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

WP:NPA

• I'm not here to get involved in the THC content discussion, but as for the aggression noted in the opening post, there is also and . Those personal attacks were not justified by what came before, and took place well after Mark Miller's advice: . --Tryptofish (talk) 19:40, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not personally attacking you at all. I've said that the reason I've ignored you for the last year (almost) is because I think you are intellectually dishonest. Meanwhile, you've been following me all over the place trying to get my attention. And the reason I've said you're intellectually dishonest is because you deliberately violated WP:SYN last year to push a POV, and when I confronted you with it, you dismissed it by giving me a "these aren't the droids you are looking for" line of bullshit. I called you on it then and I'm calling you on it now. An admin should not be defending and promoting the violation of our core policies. Block away. Viriditas (talk) 06:52, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• After looking at the diffs Tryptofish posted above, I am certain I do not see "personal attacks". Frankly, I see candid discourse – and I see Viriditas' part as the rebuttal of what came before it.—John Cline (talk) 09:33, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

John, is your assessment of the comments I posted above the same as those cited by Tryptofish? Maybe I'm being Miss Manners here, but I did not think this language was helpful in consensus building. Formerly 98 (talk) 13:34, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Consensus building? You mean your two reverts and injection of POV about cannabis causing heart attacks and strokes—without any discussion? Is that the consensus building you are talking about? Viriditas (talk) 10:53, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I've responded to this aboveFormerly 98 (talk) 13:36, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and I've noted that the rules of BRD are different in this dimension. Viriditas (talk) 02:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

In reality, I have never said anything remotely like "these aren't the droids you are looking for", even allowing that it might be some sort of paraphrase instead of a direct quote. In the time between Viriditas' return from his block and the message here that I left on Thargor's talk page, my interactions with Viriditas have been zero. Zero. If I'm incorrect, find the diffs. Otherwise, the comments above are exercises in fiction (and pretty bizarre at that).

It's an unfortunate situation that, in Misplaced Pages today, editors who have been contributing content over a long period of time can get away with stuff that would get a new editor blocked in a nanosecond. It's a real double standard, and a regrettable one. Despite what one member of Viriditas' fan club says here, the diffs I've provided are about as clear a violation of NPA as anyone is ever going to see. Some civility issues are ambiguous; this isn't one of those. I don't really care about blocking Viriditas. I care about getting him back into acceptable conduct. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:06, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

The comments directed at you Trypto were NOT personal attacks.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:37, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, they were, in any reasonable interpretation, but that comment reinforces my point about a fan club. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:55, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I have no fan club. Mark and I used to fight like cats and dogs, but we learned to respect each other and now we ask each other for guidance and help. Viriditas (talk) 02:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Then it is unfortunate that you did not heed his guidance here: . --Tryptofish (talk) 17:06, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe I have, and I don't believe I asked you for your opinion. I did ask you to give up your obsession with me and what has now turned into a bizarre form of fan fiction. You've created and perpetuated this framed narrative of who I am and what I do that does not exist anywhere in reality. Pretty sad, really. Viriditas (talk) 11:50, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, brother. Given the tiresome task of explaining the metaphor of the Jedi mind trick in relation to what you actually said (of course you never actually said anything about droids, my gosh), I would much prefer a block. I keep forgetting the cardinal rule: never, ever use a metaphor on Misplaced Pages. Tryptofish, you did show up in multiple discussions where I was involved, and while it is true that you did not interact with me directly, you interacted in those discussions, which to me, means you are trying to get my attention. Misplaced Pages is a big place, just try to avoid me. Viriditas (talk) 04:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, I guess learning a lesson about metaphor use is a start, especially if it is followed by learning another lesson about the use of insults. And I suppose it's a tiny bit of progress that we have gone from "you've been following me all over the place" to "it is true that you did not interact with me directly". But still no diffs! Trying to get his attention? How? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, please. Not this shit again. You and Thargor have been trying to troll the fuck out of me recently. In December, Thargor was trolling my contribs and decided to nominate an obscure article I created for deletion, at which point you showed up to play good cop bad cop. Between then and now, you've showed up on my watchlist quite a bit. Thargor most recently stalked me to Abby Martin, where he began to disrupt the page. Then, in a discussion related to that disruption, you showed up on surprise, surprise, Thargor's talk page. Both of you cannot seem to get over your obsession with me, and you both seem to just "show up" on random pages out of the blue trying to get my attention. Isn't it time you stopped trolling? Viriditas (talk) 02:40, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I have your talk page on my watchlist. That's how I found out about those two specific articles. I could argue that your conduct in pushing fringe scientific theories warrants a monitoring of your activities, but I really don't have the time or energy for that. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:20, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

No, you've been targeting my contribution list and more specifically, my edits, outside of any talk page. For example, several days ago, you nominated Radioio for deletion. The only reason you did this was out of WP:REVENGE because I had added a link to an interview by Radioio on the Abby Martin article. Your continuing disruption of Misplaced Pages is part of the WP:DISRUPTSIGNS behavior I documented last week on this same noticeboard. And, you seem to have a lot of time and energy for this, as it's all you've been doing for several weeks now. And since I've never pushed fringe scientific theories anywhere on Misplaced Pages, I'm afraid you're just making stuff up again. As I've said before, please stop using guidelines like WP:FRINGE as an excuse to disrupt Misplaced Pages and violate NPOV. Viriditas (talk) 11:31, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

You're correct that I found the Radioio article via the Abby Martin one, which I found via your talk page that I follow. You can make all the accusations you want, but they have no basis in fact and are not helping your case at all. Thargor Orlando (talk) 11:49, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

You've been disrupting Abby Martin with WP:DISRUPTSIGNS behavior while nominating articles for deletion due to WP:REVENGE editing—all because I am the author of the article and I am the editor who added the link to Radioio. You've even admitted it. How is this not factual? At what point are you going research and write an article instead of hounding and harassing editors you disagree with? Oh, but I'm the one with the problem, right? Of course, because I object to your disruption, so therefore, I must be the one causing the problem, eh? What kind of twisted nonsense is this? It's like the beginning of this entire thread. Because I object to Formerly 98 edit warring and adding controversial material, I must be the one causing the problem with my "aggressive" behavior? Nonsense. Viriditas (talk) 11:59, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Not disrupting any articles, not nominating anything out of revenge (you're simply not that important to me, sorry), and I didn't check the contributions to see who added what, I merely followed a link I hadn't seen before to an article that looked like this and, after some significant searching, had only press releases for sources. This paranoia needs to stop. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:26, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

You disrupted multiple articles, one of which you admittedly found by watching my contributions, after which you made a bad faith nomination of one of the links I added for deletion, and then tendentiously tried to remove multiple links in the article over and over again. This is all covered in WP:REVENGE and WP:DISRUPTSIGNS, which perfectly describes your behavior. Frankly, your denial here is pathetic. I'm convinced that all you do is follow people around and harass them. Viriditas (talk) 12:31, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

My good faith is waning. I haven't disrupted any articles (complaints of disruption do not make such claims true), I found *zero* by "watching your contributions" (the Abby Martin article I found, again, because your talk page is watchlisted as I've contributed there in the past). I did try to remove some links a couple times as they did not (and still don't) conform to our guidelines. I'm sorry that the truth of the matter is much less sexy than you're making it out to be, but this is getting to be extremely paranoid. You've been back from your block for months, and because I found two of your articles that people posted about on your talk page, I'm following you all over the place. I wish I had the time it would take to do half of what you accuse me of. I'm not going to continue going back and forth on crazy ravings. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:40, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

No, your editing meets 5 of the 6 criterions for disruption at WP:DISRUPTSIGNS as well as WP:REVENGE. You followed me to Abby Martin to disrupt the further reading section and the talk page, and after I added a citation to Radioio, you nominated it for deletion. That is the truth of the matter. You don't research or write articles. You just follow people around and harass them. Furthermore, your bad behavior is enabled by several editors and admins who deflect your disruption onto users who complain about it, and accuse them of "aggression" when they see bad edits being made and their valuable time being wasted. Viriditas (talk) 12:53, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Finally, some links have been cited by someone other than me, so that's good. So, let's examine Viriditas' claims, and whether or not there is evidence behind them. First of all, Thargor Orlando and I are two different editors. I take no responsibility for his conduct, and I'm only discussing my own conduct here.

• Here is what Viriditas claims about me here: What I am saying is "shit". I am a troll, and I am "trying to troll the fuck out of recently". By "recently", we are discussing what has happened since Viriditas returned from his block, last November. What is the evidence of that?

• The first example provided by Viriditas is Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Our Fragile Intellect. It's true that I have watchlisted Viriditas' user talk ever since he was blocked last year (not posting there during the time after his block, just observing), and that is neither trolling nor disruptive, but rather to be expected following the things that he said to me, that led to his block. So I saw this: , and this: . It appeared, on the basis of those two notifications, to be a big enough dispute that I was curious to see what it was. So I looked at the AfD, and it turned out to relate to subjects of human intelligence that relate to my editing interests (and expertise) in neuroscience, so I decided to comment. You can follow the link to see what I ended up saying there. I didn't address Viriditas directly at any point. I mostly disagreed with Thargor. I think that my contributions to that discussion were constructive and well within policy. So what is the evidence that I was playing "good cop bad cop"? What is the evidence that I was acting as a troll?

• The second example is my comment at Thargor's talk page. I had watchlisted that page the same time that I watchlisted Viriditas' page, because it was all part of the same dispute. Since that time, I stopped watchlisting Thargor, because it no longer appeared relevant to me. But I did see what is now at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive831#Thargor Orlando, and the fact that I look from time to time at ANI is pretty far from trolling Viriditas. And I never commented at that ANI thread. If I were so obsessed with Viriditas or so in conspiracy with Thargor, it's pretty surprising that I wouldn't have shown up there. I watched the discussion, but did not take part in it. But I then started also watchlisting Thargor's talk again. And I saw this: , which caught me up short, because it had been I who reported Viriditas to the administrator who blocked him. Next there was this: , which was directly about the reasons for that previous block. Please note: numerous editors were accused of being paid editors working for Monsanto or the like, and it turned out to be completely false. Then, there was this: and this: . Now here's the diff within that second diff, and it's worth seeing the tone of what was there: . And here is Viriditas' reaction: . Notice how his argument is based upon his not having used either the word "paid" or the word "shill". Compare that to his actual words in the diff Thargor cited, and compare it to what I quote below from the administrator who blocked Viriditas (and, for that matter, compare it to Viriditas' complaints in this ANI discussion about editors taking what he said too literally). So I said this: , which also criticizes Thargor. And I was met by and , which brought me to here. So you see, Viriditas was already accusing me of "trying to get attention", even though all that came before was that AfD.

• I've made an awful lot of edits during November, December, January, February, and March. So, over all that time, what is the evidence that I have been trying to "troll the fuck out of" Viriditas? Those two links appear to be Viriditas' entire claim. And what does all of this say about him? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

erm ... Using the phrase you did is not an innocent metaphor as you now seem to assert, and you ought to have owned up to it in the first place. Your demeanour is, at this point, worse than Andy the Grump's. Say you are not "personally attacking" someone and then calling them "intellectually dishonest" might cause any outsider's eyebrows to rise. Misplaced Pages says we use "reliable sources" even if we "know" they are not the "truth." You see -- Misplaced Pages is not about the editors - it is only about what sources say. Cheers. Collect (talk) 05:37, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

"Erm" right back at you. "These are not the droids you are looking for" can be nothing but a metaphor in that context. The user appears to think that this figure of speech is meant literally. My justification for avoiding an editor is not a personal attack, it's my description of their argument that they used to defend WP:SYN. Your use of the word "innocent" here has no meaning nor relevance. Viriditas (talk) 05:44, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

In most places in this world, "droid" is not quite the same with regard to civility as "fucking." Clearly you are not a denizen of a section of society which regards the tenor of the phrase as relevant to how the phrase is seen by outsider. Collect (talk) 06:11, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

True. As long as you are an arbitrator for Misplaced Pages you can say just about anything and use the "fuck" to your delight and nothing happens but a quick close to the discussion here. LOL! Get the "fuck" over it. I really can't say that Viriditas has a pattern of misusing the word "FUCK". Please demonstrate as much our just "fucking" stop. I see this come up all the time and I am "fucking" sick of it. As for Andy...why bring him up. That is just "fucking" rude and discusses the contributor and not the content. What the "fuck"? what does Andy have to do with this and why drag him into it. If you want to begin naming names here....I have a very long "fucking" list of editors who get away with telling others to "Fuck" off and worse. Shall we go down this road? It is a very long road so I suggest everyone rest up for the hike.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:16, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps your tone is as culpable as is Viriditas' in that case. I consider your vocabulary to be less than civil, and your tone in that same category. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:30, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

You've confused two different discussions. Viriditas (talk) 06:45, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I rather think that is not the case. I read the diffs and the original discussions and find your vocabulary reprehensible. Have a proverbial cup of tea. Collect (talk) 11:30, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

You conflated two different discussion, one about the use of a popular culture reference to chickens and a completely different one about a popular culture reference to Star Wars. Viriditas (talk) 02:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

And you will stick to that excuse" no matter what? Like your use of "keep drinking what's left of that Kool-Aid"? AFAICT, that is a specific reference not to "popular culture" but to asserting that the person should commit suicide. Cheers -- but urging suicide is not acceptable ion Misplaced Pages or any online site. Collect (talk) 12:59, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Collect, it looks like you're confused again. Please read Drinking the Kool-Aid. It has nothing whatsoever to do with suicide at all when used this way. It refers to a person "holding an unquestioned belief, argument, or philosophy without critical examination". In the context of the original discussion, it refers to the belief by the user that Marinol did not hurt anyone and that cannabis causes strokes and heart attacks. Viriditas (talk) 13:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

"Nothing whatsoever to do with suicide"? Really? The phrase derives from the November 1978 Jonestown Massacre, where members of the Peoples Temple, who were followers of the Reverend Jim Jones committed suicide by drinking a mixture of a powdered soft drink flavoring agent laced with cyanide. seems pretty clear to anyone at all -- sorry if you did not know that part of the story. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:29, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Without commenting on anything else in this thread: interpreting "keep drinking what's left of that Kool-Aid" as "asserting that the person should commit suicide" is being intentionally obtuse and dishonest, and the person making such an intentional misinterpretation should either be ignored, or removed from the discussion, depending on how often they've done games-playing crap like that. Like I said, I make no comment on whether there is a similar problem with other editor(s) involved in this thread. But pretending that this could reasonably be interpreted as an encouragement to commit suicide in this way is intentionally lying. Stop it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:37, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. Don't agree with the vehemence of that comment but there is some sense in it. Viriditas, would it be possible for you to just say things in normal words, rather than say things like "drink the Kool-aid" and "keep fucking that chicken"? If these phrases mean (to you) "keep up the good work", why not just say it using those words next time? They will be much less likely to cause confusion and offence. We need you to help improve the THC article and I really don't want you to be topic-banned or blocked, which is inevitable if you carry on like this. --John (talk) 19:07, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

There is manifestly little support for that proposal below, so I would suggest refraining from further comments along that line for now. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:55, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Your suggestion is duly noted, but I see four supporters beneath my (tentative) suggestion. I confidently predict and maintain that if the user was to continue along the lines he has been, some sort of sanction would become inevitable. This is something I would prefer to avoid, and I think this will be best avoided by Viriditas taking on board some of the feedback given here. --John (talk) 22:44, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Topic ban

I've read the discussion above. Would a topic ban on Viriditas be helpful, given that this user seems over-invested in the topic to the point where they are cursing at those who do not share their point of view? --John (talk) 09:20, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Over-invested, as in the fact that I've made approximately two edits to the article in question, one in 2008, and one in 2014? John, considering your most recent conflict with me on John Barrowman and RS/N where consensus was clearly against your disruptive removal of Daily Mail sources, isn't it too soon for you to be exacting revenge on me for scuttling your little campaign? You are clearly not disinterested here, so please stop pretending you are neutral. And for the record, I have "cursed" at nobody. "Keep fucking that chicken" is a euphemism for "keep up the great work". Viriditas (talk) 09:28, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

You flatter yourself greatly if you think this is about the Daily Mail and your misunderstanding of BLP a few months ago. Here's a question for you. You're obviously a clever guy. Do you think your use of "Keep fucking that chicken" was a wise choice of words? And yes, like it or not, fuck is considered a curse word by most people. --John (talk) 09:33, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

My misunderstanding of BLP? That's a laugh. The community has had to personally intervene multiple times to stop you and correct your gross misunderstanding of BLP. To recap, your erroneous view of BLP was corrected in August 2013, then most notably by 18 editors in October 2013, and then most recently in February 2013 on the Barrowman talk page and on the BLP noticeboard. Is that a record of some kind, John? Talk about being over-invested! I could learn from you... Viriditas (talk) 09:48, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yawn. Well, if you feel like answering the question, that'll be interesting. If you continue not to answer the question, we will draw our own conclusions from that. So, Viriditas does not want to be topic-banned. Does anybody else who is uninvolved feel it might help, given the user's behaviour? --John (talk) 10:00, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't care what you do. I'm just pointing out that you are trying to exact revenge for your failure to win consensus on the BLP dispute we had last month. Block me, topic ban me, I don't care, but I certainly don't think I've deserved either, especially when it's being proposed by an admin still bruised and hurting from his last run-in with me. Viriditas (talk) 10:04, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Why shouldn't you be topic-banned? I would rather see that than a block, for what it's worth, but it's clear you cannot go on like this. --John (talk) 10:07, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

The burden of evidence is on those who are proposing a topic ban, and there is a presumption of innocence on the accused. I should not have to prove otherwise. As for "going on like this", the only reason I'm even participating here is to dispel your false pretense of neutrality. It seems that when you aren't too busy threatening to block people as an involved admin, you're proposing empty topic bans on your enemies. Is that what it takes to be an admin these days? Looks like we've hit the bottom of the barrel. Viriditas (talk) 10:12, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. I'd actually support a block right now per this edit which indicates an ongoing problem with this editor. Failing that, I think a topic ban may be called for. I would be interested in other opinions though. --John (talk) 10:24, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Then you need glasses. That diff indicates no "problem" whatsoever. The link shows me making a joke in the spirit of camaraderie by proposing a "sexier" user name similar to the famous skeptic Phil Plait, who uses the term "bad astronomer", where "bad" is used in the sense of "awesome". Plait is generally considered "sexy", in the sense that he's a "bad ass" astronomer. Do you really need to have every joke explained to you? Block away, dude. Viriditas (talk) 10:28, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is supposed to be about building consensus. Viriditas exhibits a pattern of simply insulting everyone who disagrees with him and insisting that they are wrong, naive, and actively supporting oppression and bad science. If he can modify his behavior, his POV is a good one to have represented here. But I suspect he can't/won't, even in response to sanctions. I think a topic ban is a big step, but I don't see what else to do. Formerly 98 (talk) 10:29, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

At what point were you building consensus when you edit warred and reverted two different editors and then added controversial material that claimed cannabis causes heart attacks and strokes? You're POV pushing and telling me I have a problem? That's rich. But please, keep arguing for a block and topic ban. You're bound to fool someone, anyone. Looks like the gang's all here. Congrats on turning a content dispute, where you've edit warred and pushed a biased POV, into a behavioral problem on the guy who caught you with your pants down. You are clearly admin material. Oh, and don't expect John to understand what you mean about "building consensus", as he refuses to recognize consensus. Viriditas (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I would note that I find the DM to be RS other than for "contentious claims about living persons", and certainly do not always agree with John, but I suggest he is right that a hiatus from the topic at hand might improve your use of parliamentary vocabulary when dealing with other editors. Attacking John on that unrelated issue, by the way, is quite unlikely to make others take your position as valid, nor is your use of profane expletives indicative of one who seeks consensus rather than confrontation. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:36, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support I don't see how anyone could discuss anything at this article while Viriditas launches his pointless insults , straw men, conspiratorial ideation and screeds at any comment . Second Quantization (talk) 14:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• What a fucking joke. This from someone who follows me to a discussion he knows nothing about and admits he knows nothing about it. How can you participate in a discussion you know nothing about? This is nuts. Yet, here you are, the OP of this thread, successfully distracting from the POV pushing by Formerly 98. Nice work, Second Quantization. Viriditas (talk) 02:43, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• I think that it is time to discuss some sort of sanction, but I'm not sure which "topic" we are discussing here. Is it cannabis? The problem is that Viriditas moves from one topic to another, and when he gets sufficiently annoyed with other editors over a content dispute, he starts to ascribe bad motivations to them, and from there he moves to disruptive behavior. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:08, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• The trouble is that at this point it is apparent that if a topic ban will not fly, we would have to be looking at a longer block. He just came back from a three-month block; the next would normally be for six months. I would very much rather not see a well-meaning and intelligent editor taken out for that length of time if a topic ban could be as preventive. I also have some sympathy for the proposition that our article on THC is a mess, and desperately needs a cleanup. Its just the manner that Viriditas has adopted that it unhelpful. If he could just cool it, apologise for the fucking the chicken comment (and no, euphemism is not the right word for that), then we could all just get on with things. It seems that this is beyond them at the moment and we are heading for some sort of administrative action, which I would far rather avoid. --John (talk) 18:33, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• You're right about my misuse of the word "euphemism". It's an anti-euphemism. Thanks for the correction. Viriditas (talk) 02:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• I understand where you are coming from, and I somewhat agree with your desire to avoid losing the good along with the bad. And I infer that, yes, you are talking about "cannabis" as the topic for the topic ban. I'm willing to try it. But I fear that it won't work, for the reasons that I already said. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I assume the topic ban would be on "all articles concerning marijuana or health, reasonably construed". Or the Hobson's choice of a six month simple block / Wikication. Collect (talk) 19:11, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Block history

I think that, at this point, it is useful to look back at Viriditas' history over a longer period, and particularly the context, now, for considering a possible block. Here is his block log: . More directly relevant is the rationale for his most recent block, a three-month block from August to November of last year: . I urge administrators looking here to read that diff carefully. It notes a history of successively longer blocks, based partly on edit warring, but based more on:

"persistent assumptions of bad faith, multiple unsubstantiated accusations, and so on and so on: it has mostly been pointed out to you before, so I don't need to go through the full list. One of the most striking features of what I saw was your own apparent blindness to the extent to which you make the very mistakes of which you accuse others. For example, you have repeatedly accused others of WP:IDHT... but you are one of the biggest perpetrators of that error; you accuse others of "making false accusations"... , despite the fact that you have a long and still continuing history of making accusations without substantiation, and in some cases accusations which the simplest checks show are demonstrably false. Perhaps the most fundamental problem is that you appear to be unable to conceive of anyone who opposes your position as doing so in good faith: anyone who is against you must have ulterior motives."

Viriditas has been back from that block since November. During that time, he has gotten cautions from various editors about resumption of that behavior: , , . The expectation of the community is that an editor returning from a block will learn from the reasons for that block, and do better going forward (and we have lots of good editors who have done just that).

The question now is whether, on the evidence of how Viriditas is replying to other editors in this ANI thread, he has reformed the behaviors that led to past blocks. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Trypto, you and I go back years and I generally respect your views, but you have had a running disagreement with Viriditas for some time. This section is unworthy of you, in my view, for a number of reasons but most notably because you fail to mention that fact. As you know I have followed Viriditas and often, but not always, agree with his stands. I don't agree that his blocks have all been what I'd call "justice." This is a valuable editor and while I don't subscribe to his style, I believe the 'pedia is better off with him around, warts and all. Again, I strongly suggest you redact the above as unworthy of you. Jusdafax 18:47, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• It seems to me that the discussion here has focused on how to keep him around while getting him to adjust his style. So I'm not clear on how the comment "This is a valuable editor and while I don't subscribe to his style, I believe the 'pedia is better off with him around, warts and all" is topical. I think we all agree that the style is problematic. Formerly 98 (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• I don't agree. Viriditas' style is what it is. It seems to me that the section is pushing a block or other sanctions, given the lack of consensus for a topic ban and the section's title, and personally I feel that remedial action is uncalled for. Viriditas is edgy, as seen above, and has a lower tolerance for certain types of edits than many of us do. That said, he is useful in that he does good work often and is refreshingly candid. Viriditas deserves better than this discussion. I do suggest Viriditas review WP:WQ. In fact, many here, including myself, should. Jusdafax 19:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Seriously, that is your answer to years of problematic behaviour? Read WP:WQ? Second Quantization (talk) 09:50, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• • I am fully and pointedly staying out of any calls for a topic ban or anything like that because I have a history with Viriditas, but, Jusdafax, I think the double standard complaint is valid in this case. No one is disparaging the work Viriditas puts in. The question is how long we're going to allow a rope to be in this scenario, and the uneven treatment. You, yourself, question Tryptofish's history with Viri as a motive here, yet that same skepticism wasn't welcome when it was Viri attempting to get someone he's had longstanding conflicts with blocked two weeks ago. Viri has written better articles than I'll ever get around to writing here, but that doesn't necessarily mean that his contributions amount to a net positive when it comes to issues of fringe science or political topics, for example. Again, I'm neutral on this because there's no way I can possibly be objective, but the apparent double standard is troubling. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:31, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
    • I salute that neutrality here, TO. You refer, I assume, to the recent calls to block you here, which on reflection appeared unsound to me. I struck my !vote to do so, which I am sorry to see you fail to mention, on deeper consideration of the larger issues. Misplaced Pages, as many have noted, isn't always fair. Viriditas may not attach the same importance to a clean block log that you (I assume) and I do, but I find that his willingness to stand up for what he believes in is inspiring, characterizations aside, and suggest you work to put history aside. I admit it is not always easy, and I have failed myself badly at times. I consider Trypto a friend and feel he can take my views honestly and in good faith. If Misplaced Pages is to continue into the future as a vital, growing project free from feuds, we all must make that effort. Jusdafax 22:02, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Thargor, I think you're mistaking "abusive" for "refreshingly candid". We all have subjects we feel strongly about, and most of us take secret pleasure when someone lashes out at a third party whose incomprehensible viewpoint irritates us. But when those of us on the other side of the issue, equally convinced that we are "right", start calling our opponents "morons", telling them they are "ignorant", and dismissing their viewpoint out of hand, it just turns into an ugly free for all. I think you are imagining a world in which those you agree with are "refreshingly candid" and put those other people in their place. But I guarantee you, those other people are just as capable of being rude, hostile, and offensive as those you agree with. It really doesn't work in the long run, and that's why we have WP:CIVIL — Preceding unsigned comment added by Formerly 98 (talk • contribs) 22:17, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

