Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem
Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight.
When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough.
You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.
Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
Okay people, this talk is escalating into argument for argument's sake. Please, let's take a step back and realize something: Misplaced Pages is not a battleground - we are not here to make war with each other, we are here to work together to the betterment of the Encyclopedia. This "IRC vrs non-IRC" argument is divisive and unfair. People will communicate however they want, and that cannot, nor should be stopped. We should be working together, and communicating, after all. Everyone that edits on Misplaced Pages, from the newest editor all the way back to Jimmy Wales, are valued and respected editors, and we should be helping them to contribute to the Encyclopedia and helping keep the environment positive. All of us together can improve this encyclopedia, and arguing over communication media isn't going to help that.
As Piotr and Ghirla are in Arbitration, and Jimbo has endorsed and overturned the block of Giano, I don't think this conversation, saving the last section, serve any further purpose. I respect all of you greatly, so I beseech you, please, let us work together to better the encyclopedia instead of taking time here in such a divisive argument. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 20:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
When did posts like this become acceptable? It seems to take years of established history of WP:CIVIL and throw it out the window. I'll reproduce it here, so you can see what I'm talking about:
Kindly refrain from littering my talk page with your infantile and hostile warnings in the future, or you will find yourself de-sysoped and banned. Irpen and Bishon were quite correct to revert your antics and your revert warring with them did you little credit. Giano 13:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
This all stems from a simple boilerplate civility warning I left him (which is apparently "infantile and hostile") after he was getting too out of control on Mackensen's talk page. Now he turns his glare on me. Threatening to have me desysopped and banned? C'mon. And yeah, the usuals (Bishonen, Geogre, Ghirlandajo, and Irpen) are going to step in now and defend Giano ... but they defend him no matter what he does because they're all in this little back-scratching clique together. I'm posting this here to solicit some response from other administrators: is this kind of behavior really acceptable? Do you want to work in an environment where users routinely have blow-ups like this and are only encouraged by admin inaction? --Cyde Weys14:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Unlike some people, I am going to spell out exactly what it is in your above post that is a personal attack. "he usuals (Bishonen, Geogre, Ghirlandajo, and Irpen) are going to step in now and defend Giano ... but they defend him no matter what he does because they're all in this little back-scratching clique together." is a personal attack. Consider this a warning. If you persist in this type of mischaracterization and denigration, you may be blocked. HTH HAND. Geogre18:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
There is no incivility in Giano's posting, just a mild warning. "This little back-scratching clique together", however, is blatantly incivil and I demand apologies. Such comments may indeed lead to desysopping. If your posting is expected to trigger an uproar from all sorts of IRC fairies who habitually indulge in incivilty on IRC and then pontificate about civility during their occasional appearances on-wiki, I suppose it would be nice to see them here. Foundation employees have no wild card for incivility, for what I know. The community is aware that your dispute with Giano goes back to the time when your energetically defended Kelly Martin's postings demanding "an enema and a major fight that flushes 20-30% of the en-wiki community". This page is not part of dispute resolution procedures, so I advise you both to move your dispute to Requests for comment. --Ghirla14:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I rather feel Cyde may have a gone a step too far this time "they defend him no matter what he does because they're all in this little back-scratching clique together." I think that is rather a serious charge to make. Perhaps Cyde would like to withdraw it and apologise while it can still be contained to this page alone. It is Christmas and I am in a forgiving mood. Giano14:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
If I ever make a manual in civility or diplomacy, the first rule on that list will be: Never, ever, ever tell another person to be civil, and never, ever, ever, accuse another person of being incivil. We can work backwards from there. Sjakkalle(Check!)14:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, from other administrators? I'm page banned from your posts on ANI, perhaps? That's all right, Cyde. The way you speak of me, you must be a civility expert, so I'll just listen. Bishonen | talk14:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC).
The problem is that incivility does happen, and incivility is harmful to the community especially when it results in ever-increasing tension between two groups. It would be nice if there was a way to address incivility before it gets to the point that arbcom gets involved, and before it gets to the point where people leave. --Interiot20:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not going to comment on the persons here (not least because I'm guessing I've already been pre-emptively dismissed as an 'IRC fairy', which Ghirlanajo won't consider to be uncivil). But, please, if we are going to have a conversation about civility, can we perhaps compete to outdo one another in civility, rather than the reverse? We all know where this is heading unless we cool it.--Doc14:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
This time I concur with Doc. There is no need in pressing the issue, although the real grounds for Irpen's irrational block above should be eventually investigated, to prevent further outbursts in the future. We need to put an end to gaming WP:NPA and WP:CIV policies for pursuing one's personal vendettas. Everyone may read incivility in the postings of his opponent, however courteous they may be. We should understand that endless appellations to WP:CIV is a bad ground for solving long-standing differences. --Ghirla14:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
"...or you will find yourself de-sysoped and banned" is hardly a "mild warning," and "they're all in this little back-scratching clique together," is hardly going to calm anything down. This continued squabble is disrupting the community, and has been for too long -- everybody, please take a step back and breathe. -- Luna Santin14:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed... I'm not an admin and I'm not familiar with the history of this dispute, but neither side is helping themselves much here. It's sort of hard to argue that the other guy is wrong when you are engaging in behavior that is no better. You both need to chill.--Isotope2314:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the above, If he would just stay off my page I would gladly ignore him; unfortunately though this time he has allowed his obsessive hatred of me to overflow and has now insulted others. Is this the behaviour of an admin? Giano14:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Particularly in the light of Cyde's edit summaries on User talk:Giano II about letting Giano defend himself, I'm not clear why Cyde got involved in the first place, he was not a direct party to the discussions at User talk:Mackensen and given what I've seen of their history his intervention was hardly like to calm matters. David Underdown14:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I find Cyde's reverting of the removal of the talk page warning particularly ironic when he asked whoever posted it to leave it and let Giano deal with it himself. By that logic, shouldn't he have left Giano to undo the removal of the warning, and limited himself (Cyde) to posting a new message pointing out to Giano that the warning had been removed? Carcharoth22:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I think this needs some type of dispute resolution such as RFC or MedCab. This is not going anywhere if this is going on and on. Both sides should stop fighting and this is getting the community tired of all this. Just cool down guys, we can settle this. Nothing both of you say makes any difference, just be civil to each other and don't tell each other to be civil or vice versa, like what Sjakkalle said. Both sides are telling each other not to be incivil, this doesn't sound too right. I suggest both parties stay away from each other for a while to cool down. Edit conflict again... Terence Ong14:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm rather surprised to find out that the discussions on my talk page have prompted this affair; if there's any mediation to be had, it's between Lar and Giano. I've never seen a civility warning have it's desired effect--no one likes being told their being uncivil. At the same time, I don't see the need for allegations of de-sysoping. The Arbitration Committee has set ample precedent that you have to abuse your admin tools for that. Finally, I agree with Cyde on one point: Giano is more than capable of taking care of his own talk page; we all are. If I think someone's cluttering my talk page I can do it myself without anyone else's help. Mackensen(talk)15:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't this be discussed at WP:PAIN? On another note, we seem to need a policy on civility notes. Who can issue them, and who can rever them. It seems that recently there is a trend to remove such notes (ex. , , etc.), which in turns causes other users to complain that they were removed... I'd suggest that only certified editors of WP:PAIN, who should be elected like admins, should have the right to issue such notes, and that in those cases the notes issued by them should not be removable by non-PAIN certified users. This will put an end to the problem.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 16:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but the problem is who may be considered a "certified editor of WP:PAIN". Who is supposed to "certify" these guys? The problematic warning you cite was added by a non-admin who is active on WP:PAIN. When I attempted to discuss the issue with him, he simply removed my messages from his talk page on several occasions. Do you consider yourself a "certified editor of WP:PAIN"? I see you have been commenting on each message posted there during the last day or two. Do you want to run the board and "issue" warnings to your opponents? If so, I would rather oppose your proposal. --Ghirla16:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Whew, is there something bigger going on here or is this really just a tempest in a teapot? From my experience at WP:RFI and WP:PAIN I suggest petitioning a neutral third party to review contested user warnings that arise from a dispute. This isn't policy or even guideline, rather practical experience: deletion of a user warning by an involved party often fuels more quarreling. If parties in this dispute accept me as suitably neutral (I've collaborated with Ghirla a few times and handed him a barnstar) I'll volunteer to be the template referee here. And please stay away from hot button words such as infantile - no good comes of them. Durova16:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
No No No Not another bunch of wiki legislation to enforce civility. You can't do it. Civility needs to be caught and taught not enforced like that. Speak nicely to people and perhaps it might catch on, ignore people when it doesn't. Personal attack blocks should only be used in open and shut cases....and even then (as I found out) it seldom works. Has anyone known any of these processes do anything bar escalate the problem? I've put the template in question up for deletion --Doc16:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
No to turning this section colors and saying it's over and settled. Cyde has announced that "it's time to stop" another user whose primary crime is making Cyde unhappy, apparently, or saying things Cyde seems to dislike. There is no divine right of admins. If there is, then my divinity is as great as his. Geogre18:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Mackensen, for that clarification. To the issue at hand: What I see, so far, is personal. Cyde is taking things very personally and becoming personally involved in trying to "stop" persons, etc. This is counter to the spirit of Misplaced Pages. The fact that, above, he would even try to reach back to the Giano RFAR to mischaracterize Fred Bauder's rejected finding on the meaning of a policy is simply more evidence that Cyde is extremely angry rather than anything else. He had not been involved in interactions with Giano II on Mackensen's talk page, had not been involved in any interactions with me, and yet his vote on my ArbCom run, his desire to "stop" "people like" Giano, etc. is showing a very deleterious mindset at present. I hope that I am wrong (I often am), but I honestly cannot see any justification whatever for Cyde's words. I would love to "assume" good faith, but my imagination is not sufficient for finding a way to do that when someone comes along and announces a campaign to "stop" another user. It's rather like those people who want to "stop filth on television": they should not watch the show. Similarly, Cyde can not scanning everyone's talk page for "evidence." A good administrator waits for a complaint. He doesn't go looking to create one. Geogre19:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
At some point there needs to be a conversation about persistent incivility and its effect on the environment we work in. It is not clear to me why we tolerate so much of something we don't really want. Tom Harrison19:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
In other contexts, other issues, with other disputants, I've objected to "double standards" where one or more parties held others to stricter standards than themselves, and I've argued for keeping a single standard. Now I begin to think that may not be sufficient to the needs. Better still would be to hold oneself to the stricter standard, and extend leeway (and some forgiveness) to others. That way the waves of mutual recrimination would be dampened out at the start, rather than growing, heterodyning in a feedback loop, as seems to be happening at present. Just a thought. – SAJordancontribs19:49, 22 Dec 2006 (UTC).
I can't understand a word the person above is saying, but he probably agrees with me. I have been reading and re-reading various posts of Cyde's mostly admittedly those concerning me, and have come to the conclusion we are dealing with someone fairly young here, at most a late teens. We all get out of our depth at that age, so lets all say Happy Christmas and forget it. Perhaps though at some stage during 2007 we need to have a big think about junior editors and ages and responsibilities. IRC seems always to be a problem eternally with us, I know James Forrester has decreed IRC conversations off limits but that was in the days when wikipedia was much smaller - and he was more powerful. I think the time has now come to re-think that policy too so 2007 promises to be an interesting period in Misplaced Pages's history. Misplaced Pages is going places in internet history, it must not become a victim of it's own history. So lets wish each other a happy Christmas and productive new year. Giano19:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
"I can't understand a word the person above is saying, but he probably agrees with me." That is probably the funniest thing I've read all day... thanks for making me laugh (and I mean that with all sincerity!) --Isotope2320:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, from your username and the physics metaphors you were using, I can understand Giano (who I think writes on Italian architecture, among other things) not understanding what you were on about. Maybe wikilink your metaphors next time? heterodyne and feedback loop were probably the most obscure terms. Carcharoth22:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Point taken, Carcharoth, though Isotope23 is not the person who used those metaphors. I'm sorry for assuming a more general familiarity with those concepts than actually exists. – SAJordancontribs23:15, 22 Dec 2006 (UTC).
Oh, and regarding Giano's speculation's about Cyde's age, it doesn't really matter what age he is. Judge him by his words, not his age. FWIW, I have seen pictures from various Wikimanias and similar meet-ups that identify someone they claim is Cyde, but again, that is neither here nor there. When we edit and interact on Misplaced Pages, we are just words. So look at the words, not the person. Carcharoth22:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
It's sort of pointless to bring it up now, but I was asked (via the much-maligned IRC, no less) to note that I think the community should strongly prefer using tailored warnings to communicate with experienced users, rather than templates, since templates are definitely written with new users in mind. Given the heated conversation above, I don't know if it would have changed anything, but anything that can be done to keep a conversation cool is good. --Interiot20:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
convenient break
We hear a lot of talk about 'at some point' or 'they can't get away with this'. But I've begun to ask myself: what is the end game here? What solution are we realistically wanting? Cyde banned? Giano blocked? Perhaps others too? The problem is that loose cannons go off, and the various groupings raise the defcon in defence or attack. Where does this end? Actually, when all cools down, I find I actually agree with folk like Geogre on far more issues than I disagree. And some civil conversations with others (yes, in IRC!) convinces me it doesn't have to be this way. I don't want to be sanctimonious, but perhaps all of us could work on cooling it. Are certain people uncivil at times. Yes, and we all know who they are? Are certain people sometimes hostile to the point of trolling? Yes, and we all know who they are. Can these people be otherwise? Yes, I think so. We all know it would be better if it were. Please let's all use whatever influence we have (particularly on those we think might listen to us - and not on those who are likely to react negatively to us) to cool things. It really doesn't take Time magazine's 'man of the year' to work it out--Doc19:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep, we need a level open playing fields for all. No IRC, we are either all there - or all out, editors, admins, crats and the rest. Let the Arbcom have their mailings (confined to reigning members) in camera everything else open to scrutiny. I'm sick of reading "I discussed this on IRC" IRC counts for nothing here, and when all realise that, then we can progress, until then we are in for permanent fighting. Giano20:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
And you'd agree not to use e-mail either? Actually my point is that the most productive civilised conversations I've had today have been on IRC, and have been with folk I've previously fought with on-wiki. So, I'd actually draw the opposite conclusion. But that's a side issue. Frankly, human nature is human nature: the medium be damned. We either want to fight, squabble, factionalize and and point score, or we want to move on and co-operate. I'm rather hoping we can go for the second option. Hoot if you're with me.--Doc20:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree 110%, especially on your main point. (and on the side point, I agree that IRC has been the one place where I've had very pleasant and civil conversations with those I probably wouldn't have had otherwise). --Interiot20:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad you are all having such a good time there, and good luck to you, but why do so many Misplaced Pages admin decisions on blocking etc have to be made there? Please do not insult our intelligence by saying they are not. Giano20:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure bad blocking decisions have been made via phone or email as well. As Doc said, address the person, not the medium. --Interiot20:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
You have to be joking! I've been there and have the T-shirt to prove it. They conspire together and come out with WP attack, WP civility and WP anything else the next one can think of. I'd rather fight a nest of vipers than take on the IRC gang, but I frequently do. No lets have the source "eliminate the nest and kill the pest". Giano20:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Doc, I agree with you, and I meant what I said above sincerely and at face value. I know folks assume that I'm always up to some rhetorical trick or something, but I'm not. People take things personally, and that's no way to operate. I don't know what "incivility" is in cases like these. Words? Words are just symbols. Intentions? None of us can judge those. Actions? Ok. Worse still, we have taunt and counter, badger and follow, charge and countercharge, and all that can occur then is that the people behind the names get angrier and angrier, and then someone says "booger," and the other person blocks, and then we're at ArbCom. Seriously: when you find yourself scanning other people's talk pages for evidence, you're probably trying to make a complaint rather than addressing one. Geogre20:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and the IRC side issue: IRC is a great place to be pleasant, to banter inanely, and to burn some time. It's a fun place to blow off steam, too. How could it not be? That's the function of all chat. It's a horrible place to argue, in both senses of the word. I've never been against bantering with my fellow Wikipedians. I'm generally an amusing and mellow fellow (I got top 2 percentile in chatter and banter on the GRE), but IRC is a terrible place for formulating on-wiki actions unless it is followed by on-wiki deliberation and transparency. It's not that fine a distinction, either. Misplaced Pages actions have to be established and accountable on Misplaced Pages. People on IRC should have the sense to know that, whatever IRC says, they have to find their evidences and provide their rationales on the project. Geogre20:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Why is IRC rather than the person to blame if someone decides the conversation is over and that there's nothing to discuss on-wiki? --Interiot20:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
The person is to blame, but our vagueness is more to blame. Having an ArbCom that lived on IRC didn't help, either, as we had tremendous reluctance to spell out coherently and clearly best practice. Additionally, the much touted "gang" and "herd" mentality at IRC is very much to blame, too. While Cyde maligned the "back scratching" of a few of the academic writers, if such a thing existed (and it doesn't), it wouldn't have a patch on the self-defense instinct of people on IRC who rush to defend their pastime and/or IRC "friends" (quotes around friend because of my views on the illusoriness of all this mess). So, if a person is found out acting plainly on the basis of non-accountable process, we will see some very shrill defenses. It is disappointing that so few people think independently and weigh the issues dispassionately. Geogre12:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm with you too Bish. Hoot Hoot. Paul August☎22:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. to Giano: You don't have to beg you can have my pardon for free. As for IRC, I don't use it. I think it is best if Wiki related business is done on-Wiki, and hoot hoot to you too.
Oh look everyone another little IRC kid has turned up! Now lets see if I get banned for kicking him off my page. It does become very tiresome Giano22:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
If I may make a suggestion, a RFAR concerning the behavior of Cyde, Ghirlandajo, and Giano is certaintly appearing to be a good possibility/remedy, as I can safely say that there has been a depressing lack of assuming good faith here, and this incivility on the part of all parties involved is simply disruptive. Thank you Ghirlandajo for trying to cool down the situation up above at your second post, but I think the fact that we are even here in the first place shows that there are some blatantly obvious problems between editors that needs to be addressed. How would a RFAR sound, then? Cowman10922:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree. I for one would love to see a productive discussion about the policy and accountability implications of IRC's lack of transparency -- in particular the "on-wiki actions should be justified on-wiki" school of thought appeals to me quite a bit, as a rule of thumb if nothing else, and I try to stick to that. IRC is a medium, it's a tool, and like any tool, it can be used effectively to better the encyclopedia, or it can be abused. I think it is a damned shame that the discussion has become so heated -- all of this incessant name calling accomplishes nothing and only makes the problem worse; it encourages "factions," scares people away, and hurts any chance of reaching a consensus of any real sort. As I said, I'd love to see a productive discussion, but I can say for sure that when I see a phrase like "IRC fairy," my blood starts to boil, and the chance of a good talking-over is inherently diminished -- I'm not trying to defend anything, or single anybody out, here, and I'm sure that any number of other examples could be brought up, on all sides. I guess what I'm asking for is this: those of you who really care about Misplaced Pages, please try to put your petty squabbles behind you, and strive to reach a legitimate agreement. I implore you, all of you, act your age and let the anger go. We have more important things to accomplish, all of us. Luna Santin23:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
As a reminder to myself, I have just added the following to the top of my talk page:
An RFAR? <cough> For what, exactly? I've been aggrieved, too, but I don't see anything but bad interpretation of the blocking policy and Cyde being very, very angry. He's entitled. I am reminded of what Mark Twain said: "When angry, count to ten. When very angry, swear." The problem is, we're now getting to the point where no one can be very angry. I'm not suggesting "drunken sailor -pedia," but let's get over this false Polyannaism. We are on the Internet, after all, and the very people offended by someone seeming to be angry are jokingly referring to goatse. You can't be jaded and prim. I don't use the pottymouth words, myself, but I think we ought to wait for people to violate Misplaced Pages policies, get warned, get negotiated with, have some mediateion, and repeat their mistakes before we block folks. Geogre03:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
A less painful alternative?
Piotrus left me a friendly response to my proposal about playing template referee and invited me to the PAIN and RFC. Since this has escalated to a proposed ArbCom case I've proposed a less painful alternative: namely that I step into this hornet's nest and try to mediate. Durova23:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Chairboy's block
Chairboy has blocked Giano for 48 hours. Giano is saying on his talk page that this was all decided on IRC. I've asked Chairboy to unblock, particularly if he was involved in an IRC discussion. I'm requesting two things: first, and most important, that Cyde stay away from Giano from now on, and in particular that he stay away from any warnings or admin actions; and second, that people stop discussing admin action against Giano on IRC. It starts to look like harassment, and whether it's intended that way or not (and I'm sure it isn't by at least some of the parties), that's what it looks like to some bystanders and probably to Giano too. Admin actions like this, especially controversial ones, shouldn't be decided on IRC because it leads to nothing but trouble. That's surely a lesson that must have been learned by now. SlimVirgin23:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
To be blunt, it looks to me that every time he get or the users that have associated with him get in trouble, they complain about secret IRC discussions they cannot prove happened until the decision is repealed. This is, at best, disrupting Misplaced Pages to prove a point. How long are we going to let them bully sysops out of their decisions? Who are the ones making the decisions here? Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 23:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
My understanding of the IRC rules is that public logging is not allowed, but that shouldn't prevent people telling us what was said and who said it, so long as the actual log isn't posted. I hope someone will therefore elaborate, and say who was involved in the discussion. SlimVirgin00:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
If they can actually back up these claims, then we can weigh them on their own merits. If they're just complaining "OMG IRC CABAL" it's silly - we are not in kindergarten anymore, there is a certain code of conduct expected. That these editors are getting away with it on technicalities and unsubstantiated claims is damaging the wiki, in my biased opinion. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 00:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
"Who are the ones making the decisions here"? Certainly not the IRC clique of several non-editing sysops and lots of wannabe admins, of which you are one. The decisions are made by the community, by the ArbCom elected by the community, and by Jimbo Wales. If the janitors with mops are to make some vital "decisions" in this temple of knowledge, I will be the first to walk away. Admins are not priests but janitors. When janitors prevent priests from performing their duties (i.e., editors from writing the articles), priests should evacuate the temple. --Ghirla08:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Being an occasional resident of the IRC channels, I can tell you that IRC is just like real-life and on-wiki- there's no close-knit clique (or if there is, it's two or three close friends, and others dissent). Most of the time in controversial situations, there's a significant amount of discussion on more than one side of the issue. And frankly, I've dissented more than a few times on blocks that I thought were unjust, etc., leading to continued discussion on the blocks both on and off-wiki. The thought of an IRC clique controlling Misplaced Pages is just absurd. Ral315 (talk) 10:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
If you read my message carefully, you will see that what I spoke about was contrary to what you've been able to read into my message. I was responding to these inflammatory questions: "How long are we going to let them bully sysops out of their decisions? Who are the ones making the decisions here?" --Ghirla16:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
There was no conspiracy. There was no plotting against him. The claim is inaccurate, and if the logs are reviewed, they will show that to be the case. I hope he will excercise good judgement in whom he shares his illicit copies with, and I hope he provides complete transcripts without any editing, but that's that. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
The copies wouldn't be illicit; it is only public logging, by which I assume is meant public posting, that's prohibited by IRC rules, at least that's my understanding. I stand to be corrected, of course. Chairboy, can you say whether you were involved in the IRC discussion, and who first suggested the block? SlimVirgin00:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Since, after an IRC discussion, Jimbo has both endorsed and lifted the block, I think it is all a little moot now.--Doc00:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad Jimbo has lifted the block. I don't think the discussion about IRC will be moot until people stop organizing blocks there, particularly if it's anything likely to be controversial. SlimVirgin00:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm supposed to be on a wikibreak but I do have a question: has it been verified that this block was organized via IRC? All I've seen is questions asked of Chairboy and Giano's accusation. Thanks, Mackensen(talk)00:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I just saw this on Recent Changes, and i'd suggest that you just have public logging of these secret IRC rooms, that would prevent the conspiracy theory stuff.Just H00:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
The block was not organized in any way on IRC. The only involvement IRC had before everything exploded was that an admin gave me a diff of Giano being incivil to someone. After that, the decision to block based on his subsequent actions was mine and mine alone. There was a discussion on IRC where I counseled someone _not_ to block him because the block rationale they provided was improper, and another user in the room appears to have misinterpreted that as planning/coordination, but that is absolutely not the case. In response to the assertion that sharing the logs with Giano was proper and licit, I'll have to disagree. It's a violation of the channel rules and undermines the privacy expectations each participant has agreed to. While I know that I have at all points operated on the channel in a manner completely consistent with the ideals and ethics of the project, the fact that someone would make such a gross violation of trust is very disapointing and personally troubling. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:47, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Chairboy, can you say who gave you the diff of Giano allegedly being uncivil? Also, can you say exactly what the channel rules are? We can't have a situation where a channel that operates in absolutely secrecy has any effect on Misplaced Pages administrators. I can see the rationale for no public posting of logs, but for no one to be allowed to say anything whatsoever is absurd. This isn't an in-camera hearing of the UN Security Council. :-) SlimVirgin00:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't know who gave the diff to Chairboy. But I subsequently gave the same diff to Jimbo Wales on IRC. The 'channel that operates in absolute secrecy' (which, incidentally, any admin can join) had an effect on that particular administrator. Indeed based on conversations there, he endorsed the block and, after discussion, agreed to lift it for the wider good of the project. A course of action (that I believe I) initially suggested to him, again on IRC. Any problems?--Doc01:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't know what your post means. I asked Chairboy who gave him the diff, because it'd be useful to know whether it was any of the people who've previously tried to get Giano blocked. And I asked what the privacy rules were on the channel. SlimVirgin01:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, my laptop timed out while I was asleep, so I don't have the relevant logs. When I asked, earlier, if the block was planned on IRC, Chairyboy said "absolutely not" and Bishonen said "you'd better believe it." Don't know who to believe, and I don't have the logs. =\ Luna Santin01:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
If that's the case, then bishonen has called me a liar. I find the claim offensive, incorrect, and a gross miscarriage of WP:AGF. I have attempted to reconcile with the user off-wiki, and she has rejected my attempts. I hope it doesn't spill into the project, we've got enough work already as is. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 01:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I fail to understand the logic here. A block is either a good call or a bad one. The blocking admin is alone responsible for his/her call. This call was a reasonable one (although I think ultimately unhelpful). I'm not sure what is meant by 'people who previously tried to get Giano blocked'. I've previously blocked Giano, does that count? Since everyone in the channel is an admin, anyone who believes someone should be blocked can just do it. However, it isn't the first time I've asked people to take a look at a diff I've caught (wanting a second opinion), and found someone blocked the offender before I did.
