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Polemical use of sandboxes by thewolfchild

thewolfchild (talk · contribs) appears to be using his/her sandbox histories as places to store WP:UP#POLEMIC information regarding folks s/he is holding a grudge against. The chronicling followed by blanking is far too consistent to be anything other than a sneaky way around WP:UP#POLEMIC. Users and discussions chronicled:

• BilCat (talk · contribs)
• Nick Thorne (talk · contribs) , ,
• Toddst1 (talk · contribs) ,

This is not the first time this has been a problem with this editor: This user has previously been blocked for maintaining similar, more obviously polemical lists after this discussion on ANI.

I think that at the bare minimum, these sandbox pages should be deleted or the many polemical edits subject to revision deletion.

There was a proposal to indefinitely block thewolfchild on ANI last month put forth by EatsShootsAndLeaves (talk · contribs) and Rklawton (talk · contribs) as thewolfchild was previously "unblocked with the understanding that any such repeat of CIVIL and BATTLE would mean an indef block immediately with no chance of unblock" and appeared once again to be violating those standards. The motion was archived without achieving consensus. Toddst1 (talk) 13:02, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Couple of items of disruptive I noted, it seems the old problems never went away:

Talk:Aircraft carrier (and yes, we all know bill and nick hate this and are completely opposed. thanks anyway) Don't think that was needed or helped really given the previous irritations with this editor. See also removing content where there is clearly no consensus to do so in Talk:Aircraft carrier and then wikilawyering over WP:BRD

Requested not to post at User talk:BilCat when that user had already indicated they were disengaging. Wee Curry Monster talk 13:55, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the most recent status of the sandbox before it was blanked , it appears he was drafting a complaint to be filed somewhere. I am inclined to let it slide given the relatively conciliatory message he left BilCat after blanking the page. Whether his overall behavior was worthy of an indef block is not something I looked into, but I don't think this user was trying to publicly shame the above editors by using his sandbox in that way. --Jprg1966  15:32, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

A "concilliatory" message posted directly after he was specifically asked not to...sometimes you cool things off by not posting. Wee Curry Monster talk 16:25, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

As the victim of long-term harassment by banned trolls, including in the past week on my talk page, I expect users to stay off my page when requested, as I have done multiple times with this user, including today. I understand that he was upset when I referred to him "The Child", in reference to both his user name and his childish behavior at Talk:Aircraft carrier, but there are forums such as this one that he can use to address that. I am sorry that I allowed the whole situation to escalate the way it did, and I understand that the name calling is inappropriate, and I had previously said that I would not do it again, and I did not. However, TWC changed my comments to remove it, and that is also inappropriatewhich I had reverted. Please note that he has asked others to "Stay off my talk page", even today, apparently for this neutral note.

I am still extremely upset at his baiting of Nick and me at Talk:Aircraft carrier, as WCM reported above, in which his comments had the effect of marginalizing any response Nick or I could have made. This was completely uncalled for on his part, as this was a brand new discussion that he started, and I have yet to receive the apology that I asked for here. That said, I should have walked away from the later discussions when they got contentious again rather than continue to respond to him, which escalated the feud. I let my own stubborness keep me in the conversation after I should have walked away, as I feared him taking a lack of response as permission to continue his edits as he saw fit.

I'd like to propose an interaction ban between myself and TWC, should he be allowed to contiue editing on WP. I have respected his desire that I stay off his talk page, and I fully expect him to stay off of mine, except in the case of notices he is required to leave, not including "warnings", such as this one. I would like TWC to be excluded from editing Aircraft carrier, and participating in discussions at Talk:Aircraft carrier, directly or indirectly. Nick and I have both been long-term editors on that page, but I will refrain from editing there if that is imposed on me by the community. However, Nick is an old carrier pilot, and I think restricting his access to those page would be too punitive.

I'd also highly recommend that TWC seek wiki-mentorship. He has continued to show a lack of respect for the talk and user pages of others, as discussed here and here. Even though he has now promised not to do this again, I find it extremely troubling that he felt he needed to edit others' user pages in the first place. He doesn't seem to respect limits on his interactions with others, while at the same time making demands on us when we "offend" him in any way, including refactoring our comments.

Thanks for your consideration. - BilCat (talk) 19:57, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

For those that haven't followed the links, I had a very similar problem with TWC last month which Bbb23 (talk · contribs) brought to ANI as Ongoing harassment of administrator by editor after I had asked for help. We're seeing more than one repeat problem with TWC. Toddst1 (talk) 20:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

And which this harassment has continued. - BilCat (talk) 20:32, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment (Non-administrator comment) He certainly knows that the list violates WP: POLEMIC, otherwise he wouldn't be trying to hide it in the page history. Admiral Caius (talk) 20:43, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • No, TWC's removal of that material predates this ANI thread by 3 hours. Presumably, TWC considered opening a some form of dispute resolution, ANI, or Arbcom thread himself and then reconsidered. That's not a violation of WP:POLEMIC to collect threads for dispute resolution. No evidence of hiding since it happened before this ANI thread.--v/r - TP 02:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: Indefinite block

• Support indefinite block. In the previous ANI thread last month, I supported an indefinite block of TWC. His subsequent behavior is essentially along the same lines as the behavior that justified the block then. Again, he refactors other editors' talk pages for what he perceives as slurs (calling him a "child"). This discussion on The Bushranger's talk page sums it up nicely. He internalizes everything, he lets it fester, he does pretty much what he pleases to remedy the alleged horrible wrongs done to him, and he keeps track and/or plans his revenge (?) in his sandbox. Why he wasn't blocked in October eludes me, but apparently no administrator (who looked at it) felt there was a consensus for the block (not that one is required by policy).--Bbb23 (talk) 23:12, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

This wasn't using his nickname, it was calling him a child. Would you like to be called a child? I think his reaction was quite understandable. And no, a block is not justified here. Jonathunder (talk) 23:43, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't like it when waitresses call me "honey" at coffeeshops, but I don't think I'd mind someone saying I'm younger - even much younger - than I am. :-) But that's not the point. Let's assume it wasn't nice for x to call TWC a child on x's talk page. That doesn't give TWC the right to remove it, to label it a personal attack (which even in real life, let alone Misplaced Pages, it is not), and to warn the editor not to engage in personal attacks. In any event, that's just one factor among many in support of the block.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:08, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I have to disagree, Bbb23 - "The Child" was an intentional slur. BilCat even admits to it above.--v/r - TP 21:37, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course, it was intentional. I never said it wasn't. In fact I said it "wasn't nice". The correct thing for TWC would have been to ignore it. Removing it and issuing a warning is ... .--Bbb23 (talk) 03:17, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Sadly, support TWC reminds me of someone I know who has a serious addiction: when that friend is off the drug, they're a nice person - would bend over backwards for you, and can contribute to society. One taste of the devil's-tool-of-choice, and they're unmanageable, and I wouldn't let them in the same room as a divorce attorney (as much as I dislike divorce attorney's, I wouldn't wish my stoned friend upon them). Now, I'm not saying twc would bend over backwards for anyone (nor am I saying they're a druggie), but they continue to have zero fricking clue about this project. They continually accuse others of personal attacks where none have ever existed; they continue to pull bullshit moves that annoy and are also against policy, and they simply cannot get along nicely with others; period. Maybe this is an age thing - put an indef block, but insist that WP:OFFER be 1 year out...any appeals within one year will be automagically declined, so just lock their talkpage for a year. This individual has been a timesink on ANI and elsewhere for too long ES&L 00:27, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• Maintain my support TWC was offered mentoring in the past, and because he was not on the immediate verge of banning, he steadfastly declined. The only reason he would even consider accepting now is because he's 1 admin closure away from his site ban. That's simply playing games, and as much as I admire the attempt and the person making the offer, any acceptance of mentoring is pure bullshit/false ES&L 00:31, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support with reluctance, with the caveat about being involved in the issue. After looking into the past behavior of this editor it's clear attempts to help them become a productive contributior simply aren't being listened to. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:19, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose As a completely uninvolved editor who has not interacted with almost everyone in this dispute I don't see anything coming close to sanctionable. The only incident that is recent is in response to Bilcat calling TWF as "the child". As far as I'm concerned such a statement is calling him a child and flies afoul of WP:NPA, and as such TWF is within guidelines at WP: TPG to edit the comment to remove the personal attack. What's more, his warning to Bilcat is in line with having received a Personal Attack and as such the claims of WP:IDHT by Bushranger regarding the talk page discussion just don't seem to fly. And finally the only diff by Toddst1 which is recent appears to be more of an intended noticeboard filing that TWF dropped. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:25, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
  • "his warning to Bilcat is in line with having received a Personal Attack" - except he didn't receive any personal attack, and my IDHT mention had nothing to do with the talk page discussion. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 15:47, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

And therein is where I disagree. I am constituting that Bilcat's re-writing of TWF's username as "The Child" as a personal attack against his character. And I'm not seeing any Diff's which correspond to WP:IDHT as such I can't support that assertion. In order for me to support an indef block I would first have to see a recent incident that is sanctionable on it's own merits coupled with a history that is related to what the person is being sanctioned for. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:12, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

You oppose without knowledge of this editor's history? Toddst1 (talk) 20:51, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I oppose because you haven't put forth any recent activity that merit's sanctions. I put forth two criteria to support a indef block, the first criteria the recent activity is why we block, the second criteria the history determines how long. Without any recent activity you're just digging up old issues. --Kyohyi (talk) 21:02, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I think what you're seeing is a bunch of supports so far saying in effect the same thing: "In the context of all the previous bullshit, these recent issues are viewed in a different light and we're tired of it. The project would be better with out thewolfchild." It's not that the stuff with BilCat, Derekbridges or the sandboxes on its own would merit such a response, rather, for those who have followed the issue, these are all repeats of previous problems. Toddst1 (talk) 21:18, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I see five diffs from you, 3 of which are older than the last ANI, one which is a link to the archive of the last ANI, and one which is about the recent personal attack. I am dismissing the 3 older ones because they are old, I see nothing wrong with linking the location of an ANI discussion, and finally it was a personal attack. There goes the original filing. If you're tired of bullshit, I recommend two things. One, stop looking for it. And two, stop throwing it. --Kyohyi (talk) 21:42, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I just noticed you have a total of 160 edits, 75% to talk. While everyone is welcome to comment at ANI, it definitely explains your context. Toddst1 (talk) 22:23, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

You know it's usually a sign of a weak argument when they have to resort to commenting on the person and not what they say. I believe such arguments are called Ad Hominem. --Kyohyi (talk) 00:25, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Usually, but not always. Also, note that the edit where TWC re-factored BillCat's post occurred on my talk page from which TWC has be specifically requested to stay off here. - Nick Thorne 01:49, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Kyohyi, I wouldn't put too much stock in thewolfchild's seeming offense at being called "the child". If you look back through his lengthy history of arguments you can see that he has a long history of misusing the usernames of those who oppose him. In the last AN/I I pointed out that he had created a pun from User:Nick Thorne's name in a talkpage table calling him a prick (Get it? thorn - prick? Very droll.) Another clear example can be seen here (User:Calton's name was shortened to Cal and kept that way despite Calton's objections) It's an older example, but it's quite typical of thewolfchild's style. As far as recent examples of actionable offenses go, I direct your attention to the discussion at Talk:Amber Heard. Please keep in mind that this is a user who has been unblocked from an indef block on the condition that "any further violation of our policies/guidelines WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, and WP:BATTLEGROUND will likely result in a new indefinite block that cannot be appealed." -Thibbs (talk) 01:50, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

First for Nick, my argument had nothing to do with if he took offense, my argument that it was a personal attack. If he has engaged in personal attacks, then appropriate actions should be taken towards him, my point was that he was attacked, and his response was within policy and guidelines. Now regards to Thibbs's comment, TWF's first comment under the section of Uncle. The last sentence was uncivil and unneeded, coupled with the unblock requirement I will strike my oppose. However I will note that he had a valid argument prior to his use of uncivil rhetoric and I would rather see him take up mentorship to drop that tendency then an indef block. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support: Along with Bbb23, ESL and several others, I supported an indefinite block of TWC in the previous ANI thread last month. His subsequent behavior is essentially along the same lines as the behavior that justified the block then. So, in the context of all the previous bullshit, these recent issues called out above are viewed in a different light and at this point the project would be better with out thewolfchild. The release of the previous indefinite block came with a civility and WP:BATTLE parole. Since then, TWC has repeated numerous behaviors that have gotten him blocked previously and repeatly gets into petty harassment of other editors which clearly violates WP:BATTLE. It's time for this to stop. Toddst1 (talk) 21:18, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