It was Jusdafax, not Thargor, who said that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Jusdafax, I'm saddened to find that you feel this way, and I'm going to try to give you a detailed reply. As best I can remember, my first interactions with Viriditas were: , , and . I'm not exactly being hostile there, am I? What you call a "running disagreement" started last year, when I saw an RfC about March Against Monsanto. I went to the talk page there with no agenda. My first two comments there were un-noteworthy; here is the third thing I wrote: . And my fourth: . Shortly later: , , and . I'm not pursuing anything like a disagreement with Viriditas anywhere there! As discussion went on, I began to see nastiness directed mostly at other editors, not at me, but there were things like (lower part), that met my collegial comments with assumptions of bad faith, and that, while seemingly polite, appeared to question my intellect because I had a different opinion. And those examples are very mild, compared to what was directed at other editors, who appeared to me to be acting in good faith, and mild compared to what came later, and led to the block. Jusdafax, it simply is not true that I'm here to push an advantage in some sort of editing disagreement. I'm not currently in any content disagreement with him, anywhere. And, Jusdafax, I'm pretty sure that my first interactions with you were in respect to CDA, where we both agreed that editors who have some sort of track record do not get to get away with things that new editors would be blocked for. I'm trying to stay true to that belief here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Trypto, it could be that the four years since our work at WP:CDA (which of course was more about admins and the community, than longstanding content builders having a "civility edge" over "lesser" editors) has given me a more realistic view of the Realpolitik we face here these days. I am aware of the Monsanto diffs and, as you recall, urged a more moderate tone at Viriditas' Talk page back then. To be brief, after warnings he was blocked and he served his time. I ask you to join me in now urging this thread be closed as unproductive. From here on out, it's gonna be more heat than light, and we should agree the issues are noted and agree to move on. Jusdafax 22:17, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• If you are really aware of those diffs, then you have to know that I'm not here to push a personal agenda. I wasn't then, and I'm not now. I stand by what I've said here, and I'm not calling it back. If you look at everything I've said here at ANI, I earlier said that I'm not really interested in getting Viriditas blocked, but more interested in getting him back into good behavior (see above). Since I said that, he has engaged, in his subsequent comments in this discussion, in more of the conduct that got him blocked the last time. In my opinion, the opinion of the blocking administrator, that I quote above, was not at all unjust, but was sound and very thoughtful. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:37, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• You keep trying to frame the opinion of the past blocking admin as a factual narrative, but I find it to be completely erroneous without any basis in fact. The reason you keep trying to frame me as this editor that doesn't exist is indeed, your personal agenda. And that's another reason why I wish to have nothing to do with you. You're very deceptive, on a subtle level that most people would miss. Viriditas (talk) 12:17, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• • • • I probably won't comment here further unless directly necessary, but my comment was not meant to disregard your second look, Jusdafax, but rather just to point out the good faith in one area (where an editor has been blocked repeatedly for the same thing) but not another (when an editor you've barely interacted with, if at all, is accused by someone who has been blocked repeatedly). That's all I mean by double standard, and I raised it with you directly because you've shown me as someone who is willing to revisit issues when necessary. That's all, no offense meant by the line toward you. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:50, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Jusdafax, I'll be "refreshingly candid" here, but mean no offense: My question is, why have rules at all if you are not going to enforce them? We seem to all agree that the rules have been broken, and that it is a recurring situation. I would suggest there are three possibilities here. 1) We have civility rules and consistently enforce them. 2) We have civility rules and enforce them selectively, depending on whether we "like" or frequently agree with the offender, or other discriminatory criteria. 3) We just get rid of the rules altogether. I'd strongly prefer 1 or 3, each of which pretty much constitutes the old adage of "the law is no respecter of persons". Number 2 has a lot of problems. One of which is that it opens up the system for a lot of abuse. Another is that it breeds contempt for the rules. Formerly 98 (talk) 22:32, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I have been on the side of 1, as many here know quite well, for many years. I have urged 3, with sardonic intent, at times when I have not gotten the feeling 1 was respected. As I am sure most here are well aware, 2 is operative much of the time. We could debate much further on that, with multiple citations and examples, but I prefer not to. Bottom line: A debate over civility is not what is called for on this page. Again: suggest we close. Jusdafax 23:23, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Being new, I'd like to ask a procedural question. If no sanctions are taken against Viriditas as a result of his repeated violations of WP:CIVIL, his extension of these violations to this discussion, and his implied declaration that he intends to continue these violations in the future, is it ok for me to assume that I and other editors also have carte blanche to ignore these rules without fear of being blocked or other repercussions? Or would the precedent be editor-specific? Thanks Formerly 98 (talk) 15:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I really believe people are holding grudges and simply take offense to things that are truly taken way out of context because of individual moral standards that are a reaction to as much the other person here then the editor that really...looks like he's getting sharp end of a pointy stick. I seem to remember that I had a run in with Viriditas but that we quickly got over it because...I apologized for my mistakes and he quickly offered the same along with another editor. I'm trying hard to remember, but I think we did it on an Administrators talk page I can't remember...that might have been another editor. I do remember the articles and some of the edit warring and I am embarrassed by my behavior...I sure wouldn't want to be pointing to any of that because my behavior looks worse that theirs looking back on all that. We edit a lot of California subjects and biographies. Has he cussed? Yes. Should he? No. Is it a pattern? Not really. A pattern is something repeated enough to see a pattern, but I just see someone who reacts badly sometimes when he feels he needs to defend himself and I also weigh how bad others may be acting, I know Trypto you have been in heated discussion before, it isn't as if it is a shock. I honestly don't see enough for sanctions. I do see enough that some content disputes could be referred to DR/N and if editors wish, create a RFC/U, but I don't suggest it. If anyone acted as stupid as I know I did when I first reacted to Viriditas...I wouldn't be pointing the community to as shining examples of our behavior.--Mark Miller (talk) 17:29, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Before I saw Mark's very thoughtful comment, I was going to reply to Formerly 98 that, even if things don't get resolved here, it's not OK for any of the rest of us to use one editor's bad conduct as an excuse for bad conduct ourselves, and that if they don't get resolved here, this is not necessarily the end of the overall discussion of the disputes. But then I saw what Mark said, and I want to thank him and compliment him for a very good job of helping to lower the temperature, always a good thing to do. What you ask of me, Mark, about whether I might just be taking things too personally based on what came before, and whether I should let go now, is a very good question, and one that I already thought about before you asked it. Yes, I've had heated discussions with other editors in the past, and get along just fine with them now. But I sincerely believe that this is different. What I saw for the first time at the Monsanto dispute was a degree of nastiness and assumption of bad faith that I have never before seen on such a scale from experienced editors. I've seen it from drive-by newbies, and they don't last long, but what I saw here was nastiness returned even when I tried to be friendly. I've already given diffs here of me saying that I agreed with Viriditas about something, followed by him insulting me in return. And look at the way this ANI discussion has gone. Viriditas has had numerous opportunities over several days to say something roughly like that he doesn't entirely agree with the criticisms of him but he is going to make some sort of effort going forward to do something better, or something like that. But instead, quite the opposite. His most recent comments called my concerns about him "shit" and he accused me of being in league with Thargor to "troll the fuck out of" him. There's not much for me to work with. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:30, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Ok, first let me apologize for the snarky post. It was a weak attempt to remind the "boys will be boys" crowd that incivility and snarkiness are unpleasant to be on the receiving end of.

Second, this is not about agrudge. Its about the future. Those who are admins or philosophical allies of V. dont have to worry about behavior that they will not be on the recieving end of or which they have the power to sanction. But little people like myself have no recourse other than to ask the referrees to do their job. And seeing everyone here agree that the offense not only occurred, but will surely continue, and do nothing tells me never to bother bringing an issue here in the future. And it tells V. to continue or even ramp it up abit.

What can i say. If the rules arent enforced, Misplaced Pages is a much less attractive place to invest time and effort from my pov. Not because of a grudge, butbecause of whst i expect to hsve to put up with in the future. No tilds on my phone Formerly98 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Formerly 98 (talk • contribs) 18:59, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Truly, what you said was not snarky. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:13, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for responding to Mark here, hard as hell to scroll thru hundreds of lines on my phone. Just want to say no one is proposing crucifixion. I just dont want to see him get a complete pass on this as it encourages more of the same. An apology would 100% suffice. Formerly98 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Formerly 98 (talk • contribs) 19:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

"eople like myself have no recourse other than to ask the referees..." I truly believe everyone can referee themselves and should try. Everyone including Viriditas, but from where I come from, I already know they are capable of getting over the dispute no matter how ugly it may have gotten. Now you just have to ask your self if you really can get over the heat of the discussion and center of really moving forward. I make no suggestion how you can do that, jut that I started with..."Sorry, for my part...".--Mark Miller (talk) 03:33, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Mark, I don't even know how to respond to that. It's bad enough that you won't do anything about the situation, worse that you went to V's page and encouraged his behavior, and now you're going to suggest that I apologize. We clearly have very different value systems and I don't see any point in continuing this conversation. Formerly 98 (talk) 04:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Won't do anything? I left a message to Viriditas about this...once, but other than that, I am not a administrator and I don't have a problem with them. They've always been very helpful with content even when we weren't on good terms. I think they are a net plus to the community.--Mark Miller (talk) 06:45, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

"I think they are a net plus to ...", I think that is why you'd never support action no matter what he did, you work closely with him in some areas. You've presumably never encountered him when he tries to push his views like he did at GM related articles for example and got blocked. Most defences I've seen of Viri have been along ideological grounds or "I work with him and he's fine" type reasoning. I presume this is why you tried to derail the initial thread by continually making posts related to content issues instead of the behaviour issues. If this was any other editor behaving the way he was, they'd already be blocked. Second Quantization (talk) 09:49, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

An offer

As a possible alternative to either a topic ban, a block, or further pursuit of the dispute resolution process, let me put the following on the table. Perhaps Viriditas will offer something about his intended conduct going forward from now. I expect that he won't want to follow my advice, so I'm not going to specify anything about what he might say. But I would much prefer that he be able to resume good editing without the bad conduct, instead of a block, so I'd like to hear how he responds to this. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:39, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

For the last time, stop following me around. Viriditas (talk) 11:35, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Casting aspersions on a person who seems to be on your side is one of the best ways known to man to make them less willing to proffer much o anything. "Verb. sap." applies here and I think you would be well-advised to consider that offer. Collect (talk) 13:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Tryptofish has consistently created a false narrative that portrays me in a negative light. He's been personally promoting this negative narrative for almost a year based on information that has never been substantiated or verified and amounts to rumor and gossip. He is not on my side. This is a personal vendetta for him. Viriditas (talk) 13:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I now am convinced you have jumped the proverbial shark here, and absolutely need a Wikication of some sort. You see "enemies" around every corner and are loathe to accept that your wording choices have been "unfortunate" at best, and thus a Wikication of a year or two might even be proposed. That everyone is on a vendetta against me is not precisely the sort of attitude which is reasonable for an editor following Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:35, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I asked a question, and Viriditas has given me his answer. For me, for now, that's that. It seems to me that any uninvolved administrator who is willing to take the time to read through all of this and think about it objectively, we are at the stage where a 6-month block is appropriate. I also recognize that a lot of administrators just won't want to touch this issue, for fear of backlash. In a perfect world, that wouldn't happen, but this is the real world, not a perfect one. Misplaced Pages has other avenues for resolving disputes that the community cannot resolve. I'm done responding to every bit of nonsense here, but I'll keep watching. If there's a block, I'll support it. If not, I'll continue to see what happens; perhaps, despite what he says here, Viriditas will take some lessons from this discussion, and there will be no need for any further dispute. But if Viriditas continues to conduct himself as he presents his views in his most recent comments in this discussion, then there will eventually be other avenues of dispute resolution. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to close

It's now been six days since this was raised. I don't see any other problematic edits from Viriditas in the meantime. I do see a consensus that Viriditas ought to tone down the rhetoric. It would be lovely if Viriditas was to acknowledge that here or somewhere else. I don't see that they are going to, and I also don't think any admin action is currently required. If there are other issues here, content issues can be addressed via article talk or RfC, and if other editors are exacerbating things that needs to be raised separately. I would propose that we now close this discussion with a firm request that Viriditas keep the rhetoric dialled down in future, and that any repetition will be considered blockworthy. Would anyone object to this? --John (talk) 22:58, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree in part with John. This discussion is not approaching consensus, and clearly will not get there. I'm personally disappointed that flagrant repeated violations of WP:CIVIL, defiance in the face of attempts to address these violations, and what appears to me to be an open statement of intent to continue to engage in these violations will have no consequences, and thus will almost certainly continue if not escalate in the future. I'm further disappointed that this decision has been heavily influenced by an admin who described V's use of the phrase "fucking that chicken" as "hilarious".

As a result of these multiple violations of the Formerly_98 terms of service, including but not limited to wasting my time F98:WMFT, egregious politics (F98:BS, and generally inequitable treatment (F98:FAIR), I'm placing Misplaced Pages on a 30 day block.Formerly 98 (talk) 11:33, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Just so you know, the editor who said it was "hilarious" is not an administrator. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. This smacks very much of being the I don't like Viriditas club, hoping this would be the last round of public shaming, resulting in some punishment. Instead this will inevitably be just the latest round, and will be mined for naughty remarks to use in the next pillory effort. It would be nice if WP:Civil were enforced, but would require an appearance of doing so evenly, and the ramifications may be dire for others involved. Sportfan5000 (talk) 13:49, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
• I've pretty much summed up the way I feel in the section just above, so, while I'm not actively arguing for closing, I certainly have no objection. I think that John is correct in his advice to Viriditas to "tone down the rhetoric". I would quibble with John that the situation is not so much one of no administrative action being needed, as no administrative action going to happen, and I think that's sad. I strongly endorse John's conclusion that "any repetition will be considered blockworthy". And I think there is a clear consensus that no repetition would be the best outcome going forward, an outcome that would be welcomed by everyone, including me. Based on what has (not) happened here, I am skeptical about the actual likelihood of a future block if needed, however. Paradoxically and regrettably, if this dispute does end up moving up the dispute resolution ladder, the end result may be a site ban instead of a block, so that's a compelling reason to follow John's advice. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Heads up: Reddit's MRAs focusing on Men's rights movement

A user mentioned that Reddit's MRA board has a post regarding Men's rights movement. This page is under 1RR and is semi-protected, but I thought it worth mentioning. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:57, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

And... StevieY19 is proxy-editing for non-autoconfirmed users organized through that Reddit thing like here.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:03, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, more gender war Reddit brigading. First it's the attempted feminist censorship on Woozle effect, now MRA whitewashing. How tedious. Reyk _YO! 23:21, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I would like to add, I was mistaken on this, and while I did edit the article, I edited it based on my own writing, and my own use of words. If this is not allowed, I'm ok with that and will not do it again. However, I did edit the article as I felt it was wrong and tried to correct it to a more neutral level. Thanks. steviey19 (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by StevieY19 (talk • contribs) 23:39, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Reddit MRA's noticing our article about the MRM happens every few months. A few extra sets of eyes on the article can't hurt (especially admin eyes w/r/t 1rr and the article probation currently in effect,) but it usually dissipates pretty quickly. Our article about the MRM isn't amazingly written, but it does use pretty much all of the reliable sources about the movement currently available, so usually offsite organizing about the article dies down after a few days with offsite groups realizing that trying to approach the article as if it should be written in false equivalence with the women's rights article instead of written as available RS'es present it doesn't actually succeed in getting the article changed in the ways they'd like. For anyone considering taking action (or even, really, editing) the article: be aware that offsite brigading by MRA's has escalated to outing/harassment issues more than once before, so only step in if you're not in a particularly vulnerable position. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

On that note then, if I, someone who is involved in these types of works given my line of work, disagree with how the article is written, how would I correct it if it would be ignored? I feel that this is the problem here. I can come up with the opposite view point, but seeing as how it seems people who are running this page don't want change, what is the neutrality of it? I don't understand what the issue with being shown the article, and actually feeling it is wrongly written, editing it, and trying to better the whole of it. StevieY19 (talk) 23:54, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I would like to remove any change I've made, as in speaking with people on the talk page of the article, I have been given some good advice, and will do some work before changing things. I jumped the gun a bit, and would like to properly approach things for the futureStevieY19 (talk) 00:42, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said last time--that article is a disaster. It tars a wide variety of movements with an extremely broad brush and while well sourced, has NPOV problems like mad. Many of our more heavily disputed topics end up with well-written articles as the two sides butt heads and improvements get made. This one hasn't had that happen for whatever reason. It's the second article I've read today that suffers from this problem (the other is one about Jews and Communism currently at DRV). Hobit (talk) 18:38, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

It shouldn't be unexpected. The MRM is a fairly recent development and it's attracted mostly negative attention. NPOV means summarizing the reliable sources and giving due weight; if a subject is generally covered in a negative fashion then inevitably our article will reflect that negativity. Although it seems counter intuitive, it would actually be a violation of NPOV to present a balance when one doesn't exist in the relevant literature. Nformation 22:21, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Large amount of properly sourced content is being continually deleted from Providence Religious Movement Article

There has been some non-conclusive discussion over some sources on the Jung Myung Seok / Providence article. This article has been brought up here on the WP:ANI page a couple times before, but the particular issue of sources wasn’t settled. More recently, 12 third party news sources and 4 direct quotes of the organization’s founder have been removed without much discussion. You can see the removed content in this revert . The article has two editors immediately removing the content and two editors arguing that the material should at least be up for discussion. The last admin to really get involved with the article, Richwales, gave some useful advice for the article and even did the work to verify some of these sources , but much of the content following his suggestions keeps getting removed. He has since removed himself for being too wp:involved. If we could have some more editors take a look at the material in contention perhaps we could make some progress on this article. Macauthor (talk) 11:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Sam Sailors removal of the 12 sources and direct quotes also restored sourced content deleted/whitewash? by Macauthor here Much of the editing on the article appears to be whitewashing. Jim1138 (talk) 12:35, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Is this a content dispute, as "the particular issue of sources wasn’t settled" could seem to indicate, or is it a follow up on your remarks here where you say I am inserting pornographic material in the article, and that you believe my editing is contentious and in supposedly violation of WP:NPOV, which I have asked you to bring up for community discussion? Either or, as I in my reply on the article talk page, in this edit, have argued the case quoting guidelines and policies, I'd apreciate if you did the same here.

Uninvolved editors trying to grasp the situation in Providence (religious movement) should be aware, that MrTownCar (t c) has disclosed that both he and Macauthor (t c) are members of this movement. Best, Sam Sailor 13:33, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I said that it had the appearance of contentious editing and I was pointing out that you had only commented on the pornographic source without discussing the other sources. I apologize if I offended you but the real issue here is whether the content being discussed is valid, if or how much of it is white washing, or whether it is informative to keep all or some of the content in the article. I feel that it is holding the article back to keep reverting to previous versions that do not include more recent events about the subject. Macauthor (talk) 14:33, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

MrTownCar (talk · contribs) may speak for himself but he does not speak for me. He disclosed that he is a member which is clearly Misplaced Pages:COI and his edits have not always been sourced very well, but his knowledge of the movement may be of some use. Do you have an opinion on the material you have removed? Macauthor (talk) 14:33, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

So this is a question about contents then. That belongs on the article talk page, and would be facilitated had the two SPAs not retorted to accusations on the second lowest level of Graham's hierarchy of disagreement without substantiating them the least bit quoting guidelines and policies. Despite being asked to.

What does belong here is a discussion of the long-term tendentious editing we have witnessed on Jung Myung Seok and now on Providence (religious movement) (the former was recently merged into the latter). Previously this has been brought up in e.g.

• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive785#Looking for uninvolved admins to watch Jung Myung Seok,
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive786#Macauthor is being a pain in the patuckus,
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive817#Long-term edit warring at Jung Myung Seok,
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive822#disruptive editing on Jung Myung Seok page, and
• Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 68#Jung Myung Seok.

Yes, large amounts of contents with challenges related to WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:BLP, and WP:RS have been added to and removed from the article for years (long before I started watching it in October 2013), and has been discussed in length on Talk:Jung Myung Seok and has been up for discussion on e.g.

• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 141#Can a new religious group be a reliable source for its own trial?,
• Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive169#Jung Myung Seok, and
• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 147#Use of unverified or planted references in article about Jung Myung Seok.

To put it briefly, the hallmark of Macauthor (t c) and MrTownCar (t c) is to stick in various amounts of apologetic material casting doubt about the fairness of Jung's two convictions of rape and his 10-year prison sentence, and material questioning the credibility of the witnesses and the validity of their testimonies, while at the same time removing material critical to Jung. Prompting Drmies to say I gotta say, that's about the worst I've seen, BLP-wise. ... I hope some other admins will scrutinize the competing versions and the apparent interests of the two main editors responsible for that atrocious piece of promotional apologetics. A few examples out of hundreds: Diff, Diff, Diff, Diff, Diff, Diff, Diff, Diff, Diff. Among the reverting/restoring editors I see e.g. Shii, ukexpat, Ravensfire, Lectonar, Richwales, Harizotoh9, Drmies, and myself.

When the two editors continued editing in January and February, including a SOAP edit like this deleting sourced content at the same time, and in apparently perfect English translation of a Korean source add:

Template:Sure?

then I find that Harizotoh9's revert one day later was well done and well within BRD. Harizotoh9 followed up by posting three new talk page sections with his concerns. Macauthor responded to none of them, but posted their own new section suggesting Harizotoh9 to ask before you remove content (WP:OWN), before Macauthor reverted back to their latest prefered version. And here is where I come in the following day first posting my comments on the talk page, then reverting clearly indicating WP:BRD in my edit summary to get the dialogue going and avoid warring.

Since bans have already been mentioned in previous ANI threads, I suggest other editors chime in with their opinions on the situation. Best, Sam Sailor 20:19, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

how loquacious sam you spent most of your reply rehashing what is well known. I wish you spent a quarter of that time answering valid question put for to you.... if I may take a quote from you "So this is a question about contents then. That belongs on the article talk page" Macauthor and I have repeatedly asked on the article talk page and your personal talk page for explanation of your reversions which you have yet to address two weeks after this last set of reversions. Please spare us the pontification and answer macauthors question posted on your talk page and feel free to show us what independent research you have done on the subject matter the way richwales did in the past.MrTownCar (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

seems all the diffs except one had nothing to do with me.MrTownCar (talk) 23:51, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I have not seen any suggestion by Sam Sailor that he has taken the time to carefully review the material posted by Macauthor. I am sorry no neutral sysop is weighing in on this.MrTownCar (talk) 14:47, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

"You can see the removed content in this revert "

Part of the information in the above diff is cited to various providence related sites. I first came to the Jung page in late 2012 because I found that it was relying upon unreliable primary sources by the Providence religion and was poorly written. Myself and others have been trying to remove these sources. For instance here we see User:Shii remove the sources in December 2012. But MrTownCar and Macauthor continue to insert them. I am completely opposed to these sources on numerous grounds.

• They are not WP:RS
• Violate WP:BLP
• WP:ABOUTSELF - These sources make claims about Jung's biography which are contested and need other sources to confirm, and are not simple uncontested claims.

This is completely ridiculous that we are still arguing and debating this to this day.

Moving past that, there are some elements of a content dispute to this as well. But the best place for that is WP:BLPN and other places. Not here. I am not that familiar with the sources, the language, with the subject matter, etc. I'm going to ask Wikiproject Korea as well to see if anyone there can assist. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 18:44, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, the sites I object to are:

• gospelofprovidence.com
• providencetrial.com
• providencecentral.com

These sources have been inserted, removed, inserted and removed for years. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 23:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Given MrTownCar (t c)'s disclosure of his COI and MrTowncar's assertion of Macauthor (t c) COI, their continuous whitewashing of Providence (religious movement), unwillingness to discuss issues except on their terms, and misleading edit summaries, a topic ban would seem in order. Macauthor: are you a member of Providence and/or related groups? Macauthor: do you have a conflict of interest here per WP:COI? Jim1138 (talk) 23:34, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

spare us the ad hominem attacks and kindly give a diff on my 'misleading' edit summaries. it might also help if you answer my question which you dodged on your talk page. MrTownCar (talk) 23:40, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

This is not an ad hominem attack. Per wp:COI Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia first. Any editor who gives priority to outside interests may be subject to a conflict of interest. If you have a COI, you should not be editing the Providence article or anything related to it. Jim1138 (talk) 00:02, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I do have a WP:COI and will no longer edit the article. But much of the content being kept from the article is extremely informative about the subject, most but not all is properly sourced by third party news sources (the rest are direct quotes from Jung himself and thus allowed depending on your interpretation of WP:BLP policy), and most of it is new material about more recent events relating to Providence that have never been up for discussion before. The more experienced editors have continually removed any content that does not deal with Jung strictly as a criminal or treat the religious movement as a cult. I have not and am not proposing the removal of negative content (unlike MrTownCar), but only ask that properly sourced material that informs readers about the other aspects of the religious movement and its founder be treated fairly and given proper place in this controversial subject. Macauthor (talk) 00:54, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

TO CLARIFY I SEEK TO REMOVE FALSE NEGATIVE INFORMATION FROM THE ARTICLE NOT SIMPLY NEGATIVE INFORMATION.MrTownCar (talk) 01:52, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

In a long talk page message 6 November 2013, here, MrTownCar (t c) writes about Jung Myung Seok

I have read many of his sermons and his proverbs. The man has a love for God that is unparalleled and is obvious to those who have witnessed his life. He underwent a sham trial and was accused by false witnesses.

While beliefs and desires alone do not constitute a conflict of interest, such opinions cast light over the NPOV challenges; a few examples:

• Unexplained removal of contents here
• Removal of material negative to Jung/adding of apologetic material here and here
• Removal of all material on Jung's rape convictions here
• Reverting of 55 intermediate revisions to a prefered version here (edit summary removed)
• Four days later the exact same thing here
• Reverts an edit by Shii, adding primary sources from Providence here, saying Shii has a "slanderous agenda" here, and repeats the same revert minutes later here. Then repeats the same revert here, calling Shii's edit "Continued vandalism" here, and repeats his revert for a fouth time here after being reverted by Ukexpat for whitewashing. This prompts Drmies to restore more acceptable version from one which promotes the subject with the use of unreliable sources and blames his victims--lest we forget, that's a BLP violation.
• Removal of material sourced form Korean National Police Agency et. al here
• Removal of socalled "planted articles" (Radio Austalia, News.com.au, and again Korean National Police Agency) here, quickly reverted by Richwales

The last entry above was in June 2013 but the pattern continues up to now, cf. contributions. Further a few examples of incivility, sock accusations here and here, and a bit of the usual WP:OWN here. Sam Sailor 10:58, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit warring and NPOV at Logan River Academy

Logan River Academy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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

1LastManStanding (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

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

This is an interesting little squabble that has been going on for months. The page started as largely a smear campaign at the beginning of November created by SPA Mgottesfeld. 67.177.32.215 started whitewashing the page the other way. At this point. 209.6.193.140 reverted him. Then the page creator began edit warring over the article, until he stopped after a 3RR report. Everything stayed this way until early February when another SPA 173.14.238.190, now inactive, white washed it again. After he goes inactive, 67 comes back, lo and behold, and carries on his work. 209 reverted once during this time. From Feb. 25 until the 7th it stopped, until 67 again just reverts some constructive edits, and continues to edit-war until the 11th. Then a fresh SPA, 1LastManStanding, comes into the picture and begins to whitewash. 209 asked WPPilot to check out the article and he made one edit. Now 67 and 1LastManStanding are both tag team edit warring over the article, with 209 reverting them. 209, incidentally, is now at 5RR.

All of this article is NPOV one way or another, and it may7 just need to be nuked and started over. KonveyorBelt 19:14, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

While on the point of nuking and starting over, I suggest full protection as well as another report directly to WP:ANEW. Epicgenius (talk) 19:31, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

For whom? KonveyorBelt 20:33, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I was asked by a IP user to review the page and boy does it have issues. To me this page has been a tool to attack the subject and not much more. I am trying to avoid conflict, when I added something that I felt improved the Wiki it was promptly reverted. I had also requested a page lock but that was denied? WPPilot talk 21:27, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• As the major warfare has been waged by I.P. numbers I really think that a semi protect is in order. Granted that named users have been a part of the battle, the IP semi block would at least put the edit warring to rest as far as the IP numbers listed above are concerned. WPPilot talk 03:39, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Post to prevent archiving—this still hasn't been fixed and the edit war is still ongoing. KonveyorBelt 16:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I suppose I can step in since this hasn't had much attention. So there are a couple of different issues here.

First off all, there are behavioral issues that need to be resolved. I guess the question is, what administrator intervention is needed? Activity has been relatively low on the page (especially in the last few days) so any kind of protection seems unnecessary (which is probably why the WP:RFPP was declined). Protection is normally given to pages who have multiple editors disrupting it very actively, which is not what is happening here. So that leaves individual attention; looking at the accounts involved and determining what action is needed for each one. Editing in violation of WP:NPOV after repeated warnings can lead to blocks, and it doesn't matter if the POV being inserted is positive (spamming/whitewashing) or negative (turning it into an attack page), either is an example of disruption. I can give it a review to see what I can determine, though if anyone has examples of diffs with particularly problematic edits, and some explanation as to what specific concerns the diffs raise (aside from a generic "whitewash" or "attack" accusation) that would be helpful, and may help generate interest from someone other than just myself. The other possibility is that we have socking, which probably will have to be determined behaviorally unless we have multiple named accounts who have edited within the last few months to tie together for CheckUser. I can look for behavioral patterns to indicate sock puppet evidence, though as before diffs could speed this up.

Secondly, it sounds like the article itself has been a casualty of this whole process. Sometimes it's good when you have biased editors with strong opposing points of view working on an article. Editor A wants to paint the subject in as positive a manner as possible, while Editor B wants the article to reflect how awful the subject is. They argue, they debate, and they dispute one point after another, challenging each other to back up their opinions with reliable sources. If the editors are able to keep things civil, and if they follow policies and guidelines, the end result can end up being a compromise with an article that is balanced (a mix of both A and B's views) and well-sourced. But when you just have edit warriors who try to bomb the article with sweeping changes and don't discuss anything, you instead have a mess of unsubstantiated claims both positive and negative. In a case like that, neutral editors need to sort through the mess and fix things up. It's probable that the article isn't going to be salvaged until the disruption is ended (either with blocks, a change in behavior, or the editors giving up and going away).