All that aside, Jimbo's action was designed to de-escalate this conflict and ask us all to play nice. I'm not sure going through Giano's edits, or IRC logs to see who said what to whom and when, is quite in that spirit. Lets move on.--Doc01:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Just a point of information: not everyone in the channel is an admin, and most admins aren't involved in it, so it's a little misleading to call it an admins' channel. SlimVirgin04:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth (which may or may not be much depending on Ghirla's decision regarding my offer), I'm not on IRC and don't have any plans to join that channel. Durova01:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
You mean this? Funny, it seems to suggest just the opposite. Or perhaps you meant this? I'm not seeing a "Get Out of Jail Free" card anywhere in there. --Calton | Talk02:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
This is disgusting. How long do we get to bandy about a diff? Can I now block Giano on the same comment and then claim, "Hey, it was just me by myself?" The "any admin" channel is similarly ridiculous, as there are at least two people who are not administrators who are on there, and there are people who are who won't go near it. The very existence of the thing was an attempt to gain greater secrecy, and that means opacity. Playing legal games now to say, "Well, someone showed it to me on IRC but I made the decision" is disengenious. Anyone ever heard of the bias of the first move? Basically, if I go to your talk page and say, "Oh, my goodness! Look at this horrible personal attack" and link, then you go to read specifically a single comment looking for the attack. If you are not skeptical (say, the person telling you is someone you've bantered pleasantly with for days), you may indeed see that vicious personal attack. Now, if all this happens on a talk page, there is some chance that the "attacker" will show up to explain the context, the intent, and the standing. If it happens on IRC, though, you're just getting that biased view. When a person makes a point of attacking IRC coteries, that person's going to be hunted and hounded extra especially. Doing anything "by the attention of someone on IRC" is a horrible, disgusting move. Confer!Confer some more before you block and confer openly. What is AN/I? What is its purpose? IRC blocks are, if ever, justifiable only in emergencies. Hours old diffs of Giano being mean are hardly emergencies. (Oh, and then the "Help, Bishonen's not assuming good faith" is really terrific.) I'm very disappointed. Geogre04:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I want to make clear that I don't doubt Chairboy acted in good faith. However, in general, I wonder why people discuss blocks on IRC rather than on AN/I or by e-mail? AN/I has the benefit of being public, transparent, and can be quoted. E-mail is private for anything sensitive. IRC is neither fish nor fowl. It's public enough to invoke a gang mentality in those who use it, yet not so public that we're allowed to quote from it, which just strengthens the gang mentality. There's no point in denying this, because I've seen it time and again, and I've been stunned every time I've witnessed it (and the two facedness takes your breath away!). There's no gang mentality by e-mail, or at least it's harder to create it given the limited numbers. Anyone who can't see IRC has a potential for creating that atmosphere doesn't understand human nature. Even if we think we're not succumbing to it, we might be. Doesn't it therefore make sense to use AN/I for most blocks, e-mails for anything sensitive, and IRC for general discussions not involving individuals? SlimVirgin04:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I have no aspersions to cast on Chairboy's intentions, but the process was awful. It's common sense to deliberate, to use AN/I, to make deliberations especially for blocks as transparent as possible. Not doing that is absolutely wretched, whatever the intentions of the person doing it. Instead of accepting this point, which would certainly make me feel better, we're getting another battle, which doesn't help my peace of mind at all. Insisting that one's actions are above reproach is rarely helpful. If people are reproaching you, there's probably something you could have done better. (Unless you assume bad faith in every single person questioning you, but, if you do that, you're really off the path.) Geogre15:07, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
"There's no gang mentality by e-mail" ... Are you sure about that? If there actually are conspiracies afoot, the conspirators will conspire by whatever means necessary. And it's a lot harder to hide the evidence on IRC, in a channel that 1000 people can join if they want to, than it is by private email. With private email, all you see is the circumstantial evidence. If that. I don't really think you need IRC to get two faced behaviour. Human nature being what it is and all... IRC is a tool like any other and can be used or misused, like any other. ++Lar: t/c05:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
The nature of IRC lends itself to the herd mentality in a way e-mail doesn't, or at least much less so, because the latter's private and the numbers involved much smaller. With IRC, there may be dozens or even hundreds of people watching, and there's a certain amount of grandstanding. I've seen more experienced editors basically issue instructions to very young or inexperienced ones, and minutes later, they're off doing the thing that the experienced editor didn't want to do himself. It's all very well for people to claim that everyone on IRC acts of their own freewill, but how realistic is that when the age and experience differences are very significant? The important point is that IRC-related blocks frequently cause trouble, so why not just avoid them? If someone raises the possibility of a block on IRC, directly or otherwise, the sensible thing to do is for one of the admins present to initiate a discussion on AN/I to see whether the off-IRC voices concur. That's particularly important in the case of a controversial block. SlimVirgin05:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Geogre, the truth does not require your approval. You can assert that I've misbehaved and conspired and cabalized all you want, but it's simply wrong. If you feel I have acted improperly, if you feel that I'm lying or otherwise doing wrong, then put your money where your mouth is. Open an ArbCom case so that the logs can be reviewed by disinterested parties. JWales reviewed the situation and endorsed the block. I corresponded with SlimVirgin in email regarding some of the specifics of the discussion. Either make a formal complaint and follow it through or apologize for your inappropriate insinuations. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 07:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
How often has the point been made about articles, that Misplaced Pages needs not merely truth but verifiability? The same should apply to accusations and disciplinary actions. It may be true that umpteen dozen admins on IRC endorsed my blocking you indefinitely for death threats (and protecting your talk page so you can't even post an "unblock" appeal); and it may even be true that "all the lurkers support me in email"; but you have no way to verify either of those claims, so you'll just have to take my word for it. However, since you know first-hand that you never uttered any death threats, my word on the matter is unlikely to satisfy you. So isn't it convenient for me that I've just prevented you from publicly defending yourself or denying the charges? And that if you try to do so from different accounts, I can just keep blocking you as a sockpuppet? Under those circumstances, you might want to have open process, with all assertions proven by citations of an open and verifiable record. As an abusive admin, I have just as strong a motive to keep everything secret and unverifiable, off the record, and avoid having to prove anything, or even specify (let alone cite) what threats you supposedly made. (With that in mind, see this and this.) This scenario is why the whole IRC issue is raising people's hackles. It brings up memories of the Vehmgericht and other "secret tribunals" of the past, and of stories by Kafka and Orwell. Secrecy destroys trust, because people will always wonder (and worry) about what you're hiding and why. – SAJordancontribs02:00, 26 Dec 2006 (UTC).
Indeed, the truth does not require approval, and it is similarly not your possession. You have been asked, several times, to answer germane questions. You still want opacity. In what way does this help? As for "apologize for inappropriate insinuations," you'll have to tell me what they are, just as you really should tell Giano what you are blocking him for. Oh, and giving him a chance to explain would have been nice. Giving him a chance to reduce the heat would have been nice, too. You have, indeed, behaved inappropriately by following along the well worn path to unilateralism. You will note that my comments were directed at this affair, and not so much a single person. This affair illustrates, again, the use of stale diffs and, most distressingly, the refusal to confer. You indicate, one place, that you did confer, but it was on IRC (where no one may see or say), but then you say that you made your decision solus. I repeat: before blocking consult and confer and do so on Misplaced Pages. This is good practice, and it does require approval. All administrators should (must, except in emergencies) confer and deliberate in any shadowy area. This was a very shadowy area, and yet you felt that, on the basis of a first move call for action, you could act without warning and mediation and resolution and conferring. That can only be done if you believe you have a pipeline to the divine truth or divine rights (or if you are acting unthinkingly, of course). Geogre12:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Again, you're calling me a liar. This is grossly incivil and an injust mischaracterization. What are your motivations here? I didn't block Giano because of a conversation on IRC. I got a diff from a novice admin who wanted to know if the text in it was a blockable offense. I told the admin that it was not, but volunteered to ask Giano to be nice. I then went to Giano's user talk and left him this request to be civil. Giano blanked the civility request with an edit summary that told me to "Go away tiresome shild", then left a message on my talk page telling me to go and 'learn some manners'. As a response, I restored the warning and told him I was blocking him for repeated incivility and personal attacks against me when I asked him to knock it off. At no part of this was there any IRC collaboration to plot his blocking. As far as I can tell, another admin in the group misinterpreted my counseling to the novice admin as some sort of plot, but anyone who actually reads the log will see that it's ridiculous. At one point I mistook Giano for someone else and characterized him as a wikilawyer and said something to the effect of "If you block someone, you need to make absolutely certain that it's a proper block. You can't just block based on a feeling, there needs to be a specific policy violation", and mentioned that Giano would properly assert against an improper block. Blocks are bad juju, and I don't like doing them, that's why I counseled the new admin about how to avoid getting into a crapstorm and blocking innocent users. Between you and bishonen, my actions have been mischaracterized and you have whole cloth fabricated motivations and conspiracies that simply do not exist. Create an ArbCom request, Geogre, please. I beg you. If it's the only thing that will get you to stop libeling me and the only thing that will help us begin healing this weird rift in the project that you and bishonen seem determined to create, then let's get it over with. The logs can be privately reviewed by the Arbitration Committee without violating the trust of the admin IRC channel (which exists not to plot and make Misplaced Pages policy, but as a place where people can bounce ideas off each other and either get a positive sanity check or a thwack on the back of the head to correct a mistake) and breaking its effectiveness as one of Misplaced Pages's heroic inanimate carbon rods. Apologize for your gross mischaracterization of my motivations and actions, open an ArbCom case (which I will gladly assist with in any way possible), or you stand ready to clearly communicate to everyone here that your goal is not to create a better project, but is instead to disrupt and impugn innocent folks with whom you personally disagree for one reason or another. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Uh, what "characterization of motives?" I don't see any, unless you count way up there, where he says that he doesn't have any aspersions to cast at your intentions. You mean he should apologize for that or else you'll link "civil" and "personal attack" some more? Sheesh. Crowbait18:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, there was no characterization of motives. There was a characterization of behavior. When Betacommand was called out for his improper block (blocking without warning, blocking without conferring), he conferred with Chairboy, whose measure of conferring was to think it over and just block without using AN/I or consulting with another administrator. That is bad practice. There have been no personal attacks here, just tremendously bad actions. When blocking, confer and do so openly. How hard is that to take to heart? Chairboy, you can keep begging for an RFAR, but I am not "accusing" you of anything. I am flatly stating that your actions were bad practice, improper, and invalid. They were. Take that as a "personal attack" only if you consider community input to be always harmful. Geogre00:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Geogre, Chaiboy's block was entirely justified by Giano's disruptive incivility. If he hadn't beaten me to it, I would have blocked Giano myself. Tom Harrison00:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
For the benefit of anyone who still cares about this project, the truth of this affair is being outed here Giano17:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone tell us exactly what the rules are regarding privacy of logs on the so-called admins' channel? Giano's source appears to have one understanding and some of the people posting here have another. It would help if we could be told for certain what's allowed and what not, in terms of disclosure. SlimVirgin09:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Most major Misplaced Pages channels, including #wikipedia and #wikipedia-en-admins, allow logging for personal use only. Thus, keeping copies for one's own use would be fine, and, presumably, reading logs to generalize a situation and responses would be fine. Quoting logs, making logs public, or sharing logs without the permission of all participants in the discussion is prohibited. (It may be worth noting that even private logging is illegal in some jurisdictions, but that's another story.) Ral315 (talk) 10:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Ral. I'm still not sure what it means in practise. Would someone be allowed to say "It was User:X who suggested the block"? Would they be allowed to say it on AN/I? By e-mail? And I mean without X's permission. SlimVirgin12:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Good news: both Piotrus and Ghirla have agreed to let me mediate. Durova 14:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
---
I want to go on record here I also stated this on my userpage. I NEVER ASKED FOR A BLOCK all I asked was that a npa warning be given. at the Time I did not see a reason to block, I did not know about the block until I logged BACK online over an hour later. Betacommand02:45, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
May I quote your bit of the log re:Giano to show how to the block was discussed?
The background to Chairboy's block of Giano last night was Betacommand's recent block of Irpen. Looking at the admin channel logs from last night, I see people asking me how the issue of blocking Giano started this time, and me saying I couldn't remember. Now that it's no longer the middle of the night, I do remember: the background was Betacommand's extremely dodgy block of Irpen, which has been criticized here on ANI for being done without warning, for giving only the vague reason "personal attacks", for coming without a block message, and for being imposed at the last minute before Betacommand went off line. (On Betacommand's talkpage are many more queries and comments, including this trenchant summary by Geogre: .) Betacommand's block of Irpen was pretty soon undone, but Irpen remains crushed by the way his block log now looks. I saw clearly last night on en-admins the usual old callousness about such things, exhibited by some admins (those most active in the matter): the too-frequent incapacity for understanding the amount of harm done to good-faith editors by blocks. :-( Blocks were actually discussed in terms of editors wanting to be blocked, "wikilawyering" to be blocked, "dancing" to be blocked; rather than in terms of the shock and pain of getting an enduring black mark (so very easily inflicted!) in the block log. Whatever. Giano was one of the people criticizing Betacommand over the Irpen block, and Betacommand's reaction was apparently (not that he needed to take stock, being a new admin, and reconsider doing such blocks) but that he needed help from more experienced admins in putting a stop to such Personal Attacks against himself. He joined #Misplaced Pages-en-admins to ask, and Chairboy advised him. Considering the rate at which Chairboy's accusations against me personally seem to be escalating above, I'd really like to go into more detail at this point, and to preferably use exact quotes from the discussion of the blocking of Giano, but I confess myself unnerved by the different things different users are saying about whether, or how much, the logs can actually be quoted in public. Let me go out on a limb, though, and ask the following editors if they will permit me to quote their words here on ANI. If that question itself is improperly revealing, you'll just have to hang me. Betacommand, Doc glasgow, Royalguard11, Chairboy, Naconkantari, Interiot, Luna-San, Jwales, could you please indicate here whether you're OK with having your words from the log quoted by me here? Bishonen | talk17:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC).
If you feel you need to make a point, then go ahead. I release my contributions, my only requirement is that you include the entire log, from beginning (when Betacommand asked for someone to block someone for NPA) to Jwale's leaving the room after endorsing the block, not just a cherry picked segment with "helpful editing". - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't fully understand this what's going on here. Giano's recent edits seem to indicate he already has logs (though I can't confirm if it's genuine, but I'll assume so). Have you already shared them with him? Dmcdevit·t19:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
No, I haven't. I don't know where Giano got his logs. (I asked and he wouldn't say.) I logged the channel when I was in it, and I'm asking if I may share suitable bits of the log here. On ANI. Nothing to do with Giano. Right now I'm taking some deep breaths and trying to decide whether anything will be achieved or improved by my replying to Chairboy in the same spirit in which he speaks to me. I think not. Bishonen | talk19:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC).
With respect, you've been accusing me of lying, and I've had the temerity to object. Look, we're all volunteers here, that's part of why this whole thing is so silly, and the personal nature of the attacks are unwarranted. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 19:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Does not compute: "entire log" makes no sense. How do you know when someone began logging and quit? Weird. Everything is "cherry picked." Crowbait18:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that would be most helpful for those who wonder where Misplaced Pages is going. I have been told so many times how civil and helpful that abode of "wikilove" they call #Misplaced Pages-en-admins, that I would really like to see a sample from logs of that "wikilove" (or is it "wikievil"?) to assess the situation. --Ghirla18:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Well you can obtain a flavour of the log here , where you will see some of those concerned are grabbing at straws and seem reluctant to discuss the situation further. Oh and for the benefit of those who seem to suspect Bishonen passed me the log - she did not. It came from someone altogether closer to my home, and that is the only hint. Those concerned know what was in it, and they seem to be anxious to rephrase their meanings, I do hope so because "kill me cleanly" is a very unpleasant term indeed. Obviously nothing uncivil intended there. Giano19:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
"Kill you cleanly?" Is that what this is all about? It appears you do not actually have a copy of the logs, if you did you wouldn't be making these claims. I was counseling an admin about administering blocks. I told him that any block administered must meet specific criteria and be completely legit to ensure a "clean kill", in the sense that the alternative is that people get blocked who shouldn't have been. Bishonen interpreted this in just about the worst possible way, and if my language was unclear, I apologize, but saying that I was plotting to kill you or otherwise conspiring as part of a big mean IRC cabal is just flat out wrong. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Good Lord, in what way can "clean kill" be interpreted? Honestly, you're great at reading menace into my words, but your own...even when you use violent language...that's just no biggie? Yikes! Geogre00:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Aside from obvious vandalism, blocks of established editors should be discussed here or on AN. Using IRC to determine if a block is appropriate or if an unblock is a good idea simply needs to stop. Consensus is decided on wiki, not IRC.--MONGO20:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. If an established contributor is to be blocked, at the very least they should be given a chance to defend their actions. I feel the "anti-IRC" argument is misplaced however. Plenty of blocks have probably occurred by AIM/MSN/YIM group chats too. I would even conjecture more happen there as more Wikipedians I know use these messenger services as communication media than IRC. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 20:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
..........and the reason I dismissed Chairboy with such a curt message was because I already (very reliably) knew he had been made the stooge of an IRC plot. He was referring to the incident Cyde had already posted here (on this page) hours before. All very odd isn't it? Giano20:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps, but I see irony in the fact that you were unblocked per an IRC discussion in the admins channel as well. If anything, I would suggest you be happy it was IRC - there are plenty of people who have logs (of which you seem to be one). If it was AIM/YIM/MSN it would be "he said/she said." Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 20:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Was I? I didn't know that. Not often someone can tell me something I didn't know. So what else was said in that IRC discussion? I'm sure we would all love to know Giano20:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo interceded on your behalf. As I understand it, he endorsed the block for the reasons given, but repealed it because of the issues related to IRC (with a strong warning in the unblock for you to act in a civil matter - you can read the block log if you wish.) I am not sure of the contents of the discussion, as I was not a party to it, but I know for a fact that it was conducted over IRC. For my part, I also discussed the matter with him. While don't want to say anything Jimbo said without his permission to say it, I commented to him that the whole matter seems to have gotten vastly exaggerated, that you were a good contributor, and that you simply seem to have misplaced your suspicion of IRC. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 21:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
A quick correction. JWales did not unblock Giano because of issues related to IRC. He unblocked Giano because he feels Giano is a valued member and he wants everyone to be happy. Whether or not it is the right thing to do is a concern that must take a back seat to diplomacy. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Any admin who thinks diplomacy is not the right thing to do or is unimportant, should be summarily stripped of their mop, which should then be broken in twain and the pieces lovingly shoved where the sun don't shine:).--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine)23:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, this is what I was getting at about people being a bit hypocritical. People who go on search and destroy missions for "incivility" and "personal attacks" should at least be consistent in seeking to exemplify civility (and not talk about getting quick kills or escalate situations with volatile editors and not admit no fault) and avoid itching for fights. RDH doesn't go hunting civility breaches, and neither does Giano. Of course we should all be civil, but when we make ourselves wardens of everyone else's behavior and not our own, when we go hunting for what we are sure must be personal attacks, then we get distorted into the monsters we claim to want to destroy. It's far better to be laid back. Geogre01:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, that was a non-starter. A question about sharing the en-admin logs.
Well, that was apparently a non-starter. Only Chairboy has replied so far, and, Kerberos-like, in a way that would make it necessary to ask several more people for permission to quote their words (pointless quoting, but required by Chairboy to avoid my putative evil and dishonest cherry-picking). I've suggested to Chairboy on IRC that he might like to do the editing himself, to shorten the very long section from Betacommand's question to jwales's exit, and especially to remove the irrelevant people, but he doesn't wish to. OK, I would have liked to explain how I see what happened on en-admins yesterday, but meh, forget it. I'm only sorry Slim's questions are destined to have no replies. Hey, could somebody who's sure they understand the rules tell me, though: is there any objection to my e-mailing the logs to SlimVirgin? She's an admin, she might as well have been there and doing her own logging, though in fact she was not. Right? Bishonen | talk21:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC).
Well I'm sure "Jimmy" is very grateful to you. Regarding your point above, it rather seems my suspicions of IRC are far from "misplaced" Giano22:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
For my part, I have no objection if you release the logs of that conversation, Bishonen. I thought it was a helpful talk. I can only speak for myself, though. If you get the permission of all involved, I don't see why it would be any problem at all (even getting past our general paranoia about it). Luna Santin22:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think I would see a problem with it, either, but the person releasing the logs would be making themselves vulnerable, under the prohibition on public logging; if at all possible, I'd prefer to avoid forcing that on anyone. Luna Santin22:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano, I would suggest you didn't do that without permission. The reason is alluded to above. If you give out information given in confidence without the permission of all involved, then there could be legal implications, and I certainly wouldn't want that happening with anyone here. We have Bishonen's implicit permission and Chairboy and Luna-Santin's explicit permission, let's wait until doc-glasgow, Jimmy, and Betacommand reply and do this the "right" way. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
You'll have to read Chairboy's "permission" more carefully, Peter. It contains conditions that make it unusable. There were several people there whom a publication would be likely to embarrass. I simply wouldn't do it, even aparat from the fact that they'd be highly unlikely to give permission for it. They're not relevant to this, but as long as Chairboy insists on every dot or nothing, they'd be part of it nevertheless. Bishonen | talk23:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC).
I've just seen your edit here are you daring to make a legal threat to me? Please consider your answer very carefull before you answer. Giano22:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm curious how you could interpret that diff as a legal threat in any way, shape, or form. Unless you're referring to this edit, where he specifically says he's not hoping for that. Luna Santin22:57, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I was refering to his edit directly above, where he and I know full well what he is implying. The reason IRC Logs are not used on Misplaced Pages is because James Forrester decreed it so. I have an IRC log of him boasting about it, I must dig that one out, it makes amusing reading. Giano23:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano, I've commented there to keep things short here. – SAJordancontribs02:41, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).
I know I'm going to be shouted at for this but if you really want IRC logs published, propose a change to the policy in the normal way and let the community decide what happens rather than keep banging on about IRC logs here where it's just annoying and upsetting other users and where your making new enemies for no reason. I'd really like to see a proper discussion about IRC logs after all the complaints from the past week. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs23:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano, with all due respect, I still don't see how you can possibly interpret that as a legal threat, when he explicitly said he didn't want anyone to get into legal trouble. Perhaps you're reading a subtext into it that I'm not, but at this point focusing on details like that is only going to kill everyone's chances at quickly resolving this with as little drama as possible. Please, just let it go so that we can move on to working this out. If you want the "last word," fine by me. Luna Santin23:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano, I wish to take this opportunity to apologise for using sarcasm in your presence, as it is obvious unhelpful. I will attempt not so to do in future (though I imagine I will fail, sadly).
Yes, it is theoretically my call as to all of the rules in all of the IRC channels (that's my job). Yes, it is my job to oversee the enforcement of said rules. No, I did not actually make this rule up. Yes, I support it personally, but it would be utterly inappropriate to use my position to further a personal objective of mine. No, I do not enjoy "power", and would not boast about it. Yes, I sometimes make a joke of it. Further questions are welcome, of course; transparency in this role is not necessarily a bad idea.
The rule and its rationale are as follows: IRC is not Misplaced Pages. IRC is not under the control of Misplaced Pages, or any part thereof (the me-who-is-on-IRC is not the me-who-is-on-here; such is the nature of having various hats). Things that happen on IRC are equivalent to things that happen on MySpace, or in a telephone conversation, or in a pub. They are meant to be analogous to e-mail - all participants get a copy, but it is utterly morally vile (and generally illegal) to forward private correspondance to another party without permission of all those involved. Were we to publically log the "private" IRC channels, they would, err, cease to be private, and all these "cabal"-like discussions that so many people seem to think occur there (wrongly, as far I am aware) would move to somewhere that they cannot have as many people take part in the discussions (by the very nature of having a private channel), and, as they wouldn't be part of the official Misplaced Pages IRC network, I would have no ex officio ability nor authority to be in said channel, and so wouldn't be able to monitor such things.
I think that it is very sad that those people who choose not to use IRC (it takes very little effort in most circumstances) consider those who do do so to be part of some microscopic group that plot against the rest. It is not really very in-keeping with wikilove, AGF, and other core parts of what our community is about (for those that have forgotten :-().
Finally, please note that #wikipedia-en-admins is not an "official" channel (as said above), but is for informed discussion, so various particular people who are no longer, or have never been, sysops are still welcome there - and, by extension, people who are sysops but are disbenefits to the discussion could be asked, or forced, to leave (though I do not believe this has happened yet).
Thank you for the explanation, James. You've explained the rule — that it's analogous to e-mail, with all participants receiving a copy. Two questions: first, whose rule is this? Second, can the rule be modified so that anyone who would be entitled to be on the list (basically, any admin) may ask to receive a copy after the fact, assuming a copy exists? In that way, situations like the above would be avoided. The secrecy is breeding suspicion. A number of us here have tried to deal with this situation, and are having to feel our way along in the dark. I have not seen the logs. I don't know who said what. I would like to know, not so I can blab about it, but so I can inform the way I approach the situation. If admins could request the logs in future for any situation that turns controversial, the people on the channel will be more careful not to do controversial things on it, and if they do, it'll be easy to see how it evolved so it can be more easily avoided in future. Do you have any thoughts about that? SlimVirgin10:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
The rule is that of the IRC community. It has been the rule for longer than I've used IRC for the Wikimedia projects (that is, it's been a rule since at least 2003). I'm sure it can be modified, but in the same way that any policy in Wikimedia can - consensus has to be convinced of the need for and appropriacy of change. As to the particulars of your proposal, I would observe that it violates the primary point of the logging ban (that what is said in private, stays in private), and so I doubt the community would be terribly in favour of it. You can ask, of course, but I don't fancy the proposal's chances.
I'm also somewhat unsure of your implict premise - that each and every single sysop can be trusted with such information. By "trusted", we mean trusted not to react adversly to it, not to leak it to other people or organisations such as "Wikitruth" - in essence, not to bring the project into disrepute (that is what we're all here to do, isn't it? ;-)). This is in general an exceedingly difficult thing to ask of people - for example, I would not necessarily feel comfortable seeing logs about myself, or about something "politically sensitive". I would say that the ability to trust all sysops with such information is not something that can easily be handed down - it is up to each conversations' participants to judge for themselves whether or not they trust the people in-channel at the time to. Given the rampant lack of trust and factionalism present in the sysop cadre, a rot that has been festering for quite some time now, I can see no way of getting to the point where such a thing would be possible. :-(
I don't think that it would be appropriate for me to comment about the individual cases that come up here, of course, so I'm afraid that I might not be of as much help as you might expect in solving this right now; I have had a quick look, and it seems that I was not in-channel at the time of this conversation (there were a few problems with IRC servers), so I'm just as much in the dark as everyone else. Sorry. :-(
I'm sad that you have seen people become suspicious just because they do not know everything; it seems somewhat petty to my mind, really - but then, I'm used to the concept of circles within circles and all that from my extra-wiki life. :-)
Thank you James so your statement on IRC: that if you were to make personal attacks you would do them on IRC because you control it, and had personally ruled it was not under the Arbcom's jurisdiction" was not true then? Giano11:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that was a sarcastic observation. Anyone who knows me even vaguely would be able to tell that. :-) I would not make personal attacks about others - ever - so the question is moot. I was, yes, part of the Committee when we observed ("ruled", if you prefer, though I don't) that IRC is outwith Misplaced Pages, but the observation was not novel.