It is time for this to stop, and I think that's within your control. Kyohyi has it right. Jonathunder (talk) 21:49, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support indef block per Bbb23 and ESL. Bedrieger (talk) 23:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support with the appropriate caveat that I have obviously been an involved editor. I note that TWC has also edited my talk page recently, despite being specifically requested to stay off it here. This editor's behaviour has been beyond the pale for far too long. I find myself reluctant to visit articles about one of my main areas of interest because of his contiued POV pushing and inability or unwillingness to understand that other editors not agreeing with him is not non-collegiate behavior and is also not a personal attack. I believe we do the project a disservice if we allow him to continue along his merry way. TWC consumes enormous amounts of talk page time and that, in and of itself, is highly disruptive. I agree with BB2 & ESL, the sanctions need to be of sufficiently long term as to send the message that disrupting the project is not tolerated. - Nick Thorne 01:39, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment thewolfchild is quite clearly still engaged in the same old pattern of uncivil battleground behavior. As has been mentioned earlier, this current AN/I thread is the third complaint against thewolfchild for exactly the same thing. I am saddened to see that as few as 2 weeks after the last AN/I he got involved in a major fracas with User:Flyer22 and User:Kww at Talk:Amber Heard. Both of these users (neither of whom was involved in the prior AN/I) in fact commented in that engagement that thewolfchild was acting with exceptional combativeness. Did this cause even momentary self-reflection in thewolfchild? The talk page thread speaks for itself. I'm having difficulties squaring this behavior and the general administrative disinclination toward intervening with the warning from User:Amatulic (the admin who removed thewolfchild's indef block for aggressive editing) that "any further violation of our policies/guidelines WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, and WP:BATTLEGROUND will likely result in a new indefinite block that cannot be appealed." Were these just empty words? I understand that CIVIL is one of Misplaced Pages's weakest policies when it comes to editors who are capable of positive content creation, and I recognize that determining whether someone is a BATTLEGROUNDer requires rather an in-depth review of the editor's history of interactions with his peers, so I'd recommend that when this proposal fails someone should file an RfC/U. Thewolfchild is a habitual wikiwarrior and is very open about his belief that the indef block he received last year for being overly aggressive was invalid. An actual examination of his conduct at[REDACTED] at any point since he started editing here is enough to turn one's stomach. -Thibbs (talk) 01:44, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - All I've seen from Thewolfchild is some blatantly disruptive behaviour. Abusive remarks/comments, downright false warning templates, generic tedentious editing, etc, etc. A previous indef, and a history of these such things, means that keeping them here is a huge net negative. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• And yes, the mentoring acceptance has held no weight with me whatsoever either. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 23:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support indefinite block. I'd completely forgotten this bit of childish hypocrisy on thewolfchild's part until the message system pinged me today. Yes, I've been lurking and reading, but being reminded of the pure and utter hyopcrisy of his current whine prompts me to add my two cents. --Calton | Talk 08:52, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Has the offer of a WP:MENTOR been tried yet? I'm not going to comment on the proposal for sanctions, other than to say it is apparent that patience is running out on TWC. A WP:MENTOR may well be the last chance for him. I think its encouraging that User:BilCat who appears to have borne the brunt of the problematic behaviour suggested this as a means of resolving matters and as such would suggest its tried before an indefinite block. Wee Curry Monster talk 09:05, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support indefinite block per Bbb23 and ESL. Continued violations of WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:DISRUPTIVE, WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF demonstrate that we cannot waste any more time on this individual's actions. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 09:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support less drama, more collegiality, more editing. Rklawton (talk) 12:53, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose There is an essay somewhere that explains my position well, but I cannot find it. I don't believe that consistently poking a person until they react is ever a good basis for a indefinite block. We have not taken the moral high road here. BilCat has already admitted to some wrongdoing and I am sure Toddst1 is not completely absolved of fault here. But what we have is an issue of WP:POLEMIC which belongs at WP:MFD. But poking at someone and then saying "See how awful they are" when they react is never, ever, ever, and if I'm not clear, ever a good reason to block someone.--v/r - TP 15:49, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean WP:BEAR or my personal favourite Misplaced Pages:No angry mastodons. :0) Wee Curry Monster talk 19:25, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Neither. The one I'm referring to was in someone's user space. Poking the bear and no angry mastodons are close, but not quite what I'm trying to express. This particular essay was more about people who poke poke poke until they get a bad reaction out of someone, then they run to ANI to complain and say "see, I told ya'all this person was bad." I'm not saying thats exactly what's going on here, but that's exactly the feelings I get with this proposal for an indefinite block.--v/r - TP 19:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Geogre/Comic? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I was looking for.--v/r - TP 19:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately the poor guy just seems to be poked into battlegrounding at nearly every single talk page he has entered since he joined... Compare examples of his pre-indef-block style of engagement (e.g. this discussion or this one) to examples of his current-day style of interaction with his peers (e.g. here or here or here, etc. etc.). Do you see any improvement at all? Are there any talk pages where his engagement has been collegial and collaborative? Is this the sort of behavior one would normally expect from an editor whose indef block had been lifted under the condition that "any further violation of our policies/guidelines WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, and WP:BATTLEGROUND will likely result in a new indefinite block that cannot be appealed"? It's an outside possibility that in each of these cases thewolfchild has just been pushed and pushed until he had no choice but to engage in nasty, drawn out, disruptive and uncivil sniping sessions. If so he has sure had the worst luck of any editor I've ever run into. The other possibility is that this is pattern behavior and that thewolfchild looks for any excuse to turn peaceable talk pages into battle arenas where he can play the wikiwarrior. We can let him carry on playing his wargames or we can do something about it. Restricting your examination narrowly to the POLEMIC charge is missing the forest for the trees here. -Thibbs (talk) 19:44, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, but the evidence for this block is focused on the 'tree' of WP:POLEMIC. Haven't you ever read about what motivates me?--v/r - TP 19:50, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• I lost my previous edit by mishandling an edit conflict, but that's OK because coincidentally, the editors I edit conflicted with handled it: WK handled the Geogre comic part, and Thibbs just handled the other art.

So, Question: Can anyone who opposes an indef block point to one successful collaboration, or one peaceful talkpage thread that TWC has participated in since his previous block was lifted? I think that would help determine whether TWC needs someone to read him the riot act once more, or whether an indef block is the best solution after all. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Is that really the right angle to look at it, Floq? Isn't the onus on those who want to block to provide the evidence? I see here some issues of POLEMIC which are easily addressed. Other than that, it looks like the same users poking. Where has TWC behaved poorly w/o the assistance of those who contributed to his last block?--v/r - TP 20:50, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Are you asking where has he violated POLEMIC w/o assistance? Or are you asking for evidence of the ongoing pattern of disruptive battlegrounding I mentioned above? Because I've already provided evidence that he has repeatedly and unapologetically violated the terms of his unblock. It's a matter of interpretation so I invite you to scrutinize his engagement with other editors for yourself. If you only want evidence of POLEMIC violations unrelated to the current complainants then I think you're out of luck. -Thibbs (talk) 21:00, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

@User:TParis, I think it's the right angle to look at his overall behavior since his unblock, not just the WP:POLEMIC issue (in fact, the "polemic" issue is a little unimportant and silly, imho). I sort of defended TWC last month, as I though he and Toddst1 were mutually poking each other, but as I dig deeper I see that TWC appears to be, fundamentally, an editor here mainly to fight, both before and after his block was lifted. If that's the case, he should be re-indef blocked, no matter what minor issue brought him to ANI this time.

I agree, I suppose, that the "burden of proof" is probably not on him, but I plan to look at his contribs sometime this evening, and if I don't see some evidence of being able to get along with someone, I'm going to indef block him again. If I *do* find isolated instances of non-battleground behavior, I won't block right away myself, but a consensus seems to be developing along those lines any way. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:21, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

@User:Floquenbeam: Having looked through his contributions, I think he does valuable content work, especially regarding naval vessels. He does have difficulty, for whatever reasons, with interactions on talk pages. Perhaps some sort of mentorship could help. Jonathunder (talk) 23:04, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, Jona, I see you're not the first one to suggest that idea. Perhaps there's a remedy to be found in that. I'm certainly willing to give it a go, and volunteer for some mentoring. - thewolfchild 01:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm willing to volunteer as TWC's mentor.--v/r - TP 02:07, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, worth a try, if you're willing. I suggest we give TP some breathing room to mentor TWC; it will either work, or it won't. If things go pear shaped, I'm sure TP will know what to do, and we won't need to be back here with another thread. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, TP. I'll msg you on your talk. - thewolfchild 02:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Well this sounds like a potentially workable solution and I really hope it will produce positive results. TWC easily has the capacity to be an asset here if he is willing to make a bit of an effort at collegiality. I think a big thanks is owed TParis because I think this may be a heavy lift, and I agree that if this solution is accepted then TParis should be given some breathing room in his oversight. Obviously if we find ourselves back at AN/I for the exact same reasons after the mentorship has ended then this will be strong evidence that TWC's behavior is intractable, but I trust that TWC can and will avoid these behaviors in the future. -Thibbs (talk) 03:55, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• Withdraw support for indefinite block. Although I have disagreed with TParis on points he has made in this thread, that, of course, doesn't diminish the respect I have for him. Based on his willingness to mentor TWC and TWC's willingess to be mentored, I no longer support an indefinite block at this time.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:46, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support User causes too much trouble. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 17:03, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: Stern warning to BilCat against incivility

• Support stern warning - I'm proposing this in an effort to take responsibility for my own actions. I understand that labeling TWC "The Child" was uncalled for, nor matter the circumstances or context of the comments. While there is no consensus above that this was a Personal Attack, all, including myself, agree that, at the least, it was highly uncivil. If I engage in further uncivil behavior such as this, definable by the community, action should be taken against me, including short- or long-term blocks, as per policy.

Further, I have no intention of further direct interaction with TWC. It is clear that we are completely unable to work cooperatively together, regardless of the root cause. I would like that this be formalized as an interaction ban between me and TWC, terms to be defined by the community, if TWC is allowed to continue editing on WP, either now or in the future. - BilCat (talk) 15:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Good on you but I have a feeling that you've sufficiently warned yourself at this point and no further action is needed. Support interaction ban.--v/r - TP 15:50, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I would oppose a formal interaction ban at this stage, any record of such a ban will more than likely brought up, falsely I might add, in the future to imply User:BilCat is a problem editor and he isn't. I still have my topic ban from 2009 regularly flung in my face, despite the fact I behaved completely out of character when going through a bout of depression related to PTSD. I would suggest that User:BilCat and TWC undertake to agree to a voluntary interaction ban at this stage. If either breaks it, then that is the time to consider formalising it. Wee Curry Monster talk 19:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Point taken. It.s voluntary on my part already, but it's up to the community if it needs to be formalized now, or upon a later incident. - BilCat (talk) 02:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - I would like to thank Bill for his comments taking responsibility for his actions. I just wanted the uncivil use of usernames to stop, and it has, so I see no need for any further action. As for a voluntary interaction ban, I already proposed one for myself with both Bill and Nick Thorne on the Aircraft carrier talk page, several days ago. I don't see why we can't self-manage this among ourselves. - thewolfchild 16:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, and good luck with the mentorship. Your article contributions have always been of good quality, and were never the issue here, beyond matters of consensus to make them. I wish you well. (Hopefully this reply doesn't violate the interaction ban!) - BilCat (talk) 10:44, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose We all do things we afterwards regret sometimes. BilCat is normally a stellar editor and will no doubt return to being one now that this momentary glitch is behind us. --John (talk) 11:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per the above. This indeed appears to be a momentary glitch. This may be naive, but I can imagine that due to their overlapping interests BilCat and TWC can actually enjoy an amicable working relationship down the road, after tempers cool, and after the mentorship. Misplaced Pages is at its best when its editors are able to interact like adults instead of giving each other the silent treatment. -Thibbs (talk) 15:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

BLP violation in upcoming DYK

Can someone who knows how DYK works please remove the Murder of Ayakannu Marithamuthu DYK from the list of upcoming DYKs as a matter of urgency. It is asserting as a fact matters which have never been determined in court, and the persons accused of carrying out the alleged murder have never been convicted - a clear violation of WP:BLP policy. Please note in particular that the article makes clear that Marithamuthu's body has never been found, and the claim that he was cut up and cooked into a curry (the DYK hook) is nothing more than an allegation, albeit one supposedly made by one of the suspects. Frankly, I'm appalled that a flagrant BLP violation like this should ever have been proposed as a DYK. Do people not even read articles before proposing them? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:09, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, the article was nominated by its author. @Bonkers The Clown:: any comments to offer us here? Taylor Trescott - + _{my edits} 00:22, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Obviously the BLP violations in the article need addressing, though I've removed the worst of them (I don't have access to all the sources, so can't check it completely). For now though, I'm more concerned about us not posting a BLP violation on the main page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:30, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

You mean this Bonkers the clown???? ES&L 00:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

There is only one. Though I suspect that we may well conclude after this that one is one too many... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:40, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I missed the unblock. Conditions are laid out here, User_talk:Bonkers_The_Clown/Archive_5#Blocked. Drmies (talk) 04:07, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think this article would directly breach the unblock conditions - but that is rather beside the point. Bonkers has not only grossly violated WP:BLP policy, but gone on to nominate the policy-violating article for inclusion on the front page, in a highly sensationalist manner. It strikes me that this is exactly the same sort of behaviour that led to the previous block. It seems to me that Bonkers simply cannot be trusted to contribute - s/he is evidently more concerned with tabloid sensationalism and controversy than with contributing objective and encyclopaedic content. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:35, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

It looks like Bonkers has changed his MO in an attempt to prolong his Wiki-career; previously trolling, now breaching BLP. Sigh. If I had more time I'd take this to ANI with a suggestion for an indef. GiantSnowman 14:47, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello, this is ANI :) :) After observing Bonkers for quite some time at DYK, and interacting with him a few times, my theory is that he is not at all a child at play on Misplaced Pages (as I've seen others say), but that he does this sort of thing intentionally to highlight the systemic problems at DYK. Why is no one commenting on that aspect? Template:Did you know nominations/Murder of Ayakannu Marithamuthu Why was this hook approved? (Quid pro quo reviewing, and absolutely no sense of what is a reliable source or of our BLP policy at DYK.) This happens all the time: on the talk page at DYK still is an example I put up only a few days ago. Why do admins routinely pass hooks like this to the main page? (No accountability at any level of DYK). And why has User:Mindmatrix, who passed this hook, not been notified of this issue so he can improve his reviewing? (Oh gee, lookie there, I went over to see if he had been notified, and found a brilliant example of the problems with quid pro quo reviewing: an editor saying, I passed yours, will you pass mine?) My hunch has always been that Bonkers does this outrageous stuff to call attention to how deficient the DYK process is, and something needs to be done about that, because this is not an isolated incident. Faulty sourcing, faulty medical hooks, and BLP vios have long been occurring at DYK. Yea Bonkers for pointing out how bad that process is and why it should be removed from the mainpage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: d'oh! - I'm an idiot. Was looking at the thread at BLPN at the same time and got them mixed up. GiantSnowman 18:34, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Mea culpa for failing to notice the BLP issue. I'm usually more thorough that this when I review DYK nominations. Regarding the comment on my talk page requesting that I promote a hook, I haven't accepted. Frankly, I'd prefer that the set of DYK article writers and nominators be entirely distinct from the set of reviewers, but that's not likely to happen, and wouldn't necessarily fix the problem anyway. Mindmatrix 15:27, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, yea Bonkers for disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point. Because if your assertion is true that's exactly what it is. Nice to know that violating policy is not just OK it wins praise when it's tilting at someone's favorite windmill. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 15:46, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, you got me there. But to the pointy point ... can we not do something about the underlying problem? It was not my intent to praise Bonkers (I had to clean up quite a few of his DYKs), and I'm sorry I did that. But I still think the bigger problem should be addressed, and I think his numerous DYK noms that have been pushed up the line for a very long time now served a purpose, which DYK regulars aren't hearing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

No worries; I might have overreacted a bit myself, trying to reset my sleep cycle can make me cranky. I do agree that there needs to be some poking with sharp sticks in some directions, the catch is that (even if there is recalcitrance) it needs to be done in a way that doesn't drive people away from the discussion, that is the tricky part. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 16:09, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

BLP enforcers save the day! Three cheers for them, hip hip hooray. I spent so much time trying to find the names of these suspects, but my efforts are in vain. The Straits Times, the most reliable newspaper in Singapore, explicitly lists the names of the suspects. But Misplaced Pages can't because of fabulous policy. I apologise for trying to enhance the article and flesh out more details for our ardent readers, when by doing so I upset the living people who have yet to be convicted. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 06:01, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Given the facetious nature of the above remark (and this post at Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know), and the complete failure of Bonkers to address the issue of the gross violations of WP:BLP policy in the Murder of Ayakannu Marithamuthu article, I formally propose that Bonkers be indefinitely blocked from editing. Contributors may also find the title of Bonkers' latest article indicative of why we can do without such behaviour: . AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:54, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The Jimmy Kimmel "Kids' Table" incident has garnered immense media attention and thus I felt that it was wise to split the content to a separate article per its merits. I contributed little content to the split article. Perhaps you should read more than just the title, my myopic friend. It is aptly titled. I took clue from ¿Por qué no te callas?. Would you stop attacking my integrity, hm? ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 11:08, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if you're paying very close attention to sumbuddy, or happened to see ¿Por qué no te callas? in "On this day" on the mainpage this week. Anyway, are you suggesting that the phrase We should kill everyone in China is going to spawn t-shirt sales and ringtones (enduring), and become a political/cultural slogan that outlasts the incident?