Finally, is the subject notable? There are a lot of references in the article, to some pretty reliable sources, but I haven't had a chance to check how relevant those sources are, and how much coverage the facility has actually received. The answer to disruption at an article shouldn't be to delete it, but if the article doesn't actually merit inclusion, it's a pretty easy fix. -- Atama頭 17:49, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

To add a quick update, Mgottesfeld has outed himself as "Marty Gottesfeld, Community Organizer" and cites "#ShutLoganRiver" and "www.shutdownloganriver.com" in this edit at Talk:Kids for cash scandal. So this editor clearly has a conflict of interest, and probably should not be editing the Logan River Academy article directly. -- Atama頭 17:55, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes. The editor's different versions of the same article are too biased to blend well. I would suggest blocks, but they'd just make more socks and come back again. KonveyorBelt 16:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Now we have the IP 67 tag team editing with the sock to revert my edits. KonveyorBelt 17:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Combination POV push/personal attacks on Islam-related article

Sorry to bring this to ANI first but the talk page in question has been exhausted and since this involved both conduct and content, I'm not sure where else to go. The gist of it: I have contributed extensively to Rabee Al-Madkhali, a hardline Muslim cleric, and Madkhalism, his movement which is mostly of Muslims in the Western world. The fact that I created the latter caused controversy among Madkhalists, some of whom were my former college buddies. The group tends to deny its own existence and dislikes attention, but I stuck only with mainstream academic sources to be fair.
Maybe a week ago or so a new account comes along called Amerrycan Muslim who only edits this article. He did a massive POV push, trying to use the article as a soapbox and in the process outed me twice. I requested the edits be suppressed via oversight and they were because I don't want that stuff out there, but I don't feel shy saying that it happened. User:Risker can confirm that the information posted can only be known by someone who knows me very, very well. I don't want to know who they are but suffice to say that based on what they said specifically, they know who I am, are quite angry and see this as some sort of existential battle.
At Talk:Rabee Al-Madkhali, things have been difficult. I have tried to remain civil and to be fair the guy is new and most likely unfamiliar with site policies and guidelines, but until now he has refused to take heed every time I explain why such-and-such suggestion violates such-and-such policy. The last straw was tonight when I had to go through Misplaced Pages:Other stuff exists with him three times and it became clear that this is a massive issue of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.
I'm here as I'm not sure how to deal with the guy. He isn't edit warring anymore, and he says he didn't know that outing other editors isn't allowed, but I know for a fact there is a bit of battleground mentality with me personally as well as refusal to get the point about the soapboxing and weasel wording he keeps suggesting. He has said twice now he wants arbitration and the discussions are getting a bit more tense. It's difficult to avoid the conduct issue here to be honest. I hope the community can comment and make suggestions as to how this can be solved. MezzoMezzo (talk) 20:23, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

For those concerned, then one or two diffs would be tough as it's the whole conversations but the major "I didn't hear that" issue is at Talk:Rabee_Al-Madkhali#A_Question_of_bias_in_sources while the major POV push is at Talk:Rabee_Al-Madkhali#The_initial_intro. The conduct issue and tense relationship is pretty much all over the page. MezzoMezzo (talk) 20:28, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi everyone, First off I would like to thank user:MezzoMezzo for bringing our issues from the aforementioned page here for help and council. I also appreciate Mezzo's fairness in SOME of what he wrote here. I AM a new guy, who has academically researched salafism within Europe and upon coming across the wiki page of Dr Rabee, I was outraged at what was in my opinion an extremely unbalanced page on someone I have previously researched. I have only edited this page because I feel it needs so much work and I have been so busy going through my old research to bring information and sources to show that the same sources being quoted currently also give positive information which I fail to see on the current page. That's solely why I haven't moved on. And for the record, I do not know Mezzo.

However, Mezzo is extremely wrong in almost everything else he says about me. This is in no way about him, nor a battle against him. It is about balancing a wiki page of someone I have researched. And I am in no way angry. Just perplexed, for reasons which shall follow.

I did asked Mezzo why sources which are used on other pages of figures which are like-minded and directly connected to Dr Rabee are not allowed, such as Badi' ud-Din Shah al-Rashidi and Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i. He gave his own personal opinion about why Middle Eastern research was not usually up to scratch while not offering any empirical data to back his claim up, and because of that, books offering an alternative view to what he wrote on the page were rejected. However, sources like this have been added on the pages of Wadi'i and Shah, so I asked why there were sites which he claims to be biased and unprofessional on these other pages. I never mentioned the content, ever. Then he told me about "other stuff exists" and I read that and saw it was about 'content' and not 'citations' so I politely asked him about that. I could continue on, but I wish for all to read the talk page.

I am more than happy to have moderation on the page of Dr Rabee, as he and I will be unlikely to agree. However, in my defense, as I wrote on the talk page of Dr Rabee's page, I have never EVER attempted to delete criticism of Dr Rabee which was posted without citation. I merely, looked to balance out the page with facts and praise from other Islamic scholars of greater and equal standing with Dr Rabee. It is all about balancing a page regarding a controversial figure based on academic sources as well as opposing view points, which should also include the person in question: Dr Rabee. Thank you for your time. Amerrycan Muslim (talk) 21:31, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

While the tone here is much nicer, the comments above are a demonstration on why the the content issue has become muddled with the conduct issue.

To start with User:Amerrycan Muslim, I never said that I rejected "books offering an alternative view" because of my opinion on the quality of research at universites in the Mideast.

• You asked me my opinion of peer-reviewed research in Arabic.
• I replied with my opinion only, and not with comments on the article. I even made it abundantly clear just a few comments later that I was only giving you my opinion, not advocating any specific changes to Rabee Al-Madkhali or any other page.

The Misplaced Pages:Other stuff exists is also being demonstrated right here. To say that the community culture regarding that essay only refers to content and not citations is clearly semantic and borderline trolling; even a newbie can see that. I explained to you two times why that isn't relevant and your dwelling on the point comes off as pointless and argumentative.

Additionally, your proposal for a new lead before editing the rest of the article contains so many weasel words and soapboxing, it's difficult to ignore; it's about as bad as the original 23,000 bytes you tried to slip in without discussion. I mean, an Arabic language audio recording of a private phone conversation hosted on archive dot org where the subject of the article simply denies he has a movement and calls his group the only true Sunnis? That's a reliable source and valid reason for inserting denial that his movement exists into the lead?

That, with all the "I didn't hear that" behavior, accusations of me inventing my own policies when I quote and link to actual policies in just about every comment I make, and your two separate attempts to reveal my identity in a malicious way make it real tough to deal with you and make any headway. This is actually overshadowing the content issue at this point, to be honest. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:39, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Isn't it a bit contradictory to say you don't have a movement but admit you have a group? Just my two cents. Tivanir2 (talk) 15:53, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, I didn't ask for your opinion, I asked whether you were aware of peer-reviewed articles and books written in the Arabic language, because much of the currently sourced research relies on it and I intend on including it, not your opinion on its reliability- you added that as a side point saying "keep in mind that reliability is low" and "peer-review consists of yes-men".

When I asked about citations being used elsewhere, it was about using biographical sources such as fatwa-online or the subject's biography written by his students or followers, being fine when sourcing non-controversial factual material, such as lineage. My questions were asked because you explicitly stated that certain sources (fatwa-online and the subjects website) are "biased" and "unprofessional" thereby negating validity of those sources that are key for the subject matter and strongly relied on with current academic sources, such as meijer, lacroix, and others.

I was quite hasty as a newbie, and I'm still learning the rules- there's no need to assume malicious intent. In the interest of fairness and unbiased information, both sides of a story should be told. I never stated that the movement doesn't exist, I said even though the subject denies the claim and some of his contemporaries/followers deny its existence. This is not taking a side, this is showing the subject's denial. If it doesn't belong in the lead, that's my mistake, and it can be moved to a separate section. I do not intend to be malicious, I would just like some balance in the presentation of the information. Amerrycan Muslim (talk) 06:47, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Amerrycan Muslim, I know that there is a measure of malice there. Nobody here at ANI has seen what you posted the second time you tried to out me but I remember, so keep that in mind; I know why you're here.

Secondly, many of us (myself included) have made your newbie mistakes and even more, but the issue now is that you are so combative that explaining politely why such and such suggestion doesn't work out had no effect until things came here to ANI. There is also no assurance, currently, that once we leave this open forum and go back to the talk page without so much attention, you won't revert to the same "I didn't hear that" schtick again. I would assume good faith, but for reasons I have stated several times here, that was obviously exhausted early on.

Basically what I am trying to find out is where to go from here. WP:DRN and WP:3O are for disputes which are solely about content, any conduct mediation measures are too serious for disagreements with newbies, and there isn't much I know of for disputes which are both content and conduct. Some sort of outside assistance is necessary because, after seeing you reply with the same arguments over and over again even after I explain why most of your suggested changes to the article (not all of them) violate multiple policies and guidelines, I honestly have little patience to continue replying. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I'll repeat. There is no malicious intent. But, I'm excited that you now why I am here; to simply demand an article that is a balanced and fair portrayal of the subject. Showing the POSITIVE, as well as the negative. Under your recent stewardship I feel that is lacking. While looking through the edit history of the page this seems to he a new phenomenon as previously your stewardship was, in my opinion, excellent. Amerrycan Muslim (talk) 09:52, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Tivanir2: Yeah, I guess it is contradictory, though my main concern isn't the contradiction. It's that my fellow editor here thinks that an Arabic-language recording hosted at Internet Archive of someone calling the cult's leader on the phone counts as a valid source, or that random Muslim proselytizing sites with no editorial boards count as valid sources, or that the websites of Madkhalism count as valid sources. And that when I explain how they don't, I am told that I am making up my own policies. This is what I need assistance mediating. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:29, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Amerrycan Muslim's largely reasonable engagement above appears to have turned into random vandalism of this page. DeCausa (talk) 08:05, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

That looks more like what happens when one edits an old revision despite the warning, which could easily be by mistake. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 08:12, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes sorry for that, I'm on my phone and finding it a little difficult. So I will stop until at computer. Amerrycan Muslim (talk) 08:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I think it is related. Browsing through Wiki 'rules' I came across WP:3O where Mezzo and I could've gone for a 3rd opinion as we seem to be the only two editors on this page. Would it have been better to do so before coming here or is there something else which makes this forum more suitable? Just asking to improve my knowledge.Amerrycan Muslim (talk) 13:26, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

HELP

I need some help editing Misplaced Pages. will somebody plz help? thanks Malayhotgirl (talk) 00:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• WP:Teahouse is where you want to go to get an introduction and ask questions. WP:Help desk is another option. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 00:46, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
• Dennis, I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that the hot girl isn't here for editing Misplaced Pages. I'm also going to suggest that the picture they just put on their user page, File:Miss Malaysia 07 Deborah Priya.jpg, might not be of them, and that this picture was placed with another strategic interest in mind. Then, I will announce that I have removed said image from said user page considering all kinds of possible BLP problems. Now, should I block them already, or would you like to ask them for more pictures, maybe some of her sister? Or should I start sipping from the other cup, the one marked "Good faith"? Dr. "Super Hot" Mies (talk) 01:26, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Now Doc Mies, if I had any suspicion of anything unusual, don't you think I would have done something, such as log into IRC and talk to a clerk? I expected to just AGF and monitor. That said, if I had to wager on one of us, I would bet on you. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 01:35, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
    • I'd bet on those odds! ;-) (wink and a nudge...knowwhatImean, knowwhatImean?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:46, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
      • Dennis, if I knew what "log into IRC and talk to a clerk" meant, I'd answer your question. Drmies (talk) 02:11, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit war on MH370 page

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

There appears to be an edit war happening between User:Kendall rayanne and User:TheAirplaneGuy, both of which appear to be continually reverting changes to MH370 in a fashion that is making it difficult to add verifiable information to the article without it changing underneath other editors' feet. In the middle of a current event, an edit war is the last thing that should be happening on an article of this importance. Lucas "nicatronTg" Nicodemus (talk) 06:09, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

User blocked TheAirplaneGuy (talk) 06:10, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

That solves the problem then. It's not really my place to, but this is now resolved. I just realized there is a 3RR noticeboard anyway. Whoops. Lucas "nicatronTg" Nicodemus (talk) 06:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Just as a note, if you need to post something at ANI again, don't forget to notify the editors in question of the discussion. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:04, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Reverse Sandstein's false accusations and destructive warnings

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

Note: I have refactored considerably at the request of Sandstein, to keep the discussion all in one place. My apologies if I have gotten anyone's vote in the wrong place, feel free to move it. —Neotarf (talk) 13:00, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

In February 2013, four editors -- SMcCandlish, Noetica, Ohconfucius, and myself -- were falsely accused of misconduct by Sandstein. As a result, three have walked out, and a fourth continues to edit, but with understandable bitterness.

I am asking that the community repair Sandstein’s damage by 1) striking the false accusations 2) vacating the actions based on the false accusations and 3) advising Sandstein to recuse in any future dealings with the four editors. —Neotarf (talk) 11:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

1) Remove Sandstein’s false accusations from the case page

The accusations came about in the aftermath of a request filed by Apteva, who, in spite of a topic ban resulting from an RFCU endorsed by 38 editors, was allowed to open an arbitration enforcement case seeking to preempt a pending sanction under discussion against him.

Sandstein was advised by another admin to retract the language about casting aspersions, but refused. To add further damage to our reputations, we were publicly mocked by Sandstein for having been accused by him.

Sandstein has admitted I have not done anything to merit even a warning, but he has steadfastly refused to officially retract the accusatory statements. Another admin removed the accusation, but even after Sandstein acknowledged the accusation was not true, he reverted the other admin's edit to reinstate the false accusation into the case record.

In case someone comes up with the less-than-brilliant idea that it is “impossible” to remove a notification from a case record once it has been placed there (yes, someone has actually said this), here are two recent examples: a notification that was vacated and stricken from the record as a result of community action, and an entry in the case record simply removed by an arb. The world did not end and the Misplaced Pages did not explode.

Sandstein's false accusations against the four editors SMcCandlish, Noetica, Neotarf, and Ohconfucius should be removed from the case page here. —Neotarf (talk) 11:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

• Support. —Neotarf (talk) 11:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. A wrong has been done here, whether intentionally or not, the ArbCom isn't fixing it, and the admin responsible for it steadfastly refuses to resolve the problem, pretending that no problem exists now matter how clearly it's demonstrated. Enough. This can be resolved in five minutes. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:18, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• I agree that if it is possible to vacate Sandstein's bizarre attacks on these editors, it would be good to do so. If this could help Noetica and Neotarf and SMcCandlish return as WP contributors, that would be a big win all around. These were very serious, productive, and scholarly editors, and Sandstein's dislike for their style and their positions somehow led to these inappropriate accusations that they rightly took much offense at. Let's fix this if we can. Dicklyon (talk) 22:21, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

• Past accusations are just that: past accusations. We don't remove them from every page on which they occurred even when they are demonstrably false, and certainly not when there is any doubt. Think of the precedent: from my perspective, nearly every accusation ever made against me by anyone is false. Should the community support me if I began a campaign to have each and every one of the removed? No.—Kww(talk) 14:47, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• In addition to Kww's comment above, which I agree with 100%, I find it annoying that Neotarf wrote in the question "Sandstein has admitted I have not done anything to merit even a warning" when the linked comment says nothing of the sort, and indeed specifically says "This appeal does not contain any new arguments or evidence that would lead me to reconsider that assessment." This is the sort of behavior that resulted in Neotarf being warned not to conduct a dispute in an inappropriately confrontational manner. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:48, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
  • "In retrospect your statement does appear comparatively tame and would not ordinarily merit a warning on its own."
  • "I suppose that's as close to an apology as could be expected from Sandstein.... the warning hasn't been "vacated" or whatever, not by Sandstein and not by ArbCom, but...Sandstein has in practice, and all but technically, withdrawn it in his comment."

I don't care anything about confronting Sandstein, or the other user, who has now been indeffed. I just want the restrictions against me revoked. —Neotarf (talk) 04:02, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, there really is no way around that admission, Guy Macon. Neotarf is not making things up, and your accusation that they've done so should be retracted. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 07:15, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Abstain

• I don't care one way or the other about overturning results in this discussion. But I do care about whether all the so-called "bizarre attacks" were truly bizarre. I was one of the editors who was unjustifiably harassed by SMcCandlish. That led to a boomerang block for his bullying. I don't recall if he apologized or not but it was harassment to me that I shant forget. I didn't ask for any block at the time but I didn't want that to ever happen to me again. The others I have no idea about... but the SMcCandlish harassment solution was not a bizarre attack in my mind. Do I trust him not to do it someone else after all this.... not sure. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
  • The result wasn't a block, but the one-month topic ban being retrospectively appealed in 2) below. Kanguole 16:26, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

I find the above statement in poor taste, referring to "damage", etc ... nothing like poisoning the well. DP 12:41, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

NewYorkBrad is fond of quoting Othello III.iii.155 in this matter. If it's good enough for The Bard, and good enough for NYB, it's good enough for me. —Neotarf (talk) 13:40, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I and others have been personally harmed as editors by this, the project suffers the loss of our contributions, and the community's faith in the equitability of policy enforcement by admins is certainly damaged. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 13:08, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

"Personally harmed"? Seriously? Now THAT is inappropriate - nobody dropped by your house and hit you with a rake. Nobody fired you from your job. This is a website, and you got your feelings hurt ... THAT is not the definition of "personally harmed". DP 13:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

That's the fallacies of equivocation, argumentum ad absurdum, and straw man, all at once. I don't need to argue with you at length about this; the facts of the case are clear, and while you're entitled to whatever opinion you want, you're not entitled to pretend that you magically know who in the real world has noticed this dispute and what effects it may have had or could later have off-Misplaced Pages, especially with regards to editors who use their real names here. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:04, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

It's unhelpful to deal in caricatures like being hit by rakes or being fired. Harm can come in many forms, and DP's dismissiveness risks oversimplifying. -- Ohc  07:24, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't even care if Sandstein ever admits doing any wrong. I don't care if admins do or don't in the majority agree or disagree with him. It requires absolutely nothing but common sense to delete the logged actions of Sandstein in this case as procedural matter, rectifying that something intended as a warning actually inadvertently included text that is a blatant accusation, which without proof makes it a personal attack and (at least with regard to those of us who use our real names here, like me) blatant defamation. You can even hold Sandstein totally blameless if you want. JUST FIX IT. The WP community has already lost somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 productive edits by me in the intervening year, and I have no idea how many thousands more by the other falsely accused editors Sandstein's actions and Misplaced Pages administration's collective refusal to correct them has driven off. I'm not going to even get into the pattern of personal harassment of me by Sandstein, and his un-recusal (after recusing because other admins said he was INVOLVED), to personally ban me in a WP:ANI case, etc. If the accusation is voided, and I'm not further harassed by him, I don't have any desire to protract any dispute with him. Clear my name, and keep him away from me. PS: I also want to point out that ArbCom actually promised clarifying action on these "warnings" and their text, shortly after this issue arose, and never actually came through. It is now, a year later, clearly time for the community to act and just resolve this. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:18, 15 March 2014 (UTC) I am always suspicious when a proposal of "false accusations against the four editors A, B, C, and D" is supported from the beginning by editors A and B. For context, these editors have been pushing for this to happen for months now. It looks like they have seized this opportunity, which is alarming. While I sympathise with SMcCandlish's frustration at being warned way-back-when, I recommend the community dismiss this request. (This comment made in my capacity as an individual arb, and not for the committee.) AGK 11:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

2) Vacate SMcCandlish's topic ban

Two of the editors immediately announced their departure as a result of the Sandstein’s false accusations, but SMcCandlish attempted to continue editing, and was immediately engulfed in dramah. Sanctions were requested against SMcCandlish at Sandstein’s talk page for using a word in ALL CAPS in an edit summary. When that accusation didn’t stick, another request for AE enforcement was made against SMcCandlish saying that comments made at an RFA constituted "personalized remarks". Finally, in yet another action at AE (Fyunck(click)), Sandstein deleted a part of SMcCandlish’s evidence, including diffs, saying it was too long, then topic-banned SMcCandlish, calling his request frivolous since it only had one diff left after Sandstein’s deletions.

SMcCandlish's sanctions here should be reversed/vacated. —Neotarf (talk) 11:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

• Support. —Neotarf (talk) 11:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Note: My support of this proposal is secondary to and severable from the one above, concerning vacating from the log Sandstein's false accusations against me and the rest of the affected editors. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:46, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support. I have no involvement here and did not notice at the time the actions against the other 3 editors, only at the time against SMcCandlish. I thought at the time it seemed inexplicable, but because I was not aware of the other 3 cases, said nothing, or virtually nothing. From what is visible on the surface (and if it isn't visible it should be made so) there seems to be no clear reason, or benefit to the project, for any of the actions taken against these editors. My natural inclination is to err on the side of discipline in all such disputes, but this case seems egregious and disturbing, and has been bothering me since I noticed it. Without some substantial evidence of a concrete problem a full restore of status for all four editors seems to be called for. (However at this time I am only commenting in this section) In ictu oculi (talk) 12:34, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support as "How dare you complain..." Verbosity isn't grounds for a topic ban. Raising a complaint against another editor at AN or ANI isn't grounds either – it's what the forum is for. It's necessarily "personal" and I don't think the issues raised in that targeted the individual in "personalised" manner more than was necessary to identify the salient issues. -- Ohc  08:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

Alternate

This is not technically an oppose. I have no care if the topic ban is vacated or not. However, if it is vacated, I certainly would not want SMcCandlish to have gone unpunished for his original bullying/harassment. Other admins agreed that a warning was not sufficient at the time. He never apologized to me about it. I can say at the time a Stern Warning would have sufficed for me if he had promised never to harass me again, and I would want that permanently on the record if the temp topic ban is vacated. If he had been simply banned for 3 days, that also would have sufficed at the time. I forget what he was originally asking for my punishment when this attack on me boomeranged on him. What I would not want is to have this swept away as if nothing happened at all. It would stink to high heaven imho. If something can be vacated this far forward, then something should also be retroactively added. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:26, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Did you not read my original message upon rescinding the AE request I'd opened against you? I'll quote it in its entirety here: "@Fyunck(click): I have rescinded this request because the AE admin respondents have concluded that the case is weak. Maybe I even really am flat-out wrong about your posts, too, as you say; if time shows this to be the case, I will owe you an apology. I declined to respond to your rebuttal details because I know AE admins can draw their own conclusions from the diffs (note they're not agreeing with you, only finding that the old diffs are too old and the newer one not actionable), and I'm trying to keep it short, not because I couldn't formulate a response. In reply to your question, I did not examine your editing "ashtray" closely at all to find the evidence I did find, I just looked at your talk page and recent archives of it; that is not in any way unusual or harassing. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 06:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)" Given that some of the admins in that case did in fact think you were being tendentious on the issue I'd raised, and you'd previously been blocked for it, you'd do well to remember that boomeranging can affect anyone who, seeking "punishment" (your word) against another editor, draws unnecessary attention to editorial conflicts in which they themselves have been deeply and questionably involved. NB: There was absolutely no administrative finding at AE that I had "harassed" or "bullied" you, only that the case I brought was "frivolous" because the evidence was too old and not of a smoking gun character. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 07:41, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

You bet I read it. And of course you rescinded it once you saw that others thought it was frivolous and that a boomerang effect was about to happen. And you'll also notice that the block you mentioned was not for that... it was for edit warring with another that was also blocked. And both were removed immediately once we agreed to an RFC. Your bullying/harassing ani towards me still keeps me looking over my shoulder at you. No warning from you no nothing. And the evidence was non-existent for the ani you brought up. Other admins also thought you crossed a line and had been recently warned about doing it to others. I am still pissed about what you attempted to do to me with NO APOLOGY. For you to get off scott-free is unacceptable. All I wanted was a warning, especially once you started piling on more ridiculous accusations. As I said I could care less about topic bans... in general I don't really like them at wikipedia. But I happened across this request and it was looking a lot like revisionist history to me and it brought back the pain I felt at the time of waking up and having to defend myself from you. I can certainly forgive but I would have to see a lot from you before that ever happens. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:36, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

The duty admin is the judge and can close any complaints that are frivolous or vexatious, and admins often close AN discussions on such bases. Topic banning an editor like what happened to SMcC seems to be justified by "I don't like your face" or "I don't like your attitude, boy" arguments. We are now all familiar with Sandstein's MO; his mobilising Enola Gay was just typical of his usual sledgehammer approach to problems. Such an approach actually deters long-term dispute resolution and forces their escalation elsewhere without resolving them. -- Ohc  08:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Indeed; Sandstein's topic-banning close against me at AE as punishment for raising legitimate concerns at ANI (I won that case) and at AE (my case was rejected only because the evidence wasn't fresh enough) is a direct discouragement to all editors to "dare" to use the dispute resolution mechanisms we have in place, unless they have friends on the inside. If you are not part of the Inner Party, you must just STFU and do what you're told. Sandstein personally turned that AE case (which I filed; no case was filed against me) into pretty much the most forced BOOMERANG case in AE history, instead of just accepting my dropping of the case after being told I didn't have new enough evidence. I have absolutely no doubt that I would win an ArbCom case about this, on the merits. I just have better things to do with my life. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:44, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• It's notable that Sandstein recused himself from that case after it was pointed out how INVOLVED he was. He then un-recused himself - the first time in any context I've ever seen that happen - and deleted my evidence to make the case against me look sane, then summarily banned me, even though others were saying this wasn't justified, and one of the few who did suggest a ban did so on the totally unsupportable basis that I was somehow "going too far" when I filed an ANI case against someone attacking me in contravention of their own topic ban, and ANI *agreed* - i.e., I properly used official WP dispute resolution processes and that dispute was formally resolved in my favor. I was, however, attacked in my own case for it, and even after others pointed out that the "going to far" criticism made no sense at all, I was summarily banned by a vengeful Sandstein for it. This is the second action by Sandstein that I could have launched a big ol' ARBCOM case about (and he wouldn't been have a lone party in that one), but I'm not a legalist busybody, and was not here to get into disputes, but rather to work on an encyclopedia. Anyone still wondering why I quit editing, and why this issue hasn't gone away a year later? I was publicly abused by multiple admins on the flimsiest of excuses, that undermine faith in the equitability of WP administration processes and dispute resolution. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:31, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Neotarf's summary omits links to the last two AEs, raised about SMcCandlish and Fyunck(click). The critical comments by several uninvolved admins there (and the closure of the first one by User:Gatoclass) contradict the Lone Rogue Admin narrative developed above. Kanguole 19:55, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Kangole, yes, I did include diffs to the Fyunck(click) request, but I have now added a more obvious link to the entire request page as well. I didn't include the request about the Birds matter, since the outcome was just a reminder. The admins mostly commented on his tendency to be long-winded. Looking at the Fyunck(click) matter again, how was it that LittleBenW, now indeffed, was able to present evidence in violation of his topic ban? Some of the AE admins were actually critical of SMcC for taking the matter to ANI, but two other admins enforced the ban with a block. And SMcCandlish withdrew the AE request, when he was told there weren't enough diffs to make it actionable. At that point, Sandstein was the only admin who was willing to close the case. —Neotarf (talk) 06:09, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
    • The first one produced one of the entries on the ARBATC log that you're trying to get removed, after the uninvolved admins criticised SMcC's battlefield conduct, so that's an important part of the sequence. The one initiated by SMcC five days later, alleging a "jingoistic attack on non-native English speakers categorically" was criticised as baseless and frivolous by four admins, one of whom proposed a block while three favoured a topic ban. After that, it's not surprising that he wanted it forgotten. Kanguole 08:39, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
      • Kanguole, you have quite a talent for reinterpreting events to support your own bias. LittleBenW was violating (not for anywhere near the first time) his own long-standing topic ban, this time in abusing AE as venue for a stream of personal attacks against me, disrupting a case that had no connection of any kind to him. I took the matter to ANI, because AE was at that point all about punishing me rather than enforcing policy (and AE's role isn't policing topic-ban violations, which is ANI's job). ANI agreed that LittleBenW was violating his topic ban, but another admin back in AE said I'd "gone too far". Someone else pointed out that it's nonsense to say I've gone too far when I successfully used WP dispute resolution and administrative procedures in the proper way and ANI *agreed with me* - I won my case there regarding LittleBenW's abuses. Nevertheless, Sandstein un-recused himself to issue a ban against me, for which there was no consensus, after being told he was too involved, and after calls for doing something to me had stopped, and after I'd already dropped the case against Fynuck. Yes, really. It was grossly-INVOLVED, vengeful spite on Sandstein's part. A lot of editors would have escalated this into a successful appeal and then an ArbCom case seeking sanctions against both Sandstein (and not him alone), but I chose not to, because I don't think such fights are productive. Yet now I'm being character-assassinated here for being "out for blood" and being combative! That's a laugh. I'm the least vengeful party on any side of this dispute. You didn't even read the Fyunck case correctly; several admins agreed that my interpretation (i.e. jingoistic attacks) was in fact correct and cause for concern; they decided the case was effectively frivolous because of the age of the evidence (not fresh enough), not on the facts themselves. But feel free to go on misrepresenting these cases, by all means, as if other people can't read and make up their own minds. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:44, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
        • I certainly agree that people should read the comments of uninvolved admins in those cases for themselves. Kanguole 11:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
      • Kanguole, the only admin to claim "battleground" in that request was SarekofVulcan, who is no longer an admin, and who was hardly neutral in the discussion. In fact, it was this exact situation with the four of us that weighed heavily in his last failed RFA. But I can sympathize about being dragged off to AE without so much as a note on the talk page. Apteva did that to me and to Dicklyon , and JHunterJ as well, but no one ever suggested any sanctions for that. —Neotarf (talk) 11:01, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
        • I was talking about the comments of uninvolved admins. You might try search strings like "ad hominem commentary", "clearly and obviously problematic" and "has to stop". Kanguole 11:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
          • See WP:KETTLE. You are not one to lecture on ad hominem problematic debate tactics that need to stop, e.g. your demonzing Kwamikagami (in a style-related dispute, no less): "it's clear he's prepared to filibuster indefinitely, even with complete nonsense", which was clearly incivil, assumed bad faith and borders on a personal attack. There are not too many people who've edited here long who haven't crossed a line or two in stylistic, titling or markup debates. That's completely different from making false accusations under color of administrative authority, and further abusing admin power to ban editors who complain about it. That's what this is about. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:51, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

3) Declare Sandstein WP:INVOLVED

Sandstein continues to refuse to recuse himself from matters involving these 4 editors, even though other editors see him as WP:INVOLVED. He has been told, “your threats and punitive sanctions against this, and other editors, has the marked appearance of hopeless conflict of interest” and “you should just avoid the appearance of involved and let someone else handle it.” Instead of listening to those who advise him to avoid the appearance of COI, Sandstin has threatened me with regard to any future disputes, that his actions towards me will not be determined by the circumstances of a particular situation, but by my having “disputed a mere warning”.