In this particular case, I'm not terribly fussed about you revealling the contents of my privileged discussions, but please do not do so again without prior consent of the parties involved.
James, if making the logs privately available to any admin who asks isn't tenable (and I take your point about trust and Wikitruth, and other venues), would it be easier to request, or to introduce a rule (I don't know how the channel works and what rules exist, or how they are introduced) that no-one is allowed to discuss on the IRC admins' channel the proposed block of an established editor, and that anyone doing so will be asked to leave the channel, or some such? Not including proposed blocks of vandals, or drive-by editors, of course, but the blocking of anyone established in the community should not be discussed at all on IRC. Would that work? I think it would go a long way to re-establishing some trust. SlimVirgin14:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I actually liked this idea so much that I went ahead and made it. Hopefully this will make people happier, but, far more importantly, work to improve the project.
I was not involved in the discussion prior to the block (as Bishonen can attest), my only involvement after it was to counsel against the block. However, I explicitly deny permission for the publication of any of my contributions. That is not a precedent I wish to set. --Doc23:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
A suggestion for the future
My understanding is that any admin is entitled to use the so-called admins' channel. Therefore, any admin could be present at any time and be watching or logging for themselves. My recollection is that Danny set it up for the benefit of admins. Therefore, it makes sense that any logs may be passed to other admins by e-mail with or without the permission of the participants. This would get round the absurdity of Misplaced Pages admins trying to discuss an admininstrative issue on the Misplaced Pages admins' noticeboard, but not being allowed to know what was said. In future, I suggest that any admin may request a copy of the logs from any other admin who happens to have them. Who are the channel operators so I can check this with them? SlimVirgin02:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, it's my understanding that the channel is not restricted to enwiki admins, but is rather open and devs and commons admins get access too. Does that mean they get the logs if they ask for it? – Chacor02:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I still don't understand why it's not allowed to just publish these logs in any case (with the exception of confidential stuff, of course), soo.. what if we allow logs to be published whenever an admin action was involved (same exception)? Whenever someone says "I discussed this on IRC and then blocked him/protected the article/whatever", it should be possible to find out what was said by whom, IMHO. --Conti|✉03:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, my suggestion is that anyone who would be entitled to access to the channel may request a copy of the logs from anyone who has a copy. SlimVirgin04:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
One of the long-standing rules on #wikipeida channels on IRC is that publishing a log = ban on IRC. Another issue that hasn't been brung up is that the conversations on IRC aren't released under GFDL. (not a big issue, but it could turn into something someday). ---J.S03:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I know it's a rule, I just don't understand why it's one. I think publishing the log in this case would've prevented a lot of bad blood between all participants. --Conti|✉03:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm guessing that IRC chats have the same status as telephone calls, and in North America you may record your own telephone conversations and allow others access. You may not do it unless you're part of the conversation. However, I find this resorting to legal questions pointless. We're not children and we're not enemies. We should be able to reach an agreement that ensures these IRC block controversies don't pan out in the same way in future. SlimVirgin04:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
You may record your telephone calls and allow others access if you inform the other party or parties prior to the conversation that the conversation is recorded and may be used for whatever purpose, at which point they can disconnect or communicate elsewhere. —Centrx→talk • 09:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I have not participated in this discussion, and have never yet been on a Misplaced Pages-related IRC discussion, but for the record, the law about recording phone conversations varies greatly from one place to another. In the USA, for example, in some states ("two-party states") both sides to a conversation must consent to any recording, exactly as Centrx says, but in others ("one-party states") either party to the conversation may record unilaterally (at least as far as the purely legal aspect is concerned). When the two parties to a call are located in different states with different rules, of course, things get complicated. If one then tries to extrapolate to an IRC channel with hundreds of participants, it becomes clear that this is not going to be a useful analogy one way or the other, for better or worse. Newyorkbrad12:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
A useful analogy is chatting around a table. You know who is present, and that they are trustworthy enough not to record your real-time conversation and advertise it elsewhere. If they were to record it, you would not speak freely or comfortably, and you may just go sit at another table altogether. If there is official business to be conducted, it can be done at the WP:AN table, but if a certain table is logged, people will simply choose to go to an unlogged private table, a private table that may be unsupervised and to which you have no guarantee of entrance. It is one thing to take notes at a board meeting, and another thing entirely to record every business (or totally non-business) lunch and post the transcripts in the company lobby. Surveillance will not solve the alleged problem, it will just send it underground, and has other effects besides. —Centrx→talk • 22:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I understand that my contributions in IRC are not released. They remain my copyright. If anyone were to log them and offer copies to over 1,000 admins that would surely be a breach of copyright, freenode policy, and the law in certain countries. I would strongly resist that, for a whole host of reasons. With 1,000 potential logs (even if for private use) it would impossible to enforce a 'no publications' rule. If logs are published, then they are searchable. If someone can search through my informal chatting on IRC, then they can almost certainly compromise my pseudonymity. Slim this is dead in the water. I would seek to enforce my copyrights.--Doc09:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
That's why I propose to only publish logs (or hand them out to everyone who was involved) when an admin action was involved. I understand your point, and I also don't see a point in publishing day-to-day chit-chat, but discussions that lead to a block should be available to those involved, IMHO. --Conti|✉15:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe you have any copyright over that material, but as I said above, that really ought to be beside the point. If secrets are being discussed, they should be discussed privately by e-mail. If they're not secrets, but ordinary admin business, then any admin should be able to see the logs. The current situation, where they're sort of secret and sort of public, is untenable, at least for admin business, because it leads to absurd situations like the above. SlimVirgin10:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Am I wrong to thank that the best place for further discussion would be the talk page of m:IRC guidelines? As a note on confidentiality - right now the channels are considered a private place, and anything said in there is between the parties therein. Releasing it without the express permission of everyone therein is a breach of trust, which is punishable to various degrees in various countries. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 17:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
It seems what we need is a little Wikilove, I think you are forgetting we are in this to make an encyclopedia, and everytime we try to punish people for their wrongdoing we allways seem to lose our sense of community, we need to stop worrying about little things and move on. Wizardry_Dragon said at the top, that wikipedia is not a battleground, though scrolling down it would seem that this is often blatantly ignored. If a user is bothering you, ignore them. ArbCom is too much like a court, 90% of the time we end up separated over small arguments which end up affecting more and more users as they go through arbcom. If you can't stand somebody, have a nice cup of tea and sit down and then ignore them for a while and try and realise that they want to make an encyclopedia as much as you. You don't have to be paranoid of everyone out to get you, if we let the little things get to us then our encyclopedia will suffer. TehKewl111:44, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Today... is Christmas! There will be a magic show at zero-nine-thirty! Chaplain Charlie will tell you about how the free world will conquer Communism with the aid of God, and a few Marines! El_C21:14, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Let me offer my two cents, with the disclaimers that I am an admin but I almost never frequent IRC. I strongly support the notion that IRC logs should be logged and public unless the channel is restricted to a given group, like admins. In that case at the very least the logs should be available to all admins. That said, I do not think that the admin IRC channel should be password protected in the first place; I don't believe that anything we admins discuss needs to be 'secret'. Misplaced Pages is an open community, and this should apply to all levels of our decision making.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 14:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Utterly and absolutely not. When I use IRC, I am chatting informally. I may inadvertently give away personal information. I choose to do that knowing that there are 10-50 people in the room, and I run certain risks with my privacy. My choice. However, if any of 1,000 admins could have the logs, that changes the dynamic: it would then be impossible to prevent logs being published on the web. Personally, I would cease to use the wikipedia IRC channels immediately. Now, no doubt some will say that if people stopped using the admins channel that would be a good thing. Well, think again. The advantage of these channels is that there is a cross-section of Wikipedians in them. They are not a select cabal. If an admin says something inappropriate about user:x, there is a fair chance that someone else will question it. (Indeed, in the recent Giano blocking, bishonen, I and others were in the room and able to question the block, and ultimately have it removed.) If these relatively open IRC channels become totally public, what will happen is that private channels will be used. Admins who are seen as 'hostile' to whatever group controls them will be excluded. There channels exist already. I have occasionally been in them. And the potential for abuse (or at least 'group think' developing) is FAR higher. I'd have to see them become the norm.
IRC can be abused, and disastrously. But I've more often seen it used in excellent ways. It can be used to bring together users who only only scream at one another on wiki. It can allow someone considering a course of action to get a sanity check, good advice, or a quick explanation. People are people; media are neutral. The wikipedia IRC channels have the excellence of being more discrete than the open wiki, but more representative than back channels. Let's not wreck that. I respect those who would like all interaction between wikipedian admins to be public, but sorry, it isn't going to happen. Opening the logs of the wikipedia IRC channels will have quite the opposite effect to the one you desire.--Doc01:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Or instant messages, or have a private channel on IRC. As a wiki admin, I think I should have the right to view the logs of past IRC admin chat whenever I want to, just as I can view the records of ANI discussions here. Perhaps, seems this seem to be an issue that comes back often enough, we should have a separate discussion on it and a policy about it drafted? Shall we start at Misplaced Pages:IRC channels?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 19:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
You've missed the point of what I've said. Basically, if you proceed down this route, then I may, or may not, invite you to carry on this discussion in #Doc-cabal-wp, where I an my friends will be able to discuss blocking whoever we like, safe in the knowledge that only like-minded people will be there. But, personally, I think that's a much more dangerous route. --Doc21:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
We may never be able to stop certain people being so childish, but it would at least stop the practice of certain admins using #wikipedia-en-admins as their own cabal playhouse; a place for their "friends" to coordinate actions against their "enemies". I have seen the log where Chairboy's block of Giano was organised, and the behaviour was simply vile - they decided to block him, and then tried to work out how they could nail it on him (I have the logs to prove it, and I'll be damned if I won't post it if I need to - this should not go overlooked because of bureaucracy). It was also striking how suddenly their tone changed to one of politeness and civility when Jimbo entered the channel and brought playtime to an end. Frankly, I think it's about time we dumped the pretension that what goes on in IRC is somehow seperate from that of the project; that conversation makes a damned good case, in my mind, why Chairboy at least, and quite possibly Betacommand, should be desysopped. Rebecca21:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Your conclusion ill-fits the facts. I'm not disputing that Chairboy et all may have acted totally inappropriately (actually, I can't comment on that, as I missed that bit of the conversation). However, think what happened next. 1) Bishonen was in the channel and objected to what had happened. 2) I called jwales into the channel to get the situation resolved and the block lifter without a wheel-war. Had the admin's channel not existed, or been so public that people felt uncomfortable using it, the IRC conspiracy would almost certainly still have happened, the block would have occurred, but the conversation would not have been heard by independent persons and the block would not have been lifted. Even at its worst (and plenty good goes on in IRC) the admins channel is far better than the alternatives.--Doc
Perhaps so, but #wikipedia-en-admins is being used repeatedly by one clique in this dispute to further their disputes with the other; I saw the same again in action last night. This behaviour should not be tolerated at the best of times, and it should certainly not be tolerated in a major Misplaced Pages channel. It reflects badly on the project, and leads to good people having good reason to feel threatened in using a channel that is supposed to be for Danny and similar folk to contact other editors in the event of some kind of emergency issue. The fear that people might take bad behaviour underground is not an excuse for letting it go on in public. Rebecca22:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
But your point is it isn't public enough....or is it that it is public and would be better underground...sorry you're loosing me. Personally, on IRC I see disagreements, discussions, debates and sometimes quite heated ones. I see no clique. But if you remove the broad IRC forum then you will get more cliques elsewhere. I'd hate that.--Doc23:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
While I disagree with your assertion, Rebecca, I think this is a fine opportunity to help fix this problem. As I did not coordinate or conspire to block Giano, I would like to formally request that if you feel my actions were improper that you initiate an ArbCom case to that affect. That way, the complete logs could be provided to the ArbCom and the matter could be resolved. I have asked Geogre, Giano, and Bishonen to do this, but they have not for their own reasons. I respect the strength of your convictions, Rebecca, and ask you to step up to the plate so we can fix this. The community is being fractured by this and this drama weakens the goal of producing a world class encyclopedia. If a formal review by uninvolved people is required to resolve the situation, I gladly volunteer for the scrutiny with which it comes. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
With this in mind, I will proceed to do so sometime in the next few days. (This may be after New Years, as I'll be pretty busy.) Rebecca22:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. If I thought it would help, I would create the case myself, but I think that would look theatrical. If there is anything I can do to assist, please let me know. I know that I did not collude or conspire to block Giano and that my decision to block him was based completely upon his behavior when I asked him not to attack other users. If the ArbCom feels that I have acted maliciously or with disregard for the project, then I will take whatever lumps they proscribe. The integrity of the project is the most important and anything that distracts from the goal of writing an encyclopedia is a Bad Thing. Best regards, - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah, this is being discussedargued about turned into a major dispute here as well. Can't this all be kept in one place? Is there enough of an agreement that something needs to be done to create a proposed policy page, and shunt all the discussion onto that page's discussion page? (I don't for a moment think the answer is 'yes', but I thought I at least ought to ask.) Does the nature of the dispute make that impossible? – Gurch23:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I am pleasently surprised to learn about Rebecca's position. Sometimes, it is good and humbling to be wrong. Keep up the good work! El_C03:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Anyone curious, for just a small flavour of what I have been up against for the last few months I advise to get there fast it won't be allowed to stay there long Giano22:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano II blocked
Just for the record, as a follow-up to Giano's note above, he has been blocked by Centrx for three hours for spamming IRC logs. See here. Can't find this recorded anywhere else. Carcharoth01:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Nationalistic bot
User:Ganeshk has again unleashed his WikiProjectIndia template-adding bot. The bot is tagging hundreds of articles re Bollywood actors and actresses with the India template. Here's an example: . The bot was stopped on November 6 and he restarted it on December 23 (). This is just plain pointless! It fills up the top of the talk page with huge templates (you have to scroll and scroll to get past them into actual discussion) and it's unnecessary. What possible good does it serve, other than the egos of the Indian editors (we own XXX,XXX articles nyah nyah!). This sort of thing spreads. A Pakistani editor tried to claim Salwar kameez for Pakistan (even though the items of clothing in question are worn in many countries) and one editor insists that Dhoti belongs to India and Hinduism. This is bad enough when you have one editor adding project templates one at a time -- fending off an attack by a bot is hopeless. Can we please BAN template-adding bots? And revert the dang bot edits? If it isn't important enough for someone to spend the time to add it by hand, after discussion with the regular editors, then it isn't important to the project. Zora00:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll second this. I'm fed up with this high-level project nonsense, where people in some special-interest clique make decisions and then enforce them on dozens of articles they've never worked on, regardless of the sentiment of those who are. A bot to do this? Terrible, terrible, terrible. This is how we loose good editors who just work away at one or two articles. Can we block the bot, and ban this type of nonsense? --Doc00:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
WP:1.0/I depends on these templates. It helps editors identify at a glance which articles need more work on, and as a result, are not suitable for inclusion into any of the stable releases. Zora, if any editor is saying, "ooh, we have 100 articles, and you don't, nyah nyah", go have a chat with that editor. Doc, I haven't heard of one case of an editor leaving Misplaced Pages because a tag is added to a talk page. That neither one of you finds adding more organization to pages useful does not mean that others share your opinion. Titoxd01:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I feel the bot block is really unfair without a discussion here. The bot tagging helps out with WP:1 and also help identify articles that need improvement. There are about 250 projects participating in this. Ganeshbot works under automation project of the India project tagging India-related categories with India project banner. This discussion here is not about this particular bot, but about whether assessments are needed for Misplaced Pages. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 01:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Um, what exactly is the problem here? If it's just a concern about template bloat, it would be trivial to have the bots/people/whatever use the small-form templates, avoiding the whole "scrolling past the templates" issue. Is there some fundamental problem beyond that? What's wrong with letting interested WikiProjects enter relevant articles into their assessment process? Kirill Lokshin01:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I see no evidence that the "assessment process" is producing any results. We had a list of "to-do" items at WP:INCINE and the response (even from me, and I should be be more dedicated) has been tepid. WP:INCINE is the project devoted to Indian cinema ... if we can't get editors to work on actor/actress articles, then what good is an India template going to do?
If adding templates doesn't help produce better articles, then it's nothing but ethnic/religious/nationalist tagging of the sort that has mired thousands of articles. Are we adding US templates to all the US actor and actress articles? NO .... but I did find a great example of the idiocy of template-mania: have a look at Talk:George Clooney. He hasn't lived in Kentucky since 1982, but someone has claimed him for WikiProject Kentucky.
We let anyone start a project and plaster templates all over heck and gone and there's absolutely no discussion or approval required. This is something that can't be done with links? or even categories? No, we have to have a great big graphic that says "Kilroy wuz here". That's bad enough, but automating it? The last time Ganeshk turned his robot loose, it was tagging articles related to Iranian history with WP:IN templates and the Iranian editors were extremely upset. Please, let's turn off the bot until we can have some high-level decisions about projects. Zora02:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, did you notice the part where I pointed out a way to make this a small, out-of-the-way graphic? If it's merely a layout issue, we have technical solutions for it. ;-)
As far as producing results: it's been my experience (with WP:MILHIST) that the process is very helpful in motivating and tracking improvement (if not, perhaps, in an entirely predictable way). Your experience may, of course, be different. I don't entirely disagree with you on the subject of projects not getting discussion or approval; but I think that going after one particular project (and WP:INDIA doesn't seem like a project whose existence would be controversial, in any case) is hardly the best way of approaching the issue. Kirill Lokshin02:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't mean to poke into other people's affairs,but Ganesk has been doing this for along time now.The last dispute ganshk had(along with an edit war) was with user:Szhaider when he put Indian tags on Pakistani history articles.Again i don't mean to come in uninvited or anything,but Ganshk why not inform other editors of what you're about to do before randomly tagging other countries history pages with indian tags?You seemed to have upset more than just Szhaider and I by continuing this random tagging.If more than just Szhaider and I are complaining about this to you,then shouldn't it mean something?Please think about it. Nadirali02:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Given that the bot-tagging is (presumably) driven by categories, I'd guess that there's something funny about the category structue involved that's bringing in unrelated articles. Kirill Lokshin02:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
"Ownership" of Indus Valley Civilization is hotly contested subject. Claiming it for India without even considering that this claim might be controversial is thoughtless. It's also not at all clear to me that if someone is an "Indian actor", the Indian part of the concept takes precedence over the actor part. Why pick India, instead of cinema?
Real-life is not a UNIX file structure, with everything neatly hierarchically arranged. A particular article may be relevant to many categories or projects. Grabbing it for ONE project and ignoring any other areas of interest or relevance is provocative. That was exactly what was wrong with the Pakistani editor trying to claim salwar kameez. Since it's provocative, you don't do it by bot. If you want articles assessed, put up a SMALL assessment template, that doesn't claim the article for any one project. Zora03:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Who said anything about "ownership" or "claiming"? There's nothing unusual about having multiple projects add their tags to the same article (although you seem to be complaining about this as well?); and all the tags I've seen now say merely that the article is "within the scope" of a particular project, avoiding even the mildly controversial "part of" a project wording used in the past. That Ganeshk is only applying one project's tags is not intended as a slight to other projects; they're perfectly free to add their own tags (or even get a bot to help them do so). (While there have been some bots that have tagged articles with multiple projects' tags in a single run, this usually requires more coordination than it's worth, in my experience.) Kirill Lokshin03:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Zora, Tagging does not mean "ownership" or "grabbing" or "claiming". It means taking responsibility to substantially improve the article to FA-standard. Indian actors are tagged with cinema=yes parameter so that they fall into the Cinema workgroup of the India project. If someone is a Indian actor, both Indian part and the actor part apply. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 03:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with the indie bot tagging bollywood stuff. Indian cinema project is listed under the wp india. The actors are also indian. this is perfectly acceptable. As for indus valley civilization, it has the word indus in it. islam and the islamic state of pakistan didn't even exsist. indian women also wear salwar kameez. there's nothing wrong tagging it.--D-Boy06:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, the template should be made as small as it could be. If possible, it could have a show/hide option defaulting to hide, so that those not interested see the discussions straight away. I thought adding a project template does not imply ownership, and that articles can be tagged under several different projects. As far as the bot is concerned, since the project templates/assessment, etc. are relatively new things, we do have a big backlog of articles, and so a bot is handy. Of course, merely tagging doesn't achieve much, and it's true that many bot-tagged articles run at the risk of being forgotten again. deeptrivia (talk) 07:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
"Ownership" of Indus Valley Civilization is hotly contested subject. Claiming it for India without even considering that this claim might be controversial is thoughtless.
You might want to look closely at User:Nadirali's contribs (which include claiming Panini for Pakistan]] & running an off-wiki meatpuppetry forum)... No one is claiming IVC FOR INDIA. We already have different project tags for pre-1947 India.
Seriously, i find Zora to be mildly Indophobic ( See ). She assumes bad-faith with virtually every Indian editor. She seems to be on one-man crusade to rid Misplaced Pages of what she considers to be assertive Indian nationalism. अमेय आर्यन DaBrood11:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Ganesh's and Deepak's comments that template tagging does not mean ownership. The literal meaning would be "This article is associated with this WikiProject." The size ohwever, is a contentious issue. Since some articles will have many templates, a size reduction is inevitable and necessary. As others have mentioned, the bot is extremely efficient compared to humans and only a small proportion of the articles it tags would be considered controversial "taggings." At times you can't blame the bot. Take Dhoti as an example. Zora mentioned that Dhotis are worn by people outside of India but the all but one sentence in the entire article talks about Dhotis being worn outside of India and even that sentence is unsourced and randomly inserted. Someone should be bold and write firstly about Dhotis being worn in other parts of the world in Wiki-style. Personally if I read the article, I would have doubted that they are worn outside of India. Most importantly, more than one template can be added, therefore template tagging does not suggest ownership but rather association. Gizza13:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Zora is merely indophobic. She should stop seeing Hindu fascists/Indian imperialists/etc. around. She accused a very neutral Indian editor of acting like "a tank division heading from Islamabad. Just because documented India-bashers are upset is no reason to stop a bot which is organizing things to make the pedia better. Misplaced Pages shouldnt fall prey to fringe, politically charged, rants.Bakaman17:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
A) Whether or not someone is an "indophobe" has no bearing as to whether they can edit or comment constructively (we all have our biases). B)Labelling someone an "Indophobe" is a great way to create "Indophobia".NinaEliza (talk • contribs • logs) 18:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Bots that are disputed can always be taken to the BAG or a b'crat for deactivation. As to Nina's comment, I would merely point out that, unfortunately, some users are simply disruptive, in such a large environment as the English Misplaced Pages, that is inevitable. While we respect everyone that contributes here, some simply aren't able to truly contribute because of their negative attitudes. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 18:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Ahem these are Indian actors being added with a WP India tag. Its logical. Editors that disagree either have not fully understood the rationale for tagging or have issues that need to be worked out. Judging by the consensus formed (in which only one editor thinks tagging Indian people with a WP India tag is offensive) I think Ganesh's bot should be reinstated with all priviledges, and Zora reprimanded for disruptive behavior and blatant racism.Bakaman01:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I read what some of these editors have written about me.That forum is not "meatpuppet" or what ever you want to call it.Zora is not Indophobic.Other members on Pakhub have informed me that some of these facists are part of a Hindu fanatic site.And thanks alot Dabrood for vandalizing the article we wrote on Pakhub.Please read the warning I posted on your userpage.
"But Someone from Misplaced Pages, who I had an argument with, went on this forum and asked his Hindu freinds to spam this site "to hell"
I don't mean to assume bad faith or be prejiduice against indian wikipedians in any way ,but it seems if they can't have their way around,they either start ganging up on other wikipedians and launch personal attacks or they call upon Indian administrators to help them in their battles.Look at the example below:
Yes bhai, I do remeber you. I am a brahmin myself and will get an Indian admin to indef ban this user.Bakaman 14:48, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Before I continue,I confess I have lost my temper in the past,been incivil,reponded to personal attacks against my with personal attacks of my own and did carry out a few violations unintentionally or out of anger.
But ever since that,I have either tried to ignor these Indian nationalists and tried to reach out to make a truce with them as I did to Bakaman here
Before wikipedia turns into a nasty battle-ground and eventually gets disrupted,I propose one thing:
Admnistrators should NOT be allowed to help resolve disputes IF it is related to their nationality or ethnicity in anyway,because it only causes them to take sides.Please consider it carefully
Number one use diffs. Otherwise I'm going to assume all "quotes" you provide have been tampered with. I got a user indef blocked becasue their user name was "Brahmin-gaand-maaru" (meaning "Brahmin ass fucker"). Per WP:USERNAME its offensive. Obviously an Indian admin would also know what that means. Calling me a fascist (when I myself am democratic is a horrible personal attack). I feel no need to treat nadirali (talk·contribs) & company as contributors anymore merely as trollsespecially those that call me "fascist". The last user that did that got banned for one-year. There was no battle in the first place, and your prejudice for Indians is so obvious its like finding hay in a haystack. There are no truces on wikipedia, wiki is not a battleground in the first place. So other members on a meatpuppetry forum think I'm a member of Hinduunity? Great.Bakaman03:10, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Whenever I disagree with Bakasuprman, he calls me anti-Hindu, Indophobic, racist, Muslim, etc. , , . (That's just the last few days. I could get more if I went back further.) If I were a racist, I wouldn't have spent the last few years editing Indian cinema related articles, working on Indian clothing articles, Desi, Partition of India, etc. If he calls me anti-Hindu and racist, it's in the same partisan spirit that some rightwing US politicians and commentators call their political opponents anti-American and suggest that they're working for Al-Qaeda.