And while you are defending the BLP, could you please explain using a food blog as a source? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:49, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Just because I don't do it now doesn't mean I will never do it. In fact the names have already been removed and the violations have been largely rectified. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 11:08, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

So you admit you violated BLP? You're a nuisance who seems to enjoy creating controversial articles. I don't know why we don't simply indef you and save ourselves a whole heap of trouble/effort in trying to "rectify" your many, many mistakes. GiantSnowman 12:15, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand BLP, but took into consideration how high-profile the Curry Murder case was, as well as the fact that reliable newspapers had explicitly listed the suspects' names. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 12:18, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

DYK review

It seems to me that there is an additional issue here - the DYK proposal was reviewed by another contributor, User:Mindmatrix, who seems to have entirely missed the BLP implications of asserting allegations as fact - in particular, asserting as fact the very allegation that formed the basis for the hook. I'm reluctant to drag Mindmatrix over the coals for this, as frankly I don't see this lack of attention to detail as unusual regarding DYK's, and I think the error is symptomatic of the whole DYK process, which seems more concerned with competition between contributors, and with filling the main page with random questionable factoids than with actually providing our readers with encyclopaedic information. Having said this, Mindmatrix should probably at least explain how the obvious WP:BLP issues with the hook came to be missed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:55, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

(after ec) Oops, see my similar post in the section above--- we edit conflicted. The problem is not Mindmatrix-- the problem is the process (which by the way, although I've been saying for years they should notify reviewers when faulty hooks are promoted up the line, and asking they get a template for doing so-- they won't). Also see my post above for the problem with quid pro quo reviewing-- you pass mine, I'll pass yours, and a big problem with the reward culture in things like WP:WIKICUP. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I should be held responsible. I missed the issue in my review, which is surprising since it was a blatantly obvious violation. Mindmatrix 15:27, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the acknowledgement, Mindmatrix (and good on you), but yours is not a typical DYKer reaction to these sorts of issues. So, something still needs to be done about the wider problem. Based on your appropriate response here, it doesn't look like you are likely to continue to be a part of that problem, but it has been a problem for at least the six years I've been following, and when pointed out, very few react as you have. There is no accountability at DYK, quid pro quo reviewing needs to stop, and if DYK then can't handle the volume, they need to find a way to slow down the process so that they can. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:44, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Back-scratching reviews are generally one of the only effective ways to get DYKs reviewed at all. But I think Sandy is right, the over-assumption of good faith is more harmful at DYK than elsewhere where the main page is concerned.--v/r - TP 16:13, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

DYK is different from other mainpage highlights in having a take-all-comers atmosphere. There is no requirement as things are currently done that a hook be entertaining or interesting, or that an article be high-quality, interesting, or well-written. DYKs are passed by ticking a set of quite loose boxes - does the hook have a cite? is the article long enough? does the hook use an asterisk? - and generally it would be frowned on for a reviewer to impose a quality requirement on either article or hook. As a result, the process is more along the lines of "tick these boxes; if boxes ticked, DYK automatically passes" (which is probably why it's felt that uninformed reviewers are good enough; if you don't have to do anything but check prose length and check for a next to the hook sentence, you don't need to be all that familiar with DYK or even Misplaced Pages policy to do the review).

If, on the other hand, there was a requirement, even a vague one, that DYK hooks be, well, something that "hooks" readers, or if DYK allowed reviewers to use their discretion in accepting and rejecting DYKs for article or hook quality, I suspect we'd have both far less trouble with an overwhelming traffic flow into the DYK review queue, and far fewer passed-by-rote DYK that turn out to be problematic. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:31, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Not quite. The DYK "rules" are at WP:WIADYK. See No. 4, Within policy; DYKs have to conform to core policies. Those are rarely checked, many quid pro quo reviewers don't even know core policies (including one freshly minted admin who recently put a BLP vio on the DYK mainpage), and in the instances when I have checked them, I've been attacked by various and sundry DYK 'regulars'. I do not know where the notion that DYKs don't have to conform to core policies comes from: it is clearly stated in the rules. DYK instituted quid pro quo reviewing because it could not keep up with the volume there. So, reduce the volume already, by removing the notion that any new or newly expanded article is automatically entitled to a mainpage appearance, and do something to encourage compliance and accountability. Many of Misplaced Pages's serial copyvio offenders and serial misunderstanders of reliable sources have been fed by this process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not disagreeing with that, Sandy. Actually, I think you and I are mostly agreeing as far as raising the DYK bar. My point is that there's a vast gulf between "skates past the line of policy" and "this is a well-done, interesting article that should appear on the main page," and as long as reviewers and creators have the impression that if you can eke out "this meets the most basic level of policy and box ticking" then an article is entitled to a DYK appearance, we can do very little about low-quality articles or hooks getting passed, because reviewers are led to believe they have little choice but to pass every article. That's not to say that, say, copyvio issues, which are covered by the current guidelines, are not also being let slip right now; it's just to say that raising the whole bar and removing the sense of articles being entitled to DYK appearances might improve both policy compliance and article/hook quality. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:15, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec) In my opinion, one of the major problems with DYK is that some reviewers don't seem to bother inspecting the supplied sources or assessing their quality. Many reviews appear to be one-sentence approvals that give no indication the reviewer has done a careful inspection of the material. Despite always carefully checking the sources (and sometimes searching for other sources), I've still missed the occasional obvious flaw, with this case being an unfortunate example. Even attentive reviewers make mistakes, which is why DYK should implement a more rigorous review process. Aside: I don't object to the quid pro quo requirement, but I do object to the circular quid pro quo reviews that it seems to have engendered for some DYK article authors and nominators. Mindmatrix 18:09, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

The QPQ requirement is corrupt. The problems with backscratching are magnified by the unlimited entitlement of article creators to dyks. Although there are some high quality dyks from prolific editors, there are other prolific authors that care more about their quantum output than the qualitative aspect. We've tried many-a-time to lay down the requirement in a checklist form, but there's no specificity when it comes to adherence to policies. What's more, the process seems to have slipped back to the one-sentence review that allows specific problem areas to go unmentioned, but just saying "hook is too long" or "not enough bytes" or "good to go". We ought to consider placing a limit on the number of dyks allowed per editor (per month?), and those dyks that are reviewed need to be done stringently and with a much lower tolerance for AGF. -- Ohc _{¿que pasa?} 06:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree with SandyGeorgia's comments. And yes, the QPQ was a desperate measure to drum up the number of reviewers that succeeded only in producing worthless reviews—now used to self-justify the system. Time to get rid of it. In fact, two years ago was the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Contrary to some of the opinions expressed above, this is not an example of the DYK process failing but of the process working. There are four steps involved in moving a nomination to the main page, the first is approval on the nominations page, the second is promotion to Prep, the third promotion to the Queue, and the fourth, promotion to the main page itself. In this case, the problem was identified at the second step. Failure of the DYK process only occurs when a defective article or hook actually makes it to the main page. Gatoclass (talk) 14:09, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

By "actually mak it to the mainpage", you mean, like this BLP impugning a scientist based on primary sources did?

And perhaps you meant to say this is an example of the BLP noticeboard working, since that is what brought GrumpyAndy in? Or did you mean to refer to the number of times that User:Nikkimaria and User:BlueMoonset have had to remove copyvios and other violations that have made it to the mainpage (or through the review process)? Misplaced Pages:Did you know/Removed SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:25, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I haven't noticed any "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" mentality, but from my own recent reviews I can see getting the submitter to go through four hooks before finding an acceptable one, a blatantly invalid submission, a concern about a hook, problems with accessing a source, suggesting a better hook and pondering if the article should be at AfD. The trouble with DYK is the same as everywhere, if you provide incentives and rewards for things, people will flock to try and meet them - see all the problems with poor quality AfC reviews we had recently. Ritchie333 14:54, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what noticeboard the problem was posted on, the point is that someone looked through DYK's prep area and detected it. If a fraction of DYK's critics spent ten minutes a day just checking the next update, threads of this type might be a thing of the past. With regard to your BLP issue, you can categorize that as a DYK failure if you want, but I think the issues you raised in that discussion were complex and not necessarily transparent to the average contributor. Nikkimaria does a fantastic job of identifying copyvios in the queue, but that's part of the queue's function, it's where the final two steps in quality control take place. Gatoclass (talk) 15:09, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, as I'm not an admin, by definition any removals I do are before hook sets are moved from Prep areas to Queues, and more usually I'll not promote an approved hook because there are issues in it, sending the nomination back for more work. If the original review goes awry, the promotion of a hook to Prep is a backup check point, and the admin-required move from Prep to Queue another one. The backup checks are why reviewers should not approve hooks they suggest, and not promote to Prep hooks they've approved. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:09, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The "admin-required move from Prep to Queue" is decidedly not "a backup check point"; anything is promoted to the main page at that point, with no accountability. And relying on one user (Nikkimaria) to detect copyvio is nuts. There are four simple things DYK can do to slow down the process, stop promoting a sloppy, reward-culture environment, and help resolve these issues:

1. Stop accepting WIKICUP nominations at DYK (easily rejected by bot-- the same bot that already flags them at FAC).
2. Hold the admin who passes violations to the mainpage accountable-- as in, make them stop doing that job. You've got a situation where any admin can push the button, and they're pushing it when clearly cursory reviews are made by reviewers unfamiliar with core Misplaced Pages policies. And the admins who are doing that, and have been for years, don't care.
3. Remove all nominations that take more than a month to get through the process.
4. Eliminate quid pro quo reviews. if you can't keep up with the volume after steps 1 to 3, do something else, but asking the blind to lead the blind with quid pro quo reviews isn't working.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:22, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

There are over 100 linked articles on the mainpage right now. Evidence suggests unbolded links are almost as popular with readers as bolded ones - sometimes more so. Who, I wonder, has checked all 100 articles on the main page today for, say, BLP, MEDRS or COPYVIO issues? And if the answer is "nobody" or "I don't know", why is it always the DYK section alone that is singled out for criticism? Gatoclass (talk) 15:36, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Bait and switch. Reward culture. Who is promoting the reward culture by putting those unbolded links on the mainpage (no one except DYK). Example-- the aforementioned Porque no te callas ... "On this day" has grabbed the bloomin' thing three times now, over six years, simply because it is in good shape (not because I submitted it or want the coverage or need the "reward"). Methinks quality is a more reasonable criterion than reward culture. SOMEONE is reviewing the article and choosing it-- there is no entitlement assumption. And they aren't furthering massive and serial violations of same over many years by rewarding that (as DYK has, in the case of spawning many of our serial copyvio offenders, and continuing a forum where core policies and guidelines like BLP and reliable sources aren't even understood). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I assume from that response that your answer to my question falls into the "I don't know" category. Gatoclass (talk) 16:00, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Right (you know what they say about assuming). We have this discussion about DYK issues routinely. Here is, for the record, the last time we discussed a DYK murder that did get on the main page and was removed per the AN report. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:54, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• I think what people who believe DYK should be given a boot to the head and fixed should do is reasonably work to fix the process. While I'm sure she intends well, and while I'm sure there's a few regular bad apples there who would rather stick their heads in the sand than make reasonable changes, the pattern of what happens is always the same: an occasional bad article (and yes, occasional, because of all the hooks that get passed the vast majority are just fine) makes waves, a small group of editors - with Sandy as the most visible - immedately runs up the red flag of "abolish DYK" "WikiCup" "Reward Culture" etc., the DYK people look at this and, quite understandably, circle the wagons, and as a result nothing gets done. If your response to somebody shooting off a cherry bomb is to launch an entire time on target artillery barrage in response, you have nobody to blame but yourself when nobody wants to listen to you at the treaty talks. On another note, Fluffernutter's suggestion to require hooks be "intersting" is something that has come up before and will come up again and gets shot down in flames every time for the simple reason that it is subjective; about 95% of the hooks that I know other people go "WOW!" over get a "meh, BORED" from me. Every hook is interesting to somebody. And to WP:TLDR here, this is something that needs to be discussed at Talk:DYK not ANI, can somebody please close all this so that a discussion can take place in the proper venue? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 14:40, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
  • The Bushranger Ummmm ... I have nothing to do with the testosterone-fest that took hold below, ala "eliminate DYK" entirely, blanking, blocking and other fests.

    I laid out what I believe to be an entirely reasonable four-point plan for addressing the issues above, which not surprisingly, has been totally ignored. I also disagree with your characterization; please reference my pleas at the DYK talk page. Seeing the craziness that has taken hold in the last 12 hours (this appears to be ANI's latest dramafest), I backed out of the discussion and have nothing to do with the proposals to eliminate DYK.

    I also disagree that ANI is not the place for discussion, because we have a curious lack of leadership/accountability at DYKs whereby any admin can promote hooks to the mainpage, while any "normal" editor cannot remove or fix hooks. It is an admin issue. I would add to my four-point plan above that DYK needs to come up with some sort of system by which they determine which admins are qualified to pass hooks to the mainpage, and hopefully those admins will be familiar enough with BLP, MEDRS etc to know which articles need a closer look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Bushranger, while I understand what you mean about "interesting" being subjective, the DYK guidelines actually already contain language regarding how hooks should be interesting: "When you write the hook, please make it 'hooky', that is, short, punchy, catchy, and likely to draw the readers in to wanting to read the article. An interesting hook is more likely to draw in a variety of readers." The trouble is that that advice is largely ignored in favor of the more concrete guidelines (5x expansion, ref tag attached to hook fact, etc) because there is no provision in the guidelines for rejecting a hook because it or its article are of insufficient draw or quality.