Sandstein should recuse himself in any future matters pertaining to WP:ARBATC, and the four editors SMcCandlish, Noetica, Neotarf, and OhConfucious.

Support

• Support. —Neotarf (talk) 11:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Sandstein should certainly be prohibited from enforcement, maybe even interaction generally, with the four affected editors in this case. Even aside from the false accusations, and the direct personal harassment, Sandstein makes it clear generally and broadly that he's intolerant of disputes that have anything to do with style and article naming. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:44, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Absolute support. I have noted before, and continue to fervently believe that Sandstein is hopelessly involved and pathologically unwilling to objectively examine his/her own actions in regard to these editors. I have had no direct interaction with Sandstein, and my association with the subject area was as an uninvolved editor (maybe as a closer, maybe via rfcbot invite, I don't remember), and I came away with essentially no distinct feelings regarding the subject area, but an absolute lack of confidence in Sandstein as an admin in any capacity. Sandstein's actions in regards to these editors has damaged the project and damaged his/her moral authority to use sysop tools. VanIsaac_WS 19:52, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

• God no, impossible, implausible and tremendously inappropriate to suggest DP 12:39, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

His goals here are not to see disputes resolved in the ways that best serve the readership and the editorship, but to shut people up because these topics piss him off. Probably no admin on the system is less temperamentally suited to having anything to do with ARBATC enforcement. That said, my support of this proposal is completely tertiary to and severable from the matter of clearing our names of Sandstein's false accusations, and voiding from the log Sandstein's bogus ban issued against me. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:44, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Not an interaction ban--I can't find any policy justification for this, but here's how it's being enforced at the moment. —Neotarf (talk) 13:53, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. I think he is just a binary authoritarian who bullies everybody he considers misbehaving. I'm actually pretty sure that Sandstein feels he is just doing his job, and would apply the same approach to everybody. I just want this affair over with, and not be afraid of going up to say "stop being such a bully" without the fear of his using the discretionary sanctions on this page against me just because he feels he needs to keep his hand permanently on his big rod. -- Ohc  05:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Comment

For a long time, Sandstein sat like a spider at the centre of arbitration affairs. He/she seemed to function as arbitration's chief executioner, grimly driving content builders from the project. I'm not sure whether Sandstein has ever offered solutions other than blocks and bans. The notion that there might be effective means that could result in resolving problems with problematic but productive editors apart from blocking or banning them doesn't seem to be part of Sandstein's skill set. Hallmarks of Sandstein's style include the use of his/her notorious term "broadly construed" as a catch-all to hammer content builders into the ground, together with demands that blocks on content builders should always be indefinite blocks and additional demands that arbitrators should be permitted to make their decisions in secrecy. It seem to me that Sandstein has unnecessarily driven away many fine content builders, builders who have often made much more substantial contributions towards building the encyclopaedia than Sandstein has. Sandstein's behaviour is part of a larger syndrome which is crippling Misplaced Pages. --Epipelagic (talk) 12:51, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

That's a bit dramatic but a nice analogy and in my view does sum up the way Sandsteins way of running with ARBCOM, I'd be inclined to SUPPORT all three proposals. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 13:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Ya'll are not going to get traction complaining about Sandstein here -- the best way to pursue that line of thought is WP:RFC/U. NE Ent 16:10, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah - that's kinda what I suggest below - but I doubt that comes with the desired drama quotient. I sense that only a blood-letting will suffice here, and that's what makes this personality fight utterly inappropriate.

But this is wiki. And why I rarely bother any more. This case just happened to put all I abhor about wiki infighting right up front. So I commented. Mea culpa. I should have settled for repeating "pathetic" under my breath. We live, we learn. Begoon  16:19, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

This isn't about Sandstein, it's about getting a review of his actions. The policy against personal attacks is very clear:

Serious accusations require serious evidence. Evidence often takes the form of diffs and links presented on wiki.

We were neither presented with diffs nor given a chance to defend ourselves against the accusations. These accusations are all the more serious because they were done in the official voice of Arbcom by an official representative of Arbcom. —Neotarf (talk) 04:27, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. It doesn't matter who made the accusations; they were not backed up, and as such they constitute the very definition of personal attacks, against policy. Been saying this for a year, too. The four affected editors should not have had to escalate this matter for this long. It has been obvious since the first five minutes that either Sandstein had to prove the accusation, delivered in his official administrative capacity, was valid, or it has to be retracted. There is absolutely no way around this basic reasoning. It's ridiculous and shameful that it should take a year to get this resolved, all because other admins don't want to be seen as criticizing the decisions of another admin. The fact that ArbCom is effectively delegating its most dangerous role, one that can directly harm people's reputations, to random admins, and institutionally blind and deaf to complaints about their actions, is a very serious problem. It's like a court that decides it would rather let the sheriff determine guilt and hand out sentences. It's a problem that the admin community, if not the entire WP community, has to address, since ArbCom can't fix itself and won't admit that it has any kind of problem. No one but the admins' noticeboard is really in a position to do something about abuses of the ArbCom/Admin interface, especially when ArbCom for its part ignores its responsibility here and won't lift a finger. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:02, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Note the case page section clearly states "Listing here indicates only that an editor has been notified. Listing here should not be taken to mean that the user's edits were in violation of discretionary sanctions." You're not going to get the notification removed via an ANI thread. The best bet with be arbcom, and that's a hard case to file successfully, given the committee's past statements, the recent trend allowing non-admin notifications, and the fact the ongoing DS review is tending to change the actual wording of the protocol to "alerts." NE Ent 16:24, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Again, it's NOT ABOUT THE NOTIFICATION/WARNING. I must have said this 75 times in the last year. It's about the accusation of "continued wrongdoing" in the notification. The notifications today do not have this wording in them, and the "Listing here should not be take to mean...violation" caveat applies. It cannot apply when the very wording of the notice specifically states that a violation is occurring! It's very, very simple; there is nothing complicated about this in any way. It was a false accusation, which needs to be rescinded and cleared out of the log. Sandstein won't do it himself. Just fix it. No one is ever going to be under any pretense that they have been "un-notifed" or "un-warned" about ARBATC. If they did, too bad for them, since ARBATC sanctions will still apply. If you're concerned about it, you could even re-issue a new notice, just one that doesn't have the false accusation in it. The end. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 17:24, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Ent,

• There is *no* trend towards user notifications, in fact, arbitrator Roger Davies just removed one, saying it was "malformed". It has been proposed in the discretionary sanctions review, where it went over like a lead balloon, and has also come up recently in two separate ANI threads, where it was generally regarded as an invitation to POV pushers and trolls, and a potential tool for harassing neutral editors. (See: A Quest For Knowledge's "uninvolved administrator" warning should probably be removed from the case decision and Requesting removal of a stigmatizing ARBCOM case log entry)

• Of course the community can decide this. Nobody elected Sandstein God. His actions are open to community review, just like everybody else.

• I have already taken this to arbcom, where they predictably joined ranks to protect Sandstein. They pay plenty of lip service to the principle of "no casting aspersions" when it comes to blocking and banning non-admins, but when it comes to one of their own inner circle, they are strangely silent. I don't really blame them, I would probably do the same thing, but that's why it needs to be decided by someone with no COI.

• The last discretionary sanctions review, in 2011, took two years to complete. The current proposals do not contain anything at all to address our situation. In fact, the current proposal specifically says any old situations will be handled under the old rules. So you are trying to tell us we are site-banned for at least two years, and probably indefinitely, waiting for something that no one has ever proposed and no one believes will ever happen. I have a better idea. Decide what is fair now, and get this issue out of the way, so it doesn't cast a shadow over the ongoing discretionary sanctions review.

• Sandstein did not merely use a template which has since been changed. He added his own specific language accusing us of misconduct. There has been no misconduct. He has admitted it. He was asked to change the language about the misconduct, and he refused. I want that language changed. Officially. By community agreement. And closed by a neutral admin. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation. —Neotarf (talk) 03:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

My "dog in this fight" is not exactly the same ad Neotarf's (it was the defamatory accusation being attached to my real name here, and the fact that it turned up in Google searches). Regardless of where the accusatory language came from, Neotarf is correct that Sandstein didn't just unthinkingly use language that happened to accidentally include an accusation of misconduct. He has both defended making the accusation and begrudgingly admitted (at least with regard to Neotarf) it wasn't justified, yes defended it anyway. Is maintaining an air of admin infallibility and unquestionability more important to him than equitable application of policy? It has consistently seemed that way throughout his administrative tenure.

I'm happy that, so far, the proposed solution (at least to the false accusations in the log, one of three separate action items here) is sticking. I understand that it did not go far enough to satisfy Neotarf, and I agree with that editor's insistence that the new "warnings" be purged from that log page. I have no objection to them having been delivered on our talk pages - I suggested it in the first place - but Neotarf is correct that the ARBATC discretionary sanctions log page has a contentious history of being abused. To the extent it serves any legitimate purpose, that purpose is being undermined by its blatant misuse as a shitlist. And the new notifications don't actually serve any ARBATC interests, since they're not in response to any ARBATC concerns at all, but were a side-effect of trying to resolve this dispute in a way that addresses the complaint raised without pillorying Sandstein. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 09:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Solution

I've just churned the four user's talk page with a pointless second notification-without-allegation-of-wrongdoing about the sanctions, which hopefully will make them happy, and logged such on the arbcom page which will hopefully make the folks insisting there be a record they were notified happy. Does that work for everyone? NE Ent 18:15, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Works for me. Sandstein reverted the last attempt to change that log (with regard to Neotarf only), but maybe he'll see this is a win-win-win (for him, since it's a log change w/o blaming him, without an RFC/U as people keep suggesting, and without an ArbCom case as people keep suggesting; for the four wrongly-accused editors, obviously, though it may not be enough to mollify all of them in every way; and for WP as a whole since the issue goes away, at least for some of us "plaintiffs"). Hard to see a down-side here, or a good-faith reason to object. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 19:55, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

The case was closed two years ago, so I'm just confused at receiving the notification because it seemed neither relevant nor necessary. It had me wondering if I had recently done something that might be construed as some violation of the case in question. But I'd just say NE Ent's notification is a stark contrast to the one that is the subject of this complaint that refuses to lie down.

It should be clear by now that although admins need to apply strong discipline occasionally, the perpetual Robocop-style "put down that banana or I'll shoot" and pre-emptive gun-toting accusations of malfeasance that was used against us four productive veterans (and is probably still being actively employed in the forum where Sandstein has made his home) were uncivil, unwelcome and wholly overblown. This style of policing is detrimental to the project. It's been shown to be disruptive – just look at how much discussion and bitterness this has generated plus the loss of three valuable contributors – and needs to stop FORTHWITH, with some sort of belated up front acknowledgement of overzealousness.

I would have been less upset if the insinuations had been even acknowledged ex-post facto as being even a teensy bit regrettable. People want closure, if justice is too much to ask for. More than one year on, nothing has been forthcoming. Only stonewalling. Even Robocop has a heart in the films. The system lacks balance because whilst Sandstein has apparently found his role in Misplaced Pages where he can exercise his brand of authority unchecked. The system desperately needs admins to stand up to his bullying. I'd like to see a "good cop" to attenuate the over-powerful and over-powering bad cop. -- Ohc  04:23, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm sceptical that a RFC/U will change anything. It's always been a talking shop although only occasionally becomes a springboard to an Arbcom case. -- Ohc  04:26, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

What is the purpose of these new warnings, Ent? Weren't they destructive enough the first time around? Why am I being singled out? There were 19 editors who commented on Apteva's request, including Apteva and Sandstein. Why are none of them being warned?

All four of us participated in the original ArbCom case (it was my 30th edit ever, as a new user), and no one at the ArbCom found any problem with any of our editing at that time. It is appalling that anyone can now put our names up there on a whim, alongside the names of editors who have been blocked and banned in a formal final decision after having the their diffs weighed by 15 impartial arbs.

Don't forget the real purpose of these notifications. Does anyone really think the four of us have never heard of the case before and we need to be "informed"? Of course not. The notifications are for blocking and banning. They do away with warnings. They are so the admins don't have to actually bother to talk to you if they don't agree with you. Once you get one of those on your record, you are "pre-warned". They can just get rid of you like dust under their shoe.

If you want to use my name like that, Ent, start an RFCU, the same as you would do with an actual disruptive user. —Neotarf (talk) 09:14, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Sandstein has, of course, reverted the attempt at resolution. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:48, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• I reverted nothing, as can be seen in the page history. Rather, Neotarf reverted NE Ent's new notifications. I have asked the arbitration clerks on their noticeboard to look at this.  Sandstein  11:12, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Noted! I stand corrected; sorry about that. (See? Admitting fault is't that hard to do.) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

The issues on the table appear are: SMcCandlish's concern, supported by other community members (prior discussion), than the finding of misconduct wasn't appropriate, and Sandstein's position that there be a record of notifications. My reading of the thoughts behind arbcom's decline , the fact that the third draft of the new DS policy makes it clear that the notification aspect, not the alleged misconduct, is what the committee is now focusing on, made it seem reasonable to me to WP:BOLD a possible win-win solution that had at least of possibly of allowing this to wind down with the goal of getting one or more of the affected editors back to building the encyclopedia. As Neotarf has objected to my relogging of their name, I've restored the prior (Sandstein) logging for them and restored my logging of yesterday's notification for SMcCandlish et. al. NE Ent 12:01, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

You might restore my talk page, Ent. —Neotarf (talk) 12:04, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thx, Ent. —Neotarf (talk) 12:52, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I reiterate that I'm willing to drop the matter of the false accusations business if the log shows NE Ent's neutral notices, not Sandstein's accusatory ones. This solution does not (as I understand it) satisfy Neotarf, and I agree with but do no insist upon Neotarf's reasons for wanting a tabula rasa solution. Either way, it doesn't resolve my severable concern with the out-of-process block I was subjected to and its prominent appearance as a "badge of shame" on the ARBATC log. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

The biggest problem for me is the chilling effect on editing. And since has no one has ever been able to point to any edits I made that might be problematic, or for that matter even asked me for diffs, that says to me that there is some other reason I have been targeted. And will be continued to be targeted unless I leave the Misplaced Pages forever. Why have I been singled out? This is a basic issue of fairness. —Neotarf (talk) 16:56, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I seem to remember that Noetica said he would not continue to edit if he was subjected to any kind of disciplinary action at all. I have no reason to believe he would return even if the sanction was vacated, but he should be free to return to editing if he so wishes. —Neotarf (talk) 04:32, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

About a year ago, while working as an administrator at WP:AE, I noticed that four editors (Noetica, SMcCandlish, Neotarf and Ohconfucius) were, in my view, unduly personalizing a dispute concerning the manual of style, contrary to the Arbitration Committee's admonition not to do so. Accordingly, per WP:AC/DS#Warnings, as a routine admin action, I warned them that discretionary sanctions applied to this topic area, and logged these warnings on the case page. SMcCandlish and Neotarf, in particular, do not only disagree with these warnings but have launched very many (and, in SMcCandlish's case, often very lengthy) threads on multiple fora, accompanied by sweeping assumptions of bad faith, retirement announcements, calls for sanctions against me, and other drama. This is the most recent iteration of this drama.

I am of the view that these editors are beating a dead horse and should find something else to do:

• Neotarf appealed the warnings to the Arbitration Committee. The Committee declined the appeal in December 2013, just as they declined to act as a result of a previous clarification request about this matter. Because the Committee is our final dispute resolution authority, this settles the matter, whether or not one agrees with the outcome. Repeating these complaints (again) on ANI looks like forum-shopping.
• Even if I were now to agree that the warnings were incorrect, which I am not, and that they can meaningfully be undone, which I think they cannot, I would not agree to undo them as a result of this thread. Arbitration enforcement actions must be contested through the appeals process set forth by the Committee, and not through what amounts to a series of angry shouting matches on public fora. Otherwise, we would give sanctioned editors an incentive to engage in these kinds of shouting matches rather than in an orderly appeals process, which I think would not be helpful. If anything, the aggressive manner in which these warnings against aggressive conduct have been contested (by some of their recipients) indicates, to me, that I was probably on to something there.
• SMcCandlish was topic-banned for a month by me, under the discretionary sanctions regime, for misconduct related to the manual of style. Despite vociferous complaints, SMcCandlish chose not to actually appeal this sanction, probably because they are aware that, for the reasons Kanguole explains above, an appeal would have been meritless and without success. Now that the ban has long expired, an appeal against it is moot.
• A particular concern of (some of) the four editors seems to be that I should declare myself "involved" with respect to them. However, per the policy WP:UNINVOLVED, "an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role (...) is not involved (...). This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters, at length if necessary. Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms, (...) do not make an administrator 'involved'". That is the case here. You can't gain immunity from future administrative actions merely by contesting an administrator's decisions, no matter how often or loudly.

This section should therefore be closed without action.

I would like to note some procedural problems with this thread, because they illustrate how unsuited an essentially unmoderated forum like WP:AN(I) is to processing appeals or doing any sort of dispute resolution:

• I was not notified of this thread.
• Nothing prevents long and repetitive walls of texts being posted, which has already commenced above and will probably continue for weeks, making it difficult for editors who are not already emotionally invested in the issue to form an opinion.
• The complaints and proposals are unsigned, as is the section below incorrectly accusing me of wheel-warring.
• One of the involved editors, Ohconfucius, hides a comment on this page that is critical of their complaints.
• A non-admin editor, NE Ent (), and one of the involved editors, Neotarf (), are removing log entries from the arbitration case page, including the log entries of the warnings against which the Committee declined an appeal. This appears to me to be a disruption of the arbitration process. (I am asking arbitration clerks to determine which if any version of the page should be restored.)

I am writing this mostly from memory and have not included links to all previous discussions or events mentioned above, because I do not have the time to look for them. But if an editor asks me to link to anything in particular I'll do so. Apart from this, I don't think that I'll comment further about this matter.  Sandstein  10:38, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Sandstein is very good at shielding himself with technical arguments why he cannot withdraw the original "warning", why some are moot and thus the editors are beating a dead horse. That is the reason why an increasing number of editors seem to be up in arms about him. Nothing has changed.

  Sandstein's remark that "Ohconfucius hides a comment on this page that is critical of their complaints" is quite ironic. It is precisely the type of comment which I believe Sandstein would have found objectionable, and which would have resulted in the type of warning that he had issued against me in the aforementioned action. I contend that if Sandstein wasn't the subject of this affair, he would himself collapsed the very personal snarky comment included by one editor posted with the specific intention of provoking a response. There's not a lot more to be said. I wasn't expecting any change in behaviour from Sandstein, so I cannot say that I'm disappointed. -- Ohc  11:12, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not hiding behind technical arguments. I'm just saying the discussion has to stop at some point. The arguments on the merits for and against the warnings have been exchanged multiple times, including in a declined appeal to ArbCom. Just because you don't agree with the outcome doesn't mean you can expect to have the same discussion over and over again until you obtain the desired outcome.  Sandstein  11:38, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

The discussion should stop at some point, namely the point where you admit you made false accusations and retract them, and admit you make an INVOLVED ban, and remove these bogus scarlet letters from the ARBATC log. When you finally do something ethical, something that isn't just self-serving, and haughtily dismissive of everyone's concerns but your own, to resolve this issue, then it will naturally resolve itself quickly and easily. Or you can keep on pretending there is no issue, that it's all just a bunch of noise you can ignore. Clearly other people already disagree with that notion. The issue isn't going to disappear because you pretend it isn't there. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:22, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Well, it's "technical" to say that something that is past cannot be undone, and that's exactly what you did. Just because you "warned" doesn't mean you can't retract; and just because the topic ban has expired doesn't necessarily mean you can't at least attempt to undo the underlying injustice. To use a real life parallel, just because somebody has been executed doesn't mean he/she cannot be cleared/pardoned posthumously. It's about natural justice, yet you keep saying that SMcC is flogging a dead equine. Part of the problem is your poor handling of the original complaint form SMcC et al. Instead of making a small retraction, you backed yourself into a corner by running to Arbcom for endorsement of your action. Now you can't retract without a severe loss of face.

  On the other matter, you continue to attack and insinuate, but I'm not letting you off the hook so easily. So answer me this: if you were to apply your standards consistently – which I sincerely believe that you do try your best – would you not have issued a warning for this? Instead of insinuating that my collapsing of that thread was somehow trying to hide legitimate criticism, would you not acknowledge that the above was a perfect example of baiting and trolling that is not conducive to a health discussion? -- Ohc  14:45, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually it won't be a "severe loss of a face" for Sandstein to retract his false accusations and wrongful ban; it'll be a show of maturity, good faith, and being committed to Misplaced Pages being a collegial, cooperative environment, instead of a pseudo-legal roleplaying game, and it'll be fast and painless, unlike months of protracted RFC/U and ArbCom proceedings, which will draw forth a large number of additional grievances against Sandstein. The principal problem here is Sandstein's constant return to the idea that people are trying to get "un-warned", as if no matter how many times this notion is dispelled, if he keeps repeating it everyone will believe it. No one believes it any longer. No one possibly could at this point. This has never been about anyone seeking a magical retraction or erasure of the fact of being notified or warned of the ArbCom ruling at at WP:ARBATC and of the discretionary sanctions available under that case. It is only and entirely about the false accusations latent in Sandstein's particular wording, delivered under color of his acting as an official administrative messenger of the project, his unrelenting insistence on promoting in the ARBATC log his false branding of four editors as engaging in "continued" wrongdoing, and (in my case) his out-of-process, vengeful topic-ban and further branding of me with it, again at the ARBATC log. No one who did not have a vested interest to covering Sandstein's backside out of an urge to protect admins from criticism at all costs could honestly fail to acknowledge this. No amount of wishy-washy wiki-lawyering wordplay, revisionism and equivocation can escape these simple truths. The dead horse being flogged here is "I didn't do anything wrong, and these four editors just need to shut up, there is no remedy available for them." The remedy has been made very clear, many times. Again, it doesn't even require that anyone agree Sandstein did anything wrong, only an a consensus that abusing pillorying four good editors at the ARBATC log is unjust and unproductive, outweighing Sandstein's personal or administrative desire to be felt to be right and unquestionable in every way at all costs. Just fix it, please. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 06:25, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Response to Sandstein by Neotarf

Sandstein, there was no "dispute". There was one individual, now indeffed, who tried over and over to revive an old edit war over hyphens, and who filed a complaint against a long-time good faith editor in violation of their topic ban. They are gone, and the topic is now quiet. Except for you.

This is not the first time you have gotten mixed up in this subject matter and been asked to step aside. Back in 2011, you referred to MOS discussions as "lame" and a "waste of time". That is not anyone's definition of "interacting purely in an administrative role". In that case, you were asked to step aside by the same people who had initially asked for your help, after you threatened to ban all the editors. Ultimately the issue was settled by an RFC endorsed by 60 editors, who did not find it a "waste of time", and who were able to end the edit war without collateral damage to good-faith editors.

Sandstein, you have done a lot of good work, and a lot of people admire what you do here, but let's face it, hyphens are just not your strong suit. Several people have asked you to step aside from this topic, to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, and to let someone else handle this. I am asking you to do so as well.

Your other points about the wordiness of some of the responses I have taken on board, and refactored some of the discussion, as well as adding more time stamps to my own comments, which seem to have gotten spread out some in the expanding discussion. Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 16:11, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Collect

As far as I can tell the page above is mainly about several possible positions:

1. Wrongs once found can be reversed by the community
2. Wrongs can never be reversed by the community
3. Wrongs once found can be reversed by the original creator of the wrong
4. No one is ever under any obligation as a creator of a wrong to do anything whatsoever about it

as general statements (and not judging whether the case at hand represents an "actual wrong." The side cavil that "injury" only accrues when physical effects occur is very tangential, and has nothing to do with my use of the word "Wrongs" at all. The first two possible outcomes are, I suggest, quite within the ambit of the Community to decide on its own - just as the traditional "Town Meeting" has quite strong powers even to the extent of removing powers and contradicting actions of those empowered under the aegis of the Town Meeting despite the Town Meeting having officially given powers to its agents. In the case at hand, the analogue would be that the Community through normal process can, indeed, override any agents empowered otherwise to act on its behalf, and to reverse actions taken by such agents.

I rather think this opens up a very interesting topic far vaster than whether Sandstein committed any wrongs in any venue, and whether he can or ought be under the direct control of the Community is a broader discussion. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:57, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps, you may have missed a few?:

1. Something happened a year ago, that almost no one outside the principals cares anything about.
2. Something was done a year ago, that has been talked to death in every conceivable forum.
3. Life's too short -- forgetaboutit.

-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:13, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Okay:

1. Some arbitrary amount of time passing doesn't make wrongs magically right, and it's almost universally the case that people wronged care more about those wrongs that people who were not directly affected by them.
2. Repeating a point doesn't make it more valid; that's called the fallacy of agumentum ad nauseam. More importantly, the fact that some people who don't care about an issue (or who may even have an active interest in ensuring that an issue is not settled justly, e.g. a bias toward the other party, such as admins protecting admins from criticism) with that discussion of an issue would stop doesn't mean that it should stop. The failure of one avenue of appeal to resolve an issue does not mean that the issue is unresolvable or that those who have been wronged should stop trying to have it resolved equitably.
3. Life is indeed too short for many things, like CYA pretense that admins cannot and should not be held accountable for their actions by the community simply because it's inconvenient and you don't want to hear it. It's easy for someone unaffected by something to forget about it. Meanwhile those who have been treated unjustly are not in a position to forgive much less forget if the wrong is never rectified, if the perpetrator maintains their righteousness, and people who should bring a neutral position of desire to resolve issues amicably and fairly instead arrive pre-disposed to unilaterally support one side, and to denigrate and mock the other simply for daring to complain about their mistreatment. If you think ANI and its use to resolve disputes about administrative actions is a waste of time, there are lots of other things you can be doing.