If I'm anti-anything, it's anti-nationalism. Of any kind. I've pulled back from the Iran-related articles because of lack of time and sheer weariness at being the constant object of attack, but when I worked on those, I was regularly accused of being anti-Persian, an Arab-lover or an Arab, etc. We have a problem on WP, in that cadres of patriotic editors (often of one political tendency) stake out their turf and fight off interlopers. It's hard for many US and UK editors to see this, because they may not be familiar with non-US or UK political struggles, and it is easy to believe people who claim to represent a whole ethnicity, nationality, or religion. If it were a US editor showing up and claiming to represent all Americans, he/she would be hooted off the stage with a shower of rotten tomatoes.
It's not just me objecting to the India bot. Others have complained. Ganesh says that he has the best intentions and I just don't understand but ... if various people, who otherwise have had no other association with me, complain about having a huge India template slapped on a talk page without so much as a by-your-leave, then he is doing something that upsets people, and he should reconsider what he's doing.
If articles are to be assessed, I suggest that a simple, tiny box on the article would produce more assessments. Many encyclopedia users don't know that the talk pages exist. Just put up a button that says "Has this article been helpful? Click to assess it." Or some such wording. This would pop up a questionnaire or a rating bar. Start with a few high-traffic pages and experiment with different versions of the questionnaire or bar, until we know what works. As for the templates: if they were one-inch square and stuck off on the right side of the monitor, and said only "Interested in working on other articles related to X? Click here" (click taking you to project page) that might work. Or better yet, just one button that says, "If you'd like to work on more articles like this, click here," and then a menu of related projects would pop up. All the same size. No competition to draw more editors with a bigger template.
There's a great book called The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, about computer interface design. It's tricky stuff, and programmers and systems engineers are notoriously bad at it. I suggest that a rethinking of our interface is in order. Zora05:36, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, look at the pattern. first, we have paks complaining that the indie tag is imperialistic. Ganeshk goes out of his his way to make the thing as neutral as possible. At is still called hijacking history. NEWS TO EVERYONE! there's plenty of room for everyone's tag. pak call the tag offensive. well, you know what, I find the pak tag offensive. they would never change their tag and tag flag off it. seriously, let us be. we don't hurt anyone. India was the country where Gandhi was born. It's people are under attack from islamics, maoist, and some questionable missionaries. The president is muslim, the pm is sikh, and and italian women who never gave up here italian citizenship almost became pm. Also, india tag should be on bollywood articles, because for one thing, bollywood originated in INDIA! Indian actors are from india. it's not abouyt nationalism. it's commonsense. the bot tag helps out a lot and save manpower helping directed for other things.--D-Boy06:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Bollywood actors are Indian actors. Putting templates on their talk pages does not imply any kind of ownership; but only categorisation of articles so that editors of a particular project may work on those articles. Terming the bot "nationlistic" does not seem very appropriate on your part. However, I would request Ganesh to stall bot operations before this issue is sorted out and discussed. — Nearly Headless Nick08:38, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I just spent a few minutes looking at WP actor/actress articles. None of the North American/English/European articles had any nationality tags (though I did find that Greer Garson, that quintessentially English actress (Mrs. Miniver), has been claimed by the state of Texas). I spot-checked a few other actor/actresses (Egyptian, Iranian, Japanese) and the only actor page with a nationality tag was Toshiro Mifune. I don't think that Ganeshk can claim that tagging actors/actresses by presumed nationality is standard procedure. It's not just "common sense." If we have Cinema of India tags, surely that's all that's necessary. (I'd be happy to see those hidden behind a button, BTW -- no special treatment.) Zora10:44, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Yana gupta may not be Indian but she makes her career INDIAN cinema. So do other actresses you mentioned. I'm sure ganeshk can program the bot to make the indian cinema tag appear if that's your main problem. You can even do it yourself by inputting the parameter.--D-Boy11:38, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
There are a lot of hindu extremists on this board, and with them being members of forums like HinduUnity, you cant possibly call them Neutral in any way.
I dont bash Indians here, however they have been on my back ever since I tried to correct the articles where they are blatantly stealing Pakistani history. Anyone willing to understand would understand my argument but people here refuse to read it, so go figure.
You talk about Bollywood being Indian, because its located it India. Fair enough. I am sure the same applies for the Pakistani history.
Unre4L18:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, we all are agents of Hindu Unity. I havent seen anyone "steal" Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, Choudhury Rehmat Ali or etc for India. Therefore your charges of hijacking are baseless. I read your argument and found it impotent and unsourced to boot. Zora, merely joining with Pakistani users to attack Indian users and indian imperialist bots is not forming a consensus. I agree with dboy, that the Pakistani flag is offensive especially when claiming Hindu history for an entity not even conceived at those points in time. The only time a tag intersection should occur between Hindu and PAkistan is he article is on Rana Bhagwandas, Krishan Bheel, Ramesh Lal, etc. According to the group angry at a robot (already a weird source for anger) I am a "rightwing, Hindu Unity, Hindu extremist". Great descriptors.Bakaman21:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
So how does a republic of India flag make it onto so called "ancient Indian" history articles.
Your argument is ridiculous. Just because you havent stolen all of our history doesnt mean you havent stolen most of it. Pakistans flag is just as valid as having an ROI flag. Both countries were born in 1947. And India was never united prior to the British Invasion. Yet you still refer to Ancient India as if it has existed long enough to claim the history of the entire subcontinent.
Unre4L23:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Never united? Ahem Ashoka, Akbar, Rama. United before British invasion? Please explain how Chanakya and his Indian army beat back a Greek assault, how Aushada Pandit (a noted Buddhist scholar) and King Videh united 100 Kingdoms of India. Ancient Pakistan is cited on educational websites 55 times while Ancient India is cited 39300 times. Thats about 880 times to one that the truth is cited on educational websites.Bakaman03:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Zora, I had thought about hiding Indian project tag when cinema parameter is set. But this does not work in cases where actors have turned into politicians (Talk:Rajesh Khanna). In these cases, both cinema and politics are set to yes. The India tag is on so that other sub-groups can be tagged to the article talk page. Too many checks make the template complicated and hard to maintain. If template size is an issue, there are ways to make it small. Ideas such as "link-only", "category-only" should be discussed at the Misplaced Pages-level and not be forced on one project (India in this case). Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 04:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Zora, you're completly missing the point. Wikiprojects don't take ownership or claim articles There is no reason an article cannot fall under the scope of Wikiproject India, Wikiproject Iran and Wikiproject Pakistan. The more projects involved in working on an article the better. It seems to me that you're the one imbuing nationalistic overtones into something that should be neutral. 75.105.178.15016:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Resolution?
Wow, thats a long discussion! I think Zora's ire was meant to be vented towards my bot as that is the bot that has been doing most of the tagging of WP India articles. So I am sorry that I took so long to respond. I was off to a Xmas vacation. Hope you all had a great one too!
Now that the discussion has already gone on long enough, can we start moving towards the resolution? I am trying to put down the problems and their solutions point by point:
Large templates eating up talk page space: We already have the small template solution for that.
Irrelevant articles getting tagged: Both Ganesh and I exercise extreme caution while tagging articles. We pick them up from categories and leave out ambiguous cats. Errors are however bound to creep in and we can remove them in good faith.
Nationalistic tagging: I told Zora before and I say it again. This is not the Indian government trying to own articles. Wikiprojects exist to give a structure to related articles and that is all that we hope to do apart from giving them more visibility. I am also one of the early members of Wikiproject Pakistan and planning to run my bot for Pakistan related articles as well.
Assessments: There are quite a few people assessing articles even if not at the desired speed. We are trying to get more editors to do it.
Blocking of the bot: I feel blocking of any good faith editor, even a bot, should not take place without discussion. Why block when you can discuss especially when the bot has been specifically approved for this purpose??
Please do not tag Pakistani history articles with Indian templates.It has led to disputes and edit wars between us and the Indian editors.I don't see how you're helping the situation by continuing this random and unecessary tagging.
No one is stopping you from adding tags to your own history articles,but please refrain from tagging other countries articles with Indian tags as they serve no purpose other than creating more fights and arguements. Nadirali08:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I am not sure which points of mine you are referring to. I wrote that I plan to tag Pakistani articles with the Wikiproject Pakistan template, not with India template. I also wrote that I do not tag ambiguous categories. The purpose has also been detailed above. What exactly is random and unnecessary? — Lost08:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Really, what did Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Zheng He visit? Ancient South Asia? The history of Akhand Bharat is India's history as the google search (see above section) shows that scholars use the truth 880 times to one. The majority of hits for "Ancient Pakistan" include blogs, geocities links, propaganda sites, and wiki mirrors.Bakaman17:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Bakaman.
That was a start. I clearly remember you saying that there was no such thing as Ancient Pakistan. At least we have made progress.
Anyway. I am not talking about a few time empires. I am talking about united as a nation.
Ancient Roman empire had the entire Europe united, does that mean they can claim the history of the whole of Europe. According to you, they can.
Think about what you are saying. India was only united because of the Brits, and Pakistan didnt stay united with British India for too long. And I distinctly remember Pakistan being part of the Alexanders empire while the rest of India was not. That must clearly mean Greeks can claim the Pakistani history...right?
Unre4L21:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
India didnt exist prior to the 1800s. The whole region was SCATTERED with provinces, THERE WAS NO UNITY, so please for the love of god understand, that Ancient India is referring to the entire subcontinent, not a country.
And the reason why Pakistani history is different from Indian is because the entire Subcontinents history should not be grouped together. Just like you dont group the entire of Europe's history together.
And another reason why this shouldnt be done is because India is now a country, and confusion is created regarding which India ( out of the 10 or so you have in your dictionary) you are referring to.
Unre4L21:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
United as a nation, under Ashoka, Akbar, Videha, Rama, even (sigh!) Aurangzeb. Unless you are 3000 years old, you cannot "distinctly remember" Sikandar's invasions. There is no Pakistani ethnic group, the country is an artificial construct. The one thing that makes Pakistani people Pakistani did not come into being until the 7th century. Even then there are over 140 million Muslims in India, and over 150 million in Bangladesh. Do refer to 561k hits for "Ancient Indian" history compared to a paltry 160 for "Ancient Pakistani" history and refer to Matsya Purana, Ramayana, and Vishnu Purana.Bakaman23:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Please dont throw random figures around in the air. Those numbers mean nothing to me, since people like you are in direct control of them.
Empires have risen all over the region. And India wasnt necessarily the middle of them. Pakistan was a part of the Persian empire, but we dont claim to be a part of Iran.
I will repeat what I have said at least 100 times before, and you fail to understand.
You should know your history better. Its a fact that India did not exists as a country prior to British Raj.
The greeks were never good at Geography. They preferred to name continents rather than countries as they didnt care about them. Greeks called Africa, Libya because it was the country they entered first when they went into Africa. India was the same concept to them, the entire region was grouped together.
In your mind, the Sindhi's and the Baluchis are Indian? Well guess what, they have never been known as Indian except the British Raj. Yet their history is still classed as Ancient Indian. Great work.
And now I can expect you to not read my post and copy and paste the same reply above below this post. Why do I bother...?
Unre4L01:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi all, this discussion was not really meant to be about the history of Pakistan or India but about using bots to add project templates to talk pages. That is the reason I had started a new subsection. I request all to concentrate on the matter and bring it to closure — Lost03:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Since there is no response, I have cross posted to WP1.0. I am looking forward to some sort of closure on this. Thanks — Lost13:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Since unre4l cant bring a factual response to my google hits, notes on kings that ruled a united India, or references in historical scriptures, its safe to assume he's made up his mind about this. I find the Islamic Crescent amazingly offensive on a Hindu figure like Panini, and Hindu figures of ancient India. The Ashoka chakra is not even a Hindu figure and has a secular meaning nowadays as a symbol for peace. The only time the Pakistani flag and WP Hindu template should intersect is on figures like Krishan Bheel, Rana Bhagwandas, Deepak Perwani, and etc, Hindus living in the actual country of Pakistan.Bakaman16:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I think a more neutral pic should be chosen on the wp pakistan tag. The indian tag was forced to have a neutral pic, why not the pak one?--D-Boy01:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Look at the article on Historiography and nationalism. The projection of nations back in time is now viewed with suspicion by a growing number of historians. Neither India nor Pakistan tags belong on ancient history articles. Nor, I think, do Iran tags belong on Achaemenid articles, etc. However, it is going to take time -- a lot of time -- to convince editors to stop distorting ancient history to fit it into nationalistic narratives, especially when many academic historians are still doing this. However, the bot campaign that sparked my complaint was not aimed at history articles, but actor/actress articles. I do not see why Indian actor/actresses should be annexed into the India-project empire. Actor/actresses from other countries aren't being tagged in this way. I don't think it makes any SENSE to divide up all of WP along nationalistic/ethnic/religious lines. Especially when actors and actresses travel widely and work on projects in various countries. This hasn't been the case with Indian actors/actresses, but it's starting to be. Aishwarya Rai, for one, is acting in non-Indian films.
I'm starting to see the project tags as spamming. What are they but invitations from one or more people who have declared a "project" to get others to join the project? Big splashy ads, that's what they are. Note that when I say this, I'm condemning myself too, since I started a WikiProject (WP:INCINE) and acquiesced when Ganeshk started putting up tags for it. I don't think the projects are a bad idea, if they give people working on similar articles (similar being loosely defined) a forum for discussion, but advertising for them is a blight on WP.
Instead of filling up talk pages with competing ads, how about my suggestion that we have just one button that says, "Click here if you'd like to work on other articles like this"? That would pop up a page of ads for projects. All the same size and format. Arranged alphabetically, so that there's no squabbling about getting top billing. Then another button for assessments. Don't link the assessments to projects -- that's giving projects, and the people behind the projects, "ownership" of the articles. All you need is another button that says, "Click here to assess the current state of this article." Two small buttons. Each an inch or so square. One on the right, one on the left. A big improvement on the Times Square billboards that greet editors now.
I'm going to start pushing for this in various fora. In the meantime, please keep national bots out of actor/actress articles. Zora02:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
This has been brought up before, but there is no technical way to accomplish this using a single template and have that template be manageable at all. First, every single project can make an assessment, both of quality and of priority. Those assessments do not have to match, as an article that covers a broad subject can be of great quality in one aspect, but deficient in another. Moreover, it is very, very common to have the importance/priority assessments be different. Then, different projects have different parameters and different methods to process articles. One single template cannot conceivably accomplish all the things the various WikiProject banners can do.
Perhaps, the best solution will come once Stable Versions are enabled, and metadata can be stored directly on the database. Until then, these can be considered "hacks" to accomplish some technical issues still left unaddressed by MediaWiki. Titoxd02:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
It's hard for me to believe that "it can't be done". How about this: we have a new tab on the bar on the top. Right now there's five. We can add a sixth, for templates. Call it "Relevant projects" or something like that. Again, all templates to be the same SMALL size and arranged alphabetically. That's a very top-level hack that shouldn't be too hard. I've noticed -- and imitated -- something similar to this, on user pages. When barnstars start taking up too much room, you put them on a separate page and add a link. Heck, add another tab, for "Assess article". Tabs instead of buttons. OK? Zora03:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Such a change would probably be handled best as a separate metadata namespace, which would then be obsoleted quickly once Stable versions are enabled. Then, all of the metadata in pages (not just WikiProject banners, but things such as {{featured}}) would need to be moved to that namespace. Ideally, this should have a much more technical solution on the MediaWiki core level... it would be nice if getting a metadata field in the revision table were an idea that gathered enough steam. Titoxd08:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep, it would need to be a new namespace (which would entail having the developers do stuff). A "metadata" namespace might be feasible, I suppose; but it seems to be a layout isse rather than a conceptual one. Hence, the obvious question: what is the perceived problem with the "small" option on the templates? (It should be pointed out that it would be quite feasible to have all the various talk-page templates display only in the small option, or display in the small option by default, rather than having to enable it. We can certainly reduce the size of the templates and move them off to the side of the page without any complicated namespace shuffling. Kirill Lokshin18:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
After consulting to the developers, they liked the idea of a separate metadata table with an associated pseudonamespace a bit more than a separate namespace for these kinds of things. That said, when and if it will get coded is a different issue... Titoxd23:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, if the developers want to give us a new namespace to use, that's fine; for the time being, though, I don't think we ought to hold our breaths and abandon the existing talk-page tagging method. ;-) Kirill Lokshin04:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Zora, while I have no issues keeping a bot out of ambiguous articles such as Indus Valley etc, I disagree with you about the Indian actors tagging. The simple fact is that WP:INCINE is a child project of both WP:INDIA and WP:CINEMA. WP:INDIA can be considered a child project of WP:COUNTRIES and so on. What's different between Indian actors, politicians, doctors or any other profession? There are many other country based projects. See the huge list here. What is special about the India project that makes it nationalistic? Nationalistic is a negative word according to Google. If you mean it the same way, then I must say that you are inherently assuming bad faith here. Please try to accommodate everyone's viewpoint. Once again, a project template does not mean that the country has claimed that article as its property.
As far as the technical aspect is concerned, Titoxd, Kirill and Ganesh are much better equipped to answer you. — Lost10:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I object strongly to having notable people routinely classified by nationality (or ethnicity, or religion). If you want to put articles related to history, government, and cities under the India project, fine. If you want to put articles related to the movie industry in India under the India project, fine. The film industries have to function under Indian government rules. Trying to grab anything and anyone related to India for the project is offensive to me -- especially when it results in large flag-bedecked ads being inserted into the talk pages. If we don't insist on classifying Madonna (entertainer) by nationality (UK? US?) then we shouldn't be classifying people who work in Indian cinema by nationality.
Arguments that such and such project is the "child" of a "parent" project don't move me at all. These are not computer processes, which are designed to be unambiguously hierarchical. They are folksonomies not top-down taxonomies.
Nationalistic project tagging in South Asia-related articles is just out of hand. I've been quietly working on various South-Asian related clothing articles for years, and now we have attempts to grab Salwar kameez for Pakistan, and Dhoti not only for India, but for Hinduism. This is just nuts. If the Scottish editors here have refrained from trying to tag Kilt for Scotland, then surely the South Asian editors can leave the blankety-blank clothing articles alone. As well as the actor articles.
Zora, you need to give some valid reasons as to why exactly you object strongly to having the templates on the talk pages and what exactly is offensive to you. The only reason you repeat is that you dont like seeing large templates on the talk pages. For one Madonna, there are many other actors that are tagged by nationality. See Talk:Nicole Kidman, Talk:Heath Ledger to name just a few. I cant understand why you must object only to actors? And I cant understand what nationalistic motives you see behind the tagging. As far as your thoughts about project tags being ads, thats a much larger issue, and others have been patiently explaining you about the small templates. You may like to take it up at WP:COUNCIL but please give some valid reasons here about why one must not go ahead with taggging of actors by nationality — Lost06:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I, and others, have said that using talk pages for project spam is offensive. It takes up the prime area of the page for advertising. Too bad that you don't see a dislike for advertising as valid.
I wouldn't care as much if the advertising were off on another page, where it didn't blare out at you every time you opened a talk page. Categories don't shout the same way. I rarely get upset over categories, but the project ads are right in your face.
As for tagging by nationality -- you referenced the talk pages for two actors, and both talk pages are full of passionate arguments about why this tagging is right/wrong. Nationality isn't simple, which is why you have arguments. Actors are a particularily mobile bunch. If someone has two passports and homes in several countries, what nationality is he/she? What nationality is Madonna? Please, leave the actor articles out of national and regional tagging projects. (Having the Hawai'i project tag slapped on Nicole Kidman is just ridiculous. I live here and I've never even seen her name in the local paper. Does she have a second home here or something?) Zora10:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I've been watching this go on for a while now, and I've got one question: What exactly is the problem? If someone adds a template to a talk page to signify that it is involved with a WikiProject, that does nothing wrong. I recently reverted Zora's removal of the {{WP Pakistan}} tag from the talk page of the article of what is explicitly stated to be the national dress of Pakistan. There is nothing wrong with what Ganeshk or anyone else is doing in tagging articles with the tag of the correct WikiProject. There are hundreds of other issues to be dealing with right now, like improving an article, and I must say that keeping tags off of talk pages should not be at the list of things to do on Misplaced Pages.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 10:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Ryulong, you've opened Pandora's box here. I've been working on a fair number of costume articles, for years, and they typically don't have national tags plastered on them. Your reversion to the Pakistan tag has resulted in the addition of an India tag on top of it and a revision of the categories on the bottom of the article so that India is on top. Anupam tried alphabetizing the categories but no, our Indo-Pak warriors won't have that. I anticipate years of discord as Indo-Pak editors play tag wars on any article remotely related to South Asia. Dangerous-boy left this message for me on my talk page: . Apparently the sight of Pakistan's crescent flag is just too much for some people. Flags are bad things to put on articles or article talk pages. Zora18:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
It's getting worse. D-Boy added India to the categories and the India tag to the talk page, so Ryulong deleted the India categories and the Indian tag. This is nuts! I restored the India categories and removed the Pakistani tag too. Could we have a special task force dedicated to policing Indo-Pak conflicts online? We have groups of extremely nationalistic editors using WP articles as battlegrounds. Many articles. Handling this piecemeal is not handling it. Zora22:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh dear, this is again moving off topic. Zora, let me repeat that I have no issues keeping my bot out of ambiguous articles. I would also have no issues if there was consensus not to have any wikiproject templates at all. However, I do have issues if you single out overtly India related articles (in this case Indian actors) and create a controversy where there is none. And there is no Indo Pak war on. The nature of Misplaced Pages is such that there will be disagreements if an issue is controversial and we already have ways for dispute resolution and are also clear on how to deal with edit warring. But let me request you again to address only the issue of a bot tagging overtly India related articles — Lost15:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
If you really have an issue here, discuss it at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject India or Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Pakistan. There is no "Indo-Pak War" on Misplaced Pages. I saw you removed the WP:PAKISTAN tag from an article that says it is involved with Pakistan and I reverted it, and I removed India because I did not read the article entirely, but then reverted both you and myself on that page. People are not fighting over what article belongs to what nationality. They are just tagging based on nationality or cultural identity. If there was a Punjabi WikiProject (not that I know that there may be), there would be a tag on the Punjab article for both that and WP:INDIA. An article on an Indian actor would be affiliated with WP:INDIA just like Gandhi's. Edit warring gets no one anywhere, discussing it will.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Zora, as I said above, if you dislike project tags altogether, then WP:COUNCIL is probably a better place to take this as there are many other editors actively tagging talk pages with templates.
For actors, these are just two random ones that I clicked on. I can give you many other examples. If there are two nationalities then I have no problem adding both country templates instead of having none. I know you are averse to templates but as I said thats a separate discussion. Apart from that, why single out actors. Is there a harm if participants from two or more projects start working on an article? — Lost10:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Non bot related
Anyone who disagrees with Bakaman is automatically a "racist" or "anti-hindu",wheather it's me or Zora or anyone else.And yes Bakaman purposefully gets Indian administrators to ban users who insult India or Hindusism.These administrators go to the extenct of banning them for a week.When Bakaman could have gone to a neutral administrator and given him a link to a Hindi dictionary.But the reason why Bakaman goes to Indian administrator for help is quite obvious.
Nadirali21:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Really? Well when people are documented racists I find no qualms with calling a spade a spade. You seem to enjoy calling Hindus "fascists". It is obvious, because thoseware the people I work with on a regular basis on wikipedia creating content rather than using it as a soapbox to talk about "hijacking of history" and other stuff. Its not unlike you atried to rope in User Ragib for a pan-Islamic bond. Unfortunately for you, Ragib wasn't buying that (he's more of a Bengali, he's dealt with many Pakistani users whitewshing the atrocities that united Hindu and Muslim Bengalis alike with their blood flowing in the Jamuna) and you got pissed.Bakaman21:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
It's really funny being called "a racist" by a person like Bakaman(the true racist)."You reffer to some textbooks as your sources"(thus branding anyone who disagrees with her as a madrassa fanatic)Just read what she says up there."Its not unlike you atried to rope in User Ragib for a pan-Islamic bond".Anyways I have no intention in the future with interacting with trolls like Bakaman or Kumernator or the rest of the gang.I don't really care about getting banned by some biased or nationalistic administrator as Unre4L did.But trolls like these are just not worth a good reason for getting banned. Nadirali00:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Number one I'm a male. Number two, there is no such thing as a "Pakistani race" so I cant be "racist" either. You trying to imply I'm anti-Bengali? Doesnt work lol, I created many articles on West Bengalis and Bangladeshis, and have worked well with every Bengali user I interacted with. I have nothing but respect for the greats like Tagore, Bankim, Nasrul and Rahman. Troll? Considering I've probably added more to Pakistan related topics than you, I can brush that "criticism" off like the nonsense it is.Bakaman05:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Miltopia is from Encyclopedia Dramatica doing what they do best. He was already indefinitely blocked twice for harassment of MONGO. I think he only got away last time because he deleted his LiveJournal entry. I recommend Miloptia be community banned. DyslexicEditor15:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I looked at the community ban list and it appears that Miltopia was trying to get the furry articles deleted because Encyclopedia Dramatica's article was deleted. Miltopia may have been doing this to WP:POINT and may be the same person as the Hardvice on the community ban list who put up wikis for deletion after Encyclopedia Dramatica's article was deleted. Miltopia was particularly fixated on having WikiFur deleted because it is a wiki. WP:POINT. DyslexicEditor15:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't seem much grounds for accusation of sockpuppetry here either. From the summaries in the edits leading up to the one linked above it seems clear that Miltopia was complaining that he was 'followed' to the page and reverted... that the reverted text related to Blu Aardvark doesn't really seem relevant. If the reversion had instead been on George W. Bush that wouldn't make a strong case for Miltopia being president of the United States. --CBD17:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Miltopia has a history of stalking my edits...I can provide ample diffs if needed, or refer to the evidence section on the last arbcom case I was in, as mentioned by myself and Musical Linguist.--MONGO23:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
There is evidence of meatpuppetry, not sock then. The meatpuppetry for Blu Aardvark to get Blu Aardvark's vandal tracking information removed. The sending of meatpuppets to vote on Afds using his Livejournal. - DyslexicEditor21:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Closing out this thread
Everyone ignore DyslexicEditor here. I edited out links to articles not to be endorsed by Misplaced Pages s reliable, left comments on the talk page of that article AND the Wikifur article, and the editing out of Wikifur links has stood after many editors have continued the article since. His comments about me bringing "all these people in to delete the WikiFur article" is crap, since I was the last voter. His characterizations of my motives on the Wikifur deletion discussions are so false that it is inconvenient to explain why; instead, editors should read up themselves on what I said. To see my comments on why the article was deleted, please see these pages: the AFD and the DRV (in which I semi-argued for re-opening as a bad closure, despite endorsing deletion.