    At any rate, however, you're right that ANI isn't the place to be having policy-making discussions about DYK; I was just throwing my thoughts into the conversation here because, well, there was a conversation here about something I had thoughts about. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:49, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Reviewer and autopatrolled removed

Given the"Niggers in the White House" incident mentioned above, the BLP violations in the article he created and nominated for DYK, and the cavalier response to the concerns, I've removed his reviewer and autopatrolled rights. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Obviously sensible, thank you for doing this. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:53, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Request indefinite block of User:Bonkers The Clown

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

I think this business with Bonkers has gone on long enough. The new "We should kill everyone in China" thing is the last straw in my mind. This is also a violation of Bonkers' condition for an unblock in August (making race-related edits/articles). --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 15:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I have renamed that article to Jimmy Kimmel Live! controversy (for want of a better title). I pondered sending it to AfD per WP:NOTNEWS but there's too many sources to pick through to make a quick and correct decision on that. Ritchie333 15:16, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 15:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support indef - editor can not be trusted. GiantSnowman 15:13, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, this was an international incident. Bonkers is an odd cat for sure but I think he's here for the good of the project. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 15:23, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support indef block - I've just spent about 15 minutes trying to clean up the Jimmy Kimmel stuff to make it not violate WP:NPOV and WP:BLP (this edit in particular was blatant pot-stirring) and I'm now thinking "why should I have had to do all that?" Sorry, Bonkers, but having gone out of my way to almost spoon feed you how to get unblocked from last time, and given you seem to have an unhealthy interest in putting murder articles through DYK (eg: here and here), I'm coming to the conclusion your presence on the encyclopedia is starting to become a net negative. Sorry. Ritchie333 15:36, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Torches and pitchforks support No need allow continued disruption that requires extensive cleanup by neutral editors. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 16:15, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support His disruptive behavior, whether intentional or not, is becoming increasingly irritating Beerest355 Talk 16:29, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Although I agree this is way too much to go unaddressed, I feel an indefinite block would deprive us of his more numerous and uncontroversial contributions. See my proposal below.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 16:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support I am not convinced that the user is here for the good of the project. The user seeks to provoke. Misplaced Pages is not a forum for performance art, and Bonkers is not Lenny Bruce. The time required to monitor the user's contributions outweighs any marginal benefit from the benign edits. Kablammo (talk) 17:15, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support Per this. Troll. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:30, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Positive contributions must be weighed against the time and energy expended cleaning up after an editor. Gamaliel (talk) 17:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I strongly suggest that you give him one more chance. Extend the ban to all controversial/sensationalist issues whether they be racial, murders, rapes, myths etc. There's plenty of content which Bonkers does create which isn't controversial. I think you're overreacting here. That the article went through DYK clearly shows that Bonkers isn't the only one to blame for judging content anyway. I don't think he creates them to test DYK, but I do think he gets a thrill from creating edgy, interesting content which could be controversial and push the boundaries. I say ban him from creating controversial stuff and stick to pure encyclopedic run of the mill stuff. An experienced editor who knows how to format and source is too valuable to just throw away. Please reconsider.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:12, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support. The previous incident was clear evidence that this editor is in it purely for the trolling. This editor has long since used their last chance to redeem themselves. They chose to ignore that and carry on their disruptive behaviour. Their work, which was mainly DYK nomination work, will not be missed and their constructive edits does in no way make up for the amount of disruption and waste of time of other editors they have caused during their stay here. --Saddhiyama (talk) 23:16, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - IMO Clearly trolling & seems his/her previous block meant fuck all nothing .... Revoking TP access sounds great too!. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 23:31, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Alternative proposal: Indefinite DYK and article creation ban

Bonkers the Clown is indefinitely banned from nominating any article to DYK and is indefinitely banned from moving any page to mainspace unless it is approved by an uninvolved admin.

• Support As proposer.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 16:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support per WP:ROPE. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:52, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support this seems more reasonable than an indefinite block. Bonkers seems to go for quality over quantity when DYK credits are at stake, therefore causing them to have lots of issues, and this is a good way to make sure we still benefit from his decent contributions. Taylor Trescott - + _{my edits} 17:18, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support. This seems like a reasonable compromise for those opposed to a complete block. Gamaliel (talk) 17:36, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Weak support. If people really can't bear indeffing Bonkers again, then this will at least help a bit. Ritchie333 17:39, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - he'll find other ways to troll. GiantSnowman 19:15, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support -- As a condition in the case of an unblocking, albeit it's likely going to require more conditions than just this. Sportsguy17 00:51, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support as condition of any unblock - for reasons already rather well-stated. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 14:30, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Blocked

I've restored the indef block on this account. Some of you need to get out more if you don't realize you're being trolled, and hard. WP:ROPE was already amply applied when this guy was unblocked not even two months ago upon agreeing not to engage in racial content editing. Today he creates this and makes this edit? No, we've had enough. --Laser brain (talk) 18:31, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Good block. And I'm with you—this isn't anywhere near a borderline case. MastCell  18:38, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• I support this indefinite block. Blatant trolling is unacceptable from anyone. (Disclaimer: I sanctioned him already by revoking his 'reviewer' and 'autopatrolled' rights.) Reaper Eternal (talk) 19:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - good block. GiantSnowman 19:32, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per my reasoning above.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - IMO Clearly trolling & seems his/her previous block meant fuck all nothing .... Revoking TP access sounds great too!. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 23:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - Whether it was trolling or just misguided, this user had already proven themselves to be a disruptive influence in the previous ANI case, which wasn't even that long ago. This time round has just reinforced it, and giving them the benefit of the doubt again is not going to help anyone. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:24, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - Whether they meant well or not, the cost-to-benefit ratio of allowing this user to edit was too far to "cost" to do anything else. I'd also point out this which if it continues should result in a talk page access revocation. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 14:29, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support Bonkers has caused enough trouble already. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 16:24, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Bold editing is explicitly encouraged and it is clear policy that new articles may be imperfect. Both the Curry Murder and the Kimmel incident were major news and the latter seems to be a significant international incident which has been reported in respectable sources such as Chinese government criticises Jimmy Kimmel show. As I understand it, the user is an ethnic Chinese Singaporean and so should not be expected to share the sensibilities of US people on such topics. For example, I reviewed his fish soup bee hoon — a soup made from fish heads which would likewise not suit western tastes. We have a well-recognised problem of maintaining a neutral point of view if we do not have a global perspective. Today's FA is about a game of American football, for example. We should not censor other tastes, perspectives and approaches. Warden (talk) 10:41, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Deleting userpages?

Okay, I thought the indef is a good idea, I thought sending his BLP articles to AfD/PROD is a good idea, but can we stop nominating all his userpages for deletion, too, please? He's blocked, we don't need to extirpate all record of the good he's done here, and these deletions seem without reason and--dare I say--petty. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:39, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hmm? Which of his userpages have been nominated? I saw that DavidLeighEllis blanked his userpage and replaced it with a blocked user template, but that's it. Taylor Trescott - + _{my edits} 21:45, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bonkers The Clown/Shiny stuff‎ is the one I saw. I suppose you're right in that I indulged in a bit of hyperbole, but the blanking of his userpage is along the same vein, and given that Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:L'Origine du monde (2nd nomination)‎ is a very similar situation, coming today from the same user, I wouldn't be surprised if an actual MfD nomination for Bonkers's userpage is to follow. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:55, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Bonkers' userpage was kept before at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bonkers The Clown. So I doubt it'll show up again. Taylor Trescott - + _{my edits} 21:58, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Well, it didn't keep 'em away from L'Origine du Monde's. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:02, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• I nominated one of his subpages for deletion, but this was only because it was a WP:STALEDRAFT which is probably not going to have any foreseeable use. Taylor Trescott - + _{my edits} 22:53, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Would you like to give us a link to the user subpage which you nominated for deletion, please, User:Taylor Trescott? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:30, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bonkers The Clown/Death by ice cream. Taylor Trescott - + _{my edits} 00:31, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• What was it that made you think it was important to nominate that particular page for deletion, today? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:39, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• Because it was going to become a WP:STALEDRAFT since the topic was determined non-notable and nobody was going to edit it. Taylor Trescott - + _{my edits} 01:07, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• How would it becoming a WP:STALEDRAFT harm the encyclopedia? Please explain. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• WP:STALEDRAFT says that userspace is not to be used to store articles indefinitely. Since it would see no foreseeable use, I nominated it. Taylor Trescott - + _{my edits} 00:00, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Propose not deleting userpages without justification

• Userpage deletion should be done under due process, including notification.
• In this case, since the userpage owner cannot respond, notification should be done here as a minimum.
• I propose any administrator that acts on a deletion nomination not suitably notified, should be subject to an arbcom proceeding regarding their competence.
• Support as proposer. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:50, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Point (1), provided the speedy criterion don't apply, is quite reasonable. I have no clue what point (2) means. Point (3) is admin abuse. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 14:23, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

For point 2, I presume Demiurge1000 is saying in cases like here where User:Bonkers The Clown is indef blocked and is less able take part in MFDs or otherwise defend deletions, people should mention deletions here. I'm not really I sure I understand why "here". And in the case of MFDs (perhaps not speedies or PRODs), we already have a place we list them. I don't understand why someone being blocked means we need to mention them here or anywehre else, at most it would suggest a special section at the place we already list MFDs. But even that seems unnecessary, in the case of any xFDs, even with notification it's resonably possible the person who receives the notification may be gone or away at the time despite not being blocked. The whole point of the xFD process is that while we may notify creators as a courtesy, we're not supposed to require their participation to receive a good outcome. Also, I assume a block won't generally stop participation. Generally speaking we mostly only allow people to request unblocking when blocked but I presume in the case of a deletion request for their user page, we would allow resonable responses. Of course in a case where the person has also lost talk page access, that doesn't apply. The only other thing is, in the case of a STALEDRAFT or similar, an indef blocked person can't resonably claim they will continue it. Nil Einne (talk) 14:55, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

DYK limited to one set per day

DYK removed entirely

AndyTheGrump blanking articles

It seems AndyTheGrump is tracking down various articles Bonkers the Clown did on murders and blanking them with little explanation other than insisting they are BLP violations. Shouting BLP does not absolve him from providing an explanation. As it stands, the most he has offered me is that any article with "murder" in the title is a BLP violation unless there is a conviction, which is not an argument for blanking the article as the title can be changed easily enough. Even if it were, he should at least nominate the article for deletion, rather than just blanking it. He is just blanking repeatedly and doing nothing else. His blankings don't even do anything about the title, which is still there. Should he think these are non-notable crimes he should nominate them for deletion and not blank them repeatedly and trying to use BLP as an excuse for breaching 3RR. I restored one of the articles, retitled it, and even removed every instance of the word "murder" being used in the editorial voice to accommodate him (explaining all that in the edit summary), but he is still blanking the whole thing as a BLP violation. Could someone please intervene here?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:48, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, can someone intervene by blocking The Devil's Advocate for multiple WP:BLP violations - both in the content he has restored, and in an edit summary (now redacted). AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:51, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• Since when is blanking articles the way we handle deletions at WP? Andy, my friend, three words of advice: Articles for Deletion. Carrite (talk) 03:42, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't 'handling deletion'. I was handling multiple blatant WP:BLP violations. Per policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:55, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a right and a wrong way to do these things. Removing the alleged BLP violations is the right thing. Blanking the whole article and threatening death and destruction to anyone reverting the decision is the wrong thing. If the edits are truly defamatory, we have an oversighting procedure which should be followed. If the subject is not notable, the proper venue is AfD for controversial deletions, PROD for less controversial deletions, and the Speedy process for articles meeting those very specific criteria. Unilaterally blanking lurid "true crime" cruft is not the way it is done. You know that. Carrite (talk) 23:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I won't address the last point, but when objectionable content is removed it should not be republished, regardless of who removed it and regardless of what else was removed with it. Kablammo (talk) 12:38, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Blanking the whole thing? Seems like POINT to me. Blanking sections which are unreferenced and/or violate BLP on any article? I support fully. GiantSnowman 12:44, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand, but if the whole article is blanked, the whole should not be restored if objectionable content is thereby restored. The principle of innocent dissemination likely would not apply to protect the republisher. Kablammo (talk) 12:49, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Let's ask the actual question here: was Andy blanking articles that contained BLP violations, or blanking articles created by Bonkers the Clown assuming they contained BLP violations because of their authorship? The first would be valid. The second would result in a block for WP:POINT, WP:VANDALISM (for that would in fact be what it would be) and "grave-dancing". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 14:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

At no point have I blanked an article that didn't contain an obvious WP:BLP violation. Evidently, I'm going to have to do it again: AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:53, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Whoa, Bushranger—put the v-word back in its holster. Even if we suppose (arguendo) that AtG was blanking the articles on the mere assumption that Bonkers' articles were likely to contain BLP violations, it wouldn't be vandalism. It could be POINTy, and it could be poor judgement, but it wouldn't be vandalism. Steps taken with the ultimate intent of benefitting Misplaced Pages – even by removing content, and even by methods which may be perceived as sub-optimal or even disruptive – are almost never vandalism. Re-read the policy, and learn the difference: "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Misplaced Pages....Even if misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism. Pulling out an unwarranted, unjustified suggestion of vandalism only serves to inflame a dispute, and is in itself intrinsically and inherently disruptive.