Now, did you have any other patently invalid, dismissive arguments to make, just in case you want to help ensure that we all get an extra-thorough sense of admin entitlement and good-ol-boy protectionism at the expense of other editors? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 08:02, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Why are separate "statement" sections forming? ANI isn't Arbcom, nor should it try to pretend to be. All this seems to be is incessant caterwauling by people that received warnings some time ago. Boo hoo, get over it, go back to editing somewhere. Tarc (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting -- I suspect the "formality" was initiated by Sandstein -- and as my statement is a much more general essay than anything purely on the subject posed by the OP, I felt it was reasonable to so describe it. Collect (talk) 18:43, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Per Tarc. This was what? A year ago now? Pointless dramamongering. Resolute 19:01, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

My post was not about any specific "wrongs" but about wrongs in general, and the role of the Community in addressing them. I apologize if I did not make that quite abundantly clear when I wrote not judging whether the case at hand represents an "actual wrong." Collect (talk) 23:04, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Collect, yes it was Sandstein's observation that there was a large amount of text; I have taken his comments on board and refactored.
• Tarc, even the most insidious blocked and banned trolls have a time limit to their restrictions. They also have a chance to have diffs presented and to defend themselves against accusations. Why should proven good-faith editors who have done absolutely nothing have their names placed on a list with these other names, as a badge of shame and a chilling effect on their editing, in perpetuity? —Neotarf (talk) 04:21, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • And that time limit is "until the community decides otherwise". As for the "list": it's only a "badge of shame" or a "chilling effect" if you let it be one. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:57, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Only someone not on the list would say that. Anyway, the fact that the community can decide otherwise is precisely the point. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 08:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Did Sandstein wheel war?

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

Definition of wheel warring: WP:WHEEL — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neotarf (talk • contribs) 08:11, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

No, I didn't. Editing log entries does not require admin tools or invoke admin authority. As I explained in the section above, the Arbitration Committee has declined an appeal against the warnings whose log entries I restored in this edit. Also, whoever wrote this, please sign your comments and notify me if you mention me on this board, as per the instructions at the top.  Sandstein  10:38, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

For the record, it was Neotarf (talk · contribs). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 12:22, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Also for the record, I've turned the header of this section into a level three heading and added an unsigned notice. Graham87 14:59, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

4) Remove ARBATC notifications section abused as selective "wall of shame" dirtlist

Something that hasn't been raised that (so far that I've noticed) is that the entire section at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#Log of notifications is a blatant violation of policy in several ways and should be deleted immediately. This log, which is not required in any way for the administration of ARBATC, and does not serve any legitimate purpose, is ostensibly a list of all editors who have received ARBATC discretionary sanctions notices. But it's isn't. It's a list of a handful of editors that Sandstein and a few other admins wants to brand/shame in public, while the majority of editors receiving ARBATC warnings/notices, on their own talk pages or otherwise, are never listed here, by anyone.

Here is proof that Sandstein has himself issued such warnings and decided to not update this list: . Here we have two cases, in series, of Sandstein responding to official requests to warn someone of ARBATC sanctions, and doing so administratively, yet not adding them to that log. Sandstein, or anyone else, cannot possibly make a reasonable claim that this list serves a legitimate much less essential purpose at ARBATC any longer, if it ever did at all.

The ArbCom, in the wake of deciding that anyone, not just admins, can issue such notices has also made it impossible for the list there to ever be accurate anyway, because there is no way of forcing those who issue such warnings to also update that list, nor even figuring out who has or has not been warned (probably hundreds of editors by now; I know that I myself notified several editors, somewhere around a dozen, of ARBATC discretionary sanctions in various discussions, and none of them are in that log either). ARBCOM's needs at ARBATC are served adequately by the "Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions" section there. The "Log of notifications" serves no interest other than strife and the generation and maintenance of ill will. ArbCom has never even said it needed such a list; some admin simply decided it was a good idea, and this decision has never been reviewed, until now. It's dismal failure is self-evident.

This notifications log is nothing but a shitlist targeting particular editors opposed by certain admins. This is a contravention of previous ArbCom decisions against using Misplaced Pages pages for the dirtlisting of other editors for possible future targeting, as well as a violation of Misplaced Pages policy on several levels, the most obvious being WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND and several other clauses at WP:NOT, as well as WP:AGF, WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. It's also a grossly inappropriate, unethical thing to do anyway. It's a shitlist from which there is no appeal, and yet which supposedly cannot be used as evidence of wrongdoing, but which is in actual practice usable for no other purpose at all. It's completely arbitrary (in the negative sense), and only used to reputationally harm specific editors being individually targeted by certain admins. It is not being used and cannot be used for its original intended purpose of neutrally keeping track of all ARBATC notifications in a non-accusatory way. It is, in short, pure personal spitefulness, and totally un-wiki.

This is a entirely separate and severable reason to vacate not just our four, but all log entries in that section and remove that section entirely; it's unrelated to the issues raised by Sandstein's false accusations and other abusive actions (see subsections, #1 and #2 above). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 07:12, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is not a "wall of shame list", it's a warnings log, and yes, there is a difference; the statement it's a "shitlist targeing particular editors opposed by certain admins" is both a gross assumption of bad faith and, in fact, a personal attack on the admins in question. I'm honestly completely neutral heading into this brouhaha, having not previously encountered it (beyond, perhaps, skimming past the occasional ANI threads), but I will say this: regardless of who has or has not been wronged, the four editors opposing Sandstein are not covering their cause in glory with their conduct here; if anything, the combative tone and escalatingly hyperbolic accusations and statements are having the opposite effect. Misplaced Pages would be a much better place if, instead of being desperate to have "scarlet letters" expunged, people looked at block logs, warning logs, etc., said "so freaking what", and got on with improving the encyclopedia. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:56, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Mmm, yeah, except that I've proved with evidence you can see with your own eyes, that Sandstein himself uses the list to only target certain notified editors, not all of them. You're also ignoring the broader logic, which has nothing to do with Sandstein: Not just admins can issue such notices, and there is no way to ensure that they get logged, so the log can never be accurate, and is only used when someone (so far, admins) want to draw particular attention to other editors in an ARBATC context; this is a canonical example of shitlisting (or dirtlisting or whatever you like to call it). Finally, you're also making the false assumption as several other are here, that you and the project are entitled to our volunteer efforts; that no matter how much our names are abused with false accusations that you';re in a position to tell us to zip it and get back to work for free. Editors have quit the project over this. Editors are leaving WIkipedia in droves over administrative abuses generally, but this is an especially clear case in point, where it costs the project and its administration nothing at all to make matters right. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 08:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

User vandalism for extended period of time on Physics topics

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

The user Chjoaygame (talk) is changing very frequently Physics topics, often removing valid content and adding less meaningful or even confusing information (See another user finds his edits confusing https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Chjoaygame#Iontophoresis_and_electrophoresis or here hes accuses someone falsely to be a sock https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Douglas_Cotton . See his contribution page for all his edits https://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/Chjoaygame, discussion on his edits need to be on a case to case basis - example edits: User removes important content and adds his own without providing reference https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Internal_energy&diff=prev&oldid=598849626 User adds confusing definition https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Maximum_entropy_thermodynamics&diff=prev&oldid=598712167, the reference is citing a part of a book covering speculations and remarks (Chapter 8) http://press.princeton.edu/TOCs/c7688.html Here he removes historic quotes (cited by Princeton) https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Second_law_of_thermodynamics&diff=prev&oldid=598531366

Recently, the user moved a page without discussion and removed valid content https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Dissipation_(thermodynamics)&diff=599723963&oldid=599719584, which after his page move didn't fit the article scope any longer. The user is unresponsive, not replying to talk page entries.

Last September i edited his contributions to Radiative equilibrium, you can follow the process via the talk page there and read how Experts responded after Chjoaygame (talk) claimed "This article has rapidly been changed, from a more or less systematic account of the various physical notions of radiative equilibrium, to an expression of some ideas of climate theory" . Look up the article history and compare it with the current "partial fixed" state. To conclude, most edits seem to be lacking for the various reasons outlined here and my impression is that the user is acting with bad faith (or incompetence) to complicate the various subjects on Physics, Thermodynamics etc. and i suggest a topic ban. Prokaryotes (talk) 14:59, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

It appears that Prokaryotes is describing a difficult content dispute. Has anything that Chjoaygame done actually amounted, as claimed in the section heading, to vandalism, or is this a content dispute? If it is a content dispute, then I would remind Prokaryotes that the allegation of vandalism is a personal attack, and is, in my opinion, blockable. Watch for the incoming boomerang before labeling a content dispute as vandalism. If there really has been vandalism, provide evidence. Otherwise, use a more reasonable section heading. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, this is a silly complaint. I don't always understand or agree with Chjoaygame's edits, but he is clearly editing in good faith. Dicklyon (talk) 22:16, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yambaram again

Canvassing

I previously reported Yambaram (talk · contribs) for his edit warring attempts at removing relevant delsorts during an AfD. This he had done quite obviously to limit the awareness of an AfD to a preferred select group of editors. This time he thought it would be a good idea to selectively ping users who voted delete in the AfD during an AfD closure review. Can I get some oversight on these actions? --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 19:40, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Wow, the opposite of what he said is the truth. When PRODUCER realized that the responses of this deletion discussing were mostly in favor of deleting the article while he wanted to keep it, he decided to over-apply deletion sorting pages to countries that had nearly nothing to do with the subject of "Jews of Communism", hoping to get more votes in favor for his side. I find it important to note that PRODUCER was accused of canvassing by USchick (talk · contribs) as well and suspected of sock puppetry by Galassi (talk · contribs), please take a look for yourself in that report and see for yourself. Now, regarding his current accusation: I did not select only "users who voted delete in the AfD". He's again not saying the truth, and this is an understatement. User:Carolmooredc for example was in favor of keeping or merging the article, as evidence shows, and I "selected" him/her too. I also left a message ON THE MAIN Jews and Communism ARTICLE TALK PAGE, asking "Everyone who participated in that deletion discussion" to participate in the current new deletion review discussion. PRODUCER is again playing tricks, this time on me, and this cannot continue and must be enforced by admins. -Yambaram (talk) 20:15, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

You had two uninvolved users very clearly explain to you that "Deletion sorting is not canvassing in any way, shape, or form. Even inapproppriately overapplied deletion sorting, if that was the case here, is not canvassing" and that "nothing wrong with applying deletion sorting". This is just more evidence of WP:IDONTHEARTHAT. One can only assume posting Carol was a clumsy mistake when one looks at all the others you diligently cherrypicked to canvas in effort to delete an article by any means:

1. Dougweller
2. Antidiskriminator
3. Altenmann
4. Binksternet
5. Steeletrap
6. Marokwitz
7. USchick
8. Hot Stop
9. AndyTheGrump
10. Topdiggie
11. Evildoer187
12. AnkhMorpork
13. Nomoskedasticity
14. Dralwik
15. GHcool
16. Anonimu
17. Johnuniq
18. Galassi

Hate to break it to you, but caps and bold do not make your points any more valid. The only tricks being played here are by you and are incredibly mischievous ones at that. I think a ban from AfDs is in order given your consistently inappropriate actions. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 20:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

You used selective quotes from that discussion in order to try proving your point. I can also quote those disagreeing with you. The act of over-applying pages may not be considered a clear canvassing attempt, but looking at the unrelated pages you constantly linked the deletion discussion to, one has to wonder about your intentions. Adding Carolmooredc was not a "clumsy mistake" which you all of a sudden claim and want everyone to believe, just like posting an open invitation on the main Jews and Communism article talk page and inviting everyone to join the discussion was not done by a mistake. To make this clear, I wrote on the talk page "Hi, there's an ongoing discussion on the previous controversial deletion proposal of this article, Jews and Communism. Here is a link to it. Everyone who participated in that deletion discussion, or would just to like to voice your opinion on the matter, you're welcome to do so. Thanks" (I know, the grammar there wasn't so great. and needless to say, I wrote this before you decided to make this report). Also, of those 12 users who voted to keep the article, a few had already commented on the deletion review discussion before I even wrote that comment. So were you expecting me to tag them too? Distorting reality will not win this for you, and just to let you know, this will soon be given more attention. Yambaram (talk) 00:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Once again you are reminded that frivilous accusations of sockpuppetry are considered personal attacks. Don't make them. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:42, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

How many times is it necessary to warn someone not to post the same personal attack? I'm sure he's perfectly aware he's being insulting and trying to threaten others, that's the whole point.. -- Director (talk) 05:44, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

You see, a few hours have passed 'Director' appears again, which is why, considering other editors' concern and the results of the 'Editor Interaction Analyzer', I brought up this issue. Saying "and just to let you know, this will soon be given more attention" is not an a personal attack but merely informing him of a possible future report in a very legitimate way - and to be honest - it's even a nice thing to let the user know about it other than doing it behind their back. Ask anyone and they'll say these words are not personal attack, 'The Bushranger', don't you see I'm again being targeted for no justified reason here? It's now evident that Producer and Director are attempting to get me and a few other users (Atlantictire (talk · contribs), IZAK (talk · contribs), and The Four Deuces (talk · contribs)) blocked, just below this very thread! Yambaram (talk) 09:48, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Yambaram repeatedly makes sock accusations

This user is repeatedly accusing two users of being the same person, a matter that appears to have been long-settled at a 2010 SPI.

Examples;

• But for now, you'll be reported for Sock-puppetry.
• I agree. Urgently (in response to Galassi's "Also, check the PRODUCER and the DIREKTOR for sockpuppetry" post). Also note the disingenuous rebuttal.
• and just to let you know, this will soon be given more attention ("this" being a link to a toolserver.org report of Producer/Direktor edit overlap.
• You see, a few hours have passed 'Director' appears again

Warnings have been given (once, twice), and ignored. The user merely rebuts with "but I was just putting it out there..." types of responses.

Proposal; Yambaram is banned from inferring or implying in any manner whatsoever that users Producer and Direktor are socks of one another, or from concurring with (i.e. a "me too" posting) with any user who makes such inferences or implications. An exception can be made for one new sock-puppet investigation , if Yambaram wishes to present actual evidence to be judged by the checkusers, but that will be the final "put up or shut up" moment for this affair, if said investigation is filed.

• Support as proposer. Tarc (talk) 13:28, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support, as the very annoyed party. -- Director (talk) 15:07, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support as uninvolved, with the caveat that it's clear Yambaram cannot just threaten to file, or "warn" that s/he "may file" in the future. Either an SPI is opened or nothing more should be said. — The Hand That Feeds You: 18:06, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support as an uninvolved observer. Repeatedly threatening to file or issuing warnings to one or the other editor has a chilling effect and is considered a personal attack and needs to stop. Valid sockpuppet concerns should be raised only at the proper venue (SPI) and even then only with more solid evidence than an overlap in editing interests. FWIW, after many years of seeing Direktor and Producer disagreeing about content and behaviour on this and other pages over the years, I find the sockpuppet accusation not credible and almost laughable. -- Diannaa (talk) 18:23, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Its the damned usernames... Mine, spelled with a "K", comes from the Serbo-Croatian word meaning "manger" or "executive": director (business).. I think its imported from German. Basically its a nickname of mine from ages ago (semi-sardonic, like a lot of nicknames :)). In Serbo-Croatian, a film director is not called a "direktor" (instead we use the French term réalisateur). I assume Producer's username comes from film terminology? When some guy posted the SPI I was glad hoping the checkuser will finally resolve this, and mostly it did. Apparently, though, its not enough for some. Neither are repeated warnings. -- Director (talk) 18:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Neutral? Those diffs Tarc calls "warnings" were simply suggestions by editors that I discuss the topic in a different place. I really don't know how I should have expressed what I think if I'm attacked every time I say any controversial statement. I don't think Producer and Director are the same person and believe them that one is from Serbia and the other from Croatia, it's not the case, forgive me but my concern was Misplaced Pages:Tag team (I just found this appropriate page now), not sock puppetry. So again, I do not accuse anyone, but am asking: Where should I report editors if I suspect there's a "tag team"? If this proposal succeeds, which seems likely, will I be allowed to make that future report? Thanks, Yambaram (talk) 20:37, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Whichever report you like, Yambaram, have fun. Just please don't try and sell the idea that you weren't trying to threaten Producer with accusations of sockpuppetry. Analogous to what you're doing now, really.. As I told you earlier: people are not quite as stupid as you seem to think. -- Director (talk) 23:54, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Consider that may what look like tag teaming to you looks to me like well meaning editors who are in agreement. JoeSperrazza (talk) 00:10, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support - As someone who has had to point out that these are two different people, multiple times over the years, it is incredibly annoying for someone to insist that these two editors are the same person after it's pointed out that their similar usernames are a coincidence. To do so after being shown that CheckUser already cleared them is a mixture of WP:IDHT and WP:NPA. Yambaram needs to cut it out. If Yambaram no longer insists that they are socks (as suggested by them above), then good. And if they live up to that suggestion then this ban won't be a problem for them. -- Atama頭 18:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support per the above. I thank Tarc for taking the initiative to halt these baseless threats, but I feel that the far greater issue at hand is Yam's repeated misconduct at AfD discussions. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 22:32, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support, per the summation given by Atama which sums it up nicely. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 11:52, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Personal attacks

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

I was reluctant to post this, thinking I should continue ignoring it, but I simply don't see the consistent and increasingly disturbing personal attacks against me stopping anytime soon. Over the past two weeks at an AfD, I was inferred to as being an anti-semite, racist, or conspiracy theorist and today was alleged by IZAK (talk · contribs) to have made "the Jew-hating Jew Watch proud" and bluntly referred to as a "anti-Semitic crank" by Atlantictire (talk · contribs) . I find this all distressing, especially given the fact that I had anti-fascist family members that were killed in WWII fighting our local Nazis, the Ustase. Is there anything that can be done to discourage such personal attacks? Am I allowed to remove such slurs without requesting the user to remove it him/herself? --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 21:49, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

If WP:ARBPIA is still being enforced these days, I'd say those comments are quite clearly sanctionable. Tarc (talk) 22:05, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• I gave Atlantictire an "only warning"; I would have removed the entire comment had you and someone else not already commented on it. If you want to redact, or redact partially, go ahead. If another admin finds it instantly blockable, that's fine too. I'll look at the other later. Producer, your family history is not relevant here, and I say this with all due respect, but you don't need to bring them in here to bolster your case. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 23:27, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
• I don't see a personal attack in IZAK's comment: it speaks of a hypothetical reader, not the creator. Drmies (talk) 23:31, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Atlantictire's comment is a bit problematic, though I do not think he directed this at anyone. Regarding IZAK, I agree with Drmies - there's nothing wrong with it. Yambaram (talk) 00:37, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Of course. Who could it possibly be aimed at? When I say an article was "created by some anti-Semitic crank", I don't mean the article's creator is actually an anti-Semitic crank. Why, that would be ridiculous.. (*sarcasm*)

Producer has been subjected to a veritable barrage of semi-concealed "antisemite" insults. For example, in posting a deletion request, User:The Four Deuces refers to the article created by Producer as "attempting to prove" an antisemitic conspiracy theory . So yeah, he didn't actually say Producer is a Nazi, but to all intents and purposes - he did. Same with IZAK. This sort of thing is disgusting and has to stop. -- Director (talk) 05:40, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

No. He did not use the words "attempting to prove" as you quote him as saying. Be cautious when making misleading incitements about other users. 'The Four Deuces' said "While Jewish Bolshevism is about the conspiracy theory that Communism was a Jewish movement for world domination, this article attempts to prove that." - a huge difference. He talked specifically about the article itself, meaning its content, style, tone, etc. There's no mention of the article's creator (PRODUCER) and definitely not any implication that he's a "Nazi". I see your above comment as a personal attack against 'The Four Deuces'. Yambaram (talk) 09:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Regarding your first point: Sorry about that Drmies. It just really got to me on a personal level.

Regarding your second point: Strictly? No. I believe IZAK (also TFD) is purposely relying on such absurd and unnecessary statements to make inferences that'll bait me and react rather than saying it flat out. I'm not going to respond to them in the manner he hopes, but I certainly will say they aren't helpful in such discussions and serve only to trigger emotions on both sides and quite obviously to inflame the situation. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 09:42, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• "Jews and Communism":

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pYvbIAXveVk

Internet bigots are very good at using points of order against anyone who expresses legitimate outrage at their bigotry. I would ask that Misplaced Pages editors be smart and not indulge this.--Atlantictire (talk) 13:51, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, they probably are, and what you're doing is suggesting that the article creator is a bigot. Well, I don't indulge in antisemitism anymore than I do in baiting, and since you seem to have no clue that your commentary is disruptive, I will make sure that you will make no more such comments in the next 24 hours. This subject matter is already heated enough, and what we don't need is this kind of provocation. Drmies (talk) 14:42, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Johnbod attacking everyone at Talk:Yixian glazed pottery luohans

Per WP:BOOMERANG, I'll take the hit on this and I'm totally cool with that, but an admin needs to jump in at Talk:Yixian glazed pottery luohans, where Johnbod's been ad hominem attacking any user (a 3O volunteer as well as 2 longterm editors aside from me) who have dared to tried to fix his article. I bit back as hard as I can, myself, but the other editors have been overly patient with these constant snipes. I don't personally mind that Johnbod has now taken to wikistalking my talkpage, kind of a badge of honor for me, but he's gotten so bad another longterm editor now wants his userpage deleted. That's too far, and as I say I am willing to take my own hit just to have an admin look at this.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 03:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes it would be nice if an admin could remove the gross personal attack (with no content relevant to the article) on me by another editor (diff), which Kintetsubuffalo has twice reverted the removal of (once and twice). He is I think no stranger on this page (ANI I mean). He started this off by removing two quoted words, referenced at the end of the sentence, which it became clear he had not noticed, from a DYK then on the main page. When I saw this some 12 hours later, I reverted with an explanatory edit summary. He then added two cite tags (for what was already cited) with an abusive edit summary, and continue to edit war and rant on the talk page despite being told many times on the article's and his talk pages that they were referenced at the end of the sentence, and always had been. User:Andy Dingley then joined in, also repeatedly demanding the refs that were already there, and soon joining the matter to his long-standing crusade against Wikimedia UK with a purely personal attack. Johnbod (talk) 04:26, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think people bringing up the WMUK stuff helped anything but where did Andy Dingley demand refs? I only see comments that the location of the refs and the wording was confusing. Nil Einne (talk)`

• es: tag cn - if this is so obvious, it will be easy for the most knowledgeable editor to add a citation to the appropriate existing ref and resolve this issue amicably
• re-adds cite tags, with es: rm peacock tag. Sourced statements further down indicate that these terms aren't unexpected or unreasonable, merely that we still need to cite their provenance)
• reverts to restore citation needed tags
• Lengthy response on his talk page, in response to my pleas that he actually look at the article; "Now I think they're probably fine to be there, but they should have cites close enough to them to support those specific terms, if they're being used as direct quotes like this, contra to PEACOCK. I believe that you are able to add such cites. I am not. The source ref is apparently an hour-long YouTube video, which I simply don't have time to watch, but I believe that you already have..." - he is confusing the next ref (to the lecture on You Tube), at the end of the next sentence, because he just hasn't looked with any degree of attention, but continues to revert, and at the end of this diff begins his personal attacks.

Johnbod (talk) 13:09, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Admins, why is there no action against this editor? They think they are better than others and think it is acceptable to talk down to everyone. Lesion (talk) 18:57, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Disruptive editing of the reference desks

The User:Sagittarian Milky Way is a longtime "user" of the reference desks and aware we don't provide legal, or other professional advice. After posting this question about how not to break the law by viewing child pornography on the internet, which I hatted, he has posted the pointy question, "Have any human-like creatures ever commented on the legality of viewing bad things?" which he admits is a request for legal advice, and which I have removed. Please admonish this violation of the ref desk guidelines: "We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice". Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 03:38, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

The disruption is caused by Medeis's acting as self appointed censor of the Reference Desk. A general discussion of whether something is legal isn't legal advice per se. (I've removed the unsigned hat per WP:SIGNHAT). NE Ent 03:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I did not ask how to view child pornography on the internet. I more than many childless people sympathise with minor victims. My question was more of how do I make sure I don't actually see illegal things example: child pornography, jihadist websites(?) if I researched those things out of curiosity or some neer-do-well might theoretically pull a nasty joke by making illegal links show up on innocuous search terms. Okay, maybe the pointy human-like creatures post is less humorous than it seemed at the time. I was just making pointy humor, but not just pointy, I wouldn't have disliked an answer. I wouldn't have persisted in further pointiness. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:01, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Medeis's inappropriate editing other user's comments has been a long-term problem, including one block for editing others comments after warnings followed by an unblock with the edit comment "Medeis has agreed to cease editing others' talk page messages." Medeis' latest block for disruptive editing at the reference desk was less than a week ago. Also see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive825#Community sanctions: The Rambling Man, Baseball Bugs, and Medeis

Examples:

Deleting an answer because Medeis decided that it was unhelpful. Actually, it was pretty good advice if the questioner is in the UK, PC World (www.pcworld.co.uk) does a good job at data recovery.

Deleting an editor's comment complaining about the way Medeis edited the editor's previous comment. Moving it to talk would have been a better choice. Also labeled the deletion as a merge,

Deleting a question by a blocked sock and taking out answers from other users with it, two days after the discussion ended.

Deleting a question that isn't medical advice: (and what's up with the deleting and hatting?)

Editing (not just deleting) another user's comment

And, of course there is this deletion, discussed above. even if it deserved to be deleted, the person the comment is criticizing has a conflict of interest and should leave the deleting to someone else.

Also see: User talk:David Levy#User:Medeis and this warning.

I propose a narrowly focused ban prohibiting Medeis from changing, deleting, collapsing, striking, or in an other way editing other people's comments on the reference desk pages. This would solve the long-term problem, allow Medeis to continue participating in the normal way (answering questions), and would have very little downside, given the demonstrable fact that there are quite a few editors who watch for and collapse any inappropriate questions on those pages. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:13, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I'll second the "changing" part. That's the most atrocious. Nobody should do that (not to be confused with "nobody"). If something needs to be hatted, deleted, burned or salted, it should go as it was. No opinion on the other things. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:12, March 16, 2014 (UTC)

Looks like Obama could have done something about the referendum in Crimea, he could have sent Medeis there to hat it. :). Count Iblis (talk) 19:11, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Per User:Guy Macon, there has been notable disruptive behaviour and perceived ownership of the reference desks going on for several months, at least a dozen editors have commented as such. I was reliably informed by the administrator User:Georgewilliamherbert (who blocked me erroneously without noting it in the block log or apologising for doing so) that I needn't lodge an RFC about such disruptive behaviour as "any other administrator in the world" would be fully capable of running without {me} Yet this hasn't happened. I'd advocate an independent look into this ongoing disruption. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:51, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, the vast majority of the disruptive behavior can be prevented by the simple step of only allowing Medeis to alter her own comments. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:42, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, and in those of at least a dozen others, something should be done here. I hope someone like the reliable User:Georgewilliamherbert (as he suggested, "any other admin..." could do this) or perhaps you Guy can do something to stop this ongoing disruption. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:12, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I cannot do anything, because I am not and do not wish to be an administrator. I don't believe that anyone who gets involved in dispute resolution can ever pass an RfA. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:45, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

The editor was asking for legal advice, which we are not allowed to give. Your deletion was proper. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:35, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

The editor was not asking for legal advice. Even if the editor was asking for legal or medical advice, where in the list of when it is allowable to change someone's comments does it say "asking a question that we are not allowed to answer"? I could see deleting an answer that gave legal advice, but deleting the question? Why not simply reply with "We cannot give legal advice" and apply Template:Archive top and Template:Archive bottom? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

The editor was asking how not to break laws, i.e asking where the boundaries of the laws are. That qualifies as a request for legal advice. Hatting (or deleting) would probably be better than messing with the entry - and then the malcontents would yell at Medeis for (properly) hatting or deleting it. The ref desks are frequently assaulted by a subset of regulars who don't respect the rules about medical and legal advice, nor about BLP violations... and they threaten banishment for those who do respect those rules. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:38, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

No, dear lagomorph, that is not an accurate definition of the situation.