And please don't let MONGO hijack this header either. Everywhere where I'm brought up he comes around, looking for a way to get me banned, regardless of the relevance of his grievances to the situation. It's ironic that he says I'm stalking him when he shows up at everywhere I do to defend myself. Both MONGO and myself submitted evidence regarding my behavior during a recent arbitration "hearing" or whatever they're called. His is here (posted first, notice - MONGO had been editing this for a while before I ever showed up) and mine is here. ArbCom looked at both of them, did nothing to me (although Fred implied I should sorta continue to lay low, which I have) and found that MONGO didn't relate to other admins properly. So this has been dealt with.
In summary, here are the issues:
Miltopia may be socking as Aardvark or Hardvice - simply false. Already had a checkuser done. Ask Dmcdevit for details if you're unsure. In order for me to be either of these people, I would've had to have fooled far, far more cunning internet people with much less regard for privacy than Dmcdevit or any other Misplaced Pages Checkuser wielder.
Miltopia and the Wikifur deletion - old news also. Read the edits for yourself, DyslexicEditor is way off target. Don't flatter me by saying I can pull the wool over the eyes of two admins and get this deleted via trolling.
Miltopia, MONGO etc. - old drama. Been dealt with already. Stop bringing this up, MONGO.
If you stop being brought up, then there will be no need to for me to mention the facts. I am sure the stalking of my edits by you is now over anyway.--MONGO05:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Very confused. Skookum1 has been here since 2005, has over 12000 edits, contributions to FA, images, etc. The other user RascalPatrol is a SPA for all intents and purposes, with all but a very few of his less than 50 edits being to the article that lead to this dispute. An indefinate block seems very strong for a legal threat, especially with no warnings or the like. I can't how WP:BLOCK or WP:LEGAL supports this at all. --Elaragirl20:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I just read through that, and it is not clear at all that this was a legal threat. A legal threat is something like "I'm going to sue you." or "I'm asking the cops to arrest you." but saying that "My lawyer friend thinks this will be very interesting to the court." is a passive observation of consequences, not an affirmative statement that you are planning to ake any action. So, where is the bar drawn? --BenBurch21:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
You mean the parts of WP:LEGAL about taking it to private email and not thrashing it out here? The parts about how legal threats are used to intimidate others so as to get your way on articles or disputes? Isn't that exactly what this edit was? User:Zoe|(talk)21:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
It was certainly a legal threat, and certainly block-worthy. I'm kind of undecided about whether an indef was appropriate for a user with what seems to be a decent contribs history. Any previous editorial malpractice from this user pre-block? Moreschi21:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. It was definitely a passive-aggressive legal threat, but I think that in this particular case, a stern warning and a shortening of the block is in order, unless there have been prior issues. —bbatsell¿?21:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't recall asking if it was a legal threat. I seem to recall asking what specific part of the policy on blocking or legal threats calls for banning a longterm contributor in good standing indefinitely. I understand that a block for a legal threat CAN be placed without warning, although NPA6 exists just for that. But I am concerned at the definition of "serious legal threat", which is unnecessarily vague. Is this basis enough for an indef block on a longterm contributor in a conflict with a SPA? --Elaragirl21:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
See this from WP:BLOCK: "Users who make threats, whether legal, personal, or professional, that in any way are seen as an attempt to intimidate another user may be blocked without warning. If a warning is desirable, the {{npa6}} template can be used. Users that make severe threats can be blocked indefinitely. See Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks and Misplaced Pages:No legal threats for more information." - that would seem pretty clear. On balance I agree with Bbatsell about the correct course of action to take. Moreschi21:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It has been the case that users are indef-blocked for legal threats for as long as I can remember. If that's not clear in the policies, then perhaps it should be. —bbatsell¿?21:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
No, it's not clear in the policies. "Serious" legal threats? In this particular context, there isn't a "serious legal threat". There is an assertional stance that a lawyer outside the bounds of an actual court or any precedent of law found something interesting. If indef blocking is the de facto standard, then it needs to be clearly spelled out. As it stands, WP:Legal gives no clear idea of what a legal threat actually is, a point I find astonishing. A legal threat is a warning or statement that if you do or don't do this, person will conduct legal action. If we're using the MeatBall:LegalThreat definition, that should be said...but the policy states that users may be blocked, not are always blocked, and that only severe threats warrant indef bans. We should act to clarify the language. --Elaragirl23:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I think a week off, perhaps, will do this user no harm? Legal threats like that are unacceptable but I do feel that a user with a good contribs history having a row with an SPA should have one more chance. Moreschi21:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
They can make a request on their Talk page and if they appear to be sincere in promising not to do it again, they can be unblocked. User:Zoe|(talk)22:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Skookum1 has contacted me by email (his emails are as aggressive as his editing style), and I suggested that if he explains on his Talk page that he retracts his legal threat, I will unblock him. User:Zoe|(talk)00:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
That seems fine. The typical way that blocks for legal threats are done, in my experience at least, is that the user will remain blocked indefinitely while the legal threats are outstanding. Express withdrawal of the threats will typically lead to unblocking. --bainer (talk) 01:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I've said this before, I trust Zoe. I just think the policy should be more explicit so that people will understand they cannot do stupid things of this nature. --Elaragirl01:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not clear to me that Skookum1 made a legal threat. He threatened to report a person's behaviour to an organization that the person belongs to. In this case, the organization happens to be the Law Society of Upper Canada. This does not seem to be much different from threatening to report a physician's behaviour to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. You could call it a threat, but it's a stretch to call it a legal threat. Kla'quot03:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Threatening to call one's employer if an editor doesn't like somebody else's editing is as egregious a fault as threathening legal action against them. User:Zoe|(talk)08:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The Law Society of Upper Canada isn't the person's employer either; it is a regulatory body. Given the diff, I'm not even sure if I would say any action was being explicitly threatened. I'm not saying whether the block was right or wrong, but I think it's important that the reason be better-articulated so that the user can sincerely acknowledge that he did it and won't do it again. Kla'quot09:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree; this was clearly not a legal threat. It seems to me that User:Zoe saw the word "Law" and (mis)interpreted it without regard to its context. I oppose this block and think it should be rescinded, or at the very least reduced to a fixed duration. —Psychonaut21:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
With all due respect, you have got to be kidding! If I had a dime for everytime someone "attacked" me as was supposedly done by Giano in the instance you have cited, well, I'd have a lot of dimes, let's just put it that way. Let's be absolutely sure that NPA and civility blocks are completely clear cut when blocking established editors in the future. I can't even see a reason that the example you reference would be qualifing grounds for blocking a troll.--MONGO23:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
In reviewing this block, and Giano's history, I don't think this was likely to be an effective block (from the standpoint of reducing overall drama and increasing overall effectiveness). There has to be a better way to get Giano to be more than just a valuable article writer, to instead be a welcome part of our entire community. Warning for PA, and blocking for PA, just don't work with Giano. I therefore decided to unblock. I expect that will not be a popular view among everyone but I think we really need to try other measures. If I am overturned, so be it but that's my view. ++Lar: t/c22:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Lar, very astute of you to spot it so quickly, and thank you too "little-admin-with-the-funny-unpronouncable-name" for giving my edit publicity I could never have dreamt of. However, I doubt poor Doc will be so grateful to you. Relax the rest of you "little-admin-with-the-funny-unpronouncable-name" was not part of an IRC plot, just another of those who should never have been promoted and let loose on the rest of us, ignore him, don't give him too much of a hard time, blame those who voted for him. Giano23:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
That wasn't quite the response I was hoping for. It just gives fuel to people who say bad things about you, Giano. I've reached out to you privately as well. I speak for many, I think, whey I say I really would like to find a way for you to be a positive contributor again... but attacking Naconkantari is not the way to do it. ++Lar: t/c23:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, if you are asking. I have no criticism of lar's action. I contemplated doing it myself for the sake of the project, but decided I'd stay out of it.--Doc23:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Ignoring the to-me-near-indecipherable post above, I'd have hesitated to issue a block on that initial snark. The bits of the post above I do understand, however, are very nearly blockworthy in my opinion. - brenneman23:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano, wiki pages are a written medium. You don't need to be able to pronounce someone's name in order to spell it, especially when it's written in front of you. (I don't know whether you pronounce your name Gee-ar-no or Gy-ann-o, but I don't need to in order to communicate politely). Referring to someone as "little-admin-with-the-funny-unpronouncable-name", especially when you've just been blocked for making personal attacks, seems to me a very bad idea – Gurch23:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, that last comment from Giano was in itself incivil and yet another block-worthy personal attack. Does this have to go on? There are better ways to discuss things and sort out problems. Moreschi23:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Endorse re-block. Giano, I think highly of you and your contributions, but please keep your discourse civil. Snarkiness and off-the-cuff commentary meant to offend others isn't helping build an encyclopedia -- Samir धर्म23:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I see that I misread Brenneman's posting in that you were not re-blocked, but my intent is the same. Please cool it with the comments, Giano. -- Samir धर्म23:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I've no comment block itself. (Although for the record, I have not been party to, nor aware of, any pre-block discussions.) However, I think there are real problems here. Lar is right, blocking Giano is counter-productive: it neither causes Giano to halt the incessant incivility, nor does it reduce the general wikidrama. I blocked him several months ago (as a then uninvolved admin) and learned that lesson the hard way. That's why I asked Jimbo to unblock him the other day, However, there is another problem that is increasing tension: that is the general perception that Giano is getting special treatment. He is incivil and aggressive, but every time he is blocked a number of users point out the (no doubt also real) problems with the blockers, the medium and the discussion, and do anything rather than say that Giano needs to knock it off. (Sure IRC can be a problem. Perhaps the exact thing that Giano is blocked for isn't quite right. But there IS also undeniably a huge problem with his behaviour - just go through his edits and look!). Personally, we really need to move on from here. We need people to stop blocking Giano, and stop provoking him (and, yes, he has sometimes been trolled). But we also need him to stop provoking them - and stop spoiling for a fight (why on earth was he on my talk page today, I've stayed clear of his for weeks??). Please, rather than fly at the other side, can Giano's friends try to influence him for the best? And can those who are seen as 'opposing him', please knock it off. The only other end-game here is that the temperature rises until someone leaves or gets banned. I, for one, don't want that. Let's all try to de-escalate this thing whilst we can. I'm willing to work with anyone who's willing to see wrong on all sides.--Doc23:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Endorse block Giano seems to be a productive contributor, but incivility is not tolerated, at any rate, so I endorse the block. --SunStar Net23:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Once more: is everyone sniffing glue? (Note: that's a question.) Am I around the largest single group of computer-connected blushing violets in the world? Your responses to someone being catty are to block? You must be joking or ... or... invoking-standards-you-don't-believe-because-you-are-upset (there: I avoided maligning anyone). Cyde has been absolutely horrible to me. Kelly has been to me. Some of you have been. Life goes on. Do you support censorship of television, too, so that there are no scenes that could be upsetting? If you want Misplaced Pages to have a society and community of editors, then that means having one where people are occasionally snippy, occasionally unpleasant. No, you don't get to block them for that. Please, please, please read WP:NPA. In "extreme cases" a block might issue. An extreme case, is, oh, an adenoidal 16 year old writing, "You are a child molestor" someplace permanent. It is not, "You have an unpronouncable name" (which isn't even a personal attack in the first place) or "I don't expect Doc to understand not talking behind peoples' backs." The standard you are all applying would have nearly every one of you yourselves already blocked for things you have said in the past. You may not like Giano, but don't sniff glue and propose standards you have no interest in. Geogre14:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I neither endorse nor condone any of the blocks of Giano, except the 3-hour block for spamming logs, which I think was acceptable (though is not a step I would have taken myself). Since Giano appears to be leaving anyway, I feel the indefinite block current in place is probably unnecessary; however, I don't think it's hindering anything productive either, so I do not wish to question it. And no, I am not sniffing glue – Gurch15:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Question on the "camps"
Does anyone see me as being in either camp here? Because having stayed mostly out of this, and being happy to say that I respect people on either !side of the debate, I'm "neutral enough" I think. - brenneman23:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I see you as a neutral party, though I'm not sure how much that counts for. I didn't consider myself to be in a "camp", either, but Giano appears adamant that I'm on the opposite side of the debate to him (given his claims and reply to my subsequent explanation and question) – Gurch23:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually there are a lot more diffs than those. Read the whole thread, else it won't all make sense – Gurch23:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I've seen you around, and you generally seem pretty reasonable. As far as this discussion, you're an unknown quantity, in my memory, which seems to imply that you're neutral, although objectively I have to admit that's hardly an absolute proof. Luna Santin23:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Now what do you suppose Cyde meant here just before I was blocked? The IRC admin gang want me banned, not blocked, banned. Kelly Martin is saying openly on IRC she wants to start a book on when - not if. I'm afraid half of you haven't a clue what is going on here, and the half that do are keeping very quiet indeed. Giano00:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano, any chance you could stay off Cyde's talk page, (I've already asked him to reciprocate). You may find it difficult to assume I'm acting in good faith here, but I really really do want this to de-escalate. Any help you could give would be most appreciated. --Doc00:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm an admin, I use IRC, and Cyde does not speak for me. Kelly Martin does not speak for me. Personally, I think it would be a damned shame if you were blocked -- you've offered a lot to the encyclopedia, and I hope that you continue to do so. That said, I am disappointed in a number of people, and I wish we could all put a little more effort towards working together to get past this and keep going in this group endeavor. Luna Santin00:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, right, that's probably enough for me to qualify as not being in the supposed "anti-Giano" camp given my reply to that post. Can I take it as read that my previous interactions with Cyde and Kelly are well known, and that there can be no accusations of mateship there? By anyone I mean, not just Giano? - brenneman00:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
No to be honest I know nothing about you, unless people come stomping onto my talk page first, I rarely have interaction with anyone. People have to seek me out first as a rule. Giano00:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I have never been to the admin channel, so I don't know if there's any kind of conspiracy going on there or not. But I do see that Giano is uncivil, and that is, obviously, not helping the whole situation. So please, be a bit more friendly, even to those yo do not like. --Conti|✉00:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
The whole problem is that those who frequent IRC are very uncivil there about many including me. This thing is about double standards, lying and cheating by the same people who come here and pontificate and then plot behind our backs. Giano00:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I have no doubt that you could establish that some people have done that. But I assert again, I am an individual, and these people do not speak for me. When have I done any of these things you just mentioned? Luna Santin00:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Many just sit there and don't question the behaviour they witness. Why for instance have you never questioned Kelly Martin's presence there? Giano00:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Because I haven't felt any pressing need to. In the course of my work on the wiki, I focus on a few main tasks: recent changes patrol, unblock requests, maintaining WP:PAIN, occasional attempts at resolving disputes, this one included, and trying to do my part to make sure that the admin backlog doesn't get too far down the tubes. I do not claim to be the Savior of All Great Justice on the Wiki -- quite to the contrary, I do my part, and I rely on others to do theirs. This is a collaborative project, and that means that I must sometimes collaborate with people I won't always agree with. Luna Santin01:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Lead by example. "They're doing it, too!" might be true, but it's still not a good reason to behave that way. If you are civil, people won't be able to complain about your incivility anymore and will hopefully spend their time on the actual discussion about what you are complaining. --Conti|✉00:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Reset indentOk, wait, stay on target. Almost there. I'm not going to deny that there are issues around IRC, but I'd like to focus on just one thing. I'd like to get general consensus on perceptions of incivilty, blocking, camps, etc. While I've been accused of being camp plenty of times, the only time I've been said to have "cronies" were those who've not been called "facilitators of incivilty" or somesuch. I'd like to get handed the nuclear football, and hold the block switch on Giano. Err, II. Whatever. The number of blocks I've handed out to established users is pretty thin and since I've been warned by arbcom about my own civilty there's little chance I can be accused of being thin-skinned. So, any objections? That for the time being at least nobody else bollocks or unbollocks the G-man? - brenneman00:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Nice try Aaron. Sadly people get what they deserve in life Very well, Kelly and her cronies win. Farewell Misplaced Pages Giano01:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Until now I had respected Naconkantari as a one-man anti-vandal army and one of the good guys. I strongly endorsed his Rfa, even though I believe we need more writers at the helm than vandal thwackers. Now I see him make a highly questionable block of a highly regarded writer, who has been subjected to an obvious campaign of harassment in an apparently sucessful attempt to drive him away. The actions of Chairboy and his like really don't surprise or disappoint me...they are merely pageboys with ambitions above their proper station. But you, Nacon, were a knight in the eyes of many! It saddens me to again see power, especially petty power, corrupt a once noble and productive Wikipedian. I can now count the number of admins I have any regard for on a single hand. My disgruntlement turns into disgust and disillusionment.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine)09:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
On the one side, we have people who won't let go of hurtful feelings. On the other side, we have other people who won't let go of their own hurtful feelings. On the gripping side, we seem to have Gurch. Luna Santin00:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
And Luna Santin, it would seem. I suppose I ought to clarify my (our?) position: I have no problem with, and fully support the continued existence of, an administrator-only IRC channel to which access is restricted to trusted users. I have used the administrator-only IRC channel in the past and found it to be very useful. I do not endorse the activities, past and current, of certain users (not everyone) who frequently use this channel. I am concerned by the lack of civility displayed by certain users on both "sides" of the debate. I recognize the issues that this causes and the need to remedy them – and I will accept changes to the way in which the channel works in order to achieve this, including but not limited to the introduction of public logging if necessary. However, I do not believe that the channel should be removed altogether, as I believe that such a move would impact those who use it in a legitimate and productive manner – Gurch00:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
If I can add a few words, I really hope nobody will be taken by the whim to reblock Giano, as if this really would solve anything. To begin with, I'm quite shocked with the block by Naconkantari; it almost seems to me, and I'm really sad to have to say this, that there is a sort of impulse to block good editors, while blatantly uncivil and pov-pushing editors are completely ignored, and this explains why the talk pages of many articles have fulled themselves with tons of hate speech. Giano may have a difficult character, but he's perfectly capable of collaborating in bettering articles, which is, IMO, the only thing that wikipedia exists for. All this speaking of blocks hasn't done anything in easying relations in the community; quite the contrary. May I give a small piece of advice? Lets cut it here, and start editing - after all, shouldn't it be our chief occupation. I hope I haven't offended anybody with this message; if I did, I can only say it wasn't my intention, and I'm sorry. Ciao, --Aldux01:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm leaving this conversation now, not just because it is way past my bedtime, but because until we can openly publish the IRC logs proving once and for all the disgusting behaviour or "IRCadmins" leading editors further debate here is futile. But if people think I am uncivil they are going to be very shocked when the logs come out. Giano00:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Many just sit there and don't question the behaviour they witness. Why for instance have you never questioned Kelly Martin's presence there? Giano00:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano posted this in the previous section, but I'm copying it here as I feel I should address it here.
As I say above, I do not endorse the activities, past and current, of certain users of the administrator-only IRC channel. I have not responded to these activities before now primarily because of a desire to stay uninvolved with such things, remain uncontroversial, and avoid stirring up conflict where none exists. I am presenting my opinion now in response to the conflict that has arisen, as I feel that at this point I should at least attempt to engage in discussion. I have argued a number of points, outlined my experience with the issue and made my position quite clear above. I don't intend to talk extensively about individual people unless they approach me first. However, as far as Kelly Martin is concerned, I have already said that I don't endorse some of her actions. When I first used the channel, Kelly Martin was an administrator with whom I had no previous contact; I certainly saw no reason to question anything at that point. Had I been particularly eager to participate in a dispute, I may well have chosen to question that and many other things at the same time as I decided that use of the IRC channel was no longer a good idea – at 05:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC). However, I did not; I decided to stay away from the situation, and I do not regret doing so – Gurch00:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Looks like Giano has just announced his departure (), after ArbCom announced a new civility parole remedy (). As an uninvolved editor, the whole thing is a shame, but in the end, no matter how valuable an editor somebody is, they still have to play by the rules. The rules are flexible to a degree - productivity counts, circumstances such as prior baiting count - but one can't continually and flagrantly violate them again and again without eventually having to face the consequences. And regarding the role of admins in this and other cases - without naming names, I will say from personal experience that admins who 'adopt' users and defend them to the bitter end are doing just as much a disservice as those who will cut a user no slack at all. - Merzbow01:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I've mostly stayed out of the last couple of rounds of all of this as well, if only because I said pretty much everything I had to say in September and October and found myself fresh out of ideas. My compliments to those, such as Luna Santin and Gurch and Brenneman, who tried to buffer the situation and develop common ground. Newyorkbrad01:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes. I confess it took me a while to tumble to the fact that this whole thing had to end with de-escalation or bust. But kudos to those who never lost sight of that. Unfortunately, it looks like 'bust' though. Oh, well. That's honestly a pity.--Doc01:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I wanted to stay out of this discussion, but I cannot. I don't know if this is still an ongoing discussion, but I want to express my opinion and voice myself. I believe that the reblocking of Giano was a characteristic expression of abuse of power. I endorse Aldux who asks here anybody to show a little more respect for the great editors of Misplaced Pages and let them do what they now best: edit! I think that actions like Giano's reblocking for a minor reason (I have difficulty to qualify his wording as a PA) achieve only one think: to make Misplaced Pages poorer and to deprive it of the persons who can make it richer. Thanks!--Yannismarou19:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Thoughts on IRC
Officially we are told that the 'Misplaced Pages' IRC channels are considered to be 'off Misplaced Pages', outside the control of ArbCom, and actions there thus not subject to results here (and vice versa). So... theoretically someone on IRC could call a Misplaced Pages user every manner of foul thing, give out their real life name and address, and openly hold a discussion about how best to murder them... and no action could be taken against their account on Misplaced Pages itself (though hopefully someone would at least notify the police). Correct? Yet... paradoxically, if someone took a log of any IRC discussion and publicly posted it on their equally 'off Misplaced Pages' web-site their account could then be banned. Is it me or is there a logical contradiction here?
I have in the past seen an admin chortling on IRC about how he just blocked a "douche" for being incivil to him... seemingly oblivious to the irony. This, and the fact that incidents like it happened nearly every time I opened the channel, is why I no longer use IRC and never asked for an invite when the admin channel was created. Now we are hearing (admittedly disputed) accounts of things which seem like incivility, failure to assume good faith, turning Misplaced Pages into a battleground, et cetera in reference to the admin channel. Are there standards of behaviour for the IRC channels? If so, where are they documented? Or do we really have a situation where users on Misplaced Pages are required to abide by all these behavioural niceties or be blocked... but admins are free to toss civility and cooperative fairness to the wind on an IRC channel where the only action forbidden is revealing what went on there?
Personally, I think that anything openly discussed in IRC or an outside web-site ought to be treated exactly as if it had taken place on Misplaced Pages... it is the same community and pretending to a fictional separation between 'PhilbertWikipedia' and 'PhilbertIRC' doesn't change that. If there are disputes about what was really said (no log available) or the actual identity of the person saying it then that can (and should) be excluded, but otherwise there seems no reason to create this dichotomy where 'on Misplaced Pages actions' are discussed and coordinated free from any sort of 'on Misplaced Pages consequences'. Failing that, IRC participants should be held to the same standards of behaviour as on Misplaced Pages... you make personal attacks, start planning how to 'get' someone, or call for 'vote stacking' on IRC then you get blocked from using the IRC channels just as you'd be blocked from Misplaced Pages if doing so there. If we are going to continue this 'separation' then the two areas should at least require the same standards of behaviour to be allowed to participate. Otherwise we create a situation where 'IRC users' can (and do) behave in fairly despicable ways and 'Misplaced Pages users' can (and just did) get blocked for anything which looks like it might be a civility violation if they get mad about it. Its inherently a double standard and it is wrong. --CBD15:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree, I was never comfortable with the notion that off-Wiki behavior doesn't count. There are problems with identifying who's who and gathering decent evidence though. He said, she said might be acceptable for government work, but we are used to having logged evidence of who did what and when. I would never want to see the door opened to trumped up charges. Fred Bauder15:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm actually in agreement. It never made sense to me that someone's posts on Misplaced Pages Review didn't have real consequences in here, especially when those posts were really vicious. Oftentimes, we have the problem of identifying who is who, but a lot of people have admitted both here and there that, say, "Yalej" on Misplaced Pages is "Yalej" on Misplaced Pages Review. Actually, this has started to change. We've already seen Everyking lose his sysop bit over something he said on Misplaced Pages Review, and I think we're headed down the path of being held accountable for all actions that can be proven. "That can be proven" is the hard part, though. If it is something said in the #admins channel and a dozen people have logs, then yes, it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but, if it is something said in private correspondence, either email or IRC PM, there's really no way to prove it unless the person has been signing their statements with PGP. I could see #admins logs being used (privately) by arbitrators (although posting them here for everyone to see would be a big no-no), but, I could never see private conversations being used, as those are utterly too easy to fake. --Cyde Weys15:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely. And the range of private communication methods available means that this fact that isn't limited to IRC or even to the Internet. Records of private communication between two people (one of which is not yourself) supplied by one of those people should never be fully trusted in any situation (even if both parties agree that the records are correct) – Gurch20:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll be joining Emmanuel Goldstein then, as this conversation is moving to policing thoughtcrime. Big Brother may be watching me, but my private conversations are private regardless of where I hold them. Am I now accountable to Misplaced Pages for what I tell my mother? The #wikipedia channel is 245 people at present; this doesn't qualify as private, and I wouldn't oppose people being held accountable for death threats, posting private information, etc there (although they would be kickbanned from the channel anyhow). #wikipedia-en-admins might be similar, might not be. Regardless, what people say in PM or in email is their own business and should be left that way. --Keitei (talk) 15:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry if I misunderstand what you're saying, but evidently one of us is somehow confused by the indenting, and/or you haven't read my comment below. My above comment is in reply to Cyde, not Fred Bauder or CBD. My comment is intended to flow from the last sentence of Cyde's comment. Please read them together. Cyde says that he "I could never see private conversations being used, as those are utterly too easy to fake", and I am agreeing with him and elaborating on the notion that conversations between two people can never be trusted. In other words I am asserting, for that reason and others, that the idea of accountability for a user's actions cannot be applied to a private conversation. Cyde asserted the same thing. So we are in agreement with you, yet you indented your reply below mine; if your comment is directed at someone else I'd appreciate it if you could make that a little more clear. Thanks – Gurch20:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I could be completely misunderstanding, but Cyde's comment sounds to me like "private conversations can be easily faked and that's a shame", implying that if they weren't so unreliable, we'd want to hold people accountable for them. Your comment seemed to follow from that, that they can't be trusted and that's a shame (though that idea isn't really as implicit). Anyhow, my point wherever the indenting is: even if we could reliably prove what's said in private conversations, we shouldn't and shouldn't want to... Private conversations are private... I discuss Misplaced Pages with my mother, but it's not anybody's business but hers and mine what I say. All this "OMG PEOPLE TALK ABOUT WIKIPEDIA IN IRC" seems to be heading in a very thinkpol direction. (So perhaps I'm not addressing anyone in particular, just the desire to unearth all IRC logs we can muster, whether we should or not. :]) --Keitei (talk) 22:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I shall state it once more, then; the idea of accountability for a user's actions cannot be applied to a private conversation and I do not wish for it.