That said, Andy's argument suggests, prima facie, that his actions are an appropriate response under WP:BLP. The remedy of 'blank article pending rewrite with quality sources' is far from unheard-of in the BLP arena. Typically it comes up after Misplaced Pages receives a complaint from an article's subject, but I see no good reason why we shouldn't be equally proactive regarding bad articles we identify for ourselves. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Let's be absolutely clear about this. It is a requirement of WP:BLP policy that articles not contain violations. It isn't remotely an option. Both articles (which incidentally, I didn't find by "tracking down" - but learned about through a post on my talk page ) contained multiple self-evident policy violations. Even the article titles violated WP:BLP - asserting that individuals had been murdered before any court had determined as such - and the creator/troll's past history was such that a thorough checking of sources would be necessary before any content could be trusted. As a contributor, I had at least a moral obligation to see that WP:BLP policy wasn't violated, once I'd had my attention drawn to the matter. I did so. And that is where my obligation ended. No contributor is ever obliged to edit a particular article - and given the provenance of the articles, and the dubious notability of the content, I was damned if I was going to waste my time cleaning up after a troll. If others wish to put work into the articles, it is all there in the history - but they are absolutely obliged to ensure content complies with policy before restoring it to public visibility. That is their responsibility if they wish the article to be visible. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:12, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

If a biography really, truely needs to be blanked immediately, then nominating it for speedy deletion as CSD G10 is the most appropriate course of action. Otherwise, it should be submitted to AFD. Deletion-by-blanking has been rejected by the community. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 16:48, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

This isn't some sort of backdoor implementation of Misplaced Pages:Pure wiki deletion (your link); it's just plain WP:BLP: very much an accepted and necessary policy. And WP:CSD#G10 – which specifically and narrowly addresses 'attack' pages – doesn't necessarily cover all biographical articles (or content) that violates WP:BLP. WP:BLP is very clear on where the burden rests with regard to adding or restoring biographical content and articles—and it isn't on the person removing the material. Would it be nice if Andy also added deletion nominations to these pages? Sure. Is he required to as a condition of following WP:BLP? Definitely not. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:18, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Either an article has such noxious BLP problems that all of the current and prior text requires immediate removal, or it doesn't. In the former case, it should be properly deleted by an administrator. If the CSD are being interpreted to forbid this, then the policy is overdue for a modification. In the latter case, some portion of the article can be left in place during an AFD discussion. The reason deletion-by-blanking is a failed proposal is that it doesn't really delete anything. Any user familiar with Misplaced Pages can and probably will pull a previous revision from the page history. We don't bother to revdel every BLP violation ever removed from the current version of an article only because having a non-empty current version discourages leafing through the article history for dirt; revdel is thus saved for particularly obnoxious material. Blanking entire articles certainly makes a point, but doesn't accomplish anything useful. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 22:44, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

It ensured that BLP violations were removed from immediate view. Which was not only useful, but necessary. Which is why I did it. It was then open to anyone who considered either article actually to cover anything of note (which the current AfD discussions seem not to support) to check the sourcing etc, and then edit one or both to ensure compliance with WP:BLP policy. The suggestion that I did this as some sort of backdoor route to deletion is not only supposition, but based on a false premise. I was fully aware that blanking an article doesn't delete it, so suggesting that deletion was my objective makes no sense. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:20, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

To this end, I have proposed a new CSD to allow the proper disposal of any articles which really, truely require immediate deletion for BLP reasons. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 23:08, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• I'm on Andy's side, especially as I've done the same before. BLP demands immediacy. Sceptre 16:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• I'm on Andy's side, too, but am dismayed that this dramafest is obscuring the bigger picture. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• So, are you two suggesting that if I were to find an easily-fixed BLP violation on part of the page for Barack Obama I could instead repeatedly blank the entire article, breaching 3RR with impunity, and anyone undoing that blanking action would be accused of violating BLP? There is a reason why policy says blanking should only be used when there is no way to address concerns through normal editing. Andy has not given any indication that this is a case where blanking was necessary. In fact, his initial argument seems to have been less that he could not fix the article but more "I don' wanna" because no one "should have to waste time cleaning up after a blocked troll" in his words. With the initial case that prompted all of this Andy did go in and fix the underlying issues, and that article had more problems that were much more egregious than any possible issues with these two.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• The Devil's Advocate, rather than inventing hypothetical scenarios for the Barack Obama article, would you care to address the actual issue here, and explain exactly why you repeatedly posted BLP-policy-contravening material in full public view in the articles concerned? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:30, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• I do not believe any actual BLP violations were restored that I did not promptly fix myself. One article did not involve a named suspect and in the case that did involve a named suspect, I edited the material appropriately. The problem is when you blank the entire article without nominating it for deletion, rather than fixing it, and fail to even identify what you consider a BLP violation, you are essentially forcing other editors to figure out everything that you might consider wrong with the article and fix it for you. If they do not find everything you consider an issue, then you blank it again and accuse them of violating BLP. Do you really not see how that is not the appropriate way to approach the issue?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:21, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• If you sincerely believe that an article that asserts as a fact that an unconvicted suspect "...solicited sexual intercourse from , and after she rejected him he hit at least three times on the head with a 10-kilogram dumbbell, killing her instantly" isn't a BLP violation, I have to question your competence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:27, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• The suspect was not named in that article so I simply looked to make sure there was nothing truly egregious. You can make this about me all you like, but if you had actually pointed out or addressed specific violations, rather than blanking an entire article the whole situation would have been avoided. As I said to you before, WP:BLP is clear that if a violation can be fixed without blanking or deleting than that is what should be done. What you are arguing is that you should be able to do whatever you want to the article when invoking BLP, even blanking it without nominating it for deletion or mentioning specific violations, then force other people to fix every possible issue you identify with the threat of repeated blankings and cries of "BLP violator" if they fail to satisfy you, and that is not supported by policy or common sense. Your actions were no different than some random IP blanking an article and saying "this article is false" or "this article is defamatory" as it does not offer anything constructive to allow someone to address whatever concerns you have with the article.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:19, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• The above response clearly indicates to me that you lack the elementary competence to edit articles where WP:BLP policy may be an issue. The article stated as a fact that the suspect killed the victim. There can be no doubt whatsoever that this is a gross violation of WP:BLP policy - and your attempt to shift the blame onto me for your utter disregard for policy is beneath contempt. Stay the fuck out of BLPs until you have learned how policy applies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:55, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• The fact the individual was not identified did not make it an immediate BLP concern to me.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:30, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• The article stated that a particular individual was in police custody. The article stated that this particular individual killed the victim. It makes no difference whatsoever that the individual's name had been withheld - the article was asserting that the individual in custody was guilty of murder. Though your suggestion that 'immediate BLP concerns' were in any way relevant to your behaviour is entirely disproven by the fact that your initial revert, after I had blanked the article, did precisely nothing to address the BLP issues. . Did you make any effort to address the issues at that time? No. Did you make any effort to contact me to ask what the issues were? No. You reverted the article, in the full knowledge that I'd made it clear that there were issues. You violated WP:BLP policy. Repeatedly. And then you had the audacity to come here and complain that I was reverting your violations of policy. Your behaviour is beneath contempt. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:39, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• That the individual is unidentified makes a big difference and I do not think anyone would objectively suggest it does not make a difference. As far as contact, with regards to this article it was brought up in the AfD and you raised your concerns, which focused exclusively on use of the term "murder" to describe the crime. If you mean the other article, well, there was only one actual BLP violation and I addressed it right away.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Not liking the Pointy gravedancing going on here. Blanking pages with no rationale doesn't build an encyclopedia. Take it to a normal venue and let process run its course without indiscriminately blanking Bonker's articles. KonveyorBelt 22:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

How exactly does a statement that the article grossly violates WP:BLP policy amount to 'no rationale'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:37, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Konveyor Belt and The Devil's Advocate above, Blanking as opposed to more careful removal of only such content as actually violated BLP was unwarranted and inappropriate, and reversion was desirable. DES 23:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

You think that restoring BLP violations in articles is 'desirable'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

@KB. Can I suggest you familiarise yourself with WP:BLP - the first paragraph (clue - the bold bit) rather than slinging what appear to be rather immature and apparently incorrect accusations at a fellow-editor doing the correct thing. Leaky Caldron 23:51, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Apparently some have misinterpreted my comment as vandalism. BLP says that if a section is in violation it should be removed, it says nothing of deletion by blanking. KonveyorBelt 01:26, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Andy started "careful removal" on the article which began this, Murder of Ayakannu Marithamuthu. The majority of the content of that article was a series of BLP violations. Now, three days, seven editors, and several dozen edits later, it may possibly comply with BLP, but should be deleted as not meeting the bar of notability. The other articles Andy blanked also did not meet that bar, while clearly violated our BLP policies.

The articles in question were created for the express purpose of shock, getting as many lurid allegations as possible, whether proven or unproven, into articles on the main page. There is no reason that should be tolerated. There is no reason why the survivors of the victims should encounter lurid retellings of a tragedy, mirrored across the internet, while Misplaced Pages goes about its ceremonial ways in deciding whether to delete, save, merge, or tinker with articles on the subject.

And it is never appropriate to revert to a version of an article containing BLP violations. Never. Kablammo (talk) 23:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to blank an entire article because of a few issues that one could easily fix without blanking the article?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:21, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Given your evident inability to recognise a gross BLP violation in plain sight (see above), I hardly think that you are in any position to comment on what is 'appropriate'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:32, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

If an editor posts gross BLP violations to an article, there is nothing wrong with reverting the edit entirely, even if only some of the added content violated policy. I would never chastise an editor for failing to tease out only the offending content. The onus is on those who want the content restored to find a way to do it without violating BLP. As far as I'm concerned, the same principle can apply when the "edit" was the creation of an article. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:02, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Including the namee of a accused person in an article on a crime is often an ambiguous situation, because the rule for removing the names is based on Do No Harm, where the names are so widely published it makes no difference, and this is a matter of judgment. In doubt, we remove the names, but there is often a very strong disagreement, & where there is good faith disagreement, discussion is needed. . I cannot think of any case where having just this as the violation would been blanking the entire article, much less deleting it, unless there was no other content at all; even if the name was in the title, a rename takes care of it. BLP is not a free pass to remove contentthat is not harmful. The BLP noticeboard exists for a purpose, and in undoubted violations the action is very rapid. (In those few cases where the decision came to me, I've usually removed the names--I take the policy very seriously.) I also take seriously that it has limits, and I am concerned that some people use it to override all considerations, including that of consensus. It often does over-ride other considerations, but nothing over-rides consensus. We are not here to shoot first and think later, or to apply our own interpretation in cases wherewe know or ought to know there is disagreement. 'DGG (at NYPL)' (talk) 18:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Proxy editing request

Bonkers The Clown has written a new article on his talk page and has asked that it be moved into the article space, with a request that a DYK submission also be made on his behalf. I'd be inclined to remove talk page access as it's designed for discussion of his block and requesting an unblock, not as a way to circumvent a block and to continue editing, but as there's still some discussion going on here and he could still require access to his talk page in the immediate future to discuss the block, I'd rather there's some discussion about whether to remove talk page access. Nick (talk) 14:18, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I removed the offending text, and I was tempted to remove his talk page access. Looking at his contributions since the block, he seems intent on continuing to push boundaries and rattle sabres rather than construct a legitimate unblock request. --Laser brain (talk) 14:27, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Well, there is an unblock request there now... but it feels more like trolling than any legitimate promise. Also, we went through the same "final chance" not that long ago, and look what happened. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 13:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I doubt there is intentional trolling there. His offered unblock conditions don't look unreasonable. My main concern, given his apparent immaturity, is that a too swift unblock may send the wrong message and encourage him to continue testing boundaries to his own detriment. Gatoclass (talk) 13:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Of course those don't look unreasonable. But look at the rest of the request; it smacks of pure trolling. Particularly the attempt at playing the "I'm a prolific contributor, I beg you to unblock me" card (which isn't that much of a paraphrase of the wording). This guy is a reasonably intelligent troll who knows how to play the system. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 23:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see how pointing to one's contribution history can be considered trolling. Gatoclass (talk) 04:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oh come on. This user has done a hell of a lot of things that are clearly trolling; the pseudo-"grovelling" in the unblock request smacks of yet more trolling. And given the responses of the two admins to it, it seems that they didn't buy it any more than I did. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 09:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Lgcsmasamiya's patrolling

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

User:Lgcsmasamiya is a new page patroller whose work I have repeatedly found problems with - in the last 48 hours alone, Derivations of the Lorentz transformations was marked as fine despite lacking inline citations for most of the article, Crime Investigation Department (India) despite copy problems, Curtis Australia despite bare URLs...so on, and so forth. In and of itself this is not a problem worth bringing here - people can change. The problem is that after I surfaced these issues to them they continued patrolling new pages without responding - although a look at their user talk contributions shows they were never likely to - and that this comes after two blocks and two AN/I threads, all about the user's competence at patrolling. I'd like to request a longer block, the removal of which is contingent on the user actually responding to the concerns. Ironholds (talk) 16:43, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, this user cannot claim ignorance of the rules s/he is breaking. A block would be unfortunate, but probably unavoidable on account of their actions. This user's first language is not English, and Qwyrxian tried to explain that reviewing articles would be best left to someone with better command of English. The user replied "Ok, i will try to do my best," but that doesn't seem to have precluded them from continuing to patrol new pages. --Jprg1966  17:51, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

A perusal of User talk:Lgcsmasamiya for the past 12 months shows constant complaints about Lgc's page curation. There were two previous blocks, one for 24 hours and then another for one week in July 2013. Each time the hope was that this would get the editor's attention. These attempts failed, so I propose an indef block that could be immediately lifted if Lgcsmasamiya would make a clear promise to stop page patrolling. EdJohnston (talk) 18:13, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with that assessment. The user is productive otherwise. As soon as they get the point, we should not expect continued problematic editing and the block can be lifted. --Jprg1966  20:01, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I really don't see that the absence of a "more footnotes" template on Derivations of the Lorentz transformations is such an egregious violation. Could someone clarify which sentences are in desperate need of inline footnotes? RJFJR (talk) 20:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that Lgcsmasamiya doesn't pick these things up is the problem - the issue is that he then marks the articles as reviewed so they can't be picked up by anyone else. There's no way of knowing just how much stuff he's reviewed has slipped through the net, an indef block until he starts talking is the obvious option. Basalisk ⁄_berate 20:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I removed the tag since it is suppose to be used when there is a list of general references. Since the only references are inline, it is not appropriate in my mind. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:18, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I have indef blocked the account in a hope he will start communicating. I'll keep an eye. Basalisk ⁄_berate 20:22, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Question: Is there no way to check what has been reviewed by the user or bring up a list of checks to just double check? I'd be happy to comb through a few dozen, but I don't understand what needs to be done to do so. 209.255.230.32 (talk) 20:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

for seeing patrol log of user.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:48, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to people who are tagging them - I peeked at a few, I'll check some more tomorrow. 209.255.230.32 (talk) 22:24, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Ironholds, going back to your original question, since when do we require inline citations except for challenged or negative material? And And since when do we refuse to accept articles with bare url citations? Sure, its not good practice, and inline citations are a good idea, but if an incoming article isn't tagged with these problems, it's not a major error. What really counts at NPP is detecting articles that should be speedy deleted. I

Additionally, why would we want to block someone from contributing because they're doing improper NPP? the most we would normally want to do is block them from NPP. We can;t yet do it formally, but we can certainly tell people to learn more themselves first and stop till they do--I've said it when necessary, and then they stop. I know he hasn't listen to past advice, or paid attention to prior blocks, but going to indefinite, almost the strongest thing we can possibly do, is overkill.