There are a number of trolls who take delight in provoking the more vigilant ref-desk regulars into heightened activism, much to the boredom of the less vigilant, more laissez-faire inclined regulars. There are, moreover, editors who act as non-appointed hall monitors of the desks, yelling at querents and responders and hatting threads, and, in a few cases, there are contributors within this subset of vigilant editors who have no problem derailing threads on topics they find offensive (even when the question is factual, albeit on a controversial topic) or adding their own jocular off-topic comments when they so see fit.

This shrill juxtaposition of policing the desk on the one hand, and occasionally subverting it, on the other hand, is what actually turns people off, to the point that informed, helpful, competent volunteers have reduced their activities, in some notable cases down to zero. At the same time, it is very unpleasant criticizing these editors, because they either react with sticking their fingers in their ears, singing "LA LA LA LAAA LAAAA LAAA" or respond with a joke, or play innocent, or a combination of everything. This is why I won't get involved in these discussions on said editors, when they bubble up, time and again, but your statement beginning with "The ref desks are being frequently assaulted by a subset of regulars ..." does not address the heart of the matter at all, in my opinion. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:00, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The heart of the matter is a core disagreement over what constitutes valid vs. non-valid questions on the ref desk. That's been going on from day one, so it will probably never be resolved (no matter who you try to ban), but it's important to raise attention to it. Just like someday maybe Misplaced Pages will join the 21st century and require user registration. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:52, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• The notion that collapsing and then deleting a repeated pointy request for legal advice ("We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice") would be criticized as "changing" someone's "comments" is absurd. The OP "asks":

  How can you ensure that you can't do anything illegal on the Internet?
  
  Where does the "safe part" of the Internet end with regards to US "look-crime**"? Anything one click from Google? Anything on Google Images? What was the least number of clicks from Google to Silk Road? The funniest phrases on Internet Oracle oracularities*** often have like 3 results, for example. (when searched in quotation marks) Could I theoretically say yay, this is not an oracularity mirror for once, click on it, and find out that some jokester made a website with child porn on it?
  
  Even if some things are too repulsive compared to my desire to know for me to personally near the line, I'm still curious to know how far you could click from Google before you might see something illegal even to look at.

  Note that User:Writ Keeper has warned one of the users above who calls removing this material "disruption" above for evading an interaction ban, and another opponent has quoted an ANI that was ultimately decided by two-to-one to result in no topic block against me or others for edits at the reference desk. This is not about me. This is not about doing away with the reference desks. Snide remarks by users with the name "devil" whose talk page begins with the decree he "rejects most of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. He just edits in any way he sees fit" are unhelpful. This is about enforcing existing reference desk rules, in spite of opposition from users who believe there she be no such rules and users who would attack those simply bringing relevant issues here for enforcement. μηδείς (talk) 03:13, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Except that Misplaced Pages has the WP:IAR rule while there is no such equivalent rule in International law. Count Iblis (talk) 03:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Compared to the hypocrisy and malice of others, Yours is relatively harmless, Your Lord, Satan. But mentioning your penchants is relevant when you, as a stated enemy of rules, deign to speak on them. μηδείς (talk) 03:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

First, please mind the commentary, even if it's meant in jest you're skirting close to WP:NPA terrotory (at least). Secondly you may want to have a look at Count Iblis. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 11:50, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

My point is really that the rules are relative, that bad things can sometimes when you enforce the rules without considering whether it is appropriate (where any notion of "appropriateness" is then, of course, based on more fundamental ideas and not on the rules themselves like e.g. the fundamental goals of Misplaced Pages). So, by default we do apply the rules as most of the times they implement what we want to do automatically, but there are exceptions where they don't work. That's why it's best to look beyond the rules in case of disputes that arise when you attempt to enforce the rules, especially if this happens frequently. Count Iblis (talk) 14:30, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Continued harassment of a Misplaced Pages editor

Will some uninvolved admin please look at Misplaced Pages:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Marian_Dawkins and decide on a course of action? The IP in question is a hopper waging a lengthy campaign against DrChrissy. It appears Johnuniq is also part of a gang of racist liars. Ahem. IP 124.168.48.21 has been duly notified. Drmies (talk) 05:28, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

The IP's range is quite large, such that a single rangeblock wouldn't be enough. I suggest semiprotection of Marian Dawkins, talk:Marian Dawkins, User:DrChrissy and User talk:DrChrissy. We're not going to semiprotect the DRN; however, frivolous reports can easily be closed. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 05:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

The IP's latest incarnation is Special:Contributions/124.170.231.48. As unsavory as the prospect of playing Whac-A-Mole by blocking individual IPs is, this plus the page protections outlined above may be the best defense we can muster. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 06:40, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

There is always the L.A.R.T. method: apply a range block and then notify iiNet Limited that one of their users has caused X number of their IPs to be blocked. Having your ISP cancel your account is an effective Luser's Attitude Readjustment Tool. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 09:15, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I blocked the IP before I saw that there was a discussion here and reverted some of their edits. I believe I've blocked a couple of dozen of the IPs individually. I've had some success with carefully targeted rangeblocks in individual /18 ranges for short terms, but am reluctant to block large ranges for long terms - that would best be done, if at all, with CU help. I'll revisit my calculations when I'm more awake. Acroterion (talk) 10:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your continued attention and efforts in this matter.__DrChrissy (talk) 19:17, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I just looked, and 124.168.48.21 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), who opened the now-closed DRN, is not currently blocked. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Not much point in blocking that one, as they've already moved on to another IP, which I blocked. It is, however, a data point, and I'll work on some rangeblocks a little later. Acroterion (talk) 23:10, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, sounds good. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:04, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

124.170.192.0/18 range blocked for a week. Other ranges can be blocked if warranted. Acroterion (talk) 02:29, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

For the record, previous ANI threads include WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive815#Disruptive editing on Animal welfare, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive815#CI, OWN etc. of user DrChrissy on animal welfare, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive816#Repeated personal attacks on Talk:Animal Welfare, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive816#Discrimination , WP:BIAS and racist admins and WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive258#Johnuniq and Nil Einne's removal of other comments on talk pages. There were some /16 blocks set in January as a result, but only for a short while. Acroterion (talk) 02:41, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Formal imposition of a community ban

Be it hereby resolved that the user whose latest IP today is 124.170.231.48 is banned from Misplaced Pages indefinitely. His IPs/accounts may be blocked and reverted immediately, and page protection used when necessary.

• Support DavidLeighEllis (talk) 06:50, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  This might be a somewhat unusual request, as there is actually only 1 IP listed on the "dreaded list". Have they ever had a named account, out of curiosity? Doc talk 07:04, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  CYl7EPTEMA777 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an indefinitely blocked user with some relation to this situation. I have no idea whether the IPs are the same person. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 07:09, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  Has there been a SPI? While a CU will not publicly link a named account to an IP address, there is behavioral evidence to be considered. And that account has edited recently enough to compare with suspected socks. Doc talk 07:50, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  There is no chance that CYl7EPTEMA777 and the IP are the same person. The former is genuinely unable to communicate in English (they are from ru.wikipedia), and the latter is quite fluent; the connection is simply coincidental in that the IP is attacking a certain editor and noticed that CYl7EPTEMA777 was opposing (not attacking) the same editor in another article. Johnuniq (talk) 09:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  I concur with Johnuniq. The users are on different continents with widely differing competencies in English, something that's hard to fake. Acroterion (talk) 10:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  Perhaps a list of suspected IPs then, if no SPI is needed before resorting to a ban? I'm seeing a bunch that are from one particular part of the world (and it isn't Russia). Doc talk 09:28, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support ban It is very unusual to ban the person behind an IP under circumstances like this, but I have spent quite a lot of time trying to explain (calmly and politely) that they really have to stop raising issues with headings and edit summaries that attack other editors. I explained that it is fine to raise issues and say some other editor is wrong or whatever, but the attacks have to stop. I just tried finding the ANI report where I provided some diffs but I can't locate it. The current IP has repeated the attacks, for example see this diff of three edits—as far as attacks go, that is pretty minor, but the first link points to more attacks where an editor is repeatedly named in headings with inflammatory and unsubstantiated commentary. If the IP user were banned, removing their rants would be easier. If anyone is interested, the underlying issues relate to the interpretations of animal behavior, and to the treatment of animals—in other words, there is plenty of scope for emotional reactions. Johnuniq (talk) 09:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Comment/question - The IP appears to be unable to reliably distinguish between irony and seriousness judging from the repeated references to gangs and sockpuppetry, accusations that are substantiated by and from their perspective. Given that, aren't they likely to just carry on and feel fully justified in doing so ? Has anyone tried to help them understand that their views are based on misinterpretations ? Sean.hoyland - talk 10:17, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• A ban is kind of pointless when talking about someone unstable, using an IP that rotates frequently and can't be blocked effectively. Range blocks would have too much collateral damage as well. It won't change their behavior nor will the lack of a ban limit admin in how they deal with the culprit. The only solution is aggressive article protection, which will still only provide limited success. For all intents and purposes, the IP is already de facto banned by their actions. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 10:18, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• I don't think that we're dealing with someone who's open to reason: they are on a crusade. Unfortunately, I think the present course, to manage and limit disruption, is the only option. I doubt a formal ban would have an effect on the user, but it might simplify the inevitable reappearances at ANI. Acroterion (talk) 10:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Background is available in ANI archive 830 where my comment at 02:26, 27 February 2014 has several links to prior discussions. Johnuniq (talk) 10:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  I fully trust your take on the situation and won't oppose a ban, but I just don't see the utility in it. It isn't hard to get an IP blocked around here for causing disruption (in spite of the many essays claiming otherwise). I did indef semi-protect CYl7EPTEMA777's users page and willing to do more. The best bet is to force him to exert more effort than the reward is worth. ie: to impede him from what Acroterion accurately described as a crusade. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 10:55, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  That's fine by me, and I'm very glad that Acroterion has taken decisive action on several occasions because it would not be acceptable to tolerate a campaign of attacks against an editor. One irritation is that the IP looks for safe havens for their polemics, and I am hoping that this edit (by Acroterion to remove a minor rant) is not reverted by the talk page "owner". Johnuniq (talk) 11:23, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Let me repeat what I said last time I saw someone propose a formal ban of an IP. While it may be difficult to enforce it, there's nothing wrong with banning someone without an account, and an Arbcom case even officially ordered such a ban. Whether it's wise or foolish in this case I can't say, but opposition purely because it's an IP editor probably isn't a good thing. Nyttend (talk) 13:14, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support Ban. Editors should not have to put up with this kind of crap, and the IP is clearly not here to create an encyclopedia. Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:00, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• My thanks to everyone involved here, esp. Acroterion. I also don't know what the good of a "IP hopper ban" would be. I would like to see as much range blocking as possible, coupled with semi-protection. But, ban de jure or not, I see enough of a warrant in this discussion already to simply revert. I was not so sure of that last night or I would have nixed that forumshopping DR discussion already--but this de facto ban, or not ban but agreement that the edits are disruptive, should be enough to warrant any admin an immediate revert of this editor's commentary, anywhere in the project, if it serves only to incriminate DrChrissy and her "gang" and to disrupt the articles DrChrissy is working on. Drmies (talk) 14:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support per Dbrodbeck. On the meta issue, the reason for a ban as against a defacto whatever, is so the same facts do not have to be discussed over and over again. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:24, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support per Dbrodbeck, Alanscottwalker, and that we simply can't tolerate level of harassment of editors. I am One of Many (talk) 17:21, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support, at least to the extent that it facilitates other actions, such as semi-protection and whatever blocks are practical. I'll note for the information of administrators here that I reported one affected page (Animal welfare) at RFPP because of this, and my request for semi-protection was turned down; shortly later, Acroterion, who understands what is going on, put the semi-protection in place. Perhaps a ban, on the record, will provide something that can be cited, to help anyone unfamiliar with the history quickly see what we are dealing with. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:30, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I suppose for that reason it would make sense. Some admin are more reluctant to protect than others. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 19:40, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. But not because they don't deserve to be banned: because it's obviously very unusual to ban an editor only known by IPs. Even one named account tied to the hopper would make a ban more in line with how it's usually done. If this becomes the second IP on the banned user list, I see it as a rather slippery slope. Block their IP's that pop up, revert their edits, and semi-protect where and when necessary. Doc talk 23:41, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Comment As the editor who has received the most harassment from this IP hopping Troll and who now has their username associated with several totally spurious negative accusations on multiple talk pages, I am totally fed up with this. Please think about this. Look at my user page for my contributions. Hopefully, you will see that I have made multiple positive contributions to the project. Would people rather protect an IP hopper or adhere to some abstract wikipedia process I fail to understand, or would people rather lose an editor who tries their best to play by the rules and wants to help the project? __DrChrissy (talk) 00:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

In any case, if we don't like adding IPs to Misplaced Pages:List of banned users, then we can assign a pseudonym for the banned editor. I suggest using "John Doe 2", and using "John Doe 1" as a reference to the existing IP in the list of banned users. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:32, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Having worked with DrChrissy a lot, and having seen what this IP keeps doing, I'd go so far as to say that I would support a rangeblock even if there were a modest amount of collateral damage. It seems to me that this is a perfect case of where WP:IAR applies, if anyone object because we usually don't ban IPs. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:04, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Failure to enact a community ban in this case would not be "protecting" the hopper at all, nor should it be something that would make DrChrissy resign over were it not enacted. They are already persona non gratis here, and that is clear. So block them back to the Stone Age when they appear. I and others have corralled at least one particularly obnoxious IP-hopper through WP:LTA to the point that they have basically just stopped. There is not even a list of IPs here to present (or am I missing something?), while at LTA there would certainly be. Who all exactly would we be banning? Doc talk 01:29, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• DrChrissy, I can assure that no one wants to protect the IP here. Those of us that generally are against banning any IP do so for administrative and technical reasons. It doesn't change the fact that if we see them, we will block them, it has to do with the formal "banning" having little benefit to administrators when dealing with them. Banning is only effective in limited circumstances, and only with named users. I will just say that as an admin, it is sometimes easier and faster to block someone who isn't a sock or banned user, as you don't have to demonstrate linkage. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 01:25, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Ladies and Gentlemen, the words of DrChrissy have not typed themselves onto this page. Behind the characters, punctuation, intent of the message and the signature, there is a human being. The human being is sentient and is trying to be involved in a hugely valuable educational tool whilst adhering to the policies of Misplaced Pages. However, when I open many pages that I have on my watchlist, I now see messages that falsely brand me as a liar, disrespectful, disruptive, owning pages, etc. As a human being, this hurts. Why should I voluntarily keep exposing myself to such a negative experience? In considering actions to be taken, please remember there is a human being that is being attacked, not just a username.__DrChrissy (talk) 03:21, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • The notion that a user who hurts another's feelings must be community banned or else the offended editor will resign, is, IMHO, frightening. Doc talk 04:45, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
    • DrChrissy is saying that there are now pages with false personal attacks—that should be investigated and rectified. The community should protect good editors, not introduce meta commentary based on projections from their perfectly reasonable comments here. Let's list the pages concerned and remove attacks, perhaps replacing inappropriate comments with something like

      redacted, see ]

      @DrChrissy: Despite the above comment, everyone here is in agreement that the harassment will stop. If you notice a new eruption that is not handled within a reasonable time, please contact someone here; email me if you like, and I will hassle an admin. Johnuniq (talk) 05:25, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support I don't actually see any disavantages coming from a ban since I haven't seen any reason offered for why the existance of the ban shouldn't harm efforts to deal with the editor. Yet I do see possible benefits to a ban even if others feel they they don't exist. So at most this discussion may be pointless, but even if it is, that may be a reason to have a wider community discussion about pointless bans or simply not take part in it, but it's not a reason to oppose it when it has already started. Nil Einne (talk) 12:41, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

In need of a range block

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

Can someone sort out a range block to stop a vandalising IP? 166.170.23.2 (talk · contribs), 166.170.21.153 (talk · contribs) and 166.170.21.44 (talk · contribs) have all been blocked in the last half hour. Clearly not here to do anything productive. SmartSE (talk) 14:44, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Done 166.170.21.0/22 for 48 hours. That might be a little tight, covering only 21.*-23.* but can be changed to a /21 or 20 if needed. That is parked on a Class B, so hard to nail down the exact range. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 14:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by User:TheAirplaneGuy

On just one article (Malaysia Airlines Flight 370) in the last 36 hours User:TheAirplaneGuy has made 6 reverts (, , , , & ) without any obvious justification, and in several cases has reverted clear improvements. It's either a case of unreasoning "ownership behaviour" ("Justified article changes by different editors are reverted by the same editor repeatedly over an extended period to protect a certain version, stable or not") or mere disruptive editing. Discussion at his talk page doesn't seem to help. In general, his contributions seem to consist mainly of reversions to other editors and warnings that their contributions are vandalism. While he sometimes reverts vandalism, he is equally capable of reverting perfectly good edits without distinction.

I wonder whether a gentle warning would elicit better behaviour.

Shem (talk) 16:05, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• I will handle this on his talk page. His actions aren't particularly disruptive but he is past the limit and I agree that a gentle warning is the exact correct approach at this time. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 20:24, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Death hoaxes from spoof sites

Just a heads-up to editors: Someone is spoofing US Magazine with the domain usmagazine.us and has created numerous death hoaxes (Wayne Knight and Brian Bonsall are two I've seen already pop up on Misplaced Pages) at that address. I've also seen indirect evidence that the hoaxer also created a spoof of TMZ to spread death hoaxes. Obviously the authentic US Magazine and TMZ are marginal sources at best (although IMO TMZ has proven itself reliable for deaths), but these spoof sites are completely unreliable. I've posted this to the BLP noticeboard, but am posting it here as well to get more eyes on it. --NellieBly (talk) 16:51, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) @NellieBly: Have you requested the domain blacklisted? ~ Matthewrbowker 17:37, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

@Matthewrbowker: Someone else made the request before I could. --NellieBly (talk) 17:56, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

These sites just pop up like the living dead, don't they? Thankfully I got the infamous MediaMass and Necropedia sites blacklisted a few months back, but I wish these people would stop doing it. Thanks to everyone on top of this. Nate • (chatter) 18:16, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I saw a hoax about Michael J. Fox earlier today... GiantSnowman 18:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

(chatter) 18:16, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• There has been a similar hoax about Wayne Knight: bobrayner (talk) 20:29, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Bobrayner

Bobrayner (talk · contribs) is currently editwarring on Balkans related topics on a matter that is not a case of reverting vandalism or being constructive. On 15/03/14 he made this "innocent looking" tendentious edit whereby, yes he added a valid point but in doing so he removed a piece of sourced information, the purpose being to conceal documented atrocities committed by NATO in the Kosovo War of 1999 and replace them with some form of "positive matter". If you examine this next revision, you'll see that the HRW-based information he insterted has not been removed, but the sourced information he removed without explanation, consensus or reason was something I restored. The user at this point, knowingly unable to articulate a valid response to the counter-edit, reverted on the false baseless pretext that I am a 'sock'. I then explained that was not the case, but he is continuing to ignore that ad infinitum, . If he suspects a "sock" account, I believe he need only cite the alleged master and even then still request an investigation to which the result must be confirmed, and then he would be free to burn books. Editing is free to all persons without the need for an account and the notion that one may edit as such does not imply he/she has an account but is not using. Even so, it doesn't become the activity of a "sock" until it is being done in an attempt to pose as a different person in cases where one party to an editing dispute may have exhausted his daily round of reverts. In this case, there is no editor to have stepped forward to restore the wrongfully removed sourced information so I cannot be a "sock" but even if I were an unlogged editor, to qualify as a sock it can only realistically be the person to have originally posted the information, and even then, only when he/she has "returned" to add to the IP contributions. As for my number-switching, I have no control over that, that just happens whenever the system is rebooted and even when staying on it changes after so much time. --94.250.109.57 (talk) 18:52, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

1. It does not appear to an outside observer to be "edit war." 2. It would make your posts have more weight were you to register a specific username of some sort. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:55, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I am confident that 94.250.109.57 is a sock; but this being the Balkans, I'm not 100% sure which sockmaster - I have two in mind, although I could make a pretty good guess based on a couple of "tells".

Anyway. As far as content is concerned, I toned down some rather exaggerated content which was nominally based on a website that would never pass WP:RS. No big deal. If anybody wants to fine-tune the content or bring better sources, I'm all ears, although it is customary to start a thread on the talkpage rather than go direct to WP:ANI. bobrayner (talk) 20:23, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is not a reason to cry "sock". You neither specified any of this in your summaries (which you have made matters easier) nor did you revert every single contribution made by the alleged "sock". That was the basis of your reverts. Your "assumption" that I have an account or that I may be "one or the other" does not equate to solid proof. As for me, well there can't be two ways around this one. If I am a sock, I should be blocked permanently forthwith - if I am not a sock, I should be free to edit without labels created to legitimize your behavior. --94.250.109.57 (talk) 21:03, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello good people (well, most of you), I am also anonymous contributor and I would like to add that bobrynrr deleted my comment from a talk page for no good reason. Well, there is good reason, but......anyway see for yourself....

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AKosovo_War&diff=599898642&oldid=599894493 212.178.255.107 (talk) 21:10, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, he dropped manure over it to make it impossible to restore without removing his edits. Still, first come first serve? I have restored yours and he can do the donkey work of manually replacing his rant. --94.250.109.57 (talk) 21:16, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• What a coincidence! We now have two editors who swear they don't use accounts and who are both angry about similar topics in the Balkans. Anyway. In addition to the sockpuppetry problem, we can add outright lies. 94.250.109.57 says "You neither specified any of this in your summaries (which you have made matters easier)...". My original edit summary said "Not appropriate as a source or an EL, although this specific text may well be right...". Still, if anybody wants to discuss improvements to content or sources, whilst logged in, I'm happy to do this on the article's talkpage. bobrayner (talk) 21:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Anyway. 212.178 has also used IPs in the 109.106 range. Some were previously blocked by Mark Arsten and DoRD, I believe, around the time that Evlekis was last active, although folk are wary of directly connecting editors to IPs. This kind of canvassing fits the same old pattern. bobrayner (talk) 21:56, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

And yet you mention nothing about deleting my comment on talk page LOL. And the fact that only you declared me a sockpuppet. "A lie said a thousand times becomes the truth"...eventually I guess :D 212.178.255.107 (talk) 22:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

No. Multiple editors have called your previous IPs sockpuppets. However, if you stalk my edits, then I'm obviously the first one to call you out each time. bobrayner (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Multiple....two or three of your friends and protectors aren't multiple...and if you look here you will see multiple editors agreed with me (I am the struck out one)

http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Kosovo_War#Very_POV — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.178.255.107 (talk) 22:50, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I would just like to add that I've noticed some issues as well, a bit of criticism that I stated can be found in the recent move debate at Talk:Kosovo. There are several examples of problematic behaviour outside the Kosovo topic itself, which I mentioned on that talk page, and it might be of interest to have a look there. - Anonimski (talk) 22:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Glad you could join us, Anonimski. I'd agree that there was a canvassing problem around the recent discussion at Talk:Kosovo; however, I believe the IPs behind that are controlled by a different account to the IPs here. Although you did criticise me for reverting Evlekis socks, and there are more Evlekis socks active now. bobrayner (talk) 22:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Hey, stop shoving words in my mouth. My criticism against you was not related to your interaction with Evlekis. I commented on the lousy attitude that you have displayed in Balkan-related discussions, especially those that are related to ethnic Serbs. It is obvious that Evlekis should be blocked whenever he is doing sockpuppeting, but his violations aren't really an excuse for you to go on with the nonconstructive behaviour that I presented as examples on Talk:Kosovo. - Anonimski (talk) 23:02, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• (And why was this comment removed by User:Collect??) https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=599930160&oldid=599929903 - Anonimski (talk) 07:04, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Clearly we hit the "edit conflict" bug well-known on Misplaced Pages as my edit was not anent yours in any way or form. Try fixing such accidental elisions by the Misplaced Pages servers before making non-accidental accusations about other editors. Had I removed anything, I would have placed a note to that effect per Misplaced Pages guidelines. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:10, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Oddly, a previous 212.178 IP was reported by a previous Evlekis sock. This is our Balkan problem writ large; it's hard to tell the difference between real accounts, sockpuppets, sockpuppets which report/revert other sockpuppets, sockpuppets of the same person which report/revert each other, seemingly legitimate accounts who appear in discussions after being canvassed offsite, and so on. 94.x.x.x, you wouldn't have any connection to the offsite canvassing by another 94.x.x.x IP, would you? bobrayner (talk) 22:37, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

So.....why did you delete a comment that was constructive?

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AKosovo_War&diff=599919203&oldid=599915649

And you also stroke out comments that pointed towards biased and REALLY suspicious parts of the article....

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AKosovo_War&diff=584135506&oldid=583425048 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.178.255.107 (talk) 22:44, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Enough socks and conspiracy theories already. Apparently I'm biased for citing a reliable source on a different page - a book published by a university press which discusses the topic at length - but our IP friend is neutral because they cite websites like this and rant about "atrocities committed by NATO".

As I've said before; if anybody wants to discuss improvements to content or sources, whilst logged in, I'm happy to do this on the article's talkpage. Although any such discussion is likely to be tainted by the rampant canvassing, I have few other options here since the community seems have few effective tools to prevent the systematic use of socks to revert, cheat, and distort in this area. bobrayner (talk) 23:06, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Strange I never used natosued.org, oh well. What else.....ah I wrote to those editors asking for their opinion and telling them you decided that UN Resolution 1244 expired, wow I did not know you work in Security Coucil bob lol! Third wikipedia is also edited by anonymous users. Some of us are, dare I say modest people with busy and productive lives so we prefer to stay humble and unimportant :). I never edited Crni put, Niš that was someone else. And lastly....Why did you delete my comment on a talk page of Kosovo war, it was valid and it pointed to your previous edits, the one which other users found to be very biased and just propaganda.:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Kosovo_War#Very_POV — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.178.255.107 (talk) 23:21, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Ahh, yes, the totally independent and unbiased User:Zavtek also agreed with you. Thanks for proving my point. I'd point out to uninvolved editors that this IP previously used 109.106.252.120, which was also blocked as an Evlekis sock. And there's the Cognoscerapo connection, and the stalking, and the canvassing, and the previous SPI and various previous blocks...