With regard to "unearthing" logs, I am of course completely against that and don't even understand why it is being discussed. I have no problem with introducing new rules to the channel which specify that conversations will be publically logged, or logged in a secure location accessible only to a certain group of people (e.g. ArbCom, or all administrators); I won't discuss the merits or drawbacks of such options now. But when I used that channel I did so on the understanding that conversations were not publically logged, as I'm sure many other uninvolved people have done. I may have made statements there which I do not wish to be available to the Internet in general. (And no, I'm not talking about a conspiracy to bring down Misplaced Pages, or whatever it is). If you look further up (and down) this page, you'll find other statements to this effect. I may possibly accept a review of channel logs by, say, the Arbitration Committee (though right now I'm disinclined to trust them with anything for various reasons), but public release of logs is a violation of privacy – Gurch23:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
(From the next section):
Whilst we could agree that logs should be published, or widely available, in future, I would take strong objection to any retrospective change. I've chatted personally, and given some details of my family on IRC. I did that on the understanding that a few dozen people might overhear. But the notion that the logs of such conversations might be published on the open web, or given to people not party to the conversation is an horrific invasion of privacy. (– Doc glasgow)
Oh, heck no. Watch what you guys have done. CBD proposed that there be some accountability for malicious behavior on "Misplaced Pages" IRC channels, Fred said "off-wiki" actions should be accountable, and now Cyde is eagerly agreeing that behavior on outside websites be under scrutiny. The first part is fine, if we have accountability for the accountability (logs) or a guideline on Misplaced Pages in advance. The second part is utter nonsense and just another way to validate user hunters. Geogre14:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
My comment refers only to the IRC-channel-related discussion. I have no interest in policy, of lack of policy, regarding behaviour on off-wiki websites, since I don't discuss Misplaced Pages on off-wiki websites. I would not object to attempts to make off-wiki actions accountable, but nor do I endorse them. I do support a change in IRC channel rules if others judge it to be necessary – Gurch14:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, me too. I've been working on the issue for a while, now. However, this was one of those games of rhetorical "telephone" where people were going to start with a valid premise and then, frankly IRC-style, end up at a complete non sequitur. No, we should not be blocking people for their actions at Misplaced Pages Review, or WikiTruth, or Encyclopedia Dramatica, or their blogs, or LiveJournal, or e-mail, or wherever and whatever else they do. To even think so is nuts, and it appears that Cyde would have it. We can only have accountability for IRC (in either sense -- as a rationale for a positive action or as a rationale for an injunction) if we have logs with solid integrity or ops who will always act consistently in enforcing a set of guidelines of behavior. We have neither. Geogre15:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Geogre, actually Cyde (and Fred) did not misconstrue me. I was talking about outside websites too. If this makes me "nuts" then so be it. To take an example 'from the other side'... I recall that Kelly Martin wrote something on an 'off Wiki' website which had people up in arms a while back. That wasn't on Misplaced Pages and or a 'Misplaced Pages affiliated' site (IRC channel or whatever)... but there was no question that it was Kelly. Should it really therefor be treated as 'separate'? Can people just 'hop over the wall' and break any Misplaced Pages rule they like... knowing that it is going to have the same impact as if done ON Misplaced Pages, but is now 'shielded'? Had Kelly been (to take the absurd example again) talking about killing another Wikipedian would it really make sense to say, 'Nope... no action can be taken on Misplaced Pages since this happened elsewhere'? You are absolutely correct about the dangers of this being abused to go 'hunting' for connections between 'WikipedianA' and 'OffWikipedianB'... but I think that can be prevented by disallowing such sleuthing entirely. In short, unless the Misplaced Pages account has identified the off Misplaced Pages account/text as being their creation it can't be used against them. Short of that it could never really be proven and is far too open to abuse... e.g. someone could go to MySpace right now and create a 'CBDunkerson' account and pretend to be me. That's probably the biggest reason this 'wall' exists, but there are plenty of cases where identity IS known with certainty. The invite only IRC admin channel being probably the clearest example. Even then the authenticity of the text would be an issue too... if there were only two users on the IRC channel (or they opened a private channel / conversed in e-mail / talked on the phone / et cetera) then there is no way to prove what was really said if they have different stories/logs/copies/whatever... but if their accounts match or there are a dozen matching 'witness statements' then that ought to be treated as fact. --CBD19:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
IRC logs, enough already
Perhaps a righteous and humane admin (or five) will simply post them. If any "good" admins have nothing to hide, they'll have nothing to fear. UsagiYoTruthBo16:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, nothing to fear except a ban from IRC for posting channel logs, which as of this moment is (as far as I am aware) still a rule for that channel. Perhaps people don't want the hassle of having to deal with that? I have logs from a few months back myself, but so far all accusations I have heard that mention a specific date refer to periods that I do not have any record of, mainly periods within the last two weeks (I stopped using IRC December 6, anticipating that something like this would come up); so even if I were to post anything, it would apparently demonstrate little. I imagine there are others in the same situation – Gurch18:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Whilst we could agree that logs should be published, or widely available, in future, I would take strong objection to any retrospective change. I've chatted personally, and given some details of my family on IRC. I did that on the understanding that a few dozen people might overhear. But the notion that the logs of such conversations might be published on the open web, or given to people not party to the conversation is an horrific invasion of privacy. Change the rules if you must (although I'll probably stop using IRC if you do), but not retrospectively.--Doc19:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this is an important point, and I am inclined to agree. I have probably done similar things myself, though I can't immediately recall any. I will as I stated earlier accept a change of rules in the future if necessary – Gurch20:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree; there's a stark difference between telling a few dozen people something they'll probably forget and never care to remember, and posting something online where it is publicly searchable and available to the entire world's population. Not that the entire world would care to know, but the difference is there. --Keitei (talk) 15:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Apparently, David Gerrard is treating the publishing of logs as a rationale for a block from Misplaced Pages. Either that or he is really misreading Giano's comments. Geogre14:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I think repeatedly spamming pages with content that has already been removed several times, despite being told to stop, is grounds for a temporary block, regardless of the nature of that content. This behaviour could also be considered disruption to illustrate a point – Gurch14:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
"14:01, 30 December 2006 David Gerard (Talk | contribs) blocked "Giano II (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite"
Giano had already been blocked for 3 hours to stop the disruption, and unblocked. Unless he had resumed the posting of the logs, another block was IMHO inappropriate. Regards, Ben Aveling22:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Yyyyeah, except for the example El C points out where Kelly Martin went to 150 pages last week. Also, except for people who can go to IRC and make an announcement every 5 minutes for an hour and reach many more people. Also, except for the fact that Giano was not randomly "spamming." He was, instead, telling interested parties, which is not talk page spamming at all. (If four authors worked on an FA, and it went to WP:FAR, all four would be contacted. Giano got up to 11.) Yes, Giano was looking for a block. Yes, those who blocked him helped make his anger a Very Big Deal and helped us all go into a knot again. Geogre15:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I consider Kelly Martin's actions to be equally unacceptable. I have no desire to see Giano's channel logs, yet I recieved them anyway. And if any user is "looking for a block", the fact that one was provided can hardly be considered a problem; surely the absence of a block would be worse? – Gurch15:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Geogre: A cursory scan of Kelly's contribs for the last few weeks didn't reveal 150 pages of comments last week (you'd think a cursory scan would be enough to reveal it, I would think), could you (or El_C, if you are reading this) provide a link? Thanks. My question is why is Giano "looking for a block"? Why can't he see the good in others that others see in him? Why does it have to be this way? ++Lar: t/c15:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Because you folks were ready to explode. You wanted to continue to be hypocritical about things, submit that Giano is the problem, to never admit that the issues are being unaddressed, and because he had decided that you were timorous or small minded, I expect. Guess what the response was: the very worst possible thing: another "Yeah, tough guy, we'll fight you!" block. How dumb do you have to be to try to play playground games like that? The guy edits away nicely, but no...that's not enough...no...every comment has to be watched so that there can be a chance to piss him off. He gets pissed off. Congratulations! How much skill did that take? Take a look at my talk page right now. Should I have blocked Ling Nut for that personal attack, or should I be attacked for my giving as good as I got? Well, what Giano was facing was his own comments getting blocks, while the people insulting him in the first place were just "doing their jobs." Yeah. Well, if we want our volunteers to stop volunteering, that's easily accomplished. That way we can have a WEB FORUM, which is what many of you seem to be on anyway. Geogre18:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
First of all, I'm not sure who 'you folks' are. Don't assume that everyone who disagrees with you, or is critical of Giano is part of some overarching cabal. Who is ready to explode? Who is a hypocrit? My take on this is that we have a vicious circle caused by everyone (you and me included) jumping to the barricades to defend our side, and unable to say that there is fault on both sides. One side feels the injustice of the way people are out to 'get giano' and they thus defend him to the hilt, and look for the faults in his critics. The other side feel the injustice of Giano getting special defence and a perceived 'free pass', and they thus looks for ways of convincing the community that something needs to be done about the Giano problem. Oh, we'll disagree about which is the cause and which the effect, but each is feeding the other. Everyone needs to calm down and ask themselves: 'why are intelligent people, who we assume are acting in good-faith, and certainly are committed to this project, feeling the way they do? Why do they perceive the situation to be like that? How can I help to address their perceived concerns, even if I think they are baseless?' If we can do that, perhaps we can get to a place where Giano stops being incivil, and people let him alone. Then in a calmer atmosphere, we might look at some of the perceived structural issues that have got us here. But, while everyone is playing the 'we're the victims' blame game, there is little chance of that.--Doc22:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Non-Admins, ex-admins in IRC
Why are they allowed? Does that mean that anyone can join? Can I join? If not, why, and why are admins who gave up their bits an inch before the community stripped them of it (Martin, Sidaway) allowed to retain access? UsagiYoTruthBo16:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
#wikipedia is open for all, including non-Misplaced Pages users. The other channels, it is the person who hosts the channel decides who is in or out. But, most of us (including myself) hang out in #wikipedia and the other channels, so if you need to reach us, you can. User:Zscout37017:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Ex-admins appear, as far as I can tell, to be allowed because nobody with channel operator access (which is not everyone) decided to remove their access after they requested desysopping. Non-admins appear, again as far as I can tell, to be allowed because one or more admins (or ex-admins) with channel operator access decided to grant them access. I don't know whether you would be granted access, as I can in no way speak for those that have the power to do so. I could try to gauge your possibility of being granted access based on your contribution record, but as this is your only edit with this account, it would seem very likely that you are an established contributor under a different name – possibly even an administrator. So I cannot even do that – Gurch19:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, on closer inspection, you appear to have been indefinitely blocked. So I would estimate your chance of being granted access to the channel as zero – Gurch19:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano II blocked (duplicate note)
Just for the record, as a follow-up to a note I posted in another thread, Giano has been blocked by Centrx for three hours for spamming IRC logs. See here. Carcharoth01:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
More information please. I am surprised to see misbehaviour - according to the rules of an unofficial non-wikipedia virtual drinking hole (however misleadingly named) used to justify action on wikipedia? If all he has done is break their rules, then they should take whatever action they think is appropriate in thier forum, not in ours. Regards, Ben Aveling06:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense. The "bang" is annoying the people he calls IRC fairies who say amazingly nasty things on IRC and then say, on Misplaced Pages, "Prove I ever said it, and, if you do, I'll block you!" He called the bluff. That's a bang. He was "leaving anyway" because of the moronia of the "Giano on civility parole," which was instigated by the "owner" (I think he indicated that about himself) of the en.admins IRC channel and signed by him and two others who are very protective of en.admins. In other words, it is painfully clear that this is not a "screw you I'm gone" as much as an ongoing argument about en.admins, where three or four non-administrators spend vast amounts of time and even have ops, and the proponents of those people and that channel would rather use their administrative powers against Giano, who is not an admin, than ever, ever, ever debate the issue on Misplaced Pages. Using that as a rationale for blocking is just more evidence, not any part of any solution. Geogre14:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Giano has problems with civility, for which a potential remedy has been proposed. But the block log doesn't mention civility, it describes IRC log spamming. Now that is a rule of the IRC channel, so I highly recommend they block from their channel whoever it was that leaked, if they can work out who it was. But our rules are not their rules and their rules are not our rules. If some of the big kids have a rule that what happens behind the shelter sheds stays behind the shelter sheds, that's their business but it doesn't bind the rest of us, and it doesn't give them permission to take on-wiki action however angry they are. It has been claimed that 'privacy' has some legal protection. (Does that constitute a legal threat? I don't really know and I care less.) I am not a lawyer, but a quick check of a law book seems to make clear that information is confidential only if there is a contract between all concerned parties in place, and if the information is genuinely confidental and if steps have been taken to keep it so. None of those conditions appears to apply here, at least, not as regards Giano. (This may well be different in your juristiction, please consult a real lawyer if you need to.) I don't have all the facts and I could be wrong but it appears on the surface that Giano has been blocked for breaking a rule that we don't have. Regards, Ben Aveling11:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The block is for mass-messaging, apparently in an attempt at a disruptive good-bye, and would be warranted whatever the content of the message. If a user states "I'm through here anyway, but lets have some fun" and then proceeds to post something eleven times despite being told to stop and with no indication that he would stop, the appropriate immediate response is to block the user until such time as he, being reasonable, stops, or until some other decision is made regarding the matter. That the content of the message was an "IRC log" is important only in that the user specifically intended the message to be disruptive. It was not a mass message about multi-licensing contributions or an RfA thanks; it was not a naive user vote canvassing or inserting borderline external links; it was not a malfunctioning script or someone who hastily or accidentally did not see the message about stopping; it was not a chocolate-chip cookie recipe or a Christmas card with a fair use image. There are other reasons why posting what was supposedly the verbatim text of a private conversation is probably wrong, but the solution to a dispute over those reasons is not to then engage in the disputed activity to the extreme, while edit warring and spamming. As far as I can tell, he would have continued to repeatedly post this message, across several pages and on the same pages over again, and he was doing it to be disruptive. —Centrx→talk • 12:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. Ignoring posts to his own talk page, I count about 5, not 11, though I agree he probably would have continued. So, hardly a mass message, and they weren't distributed at random. But yes, disruptive, or at least intended to be so. I trust you'll forgive me for assuming you blocked him because of the content? You probably should have dropped a note here once you'd made the block. But otherwise, yes, good call.
OK. For better or worse, the cat's out of the stable door. Does anyone claim the logs, however they've come into our possession, are not a true and accurate representation of things that have been said? And either way, does it matter? #admins is not official. The logs don't seem to contain any admision to have commited any deadly sins on wiki. Only a claim to the ability to do so, but that's hardly the same thing. Absent evidence of foul play on wiki, does anything else need to be done? Regards, Ben Aveling12:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
69.252.158.32 (talk • contribs) has issued a death threat. I have indefinitely blocked the user and blocked account creation. I've never handled a death threat before. Could another admin review this? Are blocks like this usually indefinite? If not, how long should it be? Thanks. -- Samuel Wantman02:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that appears to be a dynamic IP controlled by Comcast Cable. An indefinite block is likely going to hamper other users in the future, once the current user is assigned a different IP address and someone else is assigned their old one. I'd consider scaling the block back to maybe 1-2 months? I'm not sure whether any further action has been taken in past similar incidents, such as contacting the ISP or law enforcement. —bbatsell¿?02:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a good block; it looks like it may be a dynamic IP, however, in which case there would be little practical difference between 24 hours and indef (which is why we try to avoid indeffing IPs, generally). Might be worth shortening it, with a clear understanding that continued such behavior would lead to an "on-sight" block. WHOIS suggests the IP range in question is 69.240.0.0/12 -- very wide range, so sprotection might be a better option, if they're persistent. Luna Santin02:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
We generally don't, that's correct, but there's no technical limitation preventing it at this time. (Open proxies are frequently indeffed as IPs, is about the only example of proper use). Luna Santin02:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
And with open proxies, the same situation applies. Most of them are not permanently open proxies, and some of them are hacked machines on relatively dynamic IPs. —Centrx→talk • 02:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
If it's Comcast, you won't have to worry much about the IP changing. As a former Comcast customer, I once had an IP for a year and a half (if not a little more), and if not for the fact that Comcast pulled out of my area, I'd almost certainly still have that IP. jgpC02:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Hm, fair enough. It looked like the IP only had edits for today and back in... May, I think it was. I still prefer "awhile" to "indefinite," with IPs. 24 hours, a week, or some such. If they're not gone by then, it's easy enough to re-block. Luna Santin02:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
No, you may have the IP for that long, but if you were to wilfully reset your modem, you would be assigned a new IP. That is, the banned user can, relatively at will, get a new IP. Even supposing that he did not do that, the unlikely 1.5 years is not the same as indefinite and, even if he did not get a new ISP 3 months from now, he will be dynamically assigned a new IP sooner or later. —Centrx→talk • 02:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment from an experienced Comcast usr: Comcast assigns IP addresses to cable modems based on the MAC address of the outward-facing port (Router/Ethernet card). I've reset my modem (And had it force-reset by Comcast) well over 10 times and still have 68.39.174.238. Depending on the user behind this IP, they may have ditched it immediately or they may still be on it. 68.39.174.23819:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Do not block IPs indefinitely. Before doing any sort of long-term block on an IP, you should whois the IP to see what sort of Internet service it has, or at the very least look at the contribs to see how long there have been problems from this IP. A person may be banned indefinitely, but blocking an IP indefinitely does not ban the person indefinitely; it does prevent perfectly innocent people from editing and creates a burden on another admin to investigate and unblock it. —Centrx→talk • 02:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you to all for your comments and for taking care of this. One minor question: My understanding was that "indefinite" blocks were meant for two situations, the first being when there is no plan to ever unblock, and the second being when an admin has not determined how long it should be. Since I did not know how long it should be, I made it indefinite and then asked for discussion here. Am I misunderstanding this? --Samuel Wantman06:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
This user has apparently surfaced as Kriminal99 (talk • contribs). I don't know if it's worth the trouble of going though a checkuser request to verify this, but the topical interest and level of vitriol is identical. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
He's claiming to be his brother/roommate, but I'm not buying it. I blocked Kriminal99 for a week for block evasion and continued threats (see for example ). We do not need to put up with this kind of abusive behavior. Antandrus (talk)15:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I received two e-mails from him after the block. In the first, he denies being the same person, which I believe is a lie, based on stylistic similarity and completely identical behavior and interests, and then he goes on to wiki-lawyer about his behavior not really constituting making a threat and so forth, which we've heard before on the various talk pages. In the second mail he admits to making personal attacks, although he says he was previously unaware of the policy, and he promises to respect the block, and not make future personal attacks.
If anyone would like to argue for an unblock, or make a suggestion to him as to how he could proceed, feel free to comment either here or on his talk page(s). I'm not going to do it until he explicitly retracts his threats and quits the "it's not really a threat" rhetoric. Thanks, Antandrus (talk)16:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't really see any reason to unblock him. We are talking about a very disturbed individual who views people disagreeing with him as "use of force" that must be stopped "by any means necessary" and has already demonstrated by both committing the action and writing in defense of it afterwards that yes, he does include 'making people fear for their lives' as a morally acceptable means. Why on Earth would we allow such a person back on Misplaced Pages? I hope no one's under the impression that he could not find equally vicious means to conduct the persecution he already announced as being justifiable "by any means necessary". If anyone is, I'd like to point out that this is also the user who previously posted as 69.180.7.137 (talk·contribs) and under that IP his antics not only include a similar pattern of personal attacks but also altering another contributor's comments and then falsely accusing them of having altered his comments. The decision is of course not up to me, despite me being the one targeted, but I must say I don't see why we would be looking for terms upon which we can allow this user to return to Misplaced Pages. -- Antaeus Feldspar17:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Barrett Vs Rosenthal: California Supreme Court Decision
Thanks to Wizardary Dragon for bringing neutrality to the discussions about me. I can assure you I do apologize for any mistakes I made in the past and I definitely intend to be a better Wikicitizen in the future and move forward from here. There are some issues with the article Barrett Vs Rosenthal {http://en.wikipedia.org/Barrett_v._Rosenthal] that I would really like help on. I would like people to really understand how this ruling in my favor, protected ISP's, blog owners, and users who post things written by other people. Misplaced Pages can be mightily protected from nuisance lawsuits as they host the words of others. I have not been able to keep the final words in the article. I'm going to re-open that topic on that page. I hope I have some support. The plaintiffs in this case have been spreading information about this case that is clearly unfactual. This paragraph found on page 39, are the final words of the 41 pages. From the Supreme Court decision, I quote: "As the lower courts correctly concluded, however, none of the hostile comments against Dr. Barrett alleged in the complaint are defamatory." Unlike those who wish this removed, I feel there was definitely a purpose for Judge Moreno to have added this. All I want as an editor, is the verifiable quote from the Supreme Court of California quote . I would also very much appreciate being able to edit my own user page and have my links restored where they have been systematically removed. There are some excellent articles on this case: and Califiornia Supreme Court Shields Web Republishers. I'll gladly rewrite my page about my Wiki experiences. I send healing energies and thanks tonite from the jungles. Ilena01:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
And this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with using Misplaced Pages for self-promotion and furthering your vendetta against Barrett, right? Only your past history does rather invite scepticism here. Guy (Help!) 16:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
With all due respect, I am attempting to get the verifiable facts from this Landmark Supreme Court Case properly on Misplaced Pages and request help. Barrett's vendetta (6 years of SLAPP suit against me] was decided in three California decisions, yet the facts are not being allowed to remain unedited on the page. Thank you.Ilena16:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
With all due respect I'd rather rely on the judgement of neutral third parties as to the importance of the case and what constitutes fact here. Guy (Help!) 16:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Ilena, I think the best course of action is to fully address the issue of learning wikipedia's "ropes" so to speak before you try to make broad, sweeping changes anywhere. I can look into any links you provide, as I have said on my page. However realize that change rarely happens instantaneously but rather tends to take time. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 19:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it is important to note that the issue of neutrality is an important one. Recall it was a lack of such neutrality and calm thought that lead to the sticky situation you were in previously. I would suggest what would be best is simply to present the links and your opinion on the talk page, and let a person less involved in the case (on either side - including yours) add in what they feel is pertinent. That is why I offered to look at them, since I really have no interest in either side, except insofar as I want to diffuse this conflict. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 23:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
This case is mentioned in the article on Barrett. In that article, Ilena's request for the concurring opinion's statement is included in the description of the case. There, is is notable. It was removed from the article on the case itself, because the notability there is somewhat different. Barrett v. Rosenthal is notable for the precedent it set regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (a federal statute). The case is rightfully called a 'landmark' case that may end up in the US Supreme Court. However, the case is not notable for dicta in the concurring opinion. I understand Ilena's wish for rebuttal there, but the case is properly described. If it would make her feel better, however, I see no problem with including that statement. It is a correct statement.Jance23:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
More ref desk related drama
user:Light current, ably assisted by user:THB, has managed to engage user:Hipocrite in a revert war at Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Science over a trollish question that's been deleted and re-added 4 or 5 times by now. I'm sort of in the middle of this (I've been trying to get these editors to peaceably exist in the same universe), but if someone heretofore uninvolved in this could take a look at this mess I'd appreciate it. This is related to the user:Friday situation as well. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
THis is hardly an engagement. Everyone is I believe acting on his own. This is a pure content dispute and has no place here.--Light current03:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, since it looks like there's an asinine edit war going on, I think it does make sense to bring this to administrators' attention. --Cyde Weys04:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
It answers dozens of questions a day. And the drama will go down, eventually, when we straighten a few things out. I wish there were a quick way to reduce the drama, but I don't see one. -- SCZenz04:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Also it provides a gateway to Misplaced Pages, and an example of what Misplaced Pages is about; sometimes it could set a better example, of course, but like everything here it's a work in progress. -- SCZenz04:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Bah. I suppose it's observational bias: I never noticed when it was bubbling along fine, but the last (weeks? months?) it has been a hotbed of dispute so I do notice. I've just got my grumpy pants on, that's all. - brenneman05:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm so glad to see you back, Mr. Grumpy Pants Aaron. ;) --
It doesnt pay for itself . It has no declared purpose. It is completely useless. Its only here cos Larry sanger suggested it. Why not exterminate it. It would save everyone a great deal of trouble and heartache.--Light current00:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I guess I'm inclined to agree. What part of 'building a 💕' does answering user questions in real time help build? It seems to draw attention away from writing articles, is a vector for trollish and unanswerable questions, and sometimes a way to push POV which would never be acceptable in articles. -- nae'blis16:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I think Aaron and Nae'blis should pay a penalty for opining here, maybe they should have to get involved in the discussion? Really, "what the hell is the ref desk good for anyway?" is a great question—and i think there are some pretty good answers—the more editors asking the better.EricR18:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I'm watching. I just don't have anything productive to add there; RD isn't my forte, and I only recently became aware of the scope of it (in terms of edits and importance to readers). It was about the time of the /Strict experiment, for reference. -- nae'blis19:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
In case it is of use to anyone, here is a squence of diffs that reflects my efforts to chronicle the edit war: , , , , , , , , , (), , , , , , , . Note that Friday and I are involved in removing the question as well as the users Rick named. Note also the edit in perenthesis, which is an essentially uninvolved user apologizing for reverting Friday because he wasn't aware of discussions on the talk page. From my perspective, this question was worth removing, and remained so because the users who were re-adding it were not addressing (or deliberately misinterpreting) the discussion on the talk page about why it should be removed. Do with the information what you will; my goal in adding to this post is really just to save time. -- SCZenz05:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that, personally, I wouldn't take any action on this at all at this time. We're hashing out through the wiki process, and had a bit of a flare-up is all—it's something that happens on pages (even policy!) from time to time, and as far as I can see nobody violated the three-revert rule. I don't see how administrative intervention will particularly improve the situation at the moment, although any suggestions anyone has on the ref desk talk page about how to handle things better in the future might very well be useful. -- SCZenz05:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Up to a point. Light current has a history of playing silly buggers at the ref desk, and appears to be deliberately setting out to troll and antagonise, so I'd say a strong warning was in order. Guy (Help!) 16:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Do you bloody well mind not calling me a silly bugger Guy? I may not have the highest opinion of you but I dont call you a complete asshole in public do I?--Light current23:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I should hope you would not, as it would be a personal attack. Whereas Guy didn't call you a silly bugger. He said you have a history of playing silly buggers which is an idiomatic reference to the exact kind of procedural and linguistic manoeuvring that you have displayed in questioning him. It is this sort of retort that is so trying. Rockpocket00:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
So I could say any one was acting like a complete and utter shitty asshole and get away with it? How frigging pathetic this wordplay is. We all know things like this are meant as personal insults.--Light current01:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
No, because acting like a complete and utter shitty asshole is not an idiom, playing silly buggers is. Your protest is equivalent to complaining someone is actually calling you a "pot" when if they were to suggest you behaviour was like the pot calling the kettle black. Rockpocket02:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I mean that you are clearly a smart, eloquent individual and you are clearly not unfamiliar with British English, this led me to infer that you knew exactly what that phrase means, but used the opportunity to refute his analysis of your behaviour with an insinuated personal attack. (coincidently, this is exactly the same thing other editors inferred of you in the example I provided below) Of course, perhaps I'm overestimating your linguistic skills, in which case I apologise for failing to WP:AGF. But at least now you know now how to distinguish between and idiom and an insult and thus will not fall into the same trap again. So everyone's a winner, right? Rockpocket02:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Of course I have heard the term. I still find it offensive to be referred to by that idiom. as it implies that I am a silly bugger doesnt it?--Light current02:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
User_talk:Light_current#On_offense. "People will always step on your toes (inadvertently). People always step on mine (probably inadvertently). The solution is to get some emotional steel toecap boots!" "Ignore offensive posts. Its the Wiki way yes. I know it can be very hard somtimes to do it but we must try. My offense after all may be your right to say something you believe. 8-)--Light current 22:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)"
He's correctly using British idiom and, frankly, he's accurately describing your behaviour. Put on your 'emotional steel toecap boots' and listen to what people are saying to you, rather than playing silly word games. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
THe bit you quoted is for unintentional (inadvertent) offence that may be caused by general posting, not intentional targeted offence like this. Im sure you can see the difference here.--Light current03:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
There was no "targeted offence". You clearly don't understand the meaning of the phrase. An idiom's "meaning cannot be deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through conventional use." You are inferring a literal meaning, not the figurative meaning. Therefore it implies nothing other than that you were behaving in an "annoying way" (something, as TenOfAllTrades notes, appears to be perfectly accurate). Have you considered perhaps instead of obtusely questioning every perceived criticism, instead of deconstructing the minutiae of every argument in an attempt to avoid accepting the glaringly obvious point, actually thinking about why so many experienced Wikipedians express the same concerns about your behaviour? Please, just think about it.Rockpocket05:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately previous experience tells me that strong warnings are simply treated as fodder for Light current to make a WP:POINT. The concept of trying the patience of the community appears lost on him (see here for a perfect example). As an aside, my opinion as a occasional RD contributor, is that the biggest problem facing the subproject is the self appointed "RD regulars" that spend their Wikitime there almost exclusively. RD works when editors with a level of specialist knowledge contribute to questions that they have knowledge of. It doesn't work when the certain individuals feel the need to answer every question asked, then when there is nothing current being asked, to ask their own irreverent questions, then - when they are bored of that - by arguing over unneeded policy. If it was simply used for the purpose it was designed, instead of treated like a social forum, it could get back to relative normalcy. How we would enforce that, I have no idea, however. Rant over. Rockpocket22:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
So Im going to be the scapegoat again? Well that is a big surprise (I dont think) 8-((
The trouble with scape goats is that one is never enough. When the problems and misfortunes continue, the elders say we they must find another goat to placate the Heavenly one. Then another is scarificed. Unfortunately the problems still appear. What to do? Ah yes, lets find another scape goat. Surely he will rid us of all the evil editors and crap posts!. And so it goes on. Eventually only the tribe elders are left doing all? the work and praying:
"Oh Lord Where have we gone wrong? We have sacrificed many, many goats in your Name and yet we are still in the shit with our only remaining editor writing whatever he wants to. How can we get them to write only what we want?"