Since I have never had the experience of someone ignoring my advice to stop, I have unblocked, with the reason "not a valid reason for blocking." He hasn't listened to past advice, but I've given it a try, and I will follow it up. DGG ( talk ) 02:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I await your second-to-last sentence being invalidated, then. This user has repeatedly failed to listen when told, and when blocked. We've told him to learn more, dozens of times - look at his talkpage. We've blocked him, twice. He perpetuates the behaviour. Failure to participate in community discussions about a user's behaviour, or to change when repeatedly asked, is most definitely a valid reason to block somebody - it's constantly used. I'm surprised to see you ignorant of that. Ironholds (talk) 02:24, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(edit conflict)*This is probably the worst case of page patrolling I have ever come across - and I do my best, time permitting, to review as much of the work of patrollers as I can. It clearly demonstrates that the excellent pgage feed & curation system has not addressed the community's concerns that led ultimately to its development. No one actually knows just how well or how poorly New Page Patrolling performs.

I first warned this user on 13 December 2012 and he has not taken a blind bit of notice to any of the repeated warnings since. I suggest that he be Tbanned from patrolling until he has been to WP:NPRSCHOOL, which would also teach him more about page creation in general. I will try to find time to review some of his 600+ created stubs. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:27, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I may be wrong, because I unblocked under the assumption that reference format such was the only problem, and to enforce something that is actually optional with a block is totally uncalled for. I'm analyzing the last batch patrols. I do see larger problems than citation style, and that would be another matter. DGG ( talk ) 02:31, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

You unblocked without having read the logs, or evidently reviewing the user's talkpage, or the other ANI threads, or...? Ironholds (talk) 02:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• A block to force someone to communicate is reasonable when nothing else works, so I have no problem with the block. However, if DGG is going to keep an eye on the user and try to guide them through this, I don't think a reblock is needed, and I think this section can be closed, to give DGG time to work through it. Too many cooks spoil the broth. If it was a mistaken unblock, I'm sure DGG will put it right. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:41, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

So I will. If I have made a mistake, I will certainly admit it and correct it DGG ( talk ) 03:13, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

In all fairness, I did state explicitly, both here and on his talk page, that the block had nothing to do with the tags and was more to do with his patrolling in general and lack of communication. Basalisk ⁄_berate 10:03, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• Few editors (or so it seems, except perhaps for both Ironholds and DGG) appear to be as continually concerned about the state of NPP as I am, but then perhaps I don't see everything. I nevertheless make plenty of noise about it. I understand Ironholds' request for a block, if not for all the reasons, but perhaps a short preventative one for say, 24 - 31 hours, might have jarred the user into the response he made which was declined by Floq Fluff. Whatever happens, I strongly suggest that Lgcsmasamiya be placed under a formal Tban by this board from patrolling. I am sure that DGG will take care of the rest. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:33, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Ban proposal

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

User:Lgcsmasamiya is banned from WP:NPP until they have proven to experience editors (Kudpung and DGG, for instance, that they are capable of reviewing articles in ways that confirm to our guidelines in regards to such things as referencing and copy-paste problems, and make a firm commitment to be responsive to issues raised by other editors and be willing to make changes accordingly. Drmies (talk) 04:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• support DGG ( talk ) 06:39, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support NativeForeigner 07:32, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support Absolutely and unquestionably. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:55, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 07:58, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support Basalisk ⁄_berate 10:03, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - MrX 13:05, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 14:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support – Topic ban from WP:NPP per User:Drmies. EdJohnston (talk) 18:45, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support KrakatoaKatie 02:44, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Note: Three days since the poll above was reached unanimously (mainly by admins). User is still patrolling. Can this now be closed and enacted? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:58, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Big mess at Colon cleansing

What seems to have happened is this:

• New Dubvit2012 (talk · contribs), wanting to introduce material into Misplaced Pages, was taken under the wing of IDangerMouse (talk · contribs) on IRC.
• In time, two new articles appeared, called Colonic hydrotherapy and Laser teeth whitening. Both are poorly-sourced and fringe/promotional in nature. The first has links to the dublinvitalitycenter.com domain, the second to laserteethwhiteningdublin.com - corresponding to the new editor's user name and indicating a COI.
• Noticing this and after Talk page discussion I propose merging the new content into existing articles Colon cleansing and Tooth bleaching, with a view to reconciling the material.
• After a successful merge of the colon-related material I duly do this, resulting in a big slimming-down of much of the new content.
• Dubvit2012 (talk · contribs) reverts the edits and introduces more material, some of it dubious in nature (medical content sourced to old non-WP:MEDRS popular books; stuff from the Daily Mail; the promotional links again e.g.)
• I raise this on WP:FT/N and WT:MED. IDangerMouse (talk · contribs) posts content there from Dubvit2012 (talk · contribs) which may be a legal threat ("making a case") and argues that the edits are okay as the new editor is "a doctor". IDangerMouse posts to ANI (I believe) outing Dubvit2012 (talk · contribs), but that has since been oversighted.
• IDangerMouse (talk · contribs) posts correspondence to my user page which seems to reveal that Dubvit2012 (talk · contribs) is accusing him of inappropriate interaction. IDangerMouse adds that he takes "full responsibility" for what has happened.

What bothers me about this is not so much the common-or-garden POV-pushing followed by anger & threats, it's the fact that another editor, IDangerMouse, who is meant to be helping, appears to have no clue on what constitutes acceptable content or how to interact with new editors. This is bad for Misplaced Pages from pretty much every angle. I raise this here because it seems like an incident which includes aspects of pov-pushing, COI, outing, legal threats and general editor conduct - and so could benefit from some kind of admin response. Alexbrn 08:39, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I didn't really say I accept the edits, and the meter was my proposal, the only thing I accept full responsibility is handling this user, and my actions of calling her pretty/super pretty I have time and again told her to make a draft, and proposed the merger, tried to get everyone on the talk page together, where the merger was agreed. Second part I have asked her to explain her actions, gave her the chance to edit the article to keep it fair and seeing what she has posted, I gave my full support to have the article reverted. I have done all I could for this user. She needs to read the guidelines as I've been telling her. There is nothing I can do, i advice her to move on, as I'm doing the same, keeping it fair and neutral. Danger^Mouse (talk) 08:49, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• It would appear that Alexbrn has logged in under a different name on a different PC so that his IP wont be detected, and made the changes to revert the document back. Its an old trick.

  You should really let the others know what this guy is doing. Its not very cool. Perhaps you could find some other complaints against this person. Its amusing but Im kinda busy and I have a business to run. The accusations of Alex which I told her not the case. 182.178.61.149 (talk) 08:58, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't want further conflict or what so ever, I have tried to reason with this user, and she attacks not only me, but other editors calling the merger unethical, and accusing Alex of having 2 accounts, and playing the oldest trick in the book of reverting the article, however the revert was fair, and I have agreed to it, I tried to explain her the policies, and guidelines of Misplaced Pages, and I have nothing further to do with this helpee, I even apologized to her for calling her Pretty/Superpretty or as she says Sleazy. ^Darkwind^ said move on, and not to further escalate this and put on a RFC or DRN, and I have given a notice on DRN, I cannot reason further with this user, and I have done all I could. She may edit freely, as long as she has reasonable sources, and isn't threatening anyone, otherwise its COI, and would turn into a further escalation of edit war, and more. My final saying is move on! Or get on the talk page, and work together without threats, and with complete civility, which I tried to achieve, and I failed. Danger^Mouse (talk) 09:22, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I haven't had time to look at the "big mess at colon cleansing", but I do think someone should award User:Alexbrn the barnstar of creativity for the best section heading at ANI in quite some time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:29, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• As I mentioned elsewhere (this topic is making the rounds) I read the ANI thread at work and remembered to stop at Publix on my way home and pick up fiber tablets. Sandy, you sound so cheerful that your flora and fauna down there must be in great shape. Types 3 and 4 all around! Yeah! Drmies (talk) 01:27, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks again, Misplaced Pages, for TMI; my worldview is forever changed. Who knows that kind of shit stuff, anyway? And why shouldn't I be happy? I've been engaged in the process of elimination all day. Just check my contribs. I dare not wade into colon cleansing because it is rife with popular press sources. Hello WP:MEDRS !!! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
• Phew. Well. It's obvious, even without looking at all the diffs and the IRC logs, that DangerMouse has acted like a complete ass here ("ass" referring to the donkey in its proverbial and not necessarily authentic quality of being a rather unintelligent animal). I guess it's not an NPA to call someone an ass if evidence of assness is so overwhelming. Alex facepalmed himself on his talk page and I think everyone reading this will wonder how in the hell you managed to get yourself up to your esophagus in shit. Whether that behavior is blockable, I can't rightly tell without plowing deeper in the you-know-what and I have no gumption for that right now. Consider yourself trouted, with something that only looks like a trout.

  As for the new editor, well, that was not a good treatment they got, and they have my apologies. At the same time, they were here to get something accomplished, something that doesn't exactly jive with what we're supposed to be doing here. Whether their edits were so terrible that they deserve a block--ah well, for some reason I think we won't see or hear much from them anymore.

  To summarize: thank you Alex for carrying this torch and shedding light on a place where usually the sun don't shine. And by that I also mean IRC. I have never seen evidence that anything good ever came out of that cloaca of instant communications, and I suggest that this present thread is evidence enough for at least one editor to stay out of it. Now, I don't know if DangerMouse hit the other editor up, how they got the email address, and what not--if someone knows, via IRC logs or whatever, perhaps there's more action that should be taken. Maybe, if I sign very quickly, this will get flushed all the sooner and this embarrassing little episode forgotten. Alexbrn, all this pending your input as well. Drmies (talk) 01:54, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

  Drmies, could I ask you to please avoid resorting to personal attacks? Calling someone an arse is such, and that you have to justify and excuse it here indicates you know this full well. -— Isarra ༆ 18:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

  Pretty sure that terminology was a side effect of Drmies cramming in poop-related words to write what might be the most puntastic ANI post ever. Which was perhaps not the most erudite option, but I don't think it was as deliberate as your read says it was. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:12, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• More to the point, is this a content dispute, an issue because one user called another pretty, or something else entirely? I ask because if the calling someone pretty has anything to do with it, I would just like to point out how utterly ridiculous that is, and that anyone who finds that to be necessarily inappropriate should be beat over the head with a tuna. Calling a woman pretty is no more inappropriate than calling a man cute, and last I checked there was nothing wrong with that in most contexts, personal correspondence being one of them (and arbitration cases not being one of them, much to my dismay - some of the clerks are so damn cute). -— Isarra ༆ 18:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

  Bring on the tuna, then, because if I were trying to get help editing Misplaced Pages and instead got someone who wanted to tell me how attractive or unattractive I was, I would be intensely creeped out. A person's looks have absolutely no bearing on their Misplaced Pages editing, and in a situation where a new editor is in the "subordinate" position of asking for help, it's highly inappropriate for a helper to use that as an opportunity to ogle or hit on the new editor. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:12, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• I think it's pretty clear that at the very least some boundaries were crossed here (far beyond someone being called "pretty" or whatever), and I agree completely with Fluffernutter's comment. Now, whether real rules were broken or not is less interesting to me: I don't think that ANI threads ought to necessarily end with a. a block or b. a complete exoneration--hence my "ass" comment earlier. I also think that DangerMouse realizes that this kind of behavior is to be avoided in the future, and I think that's a good outcome. Drmies (talk) 05:10, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Yes: the complaint seemed to be that IDangerMouse had got the new user's email and was using it to send "sleazy emails" (calling her "superpretty"), although the fact this complaint was raised only after the edits weren't going to plan may be a complicating factor. Anyway, since IDangerMouse has marked their User Page as retired, and since the new editor has gone quiet it may simply be best here to close and move on. Alexbrn 05:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

What was the complaint, though? The user who was apparently the target of inappropriate conduct doesn't appear to have said anything, let alone confirmed or denied that it even was inappropriate conduct. Indeed, as far as I can tell, the accusation seems to be based entirely off the word of the the accused, and subsequent speculation that it was necessarily inappropriate is nothing more than speculation without context. I mean, sure, we can all freak out if someone calls a woman pretty because women are so emotionally unstable we can't take that kind of assault, but it might even have made sense in context here.

But by all means do close this as moot, however, as indeed it is, considering both parties seem to have gotten fed up and left already. That could be an argument in and of itself to avoid jumping to such conclusions in the future, however. -— Isarra ༆ 23:20, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Process jumping, forum shopping

At Talk:Comparison of S.M.A.R.T. tools#Inclusion criteria Codename Lisa (CL) disputes several points about inclusion criteria and including cited content in the list, and then canvassed four people with the non-neutral "I could use a review", right before filing WP:3O. Seeing the 3O request, TransporterMan arrived to ask about the issues before taking the 3O. Doesn't involvement of other editors preempt 3O? Isn't that tactic also forum shopping and interfering with process? Anyways, I replied to the 3O questions. Before 3O completed, CL deleted the 3O request and started an RFC. I think this is process jumping and forum shopping, and we should let 3O respond or decline before proceeding. Am I wrong? --Lexein (talk) 09:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi.

That's about true. But is it also a wrong thing to do?

• WP:3O only responds to discussions with two participants and we obviously have three, not counting TransporterMan. It is a very lightweight process, a escape hatch, a consensus-making helper, not consensus-building factor.
• Since I am the invoker of 3O, I think it was within my rights to revert my own action before a WP:3O response if I feel WP:SNOW applies.