If anybody wants to discuss improvements to the article's content or sources, whilst logged in, let's do this on the article's talkpage.bobrayner (talk) 23:36, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I meant Antidiskriminator (the one you chased away, as you can read in his comments), 23 editor and FkpCascais. So, why did you remove my comments bob? :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AKosovo_War&diff=599898642&oldid=599894493 oh and you stroke out this old one too, even thought 3 editors agreed with my statement http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AKosovo_War&diff=584135506&oldid=583425048 And why do you keep mentioning Crni put, Niš????? I did not edited that one....:/ nvm, just answer the first question :D 212.178.255.107 (talk) 23:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Well it looks like bob left us :(. http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Bobrayner#Someone_needs_to_let_you_know What's important is that he failed to answer these simple questions and simply bailed out. I also am leaving the wikia, good luck to the rest of you. This discussion will remain archived but I doubt anyone will read it, let alone take some action as an administrator. TaaTaa 212.178.255.107 (talk) 00:06, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• I've just blocked 94.250.109.57 (talk) and 212.178.255.107 (talk) two weeks each for sockpuppetry. If there are any articles that need semi-protection, let me know. — Mr. Stradivarius 04:36, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Soka Gakkai

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

Could somebody please have a look at the latest edits on the Soka Gakkai page and most of all by the comments left behind on the respective talk page - those are insults. user:Naveen Reddy got informed via template. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catflap08 (talk • contribs) 19:04, 16 March 2014‎ (UTC)

I agree that the most recent comment by Naveen Reddy is highly offensive, and I have left a warning on his talk page about it. If he makes more comments like that, I would recommend blocking. I was also concerned by some of the other comments in that thread, but they are a few weeks old now, and it is probably too late to do anything about them. Consider posting here again if the problems recur, or using some other form of dispute resolution if that seems more appropriate. — Mr. Stradivarius 05:07, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Tranquility of Soul

• Tranquility of Soul (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This guy showed up in all of the CensoredScribe nonsense and at the time I had thought he was a sockpuppet account, but that was never proven. However, he is still problematically creating new categories as CensoredScribe did, with Category:Incorporeal undead, Category:Fictional liches, and Category:Fictional shapeshifters by franchise just in the past few days. We need to nip this in the bud now before it gets out of hand like it did with CensoredScribe.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:29, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• I've emptied those categories and deleted them as clearly nonsense or over-categorisation. All liches are by definition fictional. Warning placed on user's talkpage. Black Kite (talk) 19:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  There are so many other categories he's made though.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:14, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  For simplicity's sake, here is a list of the categories made by this individual. -- Atama頭 22:04, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Palermo boca viatri 9

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

Vandalism-only account --Darius (talk) 23:00, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Not exactly traditional vandalism, but close enough. They haven't edited since the last warning, so I would hesitate to take action. I think the editor might could be educated a bit and start contributing normally, as their first few edits were ok, but then they seemed to develop some bad habits. Maybe. Regardless, I think we have to wait until they edit after the last warning before we use sanctions. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:55, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• I also left a more detailed message for them on their talk page. If that doesn't work, then escalating blocks would certainly be justified. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 00:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Indef block via WP:NOTHERE. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 13:42, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Paul Gaskell

Paul Gaskell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This editor has been involved in very suspicious behaviour and a sort of "anti-ownership" on the article St Helens Central (GCR) railway station ‎; something happened which seems to have agitated him so much that he's trying to revoke the licensing of his own content; he posted a blatantly uncivil, all-caps remark on my talk page when I restored the content that he had removed:

HOW DARE YOU HAVE THE EFFRONTERY TO RE-INSTATE MATERIAL WHICH I HAVE PREVIOUSLY WITHDRAWN DUE TO CONSTANT INTERFERENCE BY WIKI EDITORS ! THESE COLOUR PHOTOS WHICH ARE MY OWN AND THEREFORE MY COPYRIGHT, TOGETHER WITH ACCOMPANYING PHOTO AND BODY TEXT WERE REMOVED BY ME SEVERAL WEEKS AGO BECAUSE OF THIS.

I AM SICK TO THE BACK TEETH OF INTERFERENCE BY WIKI 'EDITORS' WHO SEEM TO CARE MORE ABOUT THEIR OWN AGGRANDISMENT WITHIN THE ORGANISATION THAN THE ACTUAL CONTENT OF SUBJECTS AND GENUINE LOCAL PROVIDERS OF SUCH - THEREFORE QUASI-VANDALISING THE ORGANISATION THEY PURPORT TO SERVE.

AS A RESULT OF THIS, I WILL BE PROVIDING MY WITHDRAWN INFORMATION TO AN ALTERNATIVE UK WEBSITE WHOSE PRIMARY INTEREST IS IN THE HISTORICAL CONTENT OF THIS MATERIAL AND NOT ANY CONSTRUCTIONAL MINUTIAE. RESTORE THE PAGE IMMEDIATELY TO WHAT IT WAS WITHOUT ANY OF MY SUBMISSIONS. WIKI HAS ONLY ITSELF TO BLAME FOR THIS NEGATIVE RESULT, WHICH IN A BROADER PERSPECTIVE DOES NOTHING TO ENCOURAGE FUTURE GENUINE WIKI CONTRIBUTORS - GET THE BALANCE RIGHT !

I think someone needs to take a look at this. ViperSnake151  Talk  03:56, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• The problem I foresee is the fact that in this case the uploader was not contacted with regards to the uploader's wish of whether he desired to keep the images local or move it to commons. (He preferred the images to be local, but when Sfan00 IMG tagged the 4 images afterwards for {{keep local}}, he was never told about it; I assume this is why the editor is upset since someone keeps changing the page without consulting him.) - Penwhale | 05:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • He also needs to be reminded that clicking 'submit' irrevocably licenses the submissions; there are no "take-backsies". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:43, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

The images were originally tagged for Commons, those tags were removed. The tag was removed. So based on past experience with other editors, who didn't want material on Commons, the image were tagged {{keep local}}, in line with the view that was apparently expressed by the uploader. The keep local tag was subsquently removed. The images concerned are now at FFD as they appeared to be unused. following changes to the article.

To make an allegation of "vandalism" against contributors acting in good faith, is bit harsh. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 09:22, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I also note that the uploader (on their talk page) got annoyed when File:Local passenger train at old St. Helens Central GCR) station.jpg was queried as to it's exact status. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 09:25, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Paul Gaskell notified. -- Diannaa (talk) 13:45, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Further to the above, the uploader claims that on or around the 27th they got 6 e-mails from me (https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Paul_Gaskell#St._Helens_Central_.28GCR.29_Railway_Station). I've never sent them any e-mails. All I did was query stauts, or tag for Commons transfer WITHIN the Mediawiki interface. I'd also like to request a checkuser so that it's clear once and for all that Stefan2/4 is not me. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:56, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Some people receive an email notification whenever a page or file on their watchlist is changed. They're likely mistaking these notifications as being directly from you rather than sent out automatically in response to changes to the watch-list. -- Diannaa (talk) 14:16, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

This editor is apparently not going to be continuing to edit on Misplaced Pages so warnings and such would have no effect on him, if they were warranted. Is there a problem with honoring his request and simply not using his images? It sounds like they are up for deletion any way. Liz 16:46, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I tried interacting with this user, with some success at first, and even tried to explain the position regarding image licensing; but my last two posts seem to have been ignored. Unfortunately this user - like so many others - seems to be under the impression that having a copy of a photograph in their possession means that they own the image and therefore the copyright. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Support Paul: He's just totally fed up with all the templating he's been receiving. I do sympathise. He's a good-faith editor and a local historian doing just the sort of thing we should be actively supporting at Misplaced Pages. As far as I can see he's going to withdraw from editing and that strikes me as a real shame. It seems to me there's a "culture" problem at Non-free content review (NFCR). I satirise it here regarding one of Paul's files. There are areas of the various Wikimedia projects, notably modern history and the contemporary arts, which are perforce very dependent on non-free content to illustrate their content. The Wikimedia licensing policy expressly recognises that. But a situation seems to have developed where a particular clique at NFCR, including especially the infamous User:Stefan2 aka User:Stefan4 etc., subject of an ongoing ANI here have set themselves up as a kind of court scrutinising all this content. The reality is that many of their calls are just plain wrong (for me its nadir was reached a few weeks ago with a post regarding the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian's, in reality one of the most accomplished graphic artists of all time, later abstract works which were suggested too "simple" to attract copyright - niet te geloven ...) while their public relations are an absolute disaster. I don't think this the way to fix Paul's grievances and I am very sorry indeed to see him in this situation. It's quite likely that I myself will eventually stop editing as well. No longer one of the 100 things I wanted to do before I die ... Who needs this? Coat of Many Colours (talk) 04:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Stefan2 notified, -- Diannaa (talk) 23:11, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, User:Coat of Many Colours. What do our disagreements about WP:NFCC have to do with this guy? It seems that my only interaction with this guy has been the addition of a "no permission" tag to one of his files. I also mentioned one of his other files on another user's talk page, but Paul probably hasn't seen that message. Apart from those two files, I do not think that I have interacted with the user in any way or made any edits related to his files. --Stefan2 (talk) 01:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

• Paul seems to be upset because he has received several e-mails and because file information pages have been modified. He removed the templates added by User:Sfan00 IMG, which to me suggests that he did not understand what the templates meant and that he hoped to avoid any potential "problems" by removing them. New users do not necessarily know what Commons is, so adding templates that a file should be, shouldn't be or has been moved to Commons could be confusing.

Paul was also upset because a file was tagged as missing permission. Looking at his recent edits, I see that he has mentioned this on User:Coat of Many Colours' talk page: 'I guess you can understand my frustration then when I was first of all targetted for an old 1950's picture of a loco at the platform, which I "hadn't got permission" for, despite that fact that nobody local knew the originator, it, plus other of the old photos on page were already in use on local websites, pictures in local pubs and even in a large local supermarket !' The problem here is that the photograph is copyrighted, so we need permission from the photographer, or from the photographer's heir if the photographer is dead. The orphan works problem is because of problems with copyright laws, and it is not my fault that some copyright holders can't easily be located. --Stefan2 (talk) 01:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Great Flood of 1881 Plagiarism

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Large portions of Great Flood of 1881 appear to have been plagiarized without attribution from A.T. Andreas' 1882 History of the State of Nebraska .--Edgar Vekilnik, Jr. (talk) 15:33, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Administrative intervention isn't needed. Moreover, if text is properly attributed, there are no problems whatsoever; we're free to reuse text from public-domain sources. If text isn't properly attributed, the only problem is that the source isn't properly cited. Nyttend (talk) 15:36, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

The page also has an "Investigation of potential copyright issue" notice. If you can clear this up, please do do.--Auric talk 19:15, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Point of clarification?

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Copying material without permission would be copyright violation. Which I understand does not apply to pre-1923 materials (more or less). But what was complained of here — plagiarism — is copying (use) without attribution, which is independent of copyright. If the problem is to be resolved elsewhere (e.g., "article talk"), fine, but we should avoid the implication that public domain material need not be attributed. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:37, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said above, when text is taken from a PD source, the worst possible scenario is insufficient citation. It's no different from someone adding self-written text without a citation; both of them are problematic on the same level. Nyttend (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

OK. I can see why a point of clarification was asked for.

The initial matter here was "Large portions of Great Flood of 1881 appear to have been plagiarized without attribution from A.T. Andreas' 1882 History of the State of Nebraska". (emphasis mine)

• The text was substantially copied from a work that in the public domain
• It was correctly attributed to that work
• By adding the attribution, the editor did not seek to pass off this as their own work

There's nothing blockable or requiring other admin action here.

That said, I think it would have been arguably the ethically right thing to do for the editor to have re-written the public domain text in their own words.

Does that address this point of clarification to your satisfaction?

Peter in Australia aka --Shirt58 (talk) 11:12, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Naveen Reddy reported by User:Catflap08 (Result: Both blocked)

The Naveen Reddy has been warned about his style on the Soka Gakkai talk page. Disruptive editing behaviour on that page and others though continued today. Can a Block be considered? Please notice that the issue was raised just yesterday.--Catflap08 (talk) 15:52, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Catflap08, do you have specific examples (diffs) to share that illustrate behavior you think is disruptive? Liz 16:40, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Both editors blocked – for a period of 24 hours Nyttend (talk) 16:55, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Why did you block Catflap08? Catflap08 is one of the few non-advocate editors on the pages in question, and the last thread on the talk page readily shows the problems with Naveen's conduct. I haven't looked through the recent talk page in detail for conduct problems from Catflap08, but I also see absolutely none described here. Is that the proper way to block people from editing?

I should note that there was a thread posted before this one which is still live and can be viewed above, where Mr. Stradivarius was the only uninvolved person to comment.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 19:34, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Catflap08 violated WP:3RR, which can and often does lead to a block to stop the edit war. Not only did they violate 3RR, but unlike their opponent they didn't even bother with edit summaries throughout that process. All that Catflap08 really needed to do was ask for an unblock and promise to stop reverting at the page, and any reasonable admin would probably have unblocked them (I probably would have). Instead, they insisted that the block was improper and made no suggestion that they would stop reverting, and by insisting that the reverts were proper, they at least implied that they would continue the edit war if unblocked. To be honest, edit-warring is unacceptable from anyone, and Catflap08 doesn't have some kind of special immunity because they are editing an unpopular article. -- Atama頭 21:59, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Atama summarises my approach accurately. This looked like blind reversion, and the only time that's permitted is extreme circumstances such as blatant vandalism (e.g. replacing the page with obscenities) or copyright infringements. Nyttend (talk) 22:08, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I see. Was he at least warned about the edit warring, though? I can't see whether he has a history of edit warring related blocks.

At any rate, he has no "Retired", and those articles are seriously problematic--almost as much as Judiasm/Zionism articles--with advocates posting advocacy material continually. I don't have sufficient time to monitor them myself, though I have made a couple edits, etc. The point is that it is important to evaluate and engage such editors, because Misplaced Pages needs them.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 23:07, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

If Catflap08 isn't willing to abide by one of Misplaced Pages's most core tenets, which is that we don't get involved in endless edit wars and we instead discuss matter with other editors (even editors who aren't particularly civil) then I don't know if this project is a good fit regardless. Don't think that this is in any way an endorsement of Naveen Reddy's actions or comments; they also participated in the edit war (and shared the block) and some of this editor's actions are a definite problem. Civility is an area where action is rarely taken, but personal attacks are a different matter and Naveen Reddy most definitely crossed the line on the article's talk page. Not to mention that the editor is openly acting as an advocate of the movement and openly showing a conflict of interest. One thing that you should realize, Ubikwit (and that I wish that Catflap08 could understand) is that there are processes to fix the problem that the page currently has. When an article is threatened by an organized effort to use it for some outside purpose, arbitration has been implemented to stop that behavior. Of course, there are a number of steps that lead to that point, but you can find numerous examples of articles in similar situations that have been dealt with strongly, with special sanctions implemented to enforce compliancy with our policies and guidelines. Edit-warring is not a positive step toward achieving that, however. -- Atama頭 23:22, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Threats to disrupt Misplaced Pages and attacks on editors (and their families)

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• Higuiseiloveyou
• User:Higuiseiloveyou/sandbox
• initial post to Aggie80's talk page
• follow up using WikiLove to attack

I do not intend to notify the user as their threats of violence against other volunteers (and their families) when they are called to task for their misuse. Please exercise the banhammer. Hasteur (talk) 18:58, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Phoenix 123 abc

Their contributions are endless bookspam. There's been no response to multiple warnings on talk page. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:11, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Well, journal article spam, I suppose. They've been warned and summoned to the drama board. Chances are they won't show up and simply cease editing; if they do continue editing that would be great but if they continue editing like this they'll be blocked, simple as that. Thanks, and thanks to the other reverters--I saw Binksternet and DMacks were on the case. Drmies (talk) 19:31, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is journal article spam, putting forward the name of Dr. Tanya Sammut-Bonnici of the University of Malta. I'm certain that Sammut-Bonnici has a few interesting and useful insights that we can use to expand articles, with her writings as reference. We are not trying to prevent Sammut-Bonnici from having a presence on Misplaced Pages! However, the spamming of her name in "Further reading" sections is not appropriate. Binksternet (talk) 19:37, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

interaction ban request

• Beeblebrox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Unscintillating (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I think it is time a there was officially a wall between me and this user. We don't agree on some issues, and whenever I state my disagreement he becomes extremely agitated and attacks my motivations. This all began because I dared to suggest that the Article Incubator was not working and we should close it. At the same time that I was proposing this he was trying to expand it by adding a portal and an entirely new process called the "incubator greenhouse". Both of those areas were deleted and the incubator was in fact finally closed in favor of the new draft namespace. So, I thought we probably wouldn't run into one another again and that we would have no more unpleasant encounters until I was pinged at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Tosca (software). What I found there was an accusation that I and another admin had conspired to delete a perfectly good article behind everyone's back, when in fact six months ago I had merely MFD'd a page that had been in the incubator for two years. When I attempted to correct the record on this matter he reverted me, claiming WP:NPA as justification I find that ironic as I was the one whose motivations were attacked.

And this isn't the first time:

• AN thread in which he repeatedly says I am delusional and should be banned from the incubator
• Misplaced Pages talk:Article Incubator/Archive 4#Proposal to mark as historical, a discussion in which he repeatedly implies some sort of sinister motivations on my part
• There's more, but it is fairly repetitive. Every time I comment on something he assumes the absolute worst and implies I have some hidden agenda when in fact my agenda was not hidden at all and I was entirely upfront about my positions and why I took them.

I wish he could just let it go and stop smearing my name at every possible opportunity, but that seems to be too much to ask, so I ask for an interaction ban. It need only be one way as I have not and do not plan to go looking for opportunities to mention his name, but if folks think a two-way is better that's fine with me. Beeblebrox

• Normally, these belong at WP:AN rather than WP:ANI but I won't labor it. As for supporting it or not, I would lean not simply because I've never seen an Arb request an interaction ban and it strikes me as rather odd. I would have to let that roll around my brain for a while... Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 20:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not asking as an arb, I am asking as a member of this community who would prefer that another member of it stop their whisper campaign against me. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I understand that and respect the difference, but it still is unusual and people still see it as "an arb" (just a small part of the price you are paying for the glory, I'm sure). Not sure if it is a precedent, or if there are unintended consequences. One expectation is that Arbs are expected to be able to handle dispute resolution, and (as pointed out below) I would want to see what has been tried before this radical step. It is no secret that I'm not a fan of interaction bans and only support them if there really is no other way to deal with an issue. Enforcement is always a pain, for starters. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 21:06, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Let me add: IBs usually work ok if the dispute is two sided and two people just grate each other and both are on equal footing. If it is a one sided problem, IB is the wrong answer, as it must be enforced equally on both sides, and it makes it easy for the problem side to game the system, or just eat up time at ANI. In other words, they grief you by causing more process over the IB. RFC/U might be a better answer, although I'm not a fan of that process either, as it has no teeth. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 21:20, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Token Objection: What DR steps have you tried prior to requesting this interaction ban? Somewhat in jest, but if one of the members of the highest form of DR isn't following the prescribed checklist, what does that say about Conduct DR? Hasteur (talk) 20:18, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Where would you suggest? There isn't an article that is the locus of the dispute, the entire project that was at the center of it has been gone for a while now. There is no dispute so far as I am concerned. It is a dead issue and I would like it to be buried. I am not interested in having a discussion with him, I just want him to leave me alone and to stop making accusations about my motivations. If he can promise to do that we can be done right here and now. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:41, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Unscintillating is still a redlink (as Dennis Brown indicated). That indicates that you haven't tried the lower avenues of DR. Imagine if this were brought to ArbCom in it's current state. The request would have been bounced because as a Conduct Dispute, the lower forms (such as RFC/U or talk page requests) don't appear to have been attempted by you, whereas requests on your talk page were met with significantly less than good faith. With great power comes great responsibility, and being an Arbitrator is just about the highest responsibility that you can have an enWP. Hasteur (talk) 12:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment- Agreed, that was not a personal attack and Unscintillating had no business redacting it. For someone who spends so much time making wildly speculative criticisms of others he is very touchy when it comes to scrutiny of his own behaviour, but Unscintillating's attitude towards the project and fellow editors has always been very poor. This protracted whinge campaign against Beeblebrox is nothing new; he did the same thing with me over several years. I am sure his goal at Misplaced Pages is to be as annoying as possible. His mode of operation is to wikilawyer endlessly, playing pointless semantic games and acting as self-appointed tone police, often with fancy custom templates and high-sounding officialese. The intent is to get an exasperated response from people, which he then holds against them. Reyk _YO! 20:56, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • If this is the case and it is an ongoing issue with other editors, then an RFC/U is more appropriate than an interaction ban. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 21:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• non admin comment I think Beeblebrox's actions in the past regarding the incubator are quite correct, and Unscintilating is perhaps too emotionally attached to that part of the project to think clearly. But if the recent AFD comment is the extent of recent interaction, then I think an iBan is un-needed at this point - a single comment in 6 months does not require intervention. If hes hounding you more than that, then show the diffs, and there is something to discuss. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Definitely oppose after considering. What if he posts a legit notice on your page, you respond snippy, he does the same, three comments later he calls you a fucktard and gets blocked. Now it might look like favoritism because you are an Arb. We get claims like that as admin, you know it will happen more so to an Arb. Or the other way around, and the admin hesitates to block because you are an Arb. (Many admin would be reluctant to block an Arb, you know this) The problem is that this would be completely uneforceable without causing major drama and questions over fairness. No matter what any admin does to enforce, some in the community may see it as favoritism, so many admin won't want to enforce it at all because they don't want the hassle. You need to consider an RFC/U or other process if this is an ongoing issue. I hate it for you, but that is part of the burden of the bits. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:58, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• As an uninvolved party, I'd agree with others that an IB seems premature. However, a warning for the inappropriate removal of Beeblebrox's comment, as well as an admonishment against dredging up past disputes, would be about right. — The Hand That Feeds You: 02:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
• The edit which is disputed here is when I said that "two admins intent on moving articles from the incubator to deletespace did a number on a properly improved Misplaced Pages article with references showing national and international attention."  I have objectified the slang here so that the sentence now reads, "two admins with a history of deleting articles in the incubator deleted a properly improved Misplaced Pages article with references showing national and international attention."  Unscintillating (talk) 04:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
• It has been exactly seven days since Beeblebrox was previously at ANI because of WP:NPA.  As I said then, there are exactly two editors at Misplaced Pages who have banished me from their talk pages, those being Reyk and Beeblebrox.  Reyk has also tried to obtain an interaction ban against me.  Here is the one time I posted to Beeblebrox's talk page.  I was first told that my post was "booooring....".  After initially talking about "...a magic sky castle staffed by monkey butlers and magic unicorns", the reply was amended a couple of hours later to tell me not to post there again.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
• At the ANI seven days ago, I asked a question and didn't get an answer.  What is the procedure to remove an editor from the oversight committee?  Unscintillating (talk) 04:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • First, there is no set process for removing an arb.
  • Second, when one finds themself in a hole, it's generally a good idea to stop digging. — The Hand That Feeds You: 08:13, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
    • Unscintilating, while I agree that there might have been some initial justification to your complaint, Misplaced Pages has no right for you to demand satisfactory enforcement or apology. To the contrary, you appear to be hounding and disrupting wikipedia to prove a point. And trying to bait him into another confrontation. Please drop it. There are only so many buttons you can push in so public a manner before either an uninvolved admin reaches for the "block" button or an interaction ban passes community consensus. Please stop now while it's only a temporary ding on everyone's reputations. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:38, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps now that he has joined the discussion it is more clear what it has been like to be on the receiving end of this.The talk page edit he points out was from a year ago. In it, he complains about AFDs we both participated in one and two years before that. This guy holds onto to every little comment he doesn't like and saves it in his "grudge file" so he can trot it back out a year or two later. As for the incident from just last week, another user, who also had trouble dropping the stick, brought me here because of a comment I made during a content dispute. Next thing I know Unscintilatiing is asking how to give me the boot from oversight, despite the fact that the content dispute had absolutely nothing to do with the use of advanced permissions.

@Unscintillating:, I asked on your talk page, and I'll ask again here: is there any chance you could simply agree to drop this? By which I mean simply stop making accuations related to me, stop saying I am "delusional" just pretend you never heard of me? I would be more than happy to return the favor if you are willing. Nothing binding, just an agreement between two people who can't seem to get along to just avoid mentioning one another? Beeblebrox (talk) 17:40, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Dispute in LGBT rights in Pakistan

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There is currently a dispute going on over inclusion of an excerpt from a speech from Hina Jilani which does not relate specifically to LGBT rights in Pakistan instead it was general speech about overall situation in the World. My stance is that it does not have a place in that article. Lilpiglet disagrees. Already raised the issue at Talk:LGBT rights in Pakistan to no avail. I want someone to look at that last edit and decide whether it stays or gets removed. I am not asking for a decision in my favor. I am requesting an impartial decision in this matter. Sajjad Altaf (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

ANI is not the place for content disputes, as the notice says. Try WP:DR. - Sitush (talk) 20:31, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

India Against Corruption disruption again

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A long-running dispute about India Against Corruption ended up with this thread and the blocking of HRA1924 (talk · contribs). One of the issues at the time, and for months previously, was legal threats; another was obvious meatpuppeting/tag teaming. They were told to take it all off-wiki.

I'm afraid they are back there under a new guise, mostly recently with this edit and a comment on the article talk page that I collapsed. I had earlier given a broad outline of the issues at User_talk:ColSodhi#India Against Corruption. They have used open proxies and numerous IPs in the past, as well as various registered accounts. This plus the fact that SPI has been backlogged of late makes things messy. I'm wondering whether someone can do the needful now before things get out of control again. Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 02:03, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• I have super briefly fully protected the article in question in hopes of getting ColSodhi to engage on the talk page. If he breaks WP:NLT or does much else inappropriate again, I'll go ahead and block him. He does seem to have fairly obvious prior experience with Misplaced Pages to the point that given previous issues around IAC I'm almost tempted to go WP:DUCK, but hopefully if he is a new editor trying to act in good faith, this will point him towards doing so without the heavyhandedness of a block. And if he's not, well... Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:44, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• That's ok, thanks. I'm a bit more heavy-handed with templates etc than you but then I've been dealing with this for well over six months now. We'll see what happens but my fount of good faith is pretty dry on this one. - Sitush (talk)

Oh, so's mine. It just pays off once in a bloody blue moon in situations like this, so I prefer trying. However, having seen the below comment, well... incoming. Kevin Gorman (talk) 03:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

It has been subsequently clarified with the WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION as follows. That the WMF communicated that the local policies of the English language Misplaced Pages project preclude and prohibit IAC from participating as a "group" (WP:ROLE). IAC group had never edited the article directly or indirectly. However, now that Sitush has failed to prove his claim during mediation (which was the prime issue) that "India Against Corruption is the same as Team Anna", and the contents of email communications from both the academic sources Sitush uses (and is again repeatedly restoring) are with the Registrars ("Mark Monitor") of the WMF's domain names (see UDRP), and that both the well known and respected authors cited in the article are appalled at misuse of their scholarly books by Sitush to LIBEL (which is a core Misplaced Pages policy with legal implications) India Against Corruption and to promote IMPERSONATION of the India Against Corruption (which they both acknowledge is not Team Anna) and thereby engage in FRAUD and violation of IAC's copyright's marks and names, it is open to any individual account to edit the article to implement WMF core policy (and subordinate Misplaced Pages policies). NB IAC has not made any 'complaint" to WMF or the Legal-OFFICE at any stage of this content dispute. It is the responsibility of the Misplaced Pages Community to see if it is competent to resolve content disputes with legal implications for WMF as a hosting intermediary and Registrant of the domain names in question. PS: It had been always been clarified that "HRA1924" was an official "role" account for IAC, so let us take these allegations of meat-puppetry elsewhere. ColSodhi (talk) 02:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment I have no prior knowledge or involvement in this dispute but I looked over some of the earlier DR including the mediation. My summary (feel free to point out any errors) is:

• There was historically an organization called India Against Corruption, associated with Mr. Anna Hazare, that I'll call IAC1 for disambiguation purposes. IAC1 was also sometimes called Team Anna. There is lots of sourcing about this organization and the article India Against Corruption is about almost entirely about IAC1.
• There is currently an organization using the same name India Against Corruption, that has at most tenuous continuity with IAC1. I'll call this organization IAC2. IAC2 is opposed to the politics of Anna Hazare, that IAC1 supported. ColSodhi is affiliated with IAC2.
• ColSodhi (in various Misplaced Pages incarnations) and other IAC2-affiliated people have gotten into conflict on Misplaced Pages, basically claiming that the India Against Corruption article is about IAC2, and misrepresents IAC2 since it describes a pro-Anna organization (that is, IAC1). Thus the noise about libel and so forth.
• The second paragraph of the article (current revision) refers to the IAC1/IAC2 split, saying "...the present group of people who refer to themselves as IAC are no longer promoting the Lokpal agenda a and have instead turned to promoting Right to Information."
• IAC2 folks have gotten in trouble on Misplaced Pages mostly regarding two policies: role accounts (multiple IAC2 people sharing a Misplaced Pages account), and legal threats.
• The role account problem can be solved rather simply and I haven't seen any indication of why it's difficult. The solution is for each IAC2 person to make a separate Misplaced Pages account, and put a message on their user page mentioning the affiliation and the connection with other IAC-affiliated editors. Unless I'm missing something this shouldn't be a big deal.
• The legal threat problem is more serious in that it reflects an attitude that might be hard to change, but one way or another it has to stop because it will always be met with blocks if it doesn't.
• According to Sitush, IAC2 doesn't have much coverage in the article because there is not much sourcing available for it.
• Still, it seems to me, that the distinction between IAC1 and IAC2 could be made more clear in the article, maybe with a hatnote saying something like "this article is about the old group affiliated with Anna, not the current group using the same name".
• If there is actually enough documentation about IAC2 to establish notability, a separate article can be written (or a new section of the current article), with suitable disambiguation links.
• If ColSodhi could adopt a less belligerent attitude, maybe some kind of accomodation like this can be reached through the talk page. Sitush is also very heavily involved so it might be useful to get more outside help. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 03:57, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Dwy misrepresenting sources again

Dwy (talk · contribs) inserted a line of text into the Yamanoue no Okura article and provided a 14-page citation for it. The text didn't look like it required such a lengthy citation, so User:Sturmgewehr88 and I requested on the talk page that he tell us which page was relevant. He admitted that in fact most of the content of the chapter he cited is unnecessary to the article, but refused to tell us which page needs to be cited, and gave me the hypothetical finger while doing so. The book in question is 40 years old and long out-of-print. This is problematic because Dwy has misrepresented the content of this book on at least two other occasions in the past few weeks ("not supported by historians" is clearly not in there, and Nakanishi's theory that Okura was not descended from Emperor Kosho is not "based on" the Shinsen Shojiroku), so there's pretty good reason to believe he's up to the same tricks here.