The Lord replied: "Its going to be difficult to get anything written now aint it Dumkopfs? cos you've killed off all the good writers ". And the Lord smiled a knowing smile on the tribe leaders.
Absolutely! I have had a distiguished carreer of over 25000 edits before even happening across the Rds. People ought to take a look at some of 'em 8-)--Light current00:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
No, but his behavior contributes to the problems there, and users who stand on the principle of "free speech" above all make it more difficult to keep his behavior from hurting the desk. -- SCZenz00:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest sorting out a procedure for removing contentious questions (or even contentious answers) that you can agree on. A good starting point would be that reverting the removal of a question is NOT the right thing to do (that way lies edit warring). Reverting a removal must be discussed first. The reference desk won't collapse if a removed question is not replaced straightaway, and it won't collapse if one poster of a question finds that the question has been removed (if the poster is an established user, make it a requirement to post a note to the user's talk page inviting them to participate in the debate). Then follow a procedure to decide whether the question should be put back, and in what form (maybe modifying the question would help). At the end of the procedure, restore the question/answer or leave it removed. I'll copy this to the ref desk talk page to see if they can agree on using a system like this. Carcharoth02:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Almost right, the start of an edit war is the first unilateral (non-consensus) deletion. The proper procedure is to discuss it first with the author, and then, if the author refuses to remove it and further action is warranted, bring it up at the Ref Desk talk page. If a consensus to delete is reached there, then the post can be removed. StuRat03:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Or we could just, you know, remove the clearly inappropriate questions without having to go through all of that rigmarole, thus saving everyone's time. Admins are already trusted to use their judgment and delete articles; clearing questions off the reference desk is nothing, and is well within our capability to handle without so much unnecessary process. --Cyde Weys18:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Which is exactly what admins have done in the past, and most would continue to do, irrespective of the "proper process" that is now being mooted. The problem lies with when certain editors object to certain other editors removing certain questions. In other words, I believe the crux of the problem is with personality clashes, not with the general issue of removing inappropriate content. Rockpocket21:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Rockpocket has summed it up admirably. To repond to StuRat, I would say that if someone removes a question you think should stay, do not unilaterally revert their removal of the question. Raise the issue on the talk page. That way you would be following your own logic. As soon as you revert their removal, you are descending to the level you profess to be avoiding. If you see a question you don't like, raise it on the talk page. And anyone can use common sense and blank/remove questions, not just admins. Have a look at WP:1RR to see what I mean. The philosophy is that absolutely anyone can remove something, but no-one should restore anything without discussion. Carcharoth01:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
The user (User:Hoffa fett) was blocked indefinitely for perceived vandalism and I'm requesting that the block be lifted. I'm wondering if I should undelete the articles in question, blank 'em, and tag 'em with {{copyvio}} so that when (I'm assuming good faith) copyright permission is secured they can be re-instated appropriately. Would this seem a reasonable course of action ... assuming that there is agreement that the user should be unblocked, that is (the first step - a request on the blocking admin's talk page - is in place). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Assuming there is no information to indicate that this statement is dishonest, I'd unblock. Blocks are not meant to be punishment... they are meant to protect the pedia. If the user understands what they did wrong and vows to not do it again, I see no issue with an unblock. ---J.S16:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
User:Hoffa fett went right back to creating articles in violation of copyright not long after being unblocked. I've asked him to stop right away and indicated that I would block him myself if he did not cease. Maybe a bit too strong, but I don't like being played the sucker (easy though, ain't it). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
East Stirlingshire F.C. is having problems with copyrighted material being inserted. I reverted to the last clean version and also removed unsourced negative information per WP:BLP, and also left a copyvio notice on the editor's talk page . The editor has ignored the message I left, and re-inserted the copyrighted information and the WP:BLP violations with no edit summary . I've removed all the offending information , but I'm not really sure what to do next. One Night In Hackney20:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
The editor seems to have relented for how. I've left a warning on their talkpage that they will be blocked if this continues. I'll keep an eye on the sitiuation and will issue a short block if he or she doesn't get the message. Rockpocket22:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I've found that Alex Ferguson had copyrighted material from the same source as above. I have removed it but it may be worth checking any other East Stirling related articles. Catchpole22:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
User keeps removing a well sourced criticism section from the Honda S2000 article and is right on the edge of WP:3RR (or past it if you count his first removal). WP:AGF he thinks he's doing the right thing, removing bias and restoring WP:NPOV, but the section isn't overly POV and I'm not so sure someone with the username "Hondasaregood" is exactly a neutral party in regards to Honda articles. Regardless, if someone could have a word with him about removing WP:V and WP:RS information from article it would be appreciated because I'm hoping he will understand why he shouldn't be removing sourced information rather than just getting a block for doing so. Hopefully he/she will take it more seriously from an admin than just from me.--Isotope2321:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
An anon with various IP's User:88.110.220.22, User:88.110.239.95 has been seriously disrupting the article and its talk page by repeated reverts, direct personal attacks, formatting changes etc.. User refuses to discuss the validity of contributions, resorting instead to attacks on integrity of other editors and charges of a leftist/marxist cabal. --CSTAR22:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I have blocked both IPs for lack of civility and constant edit-warring disruption for 24h. This is not to be seen as a punitive action nor an endorsement of any given version. I suggest some kind of dialogue is jump-started to discuss the arguments. As I suspect that both IPs belong to the same person, it would be advisable if an account is created for accountability reasons. Regards, Asterion00:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. SInce I have been trying recently to get some of the claims sorted out in that article, I wanted to avoid administrative actions myself.
Re This is not to be seen as a punitive action nor an endorsement of any given version. Obviously administrative actions do not imply any endorsement. However, disruption in talk pages (such as deletion or reformatting of talk pages) and personal attacks may require some kind of punitive action.--CSTAR01:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
A note, I'm not sure blocks will have any effect in this case as said user changes IP daily, actually yesterday he seemed to be using two distinct IPs. Worse, only the first four digits of his IP are ever constant (88.109.xxx.xxx-88.111.xxx.xxx). I'm not sure what resources are available to moderators, but obviously blocking that entire range is out of the question. Since Asterion's temporary block the annon has been using the 88.110.52.179 IP. I believe his service provider must be Tiscali-UK which I assume is operating nationwide...--Caranorn12:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Hey folks. I blocked User:Vlh for ten days for massive edit-warring and violations of WP:OR, and when he responded with this nastygram on his talk page, I indef-blocked him. His talk page is now protected, as he kept blanking it and posting attacks on admins (none against me personally). Now he's firing off emails to me, demanding that I unblock him, which I'm not terribly inclined to do, both because of his behavior and because he shows no indication that he's going to follow WP:OR in the future. Can someone review my block of him and reduce it if you feel it's necessary? Thanks... | Mr. Darcytalk22:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
On review I endorse your actions. The editor clearly had scant regard for both WP:OR and WP:NPA. His contribution history shows no sign of efforts to improve. Rockpocket23:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Non sysop endorsement of block • We should not allow editors who are only creating a negative atmosphere in the project to continue to do so when they have been given plenty of warning and chance to reform. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 00:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Non sysop endorsement of block - that message does it all, without even looking at everything else he's done. (He forgets that if admins were the elitest whateveritwas, then their blocks would always be OK.) And as an aside to the large number of emails you are recieving, have the developers implemented a feature that optionally disables email from blocked or anon IPs? Yuser3141518:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Specifically, he is banned from contributing to the article, per Tony Sidaway's tag on that article's talk page, until March 5, 2007 (tag visible here Talk:Allegations of Israeli apartheid) also reproduced below:
{{User article ban|Zeq|March 5, 2007|]}}
Today, Zeq created Criticism_of_Israel, which is a copy/fork of Allegations of Israeli apartheid. The forked article should be speedied and likely will be without intervention, but does this action on the part of Zeq constitute a violation of his probation or is it skirting a violation because while he is being disruptive (creating unnecessary articles) and he is playing around with the contents of the article (copying it into the fork), he is not actually editing the original article proper (i.e. Allegations of Israeli apartheid.) --70.48.71.1522:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Not that anybody necessarily cares what I think, but I don't believe that Zeq's creation of an article is a violation of his probation. In any event, I think a more interesting question is, who is User:70.48.71.15, really? I have just a bit of difficulty believing that this is some random anon that started editing today and just happens to know about article-probations that were enacted more than six months ago... especially in light of past sockpuppeting activities in and around the articles in question. 6SJ700:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm an editor in good standing just trying to avoid any retaliation/intimidation just for filing such a report. Also, you can read at the top of the talk page, Talk:Allegations of Israeli apartheid, that there is a ban in place and it ends and how long it is. I won't be responding to any more attempts to distract from this report by turning it on me -- the violation of probation concern is valid. --70.48.71.1502:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Welcome back Homey !!! Long time no seen. In any case no probation violation occured (excpet yours since you are a banned editor) I have not touched the "allegations" article and used talk which I am allowed to do.
The entire tone is dismissive of a number of admin actions (invoking WP:BITE seems especially unwarranted). While deletionism and inclusionism are opposite Wiki philosophy, wilfully characterizing either side as being ("knowingly" is implied) harmful to the encyclopedia is at best inappropriate. Besides, this should really be at meta.Circeus01:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Taking it to WP:AFD, or, more specifically, WP:MFD, would be funny Template:Emot. However I do think we should discuss things with the user who created it first. Maybe userfying it into his userspace would be appropriate, because then it represents his opinion instead of everyone's? Yuser3141501:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure it would be a rather small essay. "Delete everything that fails WP:NOT as a violation of policy!" Well, I've always liked good satire too ... so if Mr. Darcy is willing ... Template:EmotYuser3141502:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for mocking me everyone. I'd like to keep the essay up for more than a couple hours before its deleted, please. This would be to gain some non-administrators'-noticeboard comments, and edits. I'd like to note that Circeus hates me for some unknown reason, and has failed to respond to my question on his talk page as to how I offended him. I have absolutely no history with Circeus, and am surprised hes following my edits so closely. Fresheneesz02:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Nobody was mocking you. And no, the page will be deleted whenever appropriate, although I think it likely it will stay up for at least another couple of hours. Misplaced Pages will not host attack pages or pages that favor one group of editors. Also, where Circeus is concerned, please assume good faith. That is much appreciated. Thanks. Yuser3141502:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Its difficult to assume good faith when the guy threatens me after my third comment on that page - trying to mediate between him and badlydrawnjeff.
But I really think its in poor judgement to censor my views before they are polished. As you know, many people take time and multiple edits to flesh out an idea - I'm one of those people. And I was hoping for help from the community to emebelish the page. Fresheneesz02:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Your argument appears to allow the following example:
A vandal creates a page with "Jimbo sucks" as the content.
Someone marks the page for speedy deletion.
The vandal claims, "Please keep it for a couple of hours while I improve it. It takes out time to flesh out my idea."
Um ... Fresheneesz has had issues with how he's addressed policy matters in the past. As indicated on the MfD page, while I think parts of his essay could be more tactfully worded, I think putting his thoughts in the form of a self-contained essay rather than using the tactics he's used in the past represents an improvement in user conduct that should be encouraged. I understand that there is strong opposition to the philosophy contained in the essay, which takes an extreme position on the continuum, but comparing the page to a scrawled "Jimbo sucks" is not going to elevant the tone of the discussion here or on the MfD. (Yes, I fully understand that Yuser31415 was pointing out a flaw in the form of the argument rather than making a direct comparison, but my point remains.) Newyorkbrad03:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to let Yuser's comments slide, he's adament, but not bugging me enough to warrent an explosion : ) . However, creating a page called "jimbo sucks" is obvious slander... which is against policy somewhere. Since my essay is not based on slander - but on serious discussion of the way inclusionism and deletionism works - its not the same thing. I've fixed some of the wording, and I don't think its derisive any more. Fresheneesz05:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you misenterpreted the MfD. I am nominating the page for deletion since it consists of an effort to belittle deletionists and praise inclusionists. With what intent you created the page for is largely unrelevant; instead it is the considerable bias toward inclusionists and your attempt to unify the views of the many thousands of Wikipedians that would disagree with you I dislike. And with all due respect, I would appreciate it if you and I could continue to let the MfD take its course naturally. Best wishes, Yuser3141506:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Unsure if this is in correct reporting article, if not i apologize.
User 72.69.213.21 has made changes to the Logan International Airport article without citation of sources. Time index is from 01:29, 30 December 2006 to 02:15, 30 December 2006 according to the page's history file. After my reverting, he first noted "don't revert my edits", and the second time he reposted he noted "(shut up, if you really want to edit, get an account jackass...)". Request warning of said individual, and possibly block for personal attack. Thanks for the help. Neo1628702:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Template:Hinduism small contains the image Image:Aum.svg. However, rather than appearing as Aum, it appears as something in perhaps Japanese. However, one clicks on the thumbnail, one gets Aum. I don't know if this is vandalism, and can't quite determine what is going on. --BostonMA02:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. If you mean refresh my browser cache, I've done that. But if you aren't seeing it, it is probably not vandalism but a technical glitch. Thanks for taking a look. --BostonMA02:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello. I edited a spelling error in an article on Hemorrhoids. You can find the article at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/Hemorrhoid.
In the section on Squatting, the word "casual" is misspelled, and should actually be "causal." The sentence should correctly read: "Hemorrhoids are very rare in nations where people squat to defecate , but this epidemiological argument doesn't necessarily prove a causal relationship." I made the change and marked this as a minor edit since this was simply the correction of a spelling error. A bot immediately changed the correction back to the original content. I'd like to have the bot's edit reversed, and the bot dismantled (okay, just kidding about the dismantling; the bot was just doing its job). Thanks.
By the way I wasn't sure where to report this issue.
You did the right thing coming here. I reverted the revert, put a note on your talk page explaining that your edit was fine (and formally welcomed you!), and notified the bot's owner as well. Thanks for your help! | Mr. Darcytalk04:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
References
User:Robinepowell keeps removing the reference section from Brian Krause. I have asked her numerous times to stop yet all she says is NNDB.com shouldn't be linked there since it's already linked under "External Links" and removes it again. I have tryed to remain civil with her, but she keeps removing the section, so can an admin please help me? --Malevious Userpage•Talk Page•Contributions05:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
While I was warning her, she reverted the page for a fourth time, and I have blocked her 24h (she had been apprised of the rule earlier). Let me know if she pulls this stunt again when she returns. I have little patience with people who remove references, regardless of motive. | Mr. Darcytalk05:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I've also left a note on her talk page explaining why removing the reference section is tantamount to vandalism and why the reference section is important to an article. --TheFarix (Talk) 17:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Looks like the only thing the editor is concerned with is removing an image and some related text from the article over and over for almost 2 months now. I see a warning has been placed on his usertalk.--MONGO05:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I've been at a loss about what to do with this situation. Ginkgo100 recommended a revert-and-ignore approach . On the positive side, SoLongBaby has got me to do some additional editing to the article. --Ronz06:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
A week's block seems excessive to me, since I see no evidence that these are bad faith edits. I could protect the page for a while, if it persists. I think the goal here is either to make him understand and failing that, to make him give up. Dina15:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
(not admin) I would probably agree too. For the time being, he or she appears to have stopped. I would suggest waiting to see if the image or text is removed again, and if so leave a firm message on his or her talk page telling them to stop, and if they do it again, blocking for 24hr. Any better? Yuser3141518:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
S/he did it again, and I reverted, placing a note on his/her talk page asking directly why s/he persists. I hate to say it, but if it happens again today, a 24h block might be in order, just to get his/her attention. I don't like it, but the non-responses to Ronz don't make me optimistic that I'll get a response to my note. | Mr. Darcytalk19:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
On second thought, would protecting the page for a week not solve the problem better? If the user is intent on disrupting, they'll move to another page and be blocked. If not, they'll give up. Dina19:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Has anyone considered the user is a well-meaning editor that doesn't know English very well? It would be a pity to block if it was his/her intention to make good faith edits. Yuser3141519:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't really matter in my mind. The user is constantly removing good material, without explaining their edits on the article's talk page (where their edits are opposed by several editors), and without responding to questions on their own talk page. If the reason is because they don't know English well enough to respond or do anything other than remove content, then I think we would all be better served by the user editing the localized version of Misplaced Pages in their native tongue. As it stands now, they are disrupting the English Misplaced Pages; whether their edits are in good faith or in bad faith is for the most part irrelevant. My $0.02. —bbatsell¿?19:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
You make a good point. Under which circumstances, we should probably protect the page for a short time, or block the user for a very minor amount of time as a get-attention block, maybe from 12h to 24h depending on the admins' feelings on this. Cheers! Yuser3141519:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The user in question has again performed the same edit with the same edit summary on Dental floss. I have issued a "final warning" (for lack of a better term) to the user on their talk page. —bbatsell¿?22:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, so this editor is getting to the point of being a WikiTroll (and that's saying something, coming from me). I would suggest a 24h block without waiting for the user to violate their so called "final warning". Yuser3141523:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. A few comments: I think part of the problem is that SoLongBaby's command of English may be poor, judging by his use of the word stub in his edit summaries and on the talk page (I can't figure out what he means by "stub" at all). I do think he understands much of wiki policy since he's avoided a sockpuppetry situation and actively avoids 3RR problems. --Ronz01:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
At the time I gave Daniel10 what is hopefully a couple of friendly but strong warnings. He seemed to stop by himself, so my plan currently is to wait and see if he does anything else suspicious before any further action. Of course, I don't mind if anyone more experienced with this sort of situation feels otherwise. Raven4x4x09:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I see at least one more case of attempted sockpuppetry. Maybe we should at least shut the sock Sigeway down. Of course that's just the kind of thing 10-year-olds do, but we should be clear that this is not something he can get away with, on WP or in RL. ~ trialsanderrors09:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The talkpage of the now nonexistant article Encyclopedia Dramatica has been recreated even though it recently was found in the deletion review that it was to be kept deleted.... One administrator of this website has posted comments there and surely must, based on his comments, know that the article was deleted and the deletion review upheld that deletion.--MONGO11:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
This appears to be a good-faith effort to determine whether the subject is (or, since its most recent deletion, has become) notable, and therefore deserving of an article. As long as it remains such, then there's no reason the talk page can't continue to exist. —Psychonaut11:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
This page was deleted in the regular course of clearing old protected-deleted pages. Currently, there appears to be a good-faith effort to justify having an article on the topic, though it does not look like it will be successful. Note that deletion review was about the previous deletion of the talk page. It is not a decision to forever forbid the talk page there, and the vast majority of protected-deleted pages do not have protected talk pages. If there are problems on the talk page, they will be removed or the talk page will be deleted and re-protected, but current good-faith commentary about why an article is not or should be included, should not be deleted. —Centrx→talk • 12:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I can understand both rationales, however, it has been well less than two months since the deletion review was closed as keep deleted. Seems odd to have any page recreated less than two months after it was DRVed and closed as a keep deleted, tis all.--MONGO12:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
It does seem like we are having a good faith discussion on the talk page. I'm just curious why there would ever be a need to delete and protect a talk page? I mean, delete is one thing, but to delete and protect a talk page? Just seems weird. Smeelgova13:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC).
There were a few personal attacks on the talkpage and it looked like, with precedent in mind, that the best thing to do was to eliminate the forum in which further harassment would originate from.--MONGO13:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah. Well, there aren't any personal attacks going on at the moment, and there won't be from me at least. But at any rate, doesn't just deleting the talk page, and thus the personal attacks, fix that problem? Why the need to delete and protect? Smeelgova13:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC).
Technically, the talk page to a non-existent article is not the place to discuss whether there should be a page or not. The proper venue is an RFC. Would someone kindly invite the good faith folks there to create an RFC, and then the talk page can simply redirect (yeah, I know...namespace redirects are an abomination before the Lord) to the RFC. Geogre14:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Looks like someone deleted and protected the talk page yet again - even though the only thing that was going on at the moment was a good-faith discussion about the notability of certain sourced citations. Oh well. It will be interesting to see how this all progresses in the future. Smeelgova14:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC).
The re-creation of articles is, as Template:Deletedpage says, discussed on the talk page and/or Misplaced Pages:Deletion review. The talk page is the place to bring up new sources, etc., and re-creation at least of anything so controversial as this would be on Deletion review. I don't see what the use of creating an RFC and then redirecting the talk page to it would be; has that ever been done before? —Centrx→talk • 21:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm the "one administrator of this website" to whom MONGO alludes above. I certainly knew that the page had been deleted and salted, saw that it was recreated, and since it wasn't being used for trolling or harassment, simply responded to the good-faith comments I saw there, without worrying about why the page was unlocked again.
I'm not saying it shouldn't have been deleted two weeks ago - that was a good call. As for protecting it again, I'm not particularly disagreeing with that, but I would suggest that it could be kept in a better state than with a {{tl}deletedpage}} or {{deletedtalkpage}} template on it. That page ought to have some unambiguous statement that the page cannot be created until such time that the topic is the subject of non-trivial coverage in multiple independent sources. I think that would be the best way to prevent repeated re-awakenings of the "why is this page deleted?" question. Maybe I'll hack up a custom template and see whether people like it. -GTBacchus21:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
If there was good-faith discussion going on, can someone please undelete, move the discussion, and then redelete the page (which will at that point be a redirect), and inform those involved in the discussion where to carry on their discussion. If there is good-faith discussion going on, it doesn't matter where it is taking place, deleting it is just rude. It is equivalent to someone coming along and ripping up a piece of paper that you were writing a letter on, or pulling the plug as you are writing an e-mail. Carcharoth01:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I've blocked Giano for stated intent to disrupt
See , . I realise he's sincerely upset, and this is certain to be controversial, but when someone with admin powers states directly they're going to disrupt the wiki to "go out with a bang" and "I'm through here anyway, but lets have some fun", it's a block for the protection of the wiki. I can't recall a case of quietly acquiescing to stated intent to disrupt from any editor in the three years I've been here. (Though there are probably examples, please feel free to remind me.)