And seriously, ANI? I normally don't like commenting on contributors, but I think it's necessary now. Since the discussion started, I had a feeling that Lexein is overreacting, not assuming good faith and in general, making things harder than needed. Ever since we started discussion, he did not approve of single thing. At least, please give me some credit: I am trying do something right.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 10:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Um, no, 3O is not just for "two participants", but for those topics that may not have a wide range of editors watching, and to gain any neutral (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th} opinion ES&L 12:46, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know where you're getting that, but yes it is. One of Misplaced Pages's more bizarre creations, if more than two editors are involved in a dispute, 3O is not allowed. Joefromrandb (talk) 13:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Key here is: should 3O continue anyways, since the canvassed editor (#3) commented only on behavior, and the 3O editor didn't get a chance to reply to the asked questions which were about content and policy before 3O was cancelled? --Lexein (talk) 15:05, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, ANI. You're agitated, invoking and cancelling process and discussion, spinning the situation out of control. I explicitly did approve of both keeping the list from being indiscriminate, and of removal of entries in the list that lacked articles and inline citations of independent reliable sources verifying the facts claimed. I did not approve of deletion of entries with such citations. Next, the third person of "three editors" was FleetCommand, one of the people CL canvassed, just before requesting 3O. And Fleet Command then proceeded to post two radically different comments (almost as if it were two different people), a few minutes apart, "in support of neither": one highly abusive, and the other suggesting chilling out, both explicitly stating that he would not discuss the issues at hand. Should 3O then stop, just because a canvassed person both spewed and suggested calm? I don't think so. --Lexein (talk) 10:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The canvassing is also true. I interpreted it as the right course of action per Misplaced Pages:Canvassing § Appropriate notification: "On the user talk pages of concerned editors. Examples include: ... Editors known for expertise in the field". I invited:

• Jasper Deng (known for his ability yo handle discussions in general)
• ViperSnake (known for his good edits in computing area)
• LukeNo94 (known for his general level of information)
• Fleet Command (known for having been a major contributor to software area and software policy in general)

But obviously I never asked Fleet Command to comment on the contributor; I asked for "a fresh opinion or a third course of action" akin to what a WP:3O is about. Other invitees didn't participate. But right now, I am somehow thinking that if Fleet Command and reversal of WP:3O weren't there, Lexein would still have found something else to nitpick at. A quick look at the entire discussion itself suggests that Lexein spends a lot of time conducting warfare (e.g. finding out what I am doing wrong) than addressing the core dispute. (e.g. ) His modus operandi seems to be commenting a lot on my person and writing witty comments like "Yes, ANI" seen above.

Can't we just stop everything (right or wrong), pretend they never happened and tend to the core issue?

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 10:45, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I've answered you. Criticizing me for actually answering you is inappropriate. "Yes, ANI" was a direct answer to your "And seriously, ANI?" above. The assertion of WP:SNOW above was inappropriate unless actual discussion takes place: none took place by others. I've only discussed your actions which seem determined to undermine actual discussion on the Talk page, given that you started the 3O. The actions taken seem to have been driven by the fact that only one of your canvassed editors responded at all, and half utterly inappropriately: in other words, the support you hoped for did not materialize. Where does any notion of WP:SNOW come from? --Lexein (talk) 13:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• From reading WP:CANVASS it seems Codename Lisa's actions were justified and authorized on a number of grounds. Personally sending messages to four editors with different areas of expertise to weigh in is "Limited posting". The messages are "neutral" and "nonpartisan". For "open"-ness it is acceptable because this wasn't some stealth effort. All in all, an editor is well within there right to remove a request for a 3O when it would be procedurally turned down as the discussion already has three people. Lexein's own comments here show that Codename Lisa's reasons need no further evidence because Lexein has already proven himself to hop on whatever ill-concieved notions of forum shopping and canvassing to wiki-lawyer and make it a battleground. If anything; Lexein's stunt is an attempt to shame Codename Lisa, dodge the actual issue and prepare to selectively discard the opinions of the four editors before they weigh in on the basis that they were "canvassed". ANI was not necessary and Lexein should be reminded that such behavior is not going to win much support. 209.255.230.32 (talk) 13:02, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• • "I could use a review" isn't all that neutral. Just consider if I had canvassed with that subject line - would you still think that statement neutral? Stunt? The fact is, I wish all four editors had answered, but one declined, another was dismissed, the third responded, but only to behavior. So I still don't know what other editors think. You're welcome to assess the discussion points on the Talk page itself. Please answer how canvassing plus requesting 3O is, together, correct or appropriate, since one reduces the chances of the other taking the request. Or how cancelling the 3O, before the 3O editor could respond, after their questions were asked and answered, is appropriate. Or how starting the RFC, without waiting for my reply to the question posed here (scroll down) "In the meantime, if you don't like it, I'll cancel the invitations and call in an RFC.", was appropriate. And your attacks aren't welcome, either. Please write civilly, or better, courteously, and factually. --Lexein (talk) 13:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd just like to add some background. I am a very frequent contributor at 3O (and other content dispute resolution venues). When I asked the questions at the article page, I was very careful not to express any opinion so as to avoid becoming a third party to the dispute. The 3O request could have still gone forward (for that matter, even the intervention of Fleet Command in the discussion would not have prevented it, either, since all he commented upon was conduct, not the content issues of the dispute). However, once the RFC was filed I would have removed the request, had Codename Lisa not done it first, as 3O does not handle cases pending in other venues. (All DR venues except RFC — 3O, DRN, and MEDCOM — have that rule.) Moreover, as the requesting party Codename Lisa certainly had the right to withdraw the request and refile it in a different DR venue such as RFC since no opinion had been given. Indeed, even if an opinion had been given, Lisa could have moved on to a different form of DR, since opinions given at 3O are merely advisory and are, expressly under the 3O rules, not tiebreakers. (See the history of 3O not being a tiebreaker here.) I express no opinion about the canvassing issue in regard to the RFC. Finally, having said all of that, I have to wonder if RFC is the proper venue for a dispute involving the question of whether the list as a whole violates NOTDIR. If it does — and I'm not opining that it does — then the article should be deleted. Isn't AFD the proper, or at least the better, venue for that question, so as to get a definitive answer? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Fortunately, Lexein and I have consensus about the last part of your message: None of us think the entire article should be deleted. (Or, I can't speak for Lexein; it was just my impression.) Both of us seem to agree that an item with a corresponding Misplaced Pages article merits inclusion.

I am not saying these to change the course of this ANI case from what it is to another DR venue; just to show that two editors can easily find areas of agreement, work on it and reach consensus. Why so much hate? Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 15:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

@TransporterMan, you're quite welcome to state your opinion at the original discussion, 3O or not.

@Codename Lisa: Discussion point: Can you make your way over to agree that NOTDIR applies to the list's existence (its intention, which I didn't twig to), but not individual elements similarly to N, which applies to existence but not contents? If so, to avoid future fights, NOTDIR's language could certainly be enhanced to clarify its applicability, and the resulting fact that cited content merits inclusion in lists. This makes more sense to me. That's where the editorial discretion like combo of CSC#1 and CSC#2, as implemented in so many lists which have survived so many AfDs, can take over. --Lexein (talk) 15:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Bump - not answered since 15 November. --Lexein (talk) 12:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The probable reason no one answered is that there is nothing to do here. Lisa left neutral messages for editors to look at the discussion and changed her mind on the dispute resolution process to use. Neither is something that needs to be taken care of at ANI. This is a content dispute that should be taken care of on the article's talk page. GB fan 22:51, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Let's consider "neutral" for a moment. As I stated previously, twice, Codename Lisa's use of "I could use a review" is not neutral. It is using both personal and positioning language in the title - basic persuasion to bring someone onside as if Codename Lisa was under attack. Looking at the original discussion, though, you'll see I was the one being insulted and called names, by Codename Lisa, and later other editors. Consider if I had canvassed with "I could use" in the title - would you still think that statement neutral? "Comment requested" - that's neutral. If I saw someone using "I could use" to canvas people to a discussion you were being attacked in, I'd again call it non-neutral. Part of my ANI assertion from the start. I don't think there's nothing to do here. --Lexein (talk) 07:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• It should be obvious that I declined to participate anyway, since this is not an area of expertise for me. Also, I wish someone had pinged me after my name was mentioned here; ah well. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 23:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Lukeno94, though I respect your choice, please note that no particular expertise is ever required of editors when discussing. If policy language is challenged, or if its application is being challenged, every editor is free to weigh in pro or con, or not. Yes, there are all sorts of arguments to avoid, but relevant good faith discussion is, and should, always be welcomed. IMHO, every editor may have some potential insight which may help get a discussion out of the "dispute" zone, and into the consensus zone, as TransporterMan did above, about NOTDIR's applicability to whole articles, not content. --Lexein (talk) 07:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Wolf attacks on humans

While looking into a request on my talk page, I noticed that there appears to be a heated battle going on at Talk:Wolf attacks on humans. Could someone please take a look at it?

The underlying dispute appears to be about how 76.250.61.95 (talk · contribs) / 35.8.219.233 (talk · contribs) formats his comments. For example, when Chrisrus (talk · contribs) fixed the formatting as is allowed in WP:TPOC, 76.250.61.95 reverted it.

The problem is that some of the other editors on the talk page have been deleting 76.250.61.95' comments. See these edits by Graham1973 (talk · contribs), Slightsmile (talk · contribs), and by Mariomassone (talk · contribs).

Related: This has been to DRN, and was closed because of a then-ongoing RfC which I am having trouble locating. It has also been discussed at WP:NCHP, , WikiProject Animals, , and at WP:RFC/BOARD.. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:05, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Guy Macon, for bringing this up here.

Just to clarify, the deletions have not been discussed at the several places you mention, but rather a broad and somewhat earlier version of the sourcing dispute was discussed (briefly) in those places. I gather that sourcing dispute itself is not up for discussion here?

In any case, I've tried to summarize my current view (a compromise) on sources in my latest talk page comment, which may or may not be deleted, but which is perhaps ideally where it belongs.

Also, just for sake of completeness, will mention that you missed Chrisrus as among editors deleting comments from talk page. 76.250.61.95 (talk) 02:06, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry; you obviously mistook this: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk:Wolf_attacks_on_humans&diff=prev&oldid=581812272 edit for a comment deletion. Scroll down a bit, check and see that not one word was lost. Chrisrus (talk) 04:48, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

76.250.61.95 somehow misread my comments. I was quite specific in saying "Chrisrus fixed the formatting, as is allowed in WP:TPOC". In other words, Chrisrus did the right thing, and 76.250.61.95 reverted him, which was wrong. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I deleted 76.250.61.95's comment because he/she started a new section which was merely a response to an issue raised in another. He/she's been doing this repeatedly (as if unable to use the 'edit' feature on each section), and has been told just as many times to stop. As nothing was getting through to him/her, my course of action seemed like the best way to get the message across.Mariomassone (talk) 15:18, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

My own clarification I made the deletion I made for much the same reason as Mariomassone (talk).Graham1973 (talk) 18:08, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Those are your reasons for making the deletions, but are the deletions allowed? Please read Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines#Others' comments. That behavioral guideline page says that you are not to delete or edit other people's comments except in specific situations such as fixing links, attributing unsigned comments, removing prohibited material, etc.

I don't see "As nothing was getting through to him/her, my course of action seemed like the best way to get the message across." on that list of when you are allowed to delete or edit other editor's comments. Do you?

You may at this point be wondering "If 76.250.61.95 will not listen and I am not allowed to get my point across by deleting 76.250.61.95's comments, what can I do? We have a page that tells you what to do at Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Mario and Graham's explainations seem to speak for themselves (don't think it's kosher). Chris appears to be correct. However, Chris has now taken (in one instance) to breaking up a single post of mine with his own commentary, which offers a misleading impression of how discussion unfolds.

I'd just like all these guys to follow normal talk page protocol. I don't much care exactly how one indents copy, etc.76.250.61.95 (talk) 01:06, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Normal talk page protocol. I'd agree to that. So please put your replies under the text you are replying to instead of starting new sections all the time. Chrisrus (talk) 07:50, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes. While deleting the comments was inappropriate, one should not lose sight of the fact that 76.250.61.95's starting new sections annoys the other editors, and that multiple requests to 76.250.61.95 to follow Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines#Layout (section Thread your post) have been ignored. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

At issue, really, is deleting talk page comments in order to advance a particular point of view. And also a similar and more recent problem; inserting stuff into a single post and thus distorting flow of discussion.

Exactly when, or whether, to create a new heading on a particular talk page, is to me, quite trivial & answer is rather arbitrary: It's not a question that even remotely rise to the level of a serious post on the "Administrators' Notice Board."

The deletions, however, I don't thing are acceptable. 76.250.61.95 (talk) 23:09, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to take note of my mistake (the misguided motivations of which I've already explained) and will avoid making it again in future. However, I'm disturbed that a similar acknowledgement of error isn't shown by the IP user, considering the fact that he/she was able to use the 'edit' option on this particular page, but has started yet another new, unwarranted section in the WAOH talk page after the above discussions took place. It appears that he/she isn't interested at all in following layout guidelines, which would greatly ease tensions. Mariomassone (talk) 07:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The edit is here. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Am pleased that Mario, apparently alone among several editors, recognizes his mistake; I'm disturbed that he equates this with a rather simple question of formatting. Contrary to Mario, these are not comparable questions.

Creating new hedders is a fairly arbitrary judgement based mainly on convenience: Perhaps I've misjudged, & will gladly atone by refraining from creating all new hedders on talk page.

However, to delete comments of another on a talk page, as tactic for advancing one's viewpoint, is not a comparable offense; is rather, a truly egregious abuse -- especially when several editors engage together in this practice. 76.250.61.95 (talk) 02:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

You are wrong. They did not know what our policy is, and immediately stopped as soon as they were informed. You, on the other hand, have been warned about following talk page layout standards again and again, and yet I just had to correct the indentation in your comments above. Please don't try to distract us by beating up other editors over a resolved issue and concentrate on your willful and continual refusal to follow Misplaced Pages's behavioral standards. Do we really need to block you from editing Misplaced Pages just to get your attention when it would be so much easier for everyone involved if you simply followed the talk page guidelines about indenting and sectioning? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Reposting of block threats.