(Note: This isn't a content dispute or about the reliability of the source itself, as all parties basically agree that the information itself belongs in the article.)

182.249.241.23 (talk) 04:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

You are both being too belligerent and spiteful. Typing "Yamanoue no Okura" into Google Books instantly finds multiple references for the dates in question, with scans of the relevant pages. Just pick one and cite it including the page number. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 04:41, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Do those books say "most scholars" and "based on such and such line in book 5"? What pages are they on? Why can't the user who added the reference fix it himself? He already admitted he doesn't want to because he doesn't like me. 182.249.241.40 (talk) 04:49, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

He's also referred to me as "his opponent" and falsely accused me of mistranslating his attacks on me and Sturmgewehr88. 182.249.241.40 (talk) 05:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Dwy has resorted to being uncooperative in an attempt to spite User:Hijiri88. We've been arguing over this for almost three months because Dwy has been antagonistically beating around the bush. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 05:16, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

MEAT at Vassula Ryden

There is some serious meat puppetry going on at Vassula Ryden. Multiple SPA accounts that toe the same line have reactivated after a nearly 2 year hiatus Webwidget (talk · contribs),Arkatakor (talk · contribs),Sasanack (talk · contribs) and a newly activated one Siamsiocht (talk · contribs) (made only 2 edits in 2011 to support an edit war by Arkatakor) and are trying to use local consensus to insert material to imply the Catholic church accepts Vassula Ryden, based on primary sources, despite the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) having active notifications against her. (see the talk page for recent activity, and Talk:Vassula_Ryden#Grechs_comments.3F for vote stacking the consensus process) I'm not sure what the best way is to deal with this meat puppetry ... Second Quantization (talk) 09:34, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Related: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/Arkatakor#Comments_by_other_users, Second Quantization (talk) 09:42, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Ok first a few corrections to your opening statement:

1. RE: to insert material to imply the Catholic church accepts Vassula Ryden. This is not the case, the editors are simply discussing including the dialogue with the CDF as part of the chronology of events. Read the discussions in the talk page.
2. RE: based on primary sources. The CDF dialogue is not only backed by the insidethevatican source written by a Cardinal who corresponded with Ryden on behalf of the Vatican, its further supported by an RSN approved Oxford University Press source written by a subject matter Niels Hvidt, who provides context for the CDF dialogue. This source was also mentioned in the discussions. I do not see how you can call both of these primary sources. Arkatakor (talk) 10:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not here to debate the content (once again) (RSN: "There is no reason to consider use of this source", RSN approved does not mean mean anything since its a noticeboard, Grech is a primary source for his own opinions about an incident he was involved in), I'm here to discuss the concerns with the MEAT puppetry, Second Quantization (talk) 11:10, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

1. RE: "RSN: There is no reason to consider use of this source". This comment in the RSN was in response to my 4th proposed source in that RSN, which was a Swiss magazine publication. It was not referring to Niels Hvidt's OUP source. What is alarming is that you are full aware of this as you participated in that discussion. This makes it your 3rd attempt to mislead readers in this discussion alone.
2. RE: RSN approved does not mean mean anything since its a noticeboard. I invite readers of this conversation to read the full RSN being discussed here, particularly Fifelfoo's reaction towards IRWolfie's (now Second Quantization)'s treatment of Hvidt's work. It should not be a surprise therefore, that he continues to undermine the RSN findings in this discussion.
3. RE: I'm here to discuss the concerns with the MEAT puppetry. Is opening the discussion with misleading statements part of your strategy? You have made 3 sofar. Arkatakor (talk) 11:38, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I am copying the same response to the two places this matter seems to have been placed. Please understand that I do not understand the complex 'machinery' of Misplaced Pages! This matter is being raised by 'Second Quantization' who, until a few weeks ago operated under the name 'IRWolfie'. Why he has chosen to change his name seems very strange to me to say the least! The recent attempted edits to the Vassula page are as a result of the appearance, in January, of an important review of a recent book by Vassula in a long established magazine, Inside the Vatican. The review was written by a Cardinal who played an important role in the Vatican's only dialogue with Vassula. A group of editors have consistently blocked reference to this dialogue on the WP page. The result of the relentless editing of the Vassula page by the same group of editors has resulted in a ridiculous collection of negative material with almost no positive material. Sasanack (talk) 11:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• The background to this ANI discussion is that Vassula Ryden is a controversial mystic, loved by thousands of followers but condemned by the Vatican and the Eastern Orthodox church. On Misplaced Pages, a number of single- and nearly single-purpose accounts have added promotional or positive text to the biography over the past 7 years, starting with Arkatakor but including Yekadel, Perrum, Siamsiocht, Rn2hearts and Webwidget. Other SPAs have added negative information, for instance MLPIO. In October 2010, Cameron Scott worked to reduce the promotional fluff, then in January 2012 Mannanan51 worked to clean up the article. This started a flurry of activity lasting through March 2012, then there was another round of back-and-forth editing from May to July 2012. At that point, several veteran Misplaced Pages editors (Lucky Louie, IRWolfie, Dominus Vobisdu and myself) had taken the article in hand, to prevent an imbalance of too much positive information from appearing, and to make certain that the well-referenced negative information was kept. Especially important was that the Vatican's negative Notification against Ryden was to remain a prominent point in the biography, despite the efforts of Ryden and her fans to put a positive spin on the Vatican communications.
  The new development in the biography was in January 2014 when Ryden announced a new book. Webwidget added some positive text, then Oct13 added some negative text, poorly sourced. Finally, Sasanack added some positive text in the old vein of putting a positive spin on the Vatican communication. So now we're back at ANI discussing the same old themes. Binksternet (talk) 17:42, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Also related, Sasanack self-outed as the registrant for Vassula Ryden's website so there has been an ongoing concern about recruitment and off wiki coordination by Ryden followers and members of her organization. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Kinda baffled here seeing my name in a post outside the Talk page where I posted yesterday – as a relative newbie to Misplaced Pages (tried making a few edits a couple of years ago, but found the formatting/editing text a bit beyond me – more complex than I’d figured!) – thought I’d maybe give it a try again when I saw that ‘Inside the Vatican’ article. Saw the article briefly referenced in the Rydén article hence my visit to the Talk page where I posted for the 1st time ever adding my 2 cents… (how to actually post in the Talk page took me a while to figure out!) Appreciate I’m new to this but thought that Misplaced Pages was open to anyone to volunteer… will hang in here & hopefully learn more! ☺ Siamsiocht (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:20, 18 March 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Siamsiocht (talk • contribs)

Binkstrnet, many of your points regarding the article, such the notification (which you have incorrectly interpreted as a condemnation) as well as your opinion that the article is balanced and using reliable sources, is subject to debate. I will refrain from commenting further on these points as I understand that this is not the main theme of this topic.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight that, even though the Ryden article has gone many months (sometimes even years) without activity, as soon as there is any level of debate in the talk page of the article, Binksternet, IRWolfie (now Second Quantization) and LuckyLouie all seem to show up and join these discussions at the same time. I do not know if this is indicative of some sort of coordinated effort, but it could be worth making an investigation in the reverse order. In any case these 3 users alone have largely contributed to turning a relatively informative version of the article, into a virtually one sided article. They continue to work in unison to keep the article as such. Arkatakor (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The Ryden article was the main article I got involved in a few years ago and I had that many rules thrown in my face that I learnt a lot and after a while I gave up, I remember an article on badgers that I helped someone with around the same time who had asked for help on a notice board as they declared a COI and the experience was like night and day to working in the Ryden BLP, there was a huge heated debate on the Ryden BLP at that time, RFC/RSN/DRN and its interesting to see above about consensus over weight of numbers as there was an OUP source a couple of years back that seemed that it should have been included but simply was not allowed in Rydens BLP. What appears to me to be a united front of Binksternet, Second Quantization and LuckyLouie in not allowing for balance or any other point of view to be represented in Rydens BLP and it is like a battle to get anything that has a remotely positive pov added. "No. Simply no. There is no way to game this book review to make the Ryden story a positive one" The facts are the facts and they are reported in a reputable source but that's what my experience has been like with the Ryden BLP. I also saw the Cardinal Grech article and given that the current BLP is so horrendously biased and bears witness to approx 20,000+ page views per annum came back for another go. When I saw the same old fight starting again I tried to start an RFC on the Grech Article and I dont know if one of the above 3 removed the tag or a bot did as I could not then find it on the RSN board, fair enough maybe it was due to the title I used for the RFC and something more general which I renamed to "Grechs comments" would have been a better tag to start with and I fully expected to be back at RFC today and although surprised when I saw the email about this this morning, now I am not, these 3 users use their superior knowledge and experience to maintain the BLP in its current negative state and go to extraordinary lengths to keep it that way Webwidget (talk) 23:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Ryulong constant edit warring with other users

ryulong reverted me on my own talkpage when i removed his notice which i considered vandalism. he is acussing me of edit warring while he constantly edit warred on the soviet union article and other pages, it is much easier to refer his edit warring by simply looking at the edit history because you will directly see all his mass reverting and one can notice it by simply as said looking at the edit history

• https://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/Ryulong
• https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Soviet_Union&action=history

i have also notified him on his talkpage see https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Ryulong&oldid=600171454 Anignome (talk) 15:47, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• Edit warring by User:Ryulong at Ultraman reported additionally by Medeis

I hadn't gotten around to filing a 3rr report yet, but Ryulong reverted me four times at Ultraman on March 15, and reverted other users as well:

1. diff
2. diff
3. diff
4. diff

• As well as reverting my own edits on my own talk page the same day:

1. diff

• While removing my warning of 3rr from his talk page.

• The user, in addition to

1. pointedly shrinking an already cropped and resolution reduced image
2. twice,

has demanded on my talk page that I find images he prefers in his desired format from the same source. μηδείς (talk) 16:06, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• Note also the user's extensive block log, and the appearance of two recent possible sock puppets at Ultraman making the same edits. μηδείς (talk) 16:10, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • This does seem consistent with behaviour I've observed from him in the past. He has a major WP:OWN issue over anime and manga. Adam Cuerden 16:20, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

← I've blocked the original poster as a sock of banned user Chaosname (talk · contribs). Tiptoety 16:26, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The behavior still exists, User:Tiptoety. Should I leave this here in hope of action, or file a separate 3RR complaint? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 16:29, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

You can leave it here. At this point the 3RR complaint is stale. This noticeboard is the appropriate venue to discuss long term behavior. Tiptoety 16:31, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Users are entitled to remove messages/warnings etc from their own talk page, Ryulong has no right to forcibly reinstate comments or discussions. And this isn't the first time, it's a common issue. It does seem that Ryulong simply can't help themselves when they get into a dispute and they continue to the bitter end. Their list of edit warring and disruptive editing is getting longer and longer, they are quite aware of the rules. Canterbury Tail talk 16:48, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I'll agree that some of Ryulong's behavior is troublesome, and similar to past behavior described at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ryulong. I've left Ryulong a message regarding his use of Twinkle in reverting a user. Tiptoety 17:26, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Anignome was looking suspicious, and all this because he thought ¹ was a better idea than {{ref|1|1}}. Thank you Tiptoety.

Onto Medeis's issues, I attempted to engage in discussion with him but he refused to respond, even when I brought the discussion to the article talk page per his requests. Medeis has been edit warring to restore his preferred set up of the Ultraman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article despite multiple users (who he claims are sockpuppets) reverting him over the course of 3 years. I did my best to incorporate everything so everyone liked it and it seemed to be sufficient. I find it an egregious violation of WP:AGF that he thinks that I am controlling the sockpuppets on the article when I've only recently performed the edits that he opposes. Every other time I visited the article in the past several years, it was in the form it was now (for the most part). And he also believes that 600x500 is "low resolution" for the non-free content requirements and reverted my resizing of the image he wants in the article. I fail to see how making the image 300x250 is WP:POINTy. It just shows that Medeis is not as acquainted with policy as he thinks he is.

And regarding the issues that Tiptoety messaged me about (the reverts on the templates), I had meant to inform ScottKazama of my issues regarding the multiple edits he had done succession (I did somewhat address it, though) but it slipped my mind after something else came up. I have my own issues regarding this editor (he doesn't seem to meet WP:CIR), but that's a different story.

And I find Adam Cuerden's generalization completely out of line. He is basing this off of a handful of single reverts I have made to pages when editors perform drastic changes without discussing it first. I edit a range of pages and I try my best to make sure that they're up to par with the site's overall standards because more often than not these are fancruft laden monstrosities that need reigning in, and I'm the big bad guy whenever other editors in these areas come across me trying to make sure that happens.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Ryulong, you are "the big bad guy" if you continue to edit war to "protect" these pages. I commend your efforts in spirit, but it really does seem a bit like WP:OWN at times. Maybe you've taken on a bit too much? I think my head would explode if I had a huge swath of articles on my watchlist and tried to maintain quality standards on them. I think that's one of the big reasons why you continue to show up on this board. I declined a request from you yesterday to protect an article that you were in an edit war with, and you improperly called the other editor a vandal. I think you can't keep perspective over your "domain" and I think your self-appointed role as defender of those articles is doomed and ultimately in violation of our policies and guidelines.

Also, even though it turns out that Anignome was a sockpuppet (which doesn't shock me, really, "AN/I gnome" as a username?) you still should not be reverting another editor at their own user talk page. WP:BLANKING has a very limited list of notifications that an editor is not allowed to remove from their user talk page and vandalism warnings are not among them (and I'm sure you know that). -- Atama頭 22:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I never used the word "protect" to refer to any of my actions. And the only thing I reverted on anyone's talk page that's involved here are a series of messages that were never heeded because the editor (Medeis) deemed them related to article improvement rather than being directed towards him and he has a request at the top of his page demanding such content go to article talk pages rather than his user talk. Unless you're referring to my removal of Medeis's "you are edit warring" warning, which appears to be in line with things users are allowed to remove from their own user talks. Also his labeling of this as a "demand" is laughable.

All any of this teaches me that if I cross paths with one sockpuppet of a banned editor, anyone who feels I've slighted them in the past week decides to try to drag me through the mud and likeminded people enable them.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:17, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, the word "protect" is my own, it's how it looks like you are treating these articles in my perspective. And I'm referring to the revert on Anignome's user talk page, seen here, which you should definitely have not done. Let me repeat, you cannot do that, and you cannot edit war with an editor. I'm concerned that you have such a difficulty differentiating between what is and isn't vandalism; vandalism is not an edit that reduces the quality of an article, or that you simply disagree with. It has to be a deliberate attempt to damage a page. The burden is on the accuser to make that clear if the vandalism isn't obvious. I'm not trying to crack down on you here, I'm trying to give you advice to help keep you out of trouble, but your insistence on continuing this behavior is leading you further down a bad road. Just think, if you continue down that path, all the sockpuppets and other malcontents you deal with will be able to enjoy watching you sanctioned, is that what you want? -- Atama頭 23:32, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, yes. Well, he was wrong in labeling my warning as "vandalism". And it is a bad habit to just hit the red revert link in regards to just bad content rather than someone replacing half of the article with an ASCII penis that the MW formatting won't display properly. I try not to do this, unless it's deleterious edits all by a single editor after which I use the "don't leave an edit summary" revert and try to leave the user a message as to why I did what I did. I apologize that I forgot to do it re:ScottKazama's edits as Tiptoety pointed out on my user talk. I'm fairly sure I did do it on the article you declined protection on (although I probably could have been slightly kinder to the IP whose edits I was trying to clean up). I'm just tired of getting listed here like once a month because of sockpuppets or editors who insist that I'm violating WP:OWN after I revert them once. It's always something and I can't avoid it. I would not have thought that a reality show's unaired and unmentioned corrections would have been such a divisive issue, nor infobox formatting, but I'm entrenched in those.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:10, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

User talk:STATicVapor

I would like STATic to be barred from contacting me and vice-versa. Lately he's been reverting a lot of my edits and I wish he would just simply leave me alone, especially since a lot of the edits have sources. Judging by his talk page, I don't seem to be the only one having issues with him. Thanks! Jgera5 (talk) 16:11, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Can you provide links to show he's said anything inappropriate or out of line to you? I mean, you're free to remove most comments from your talk page, so you can delete his comments, but he shouldn't really be "barred" unless he's doing something wrong. So far, most of them I've looked are him warning to follow crucial/major like WP:V or WP:OR, which strikes me as good, solid advice. Sergecross73 msg me 16:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

In fact, if I were to take any issue with anyone's talk page messages, it would probably be Jgera's. That's interesting. All Caps and profanity isn't against any policy by itself, but it doesn't seem like you're trying to handle things civilly here. Sergecross73 msg me 16:27, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

If you add unsourced material to Misplaced Pages, any user may revert or otherwise challenge that material per our WP:Verifiability policy. You've provided no evidence that STATicVapor has been interacting with you in an inappropriate manner. OhNoitsJamie 17:38, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

STATicVapor should not template the regulars. That being said, your reaction is a much more actionable diff. I certainly don't see enough to enforce a dual ban on editing each other's talk pages over what I've seen. Best to move on and avoid each other and when you do focus on the content and how to make it better than taking it personally. Mkdw 18:14, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

If the user was a knowledgeable regular editor, they would not be frequently violating WP:V, WP:NOR and adding speculation. Example of recent disruptive edits include , , and . That is clearly blockable criteria, my actions though not in the slightest. In no way have I ever attempted to harass or torment you, but this looks like clear harassment to me. I liked how you quickly replaced it when you started this thread too. STATic message me! 19:48, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, those edits are awful. Especially that first one, which is both unsourced, original research, and terribly worded. Static was right to warn Jgera. If he doesn't like warnings, he needs to follow our policies better. (That may sound harsh, but Jgera is no newcomer. He should know by now.) Sergecross73 msg me 20:13, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I completely agree. You should warn, revert, discuss, etc. with editors that are clearly not newcomers who are not following the policies and guidelines as you interpret. That is the collaborative and cleanup process. I am not disputing that nor criticizing you for that option which you rightly have available to you. I pointed out WP:DTR because the base warning templates are specifically for newcomers and using them on editors that have been around for awhile (regardless of their competence) is not only an incorrect usage of them as directed in their instructions, but it time and time again causes frustrations to flare which is exactly why we have that heavily cited essay. Mkdw 21:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

While Jgera5 was completely out of line with his initial comment on Static's page, I completely disagree with other comments being made about Jgera5's edits. Not one of those was disruptive, WP:OR maybe on the second one. But the others were sourced. The first one is always involves some sort of speculation when in progress, and Bleacher Report is not the only site out there calling it a face turn (I will save this argument for the appropriate talk page). And as for SummerSlam thing, that edit is still live using a reliable source so why did you cite it as an example of disruptive editing? Static has his own problems as much as he acts otherwise. Last night, he reverted a very reliable editor's addition of a new theme for WrestleMania without even trying to confirm or disprove the information. It took me less than 10 seconds to confirm the information he reverted and removed. And less than 2 minutes to re-add it and source it. Now granted, my comment on his talk page may have come across as harsh, and I apologize to you for that, but he's not one that needs to be acting like he's perfect, or even close. Static, you have a habit of reverting now and asking questions later. Now with a new or "vandalous" account, that's fine. But when you revert a respected and reliable regular, you need to re-evaluate your methods of how you browse for errors. Your excuse on your talk page I find insufficient. In short, I disagree with the ban from each other's talk pages, BUT Static needs to improve himself as much as Jgera5. CRRaysHead90 | 22:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Another editor that does not understand our policy on verifiablity. It is what sets us different then any other simple wikia out there. If content is dubious and not cited by reliable sources, it is subject to immediate removal no matter who added it. All three were additions of WP:OR, and that was just three random plucked edits. Just because some content was cited (by unreliable sources) does not make the rest of the content addition that is, not WP:NOR. I never once acted or said I was perfect and your bad faith assumptions are quite ridiculous. A "respected and reliable regular" (I sill have no idea who added it), that does not cite a reliable source for all their additions to a encyclopedia, then they are not very "reliable" (do not know how an editor can be reliable) and should not be as "respected" as you presume. You can say my response to you was insufficient, but I was nothing but polite in response to your combative message. I do not believe there is a single thing I need to improve, but your attitude and viewpoint does definitely need improving. STATic message me! 23:58, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Look, I acted in anger this morning and was sleep-deprived, and I do apologize for that. With that said, I do have other, more important things to worry about in reality. I think @Mkdw said it best: instead of banning each other and banning contact, let's just try to avoid contact where possible and try to collaborate peacefully on improving Misplaced Pages when we do need to contact each other. This is perhaps the first major dispute I've had on Misplaced Pages in nine years and I plan on it being the last. @STATic, I'm willing to put this behind me if you're willing to do the same. Jgera5 (talk) 00:07, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit warring, accusations of vandalism

Kmoksy (talk · contribs) repeatedly removes the Armenian name from the lead of Erzurum. He's done it four times in the last two days:

This user claims "The city is an Turkish city and the Armenian name is vandalism!"

I invited him to the talk page explaining why the Armenian name is relevant and should be in the lead (per WP:NCPLACE#2). And his only comment on the talk page is "The city a Turkish city, not Armenian city" and he doesn't seem to be willing to discuss the issue.

When I warned for edit-warring and invited him to discuss the issue, he removed my comment from his talk page with the edit summary "vandalism".

He was also warned by another user, User:EtienneDolet, to which he responded "This is a vandalism and terrorization". --Երևանցի 19:23, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The edits do not fall into the definition of vandalism. The editor has not broken the WP:3RR but perhaps the spirit of it since more than one editor has tried to restore the content. The editor also has the right to maintain and organized content on their associated talk page. Essentially you're looking at a content dispute and both parties have engaged in the talk page (albeit minimally in some cases). I would recommend some sort of dispute resolution and if nothing comes of it then you could re-report it has disruptive editing against consensus (if it is found). Mkdw 19:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'll have to disagree. The user clearly refuses to engage in talk page discussion. I have not heard any reasonable argument from the user. All he does is claim that the inclusion of the Armenian name (which completely falls within WP:NCPLACE) is vandalism. --Երևանցի 19:43, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Yes, any user has the right to remove another user's comments from their talk page, but calling an invitation to discussion "vandalism" and a warning "terrorization" is quite unacceptable and shows their WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. --Երևանցի 19:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Disagree with what? That you should take it to dispute resolution like others have also said you should? So far you've made a statement about multiple things and we've either replied or suggested the recommended next step in escalating dispute resolution. If you're seeking a block that's not likely since you've only experienced a few reverts and a bit of discussion that hasn't gone very far. Blocks are also preventative not punitive and even then WP:CIVIL does not recommend blocks for misidentifying vandalism or being difficult to deal with. Mkdw 21:33, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Disagree with your statement that "both parties have engaged in the talk page". Kmoksy has clearly refused to engage in the talk page. And has called my invitation "vandalism", and EtienneDolet's warning "terrorization". If this isn't enough to block him, then I have nothing else to do here. Thanks for your help. --Երևանցի 21:43, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

As per WP:NCPLACE, number 2, the first bullet, "Karin" should be listed as archaic, if included at all. It's not vandalism to include it, but its inclusion or not can be determined by discussion/WP:CONSENSUS DP 19:56, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

What am I suppose to do when the user who removes it constantly calls it "vandalism" and doesn't show any willingness to discuss, yet alone reach consensus? --Երևանցի 20:00, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

What does dispute resolution say to do? DP 20:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I've invited him to discuss the issue, he removed my comment from his talk page. The only thing he's commented on the article talk page is this: "The city a Turkish city, not Armenian city". --Երևանցի 20:40, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the edit history for the article, there is an edit war going on but no one has violated 3R and looking at number of reverters, opinion seems evenly split (no consensus). I think you have policy on your side, Երևանցի but I recommend patience and having a fuller discussion on the talk page to establish a consensus from a larger group of editors than the four or five who are reverting this one edit. Liz 22:22, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Constantly stalked and harassed by a user

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

I'm constantly being harassed by Dougweller (talk · contribs). I opened a thread some time ago, no action was taken against the user, he even wasn't reprimanded. The edits that revealed his stalking me were these , , . Dougweller and his tagteam were told by a neutral party that my source at Nørrebro was OK, but no-one paid attention to these explanations . Now, because the community did not oppose such blatant violations of WP:HARASS and WP:STALK this time, I decided to avoid topics that Dougweller might edit.

Alas, this turned out to be impossible: the user continues to follow my edits everywhere and reverts them no matter what topic I edit , (note I was notified of the last edit with the automatic message 'Your edit on 2014 Ukrainian revolution was reverted by Dougweller', so he intentionally used the 'undo' feature concerning my previous edit). He's simply following my edits and reverting anything he either does not like or simply considers worthwhile reverting for causing trouble. His apparent aim is to hound me from Misplaced Pages.

This is really shameless, especially if you consider that the user concerned is an admin. Last time here on noticeboard I was basically told Dougweller is a goody and I'm the baddy so he has the right to violate Misplaced Pages's policies in impunity. No-one even denied Dougweller was stalking my edits (the fact is quite obvious and undeniable). It is my view though that policies such as WP:GANG, WP:STALK and WP:HARASSMENT are nonnegotiable.
Should no action follow this time, too, I'll immediately file arbitration request. I think everyone going to comment here should take the issue seriously and drop the prevalent view of the last time that having the 'politically right position' gives one somehow the license to harass dissidents on Misplaced Pages. No, it does not.
I'm a user otherwise in good standing and have tried to pursue NPOV in such difficult topics as 2014 Ukrainian revolution/2014 Crimean crisis, despite the fact that both opposing sides happened to disagree with me on one question or another, it never reached the point of me being harassed by any of my opponents. I really began to see what hounding is, when I met the ire of a certain PC/far-left tag-team after I dared to edit their pet topics Unite Against Fascism and Far-left politics. That's when hounding me across topics began. Lokalkosmopolit (talk) 20:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

User:BruceGrubb editing in violation of topic ban

User:BruceGrubb is topic banned form articles related to Christianity and articles about fringe theories . Today he has made a series of edits to Talk:Christ myth theory, an article on a fringe theory about Jesus: . Bruce has really never left the talk page, but has edited at intervals from various IP addresses: , , , , , , , , and see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/BruceGrubb/Archive. Many of these talk page posts recycle material he posted before he was topic banned. Not much can be done to prevent his IP edits short of a range block, I suppose, but the main account can be blocked, and I would appreciate it if an uninvolved admin would do so. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Being that these are rather blatant violations, I have blocked BruceGrubb for three months. Tiptoety 23:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

And beat me to it by just a few seconds. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Crimea article

Crimea article is under attack from vandals. Can we please have some admin oversight? Thank you. USchick (talk) 01:02, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Already protected. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:06, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

For the record there was very little explaining when it came to edit summaries in the reverts. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:07, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Fast tracking RM for "Crimea" article

We need to fast track the requested move of "Crimea" → "Autonomous Republic of Crimea". People are getting confused to what does "Crimea" means in the article title and they believe it refers to the "Republic of Crimea" and start making inappropriate changes to the article. You can make "Crimea" a redirect to "Autonomous Republic of Crimea" but the move needs to be fast -tracked so that the article's title reflects unambiguously that it's about the Autonomous Republic and not about the newly formed "Republic".

What we do at this moment with Crimean peninsula or Crimea (disambiguation) is irrelevant, but the Autonomous Republic cannot reside at "Crimea" right now.

—Ahnoneemoos (talk) 01:35, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I already made mention of this at WP:AN. RGloucester — ☎ 01:39, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

There is consensus for all three articles. How about locking them down and only allowing admin approved edits? USchick (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

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