Yeah, doesn't matter if you're right. What was the context? What is a "bang?" Given that he's just a regular editor, and given that he had already done the bang (posting a log, which would get him banned from IRC), he was speaking of his current action, not future actions. It's not a hard job reading his statements. Also, posting the logs is a violation of Freenode's rules, not ours. The bit about logging and posting logs is not on Misplaced Pages: it's on IRC. Therefore, Giano was disrupting Freenode and saying that he might as well provoke a storm with his present act. Geogre14:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The "bang" in question is that mentioned in Giano's reply to me on his own talk page:
No I'm not coming back, I#ll be permabanned by the clique for this, so I thought I'd go out with a bang :-) I've loads more but these just suited the moment, James forrester pretending he did not know why people thought he controlled IRC, see his comment on the arbitration case talk. Oh Dear, they seem to have gone again. Never mind most people have seen them now Giano 23:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Naturally, there were no objections when Kelly Martin copied the same comment on the talk pages of ~150 users last week. El_C14:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I was wrong about him being an admin, I don't think I'm wrong about stated intent to disrupt. You know that's an instant block for the wiki's sake. Wik was a fantastic contributor and also felt utterly justified when he unleashed our first-ever vandalbot. I'm just wondering how the hell to get him back to sane writing after this. Even GFDL writing somewhere else. Or something. Fundamentally, the whole thing is a massive clusterfuck of the good guys versus the good guys (I include Giano there) - David Gerard14:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Much like the Arbitration Committee's latest actions, I do not feel you were being even-handed here, and, as such, you run the risk of coming across as favouring one side in the dispute over the other. El_C14:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I saw the edits and knew there was a clusterfuck and log-posting going on and went "wtf". As noted below I've been reassured he won't vandalise, and I certainly hope he won't log post, and someone's undone the block in any case - David Gerard15:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm adamantly staying uninvolved in this whole mess, but just for the sake of clarification, the rule against publishing logs is a Wikimedia Foundation policy, not a freenode policy. Freenode's channel guidelines suggest some principles to follow in regards to publishing or not publishing logs, but there's no network policy explicitly permitting or forbidding it; it's up to each channel's contacts. Jdforrester (James_F on freenode), the contact for Wikimedia Foundation channels, established the policy. --Slowking Man14:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
He was saying that he had more logs, and people could contact him for more. It appears that Jdforrester is the owner of the channel, sort of, which makes his authorship and endorsing of the "Giano on civility parole" even more clearly a case for recusal. I also don't think it's disrupting Misplaced Pages. It's disrupting IRC usage and annoying its users and continuing this conversation, but what really has this conversation going is more blocking of Giano. What do you folks think would have happened if you had ignored him? What would have happened if you had said, "Dude, that's not helping. Let's talk it through?" What would have happened if people had approached him with discussion rather than templates, blocks, templates, blocks, patronizing, templates, blocks, and paroles? A guy is here for 3 years. In that time, his behavior isn't substantially different from year to year, but suddenly he must be blocked. What happened with that "suddenly" is up to each to determine. Geogre14:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Publishing IRC logs to "prove" a cabal conspiracy of some sort is blatantly disruptive to the editing community and thus damages the encyclopedia. Its only effect is to cause drama and ill feeling. EVEN IF HE'S RIGHT. - David Gerard14:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I'm forming the opinion that banning everyone involved for a month would be an excellent idea to let the rest of us get on with writing an encyclopedia - David Gerard15:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Since Giano promised not to do anything destructive, nor to spam I do not see any reasons to keep this editor blocked. I took my liberty to unblock him Alex Bakharev15:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I do not see how publishing short logs having no personal information disrupts the work of Misplaced Pages. On the other hand, ill feeling of an excellent contributor who has somehow founded suspicion about a cabal acting against him certainly disrupt Wiki much stronger than any of his incivility can. Alex Bakharev15:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
OK. I locked the talk page, I'll now go unlock it. But really, "disruption" includes log spamming. I realise that Giano feels this is the only way for him to get any justice. But it's not going to work and is the fast train to a great big horrible ban this big. Really really. This should be INTUITIVELY OBVIOUS TO THE MOST CASUAL OBSERVER - David Gerard15:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Someone else unlocked it. I have also been reassured by people whose judgement I trust that Giano would not vandalise, and I must apologise for the comparison to Wik above - Wik is a bit of a Hitler example in good-user-gone-sour discussions - David Gerard15:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
It is not a Hitler comparison, it is a comparison to ad extremum Hitler comparisons, which exactly relevant to Godwin's Law. —Centrx→talk • 00:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
oh yes, let's give Giano a good preventive cool-down block. That worked really well last time. It wouldn't have hurt to wait until he had really done something bad, David. I guess I object to this block. dab(𒁳)16:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Have to agree with Dab and Yandman. All these blocks are only increasing the nature of the problem. I'm sure you had good intentions David, but it seems more like you've thrown gasoline instead of water on the fire.--Aldux17:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Ironically, David's suggestion of blocking all involved parties for a month is one of the more even-handed answers to this problem that I've seen. >Radiant<00:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I protected this image for vandalism issues, but also for sourcing issues. I have asked for the source to be added, and left a notice for the uploader, but was reverted once and the uploader blanked his talk page. If a URL source is found, I'll add the URL in and lower the protection to semi. User:Zscout37014:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
This should be deleted, as it is obviously from a commercial information provider, and was never intended to be used in an article about that company. Jkelly22:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
According to the NYT, it's from Iraqi state television. I have *no* idea what effect this has on copyright (i.e., I don't know whether works produced by the Iraqi government are considered public domain, as is the case in the US; my hunch would be no, but that's just a guess). —bbatsell¿?22:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
There's a request at WP:RFPP for the page to be unprotected. On the image's talk page, someone left an apparent fair use rationale for the image. Nishkid6422:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
A banned user employing the IPs 212.100.250.225 and 83.138.189.76 has been making ridiculous accusations on this talk page and has engaged in disruptive editing. The user basically admits he/she has been banned and the talk pages for those IP addresses demonstrate a long history of vandalism and trolling. I suspect the user in question was banned by ArbCom (user has a particular grudge against Fred Bauder). --Folantin15:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Second opinion requested on Glam metal content dispute
I could use a second look at what's going on at Glam metal. One user in particular, User:Deathrocker - who is on 1RR revert-parole for past edit wars - has been removing content that is properly cited, but that is unflattering to the subject (diff). Note the empty edit summary as well. There is a discussion from earlier in the month at Talk:Glam_metal#Including_the_term_Hair_Farmer, with no consensus achieved, although I'm not sure how consensus could justify the removal of cited content, particularly since it's in a section called "Decline of glam metal."
Anyway, I warned Deathrocker that given his history of edit-warring and the fact that the content was properly cited, he could be blocked if he continued to remove it. His response is here, where he tries to wikilawyer himself around a block and threatens to try to have me desysopped if I block him. (He's also claiming a 2:1 consensus on the talk page, which I have to admit, I thought was funny.) At that point, it seemed that this was getting too personal, so I'm posting here to get a second opinion. Am I overreacting? Would blocking Deathrocker for violating the spirit, if not the letter, of his parole be inappropriate? Thanks. | Mr. Darcytalk17:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I have not broken any editing policies on the article, or even WP:1RR, nor do I intend to. I merely pointed out this to MrDarcy after he threatened me on my talkpage, commented that he has no grounds to block, as I have not broken any policy nor are the edits bad faith. I consider it extremely poor taste for it to be claimed as "wikilawyering" when it was the mere stating of fact that it would be abuse of power. And referenced the comment with specific polcies.
Unlike what MrDarcy has claimed, another editor experienced in the specific field mentioned and has contributed to multiple other articles related to it, has removed the same edit as I did too, and agreed via concensus on the talkpage. The information, added by one new editor is of little relevence to the section that it was placed in, and something about a similar and more widespread detorgatory term "hair metal" was mentioned in the very opening paragraph already. No other user who frequently contributes to the material on the glam metal article had stated that they agree with the inclusion of the sentence, they have only aposed it after discussion on the talkpage.
MrDarcy has yet to point out what (if any) policies I am in violation of, that warrants a threat of a block. I have made sure to be in violation of non, in following with the Misplaced Pages editing policy, Yet when I point this out, he wikilawyers by claiming I am wikilawyering. - Deathrocker17:30, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Enacting the same revert once per 24 hours just to stay on the right side of your 1RR parole is a textbook example of bad faith editing, as you're obeying the letter of your parole, but not the spirit. Given that the content you're removing is properly cited and germane, a block would seem to be in order if you persist. Anyway, I welcome other admins' opinions on the matter. | Mr. Darcytalk18:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The revert parole in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Deathrocker was more complicated than a simple 1RR; it also included restrictions against doing more than two reverts to an article per week, or three per month. Looking at the glam metal page history, it appears that Deathrocker has been reverting the addition of the "hair farmers" sentence since at least November 25 and has made at least 3 reverts to the page between December 7-11, (This revert was reverted: ) (sentence re-inserted: ) (sentence re-inserted with references: ) (sentence restored the next day: ) and a more recent one on December 28. He was blocked for 24 hours (by User:Luna Santin) on December 9 for these reverts to glam metal. Since the first 3 were reverts, the fourth this month (on December 28) warrants another block. Since the revert parole has been misunderstood as a simple 1RR (as I thought during the arbitration case that it would have been, but that's beside the point), I will block Deathrocker for 48 hours. Since this block will be his fifth block resulting from the case, I could have still blocked him for up to a week; but it looks like the revert parole, as it was laid out in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Deathrocker, hasn't been understood very well. --Idont Havaname (Talk) 19:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll take responsibility for missing those extra restrictions. I saw the 1RR clause and focused on that. Thanks for your help! | Mr. Darcytalk19:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
AOL uses BT Modems, thats proally why its showing as BT. Am i the only person who had the brains to message the user? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.44.161.233 (talk • contribs)
I've blocked (for 24 hours) the IP that Leyasu used most recently on Gothic metal, but I still think that Gothic metal should be semi-protected again - this time, for longer. He's been revert warring on that page for over a year, and it's time to let users who are in better standing with the community (i.e. not banned) decide which content should go in that article. If he shows up on that page again in the next several days with another IP, I recommend that the page be semi-protected again. --Idont Havaname (Talk) 18:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
It appears that the page has now been semi-protected. I've also in the last week noticed the user Cronodevir, who stopped editing at the time when Leyasu was banned and returned only to support Leyasu. I filed a report at WP:SSP but I am unsure whether or not it will be noticed. --Wildnox(talk)19:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Try a Checkuser instead. As to the semi-protection, I entirely agree. When I was dealing with Leyasu, it was the sole way to maintain a minimum of stability of the page.Circeus22:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Codex_Sinaiticus has repeatedly applied the "totallydisputed" tag to the Ebionites article over a narrow disagreement on one section of the article. Please remove it and instruct this user on the appropriate application of this tag. I should also mention that the Ebionites article is a "Good Article", having gone through an RFC to make it NPOV, a peer review, and the GA nomination process. Thank you. Ovadyah19:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
My issue is not with the content dispute itself. We have an RFC that will handle that. It is the mis-application of this tag rather than the application of an "npov" tag to the appropriate section of the article. This was suggested and ignored. Ovadyah19:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Please note that it is not the one section only that I am disputing, but the article as a whole, for example, note I have also added a citation request for the intro, in the second sentence. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
A citation request is hardly grounds for applying a totallydisputed tag. It is a technicality. And in any case, the tag was applied before the recent citation request. Ovadyah20:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The fact remains that I dispute the article as a whole, and I dispute the sentence in the lead for which I asked a citation. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
It was finally added at 20:19 UTC... I still dipute the article for many reasons that are clearly laid out on the talk page. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
And, as a defense, I will state my evidence that I have not been uncivil:
I would like to ask Just H to provide a diff showing uncivility. The only comment I made on the debated MfD that could be considered remotely uncivil would be "Why, what a sweet personal attack, Just H. A perfect attempt at making me uncivil, but an unsuccessful one. And please state exactly what policy forbids me from making a "demand"?", which, while sarcastic, is not uncivil. Considering it was made in reply to a comment by Just H, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, Yuser - you're not in a position to make demands in this discussion.". I really don't see why two people have accused me of making "demands", namely Just H and Physicq. I ask these two people to provide a diff showing a statement in which I made a direct demand, and if I did so I am sincerely sorry. But meantime I feel Just H is merely fueling the conversation, and would politely suggest he did not make false accusations and assumed good faith. Thanks to everyone. Yuser3141520:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
As someone who hasn't participated in the Mfd, but did go and read it, I think its something to do with your "tone". You're not breaking any rules, no one's gonna slap any templates on your talk page, but I do sort of see what they're talking about. I'm only mentioning it because you seem confused about why you're getting under a couple of editors' skin, and I think I see why. If you want specifics and diffs, I'll work some up and put them on your talk page. Cheers. Dina21:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Dina. I'd just have to get about all of your diffs, you keep on jumping on top of people who disagree with you. Fortunately it's done now. Hopefully you can not get so hostile towards people with opinions differing from yours in the future. Just H23:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
At least its userfied and Fresheneesz improved its tone a good deal. I still disagree with its underlying argument, but it has gone from being insulting to taking a inclusionist's viewpoint. *sigh* Template:EmotYuser3141523:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not the fact that it was an essay in projectspace, but the fact it violated both WP:NPOV and WP:ATK in its original state. Fresheneesz later modified it to a milder viewpoint and wording. Also, I don't think arguing over this is going to get anyone anywhere; let's just go and improve some articles like the essay suggested. Thanks! Yuser3141523:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Several editors in that debate contested your view of ATK.
The initial version could be argued as violating the ArbCom ruling against Fresh - see for example the comments about deleting "supposedly" non-notable articles (no, not at all "supposedly", they are not notable, and consensus says we can delete them, for good and sufficient reasons, and Fresh's opposition to that was assessed as disruptive). You'll note that I closed the debate to end the pointless drama, rather than deleting the essay. Guy (Help!) 23:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
So opposition to consensus in an essay is considered disruptive? Are you implying that any comment Fresheneesz makes on notability is automatically a disruption? The facts here are clear: this was an essay from the start and Fresheneesz never claimed it to be anything more; he promptly toned down a few slightly aggressive phrases when others requested him to; and he moved it to user space well before the MfD completed. There was no disruption or wrongdoing whatsoever on Fresheneesz's part. ATren23:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
It appears to me that you are being disruptive and continuing this discussion when I, specifically, asked you to end it. This is my last word on the subject: end it. Arguing is only going to be a WP:POINT violation. Let's stop now. Yuser3141500:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Please do not assume bad faith; I am only disagreeing with you. Accusations of disruption and WP:POINT are completely unwarranted here. ATren00:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Archived. This is going around in circles. No admin action is required, so please discuss on your respective talk pages, or drop the matter. People accusing others of incivility and such should be mindful of WP:KETTLE. >Radiant<00:35, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Dead malls restored
DavidLevinson (talk·contribs·count·logs·page moves·block log) unilaterally restored a whole bunch of malls that were speedied, prodded, or deleted via AfD, with the rationale: "Shopping malls are the subject of deletionism, often under the assertion of "non-notability". I have restored a few I thought were wrongly deleted. Clearly, the assertions in the articles need sources and should establish notability, however, someone should be watching the mall articles and helping to fight the deletionists. I believe any significantly sized mall is inherently notable, and will also meet the criterial of WP:CORP in that they will have articles about them in regional newspapers, but this needs to be documented. dml 10:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)"
Wow, looking through his log, he epitomizes my point that forgetting edit summaries will cause you to forget deletion summaries. I see a couple restores in there that have no rationale at all. -Amarkovedits20:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
One doesn't have to take a speedy that was against policy to AfD; it is grounds for instant undeletion. The same applies to a PROD that is disputed after being deleted. The only place where DavidLevinson's behaviour is against policy, and thus a problem, is in undeleting articles successfully AfDd, which is a major no-no. If you want the other disputed articles to be deleted, though, I'm afraid you'll have to take it to AfD. Rebecca20:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh the A7/G11 speedies can be re-speedied with the same rationale. There's no rule that A7 or G11 can be used only once. Also, restored Prods are also subject to speedy deletion if they fail A7 or G11. ~ trialsanderrors21:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
No, they cannot - that would be a very clear case of wheel warring. If you dispute a contested speedy, the place to take it is AfD. Rebecca21:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
If you repost deleted content from your own copy or if you use your admin bit to do it is irrelevant. Articles are to be judged by their content, not by the motivation or status of the restorer. WP:CSD#G4 is very clear that restored speedy content can be speedied again under the same clause if the content didn't change. ~ trialsanderrors21:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
G4 is only applicable to the material deleted via XfD. As a general rule, all contested and controversial deletions should go through XfD Alex Bakharev23:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
" This clause does not apply if the only prior deletions were speedy or proposed deletions, although in this case, the previous speedy criterion, or other speedy deletion criteria, may apply." I even provided the link. If you feel this is improper, contest it at WT:CSD. ~ trialsanderrors23:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Here is the other link: "Articles deleted under the Misplaced Pages:Proposed deletion procedure (using the {{PROD}} tag) may be undeleted, without a vote, on reasonable request. Any admin can be asked to do this, alternatively a request may be made here. However, such undeleted articles are open to be speedy deleted or nominated for WP:AFD under the usual rules." ~ trialsanderrors23:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, so the policies you have quoted show that your assertion that CSD G4 covers this situation is incorrect. They state that articles that violate any CSD can be speedy deleted again; however, it's my understanding that this is written with recreation in mind, not undeletion. If an administrator undeletes an article that was speedy deleted under a rather subjective criterion for speedy deletion, then it should go through XfD, because whether or not the article meets the criteria is contested by someone who is familiar with policy. My $0.02. —bbatsell¿?23:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Is this "I can't read" day? "WP:CSD#G4 is very clear that restored speedy content can be speedied again under the same clause". Same clause → A7 speedies can be speedied again under A7, etc. It happens all the time. The wording for this is found under G4, hence the link there. The rest of your comment is also crap. Contested speedy deletions should go to WP:DRV, and not unilaterally be restored. Out-of-line admins clearly don't understand or choose to ignore policy, so there goes that argument. ~ trialsanderrors23:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I deleted most of these. I don't have a problem with this, as long as it's in good faith. At least one was AfDd not speedied, and restoring that was probably a mistake so I fixed that; it can be DRVd if he wants. We don't really have a proper consensus on what to do with malls - some people think that mere existence is sufficient, which I think is problematic (<cough>schools</cough>), but we'll see. Guy (Help!) 22:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Restoring an article is not an admin activity. Anyone can do it from the browser cache, Google cache or Waybackmachine. So redeleting an article is not a wheel war just because an admin restored it. It's normal everyday procedure. The only difference is that admins should know better than to defy procedure to make a WP:POINT. ~ trialsanderrors00:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Why not just take them to AFD? Whenever someone so much as peeps at a speedy or prod deletion I did I just undelete and AFD it. If there isn't obvious consensus then use the established consensus-building process. —Quarl 2006-12-31 01:39Z
Could someone please look at user:MariusM's user page? The section on his userpage titled "Tiraspol Times" appears to me to be a rant against user:William Mauco, with diffs and quotes showing how he was right and Mauco was wrong. Mauco has responded on the userpage, and it has turned into a threaded discussion on the userpage. Both users have been blocked multiple times for edit wars, by me and by another admin.
I asked Marius yesterday to remove the comments from his userpage, as I knew this would only cause trouble, and appears to violate WP:USER#What_can_I_not_have_on_my_user_page.3F: "using userpages to attack people or campaign for or against anything or anyone is a bad idea." Marius has not removed any material, and has only added to it. I'm asking for a second opinion before I act. Firsfron of Ronchester20:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I would agree. Looks inappropriate to me, at least to the extent that it's discussing another user (comments strictly questioning the legitimacy of the newspaper, while apparently ill-founded, would be acceptable). | Mr. Darcytalk20:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. I've removed the content starting where he begins discussing user:William Mauco (which didn't leave much) and left a note on his talk page with the appropriate links. I don't normally ever edit another user's userpage, but the comments here seemed inflammatory and disruptive, given these two users' prior history. Firsfron of Ronchester21:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I tried to add Falun Gong and Human Rights on the Chinese wikipedia site on 11-22, 2006. it was immediatly by the administrator Mongol, then put under protection. more than a month later, there was still no change. So I exposed that biased action on the village pump misc area on the English site. finally, this administrator Ran added the word Falun Gong on 22:50 2006-12-29, then wrote back: "Also, the Chinese Misplaced Pages article on the People's Republic of China has an entire paragraph on human rights, in which Falun Gong is mentioned as well. Thus your claim is incorrect."
I am an adminstrator here as well, actually. There is an ongoing discussion regarding this at WP:VPM; interested parties are welcome to come and take a look. -- ran (talk) 21:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
To sum up the situation however:
SummerThunder was banned about two weeks ago at the Chinese Misplaced Pages, for making personal attacks and spamming the Village Pump;
Since then, he has become convinced that he was blocked for political reasons, and arrived at the English Misplaced Pages to complain;
While reading through his complaints, I noticed that one of them was that the Chinese Misplaced Pages article on the People's Republic of China did not mention Falun Gong anywhere;
I thought that this was a legitimate problem, so I went to the Chinese Misplaced Pages and changed it, while at the same time informing SummerThunder in a reply to his complaints;
He evidently did not see it, and continued claiming that Falun Gong was not mentioned in the People's Republic of China article on the Chinese Misplaced Pages.
I corrected him on that, again.
He accuses me of "lying", and comes here to complain about me.
This discussion really has no place on WP:AN from what I can tell; does anyone object to archiving and closing this and moving discussion back to WP:VPM? —bbatsell¿?22:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Mitsos reverts again to "accused of" wording - diff.
SandyDancer adds official source (Greek Embassy, LA Consulate website) and restores original wording with amends to reflect new, additional source - diff.
Mitsos reverts to essentially the same version a fourth time - diff.
I accept there may be a debate to be had on the talk page about sources - but Mitsos' starting position here was that he wanted factual information removed from the article - and when sources were presented, he adopted a new entrenched position in line with the Greek nationalist / neo-nazi agenda pushes constantly on Misplaced Pages. I accept you may not want to be involved in this - but without an admin watching this, all articles Mitsos edits will constantly be subject to a barrage of edits by him seeking to push his POV. --SandyDancer 23:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Basically there's a problem user over on Hrisi Avgi, Mitsos (talk·contribs·deleted contribs·nuke contribs·logs·filter log·block user·block log) who's been edit warring and (apparently) pushing a PoV. He's been blocked by me a couple of times recently. I appear to be the only admin keeping an eye on that page, so it's understandable that I would be the one doing all the blocks. Just to ensure I'm still neutral and simply not picking on someone, I'm bringing this here for someone uninvolved to review. Many thanks. -- Steel23:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Check out those contribs: (rv) ... (rv) ... (rv) ... (rv) ... (rv) ... I'd suggest 36 or 48 hours (as in, something slightly longer than the last block), but I also would suggest a longer note explaining the block reasoning, pointing to a couple of policies/guidelines that make it incredibly clear. I don't see much of that on Talk:BlueEyedCat. | Mr. Darcytalk01:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Guernica (town). User:Sugaar is refusing to abide by Misplaced Pages:Use common names and the views of a majority of other editors, and is moving Guernica (town) and Bombing of Guernica to Gernika-Lumo and Bombing of Gernika, respectively. It is agreed that the spelling should be consistent across articles. However, Sugaar and one other editor insist that the English Misplaced Pages should use the official name/spelling of the town in the Basque language. The majority of editors do not agree and this view appears to emanate from a political view — the spelling "Guernica" originated with the Spanish language rather than with Basque — and not with Misplaced Pages policy. This conflict with policy has been pointed out to Sugaar at length. He has been accusing me and others of bad faith, while we feel that the reverse is true. A RfC has failed to resolve this and as it is "either/or" situation, I don't think mediation will work. If possible, I would like an admin to take a look at this and comment. Thanks, Grant65 | Talk17:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
HELP!
I need some help with someone who claims he is a new editor who is belligerent, abusive, and continually reverts. I have made edits to Barrett-related articles that are sometimes 'for' and sometimes 'against' Barrett (not that this is a good label). He is not just accusing me of being biased, he is being abusive.
FIRST: On NCAHF, an editor tagged the article with COPYRIGHT violation, which asks editors not to edit. Curtis has nonetheless edited it, here. And is the tagged article
SECOND: I objected to this editor's massive edits on NCAHF, deletions etc. He has added huge edits that I tried to summarize. (After he reverted about the tenth time, another editor tagged the article as a copyright violation.
This is an example of my response to his accusation.
Here is his response - I can't find the diff, but it is on the talk page:
... As to your concerns about the length of the article, I would suggest that if you lack the concentration to read and understand a simple article like this, perhaps you ought not to be trying to edit it. --Curtis Bledsoe 21:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Is this allowed in Misplaced Pages? How insulting can one be?
Here is the direct quote from the source he cited:
"Although some forms of mercury are hazardous, the mercury in amalgam is chemically bound to the other metals to make it stable and therefore safe for use in dental applications."
I wrote this: "Some forms of mercury are toxic to humans, but the NCAHF argues that the form used in dental fillings is not. . "(the citation is from CDC).
Could this have been more accurately written? Of course. And I did change it. When he objected, I changed it to what he wanted, Immediately. And after that, he ridiculed and insulted me, and was abusive. I feel overwhelmed with this, and amazed that no admin has already stopped it. Also, stopped the 3RR, and the editing after a Copyright tag has been placed..
THIRD: He continually reverts now on another article (he followed me to this) --
After there has been extensive discussion on this sentence, and on the entire article.
He will not discuss it on the talk page.
And he is abusive.
Please, I ask anyone just to read all this over -- this is nothing less than an attack: constant reversions, unwillingness to discuss on talk page and unwillingness to be civil by ridiculing, belligerence, insults etc. I do not know what to do.Jance01:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm looking over the situation right now. I'm not an admin, but I can help a little with comments and such since I understand the policy here pretty well. I've already commented on the 3RR report the other user created. I would say that the other user seems mildly incivil from what I've seen so far, but it's nothing terrible. --Wildnox(talk)01:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
This has been a constant barrage, aggressive reverting, incivility (insults, ridicule, accusations etc), following me to another article and disrupting that when it has already been contentious...I say 'disrupting' because it is pretty evident he does not care to discuss this on the talk page, or anywhere else. Again, he is constantly reverting. Jance01:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
MORE by Curtis, just a second ago. here. No court found Rosenthal had libeled Barrett. On the contrary, three courts (at least) found she did not libel Barrett. For Curtis to make this statement, in an article on Misplaced Pages, is in itself libel. Rosenthal is not a public figure. Fortunately, someone promptly removed it. But this is the problem with this editor. He is indiscriminate about what he says, and about whom. He is abusive. This is all within one day!!!Jance01:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that Jacob Peters is using the IP 69.110.222.228 to evade his block. The IP's contributions are Soviet-related topics, which are what Jacob Peters usually edits, and take a clear pro-Soviet anti-Western POV lining up with Jacob Peters's: , , , . Perhaps most obvious is the use of the not-too-common term "agitprop" , which Jacob Peters also uses . The tone of the IP, dismissing his opponents as illogical and spreading propoganda, is also very like Jacob Peters's. I am uncertain if this is a case for checkuser or not, so I thought I would post here and see if someone can help. Heimstern Läufer01:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