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User:Volunteer Marek posted this block threat. I removed it, and he re-added it with the threat also in the edit summary. I removed it again, with a link to an 'Arguments to avoid' essay, then it was re-added by User:Toccata quarta. I removed it again, because WP:TPO lists personal attacks as an exception, then it was re-added yet again by Volunteer Marek. It is not a listed exception to 3RR, so I have to keep it there for all to see. 2Awwsome 19:21, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Saying "if you violate policy in X manner you are likely to be blocked" is not a threat. It may or may not be accurate advice depending on the situation. You should not remove such comments from talk pages. You defiantly should not edit war over them, even if you stop short of 3RR. and even if it were a clear threat "I am an admin, do X again and I will block you without warning." it is not the sort of personal attack which may reasonably be redacted from a talk page by another. DES 19:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

It is a personal attack, see WP:WIAPA. And don't say that block threats aren't listed in the part about threats: it says "including, but not limited to" 2Awwsome 19:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

It was not a personal attack. You are fine to remove those kind of comment from your own talk page, but not from article talk pages. Finally please bear in mind WP:BOOMERANG. GiantSnowman 19:46, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

On WP:NPA it says "There is no rule that is objective and not open to interpretation on what constitutes a personal attack as opposed to constructive discussion, but some types of comments are never acceptable:" and the section opening with that includes threats. 2Awwsome 19:49, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The listing of several kinds of threats as personal attacks in WP:WIAPA does not include "threats" of the enforcement of Misplaced Pages policy. None of the items listed there are in any way comparable. You would be well advised to drop the matter and not remove such comments from article talk pages in future. DES 19:51, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Note: I've blocked the OP for 24 hours. The topic of this thread represents a continuation of a dispute at Frederic Chopin which was taken to AN3 and very nearly resulted in a block. The OP has also been edit-warring on an unrelated article. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:55, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Massive Sockpuppetry, Harassment, Trolling from previously banned user User:CanadianLinuxUser

DavidMichaelFabian

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User talk:‎DavidMichaelFabian has been violating the 3 revert rule, the bold-revert-discuss rule, and the rule against adding original unsourced content. He's been repeatedly warned on his talk page, and his only discussion of the matter is this entry that he posted on his talk page: Hello, I'm DavidMichaelFabian. I posted some formulas that come directly from me, are self-evident, and are verifiable (if you simply do the math). DavidMichaelFabian (talk)

Can someone block him? Thanks. Duoduoduo (talk) 19:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

You're at the wrong page. Go to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring and follow the instructions there. Thanks. Rjd0060 (talk) 19:45, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

User was automatically reported at WP:RVAN by repeated Huggle reverts for adding unsourced content. Beyond 3 unsourced warnings Huggle assumes and reports vandalism. - DVdm (talk) 19:51, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I have blocked both DavidMichaelFabian (talk · contribs) and DVdm (talk · contribs) for 24 hours for breaking 3RR multiple, multiple times. The page history is appalling. GiantSnowman 19:58, 17 November 2013 (UTC) GiantSnowman 19:57, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Duoduoduo seems to be equally as implicit in this.—Ryulong (琉竜) 20:00, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I see three reverts by Duoduoduo but not exceeding that. Will issue a warning, however. GiantSnowman 20:16, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

User:DVdm requested an unblock more than 18 hours ago, but no-one has even bothered to respond. I guess the admins are too busy congratulating each other for another job well done. Lugnuts 14:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

File:Iifa official logo.jpg

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Can an admin please delete this file under WP:CSD#F5. Thank you. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 20:44, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Dubious request for "fresh consensus" on an already settled matter

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Okay, seriously? I removed a one-line statement that early 19th century German philosopher Fichte had been considered "the true author of National Socialism" by at least some notable opinion. The statement was a blanket one, not qualified in any way, just attributed to the historian Robert Nisbet, and there was nothing more, no context, no references to anyone else's opinion (my original edit here~). The obvious inference would be something like: there is a weighty and informed scholarly opinion that Fichte was the fountainhead of key aspects of Nazi ideology and of Hitler's conception of what nationhood and national unity are about. That's all the more hard not to infer from those words since Fichte is well known as an influential early theorist of how nationhood operates.

Actually Nisbet seems to be the only one who is getting invoked for this far-reaching and contentious claim, and his value as a source for this had been debunked already in a fairly long discussion on the talk page of the article two years ago. One single, vague statement by a single guy - and quoted at second hand by another writer (Carolyn Burdett) in a book on late 19th century South Africa, neither of the two writers being particularly notable for research into the history of philosophy, and to boot, none of the editors at the Fichte article have even seen what book or lecture by Nisbet it was originally from - isn't near enough for such a sweeping statement. It can't get much more dodgy. I boldly went ahead and removed a line that was both vague, badly sourced and misleading. The deletion was promptly reverted by user FreeKnowledgeCreator, we each did one more R and the contentious line stayed in (three weeks later,after a few more edits by other people that did not affect this issue, I made a new attempt and predictably got a fresh revert).

I pointed out to Creator, on his talk page, that the sourcing of the line in question was highly deficient and the claim, at any rate, nothing more than a fringe claim. I also pointed out that the whole issue had already been discussed and debunked (by other editors) on the Fichte talk page and absolutely nothing new to back it up had been brought into the discussion since then. The gist of his reply, after some condescension, was, well, if a consensus happened some time back, whatever it was about, then it's not valid and the whole matter will have to be talked through anew, even if there's nothing new to bring in, until a consensus has been reached again. Very reliable and very encouraging if one wants to keep up quality in articles that don't have lots of widely accessible sources and a host of active, skilled editors. Any John Blow could pepper an article with dodgy statements and talking points, without any discussion at all, or reinsert stuff that has already been removed by the hard work of past editors, and then say to everybody else "you don't have any consensus that these statements are not okay. We have to talk ourselves to a new consensus over as long a time as I decide, if any of this is to go!" Yeah right.

Knowing how that kind of talk page discussion can stretch out over weeks and months without any real effort to work together, or anything consistent getting said by some people, goalposts getting moved - I used to have a proper WP user account but left it dormant after I'd run into too many people endlessly jinxing the system - exercises of semantic hairs getting split etc, the article talk page didn't seem like the path to go down here. The Fichte discussion page has been almost totally inactive for the past two years while lots of edits have been made to the article itself, so clearly that's not where anybody is taking their suggestions and arguments. And from the way Creator handled the matter, and from a couple of glances at his behaviour on his own talk page and in other discussions, I am not fully prepared to assume good faith on his part or expect him to take a careful and calm approach to sources that might enter into the discussion. 83.254.151.33 (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

This is a content dispute that doesn't belong here. The thread should be archived. The IP should be encouraged to pursue alternative means of dispute resolution, and perhaps warned about personal attacks as well. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:59, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The matter is both about content (which Creator refuses to discuss in any way) and a matter of principle. If just about any kind of content and fluffy claims can be tossed into an article as soon as person X claims to have a source for it, no matter how dodgy, and then kept in by X saying "you can't remove any of this until I have been talked into a new consensus", how would it be possible to keep up a high level of quality in an article over time? Or even a reliable level?

Looks like FKC is looking for a case and doesn't quite have one.83.254.151.33 (talk) 23:28, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

For which edits should the IP be warned for personal attacks? Doc talk 23:35, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

This one, which I quickly found. There might be more, but I don't have the time to search. buffbills7701 01:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I pointed out to the IP some time ago that it would be appropriate to discuss content on the talk page of the relevant article. Please, this dispute doesn't belong here. Let's archive it and move on. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Someone seems suspiciously eager to get this discussion out of the public eye. KonveyorBelt 04:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

(also non-admin observation) Probably rightfully so. It does seem like a content dispute, not a behavioural dispute, and 83. has admitted to not seeking talkpage discussion or other dispute resolution venues. Ansh666 04:28, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• I got both hats here at the table--admin had and editor hat. With the admin hat on: I'm closing this as a content matter, and I think the IP should thank me for stopping a possible boomerang from taking flight. Now I'm going to put my editor hat on and have a look at the article. Drmies (talk) 05:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The comment Creator is pointing to didn't happen around the time I removed the erroneous claim and he reverted it back without offering any real input (two reverts each at that point, as I stated above). At that time, there was some discussion on his talk page, though from his side it consisted of little more than tantrums and assertions that nobody could touch the matter without first seeking a new consensus, clearly with him involved. The article talk page had been in deep sleep for quite some time while people had edited away at leisure, so that was clearly not where the matter could be taken to be solved, and most disputes the user engages in seem to become long and fairly acrimonious.

I pointed the first of those out to him and essentially got scoffing in reply. The second might be inferred from his talk page and some other long disputes he's been in, and that's what prompted my calling him somewhat thick after attempting to get the matter set again three weeks later and seeing a fresh revert the next day, without any more productive input. Well, I apoloogise, but only for losing my temper for a moment, it might have been better to ignore that kind of user. (this comment posted the minute before the section was archived) 83.254.151.33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I moved the "archive" goalpost to accommodate this parting shot, but let that be the end of it. The proper place to discuss, for now, is the article talk page. Drmies (talk) 06:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Monsoorto

Hey I don't usually edit[REDACTED] but I figure this might be worth bringing to the admins attention. A user, Monsoorto has been adding that Colonel Richard A. Monsoor is commandering of various US military units and after doing research I don't think this person ever existed. I've reverted some of his edits but I figure the admins might want to know whats going on.71.170.100.11 (talk) 04:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Richard A Monsoor is a lieutenant Commander in Huntington Beach with no claim to fame whatsoever.. Given the blatant hoax, and also the COI name of the editor, I'd say a block is in order here. KonveyorBelt 04:38, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

If you are basing that on this Linkedin page , I'd take even that with a pinch of salt. Since when do ex-CIA 'clandestine agents' advertise this on personal websites? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that something is suspicious ... and this person's resume doesn't make sense. Whatever the case, the user has no business editing here. Either it's a hoax or it's self-promotional COI. --Jprg1966  05:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The editor has willfully inserted incorrect information on several pages, and has made no constructive edits. That makes this a vandalism-only username. Block it already. --Yaush (talk) 06:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Note if you ae basing it off the Linkedin profile, there's actually a highly credible claim for presumed notability namely being a Medal of Honor recepient. However with only 16 awarded post Vietnam only 6 to living individuals, it's trivial to establish the claim is false. Nil Einne (talk) 12:18, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

All gone. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 07:21, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Colorado Springs, Colorado moved against convention and without discussion to Colorado Springs

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Hello. An editor (not looking for any sanctions, just technical help) boldly made the above move against the longstanding convention detailed at WP:USPLACE (the so-called comma convention). Not looking to debate that here either. Just looking for someone above my paygrade to undo it, as I don't won't to mess it up, so a proper move discussion can be held. Thanks. Not notifying anyone per the first sentence above, but have left a note on the talk page at the article. John from Idegon (talk) 07:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

In the future, this is not an Incident and per WP:RM you should list this there as a technical request ("If the page has recently been moved without discussion, you may revert the move and initiate a discussion on its talk page. If you are unable to revert, request it below.") Since the redirect has been edited, an admin at RM will have to undo it, and you should then continue the discussion on the talk page (which you are doing). Just an FYI for the future, but since it is already here, meh. --64.85.214.190 (talk) 07:29, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Since this only comes up once every 17,697 edits or so, I am pretty sure I won't remember. But thanks for the info and I will trot right over there before calling it a night. John from Idegon (talk) 07:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on vandalism accusation

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Some days ago I made a bold edit to the article Nova Publishers where I removed some information (which I contest is not supported by sources) and added some more regarding its business model. Randykitty reverted this edit, which I'm perfectly fine with, using a summary of "vandalism". I take accusations of vandalism quite seriously, especially when directed at a long time editor, so I left a message on his talk page asking if he could please rectify it. I also immediately opened a new section at the article's talk page as per WP:BRD explaining the edit in detail and presenting my sources for it (it has grown to be quite a long discussion, even spawning new sections). After a few back and forth comments in Randykitty's talk page he accepted that I am not a vandal but refused to take back his accusation of "vandalism". Yesterday I thought best to just leave the discussion at that but his somewhat aggressive response led me to believe that perhaps requesting more input would be best. A comment he left at another editor's talk page where he accuses me and editor Alexbrn of trying to turn the article into a "hatchet job" convinced me that he is seriously failing to WP:AGF.

To be perfectly clear: I'm not here demanding sanctions and/or apologies of any kind. I'm just interested in what other editors/admins make of my original edit because if it indeed constitutes vandalism then that means I've been seriously misinterpreting WP:VANDAL and I should give it another very thorough read. Regards. Gaba 11:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• The "bold" edit started with the replacement of "Nova Publishers is an academic publisher" with "Nova Publishers is an author mill", followed by the removal of sourced content: " The firm publishes books and journals in science and the social sciences. As of January 2013, it listed 110 currently published journals." (Sourced to the company's catalog, a primary source that can be used for this kind of simple information). There was no previous discussion on the talk page. The article history shows that this article has been the subject of quite a lot of POV editing, both by editors attempting a whitewash and trying to make this publisher seem more important than it is (it's a legitimate publisher, but operating at the bottom segment of the academic publishing market) and by editors trying to turn the article into a hatchet job. I have this article on my watchlist and reverted the edit with edit summary "vandalism". User:Gaba_p is obviously not a vandal and I have said as much in the discussion on my talk page. However, I see no reason to apologize for an edit summary saying "vandalism" when reverting a badly sourced POV edit without any attempt at discussion, because I do not think I committed any fault. If Gaba_p doesn't want edits to be called "vandalism", they should not make edits like this. --Randykitty (talk) 12:25, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This is such a pointless thread. Randykitty refuses to apologize for calling a good-faith, but misguided, edit vandalism. Now Gaba_p is looking for revenge / comes up to the school teacher to force an apology out of Randykitty / whatever this is supposed to be. Grow up. Both of you. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:29, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

At my age, I'm afraid that if I haven't grown up yet, it ain't gonna happen anymore... :-) --Randykitty (talk) 13:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Headbomb I specifically stated I am not after any sanctions or apologies whatsoever, just comments by experienced editors. Calling this a "revenge" is uncalled for, especially after I tried to come to good terms with Randykitty for 3 days and even considered leaving it at that (which I would have if it wasn't for his last response and the message left at DGG's talk page also accusing me and another editor of trying to turn the article into a "hatchet job"). You might not think that accusing a long time editor of "vandalism" is a big deal but I do. Regards. Gaba 12:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Whatever other problems Gaba's edit may have had, it almost certainly wasn't vandalism. WP:VANDNOT.
• That Randykitty goes stealthily canvassing to another editor announcing that editors want to do "a hatchet job" on this article is a bit disappointing. In my case I stumbled into this article (after looking at Gaba's edit history, as it happens) and merely corrected what seemed to be some obvious problems. As it turns out, this article has a fraught past so it seems any edit here is interpreted as being loaded with intent (battleground mentality). Wrong call, Randykitty - though I am sure you are simply trying to do your best to defend the wiki.
• More generally, I don't know if it's just me, but there seems to be an increasingly factionalized approach to editing taking hold on WP lately, where the MO is first to identify the "intent" behind the edits, and then oppose or support that. It's better to WP:AGF and ask questions first; shoot later only if necessary. In controversial article it can be hard though. Alexbrn 12:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This seems to be a content dispute in which both views are wrong. The University of the South Pacific says that it "reprints scholarly public domain material and solicits recently-credentialed scholars to submit book chapters for academic monographs. Not exactly a self-publishing enterprise, but books do not go through a standard academic peer review process despite their academic focus." and Stanford University libraries has some interesting comment. and a search with words such as 'reputation' suggests that although 'author mill' is probably wrong, it isn't exactly a standard academic publishing house - so I suggest the various parties sort this out amicably. Dougweller (talk) 12:49, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Dougweller I actually dropped the "author mill" edit after discussing it on the talk page because my source is not of the best quality. The issue right now is whether it can be called an "academic" publisher (among a couple of other issues) But my intent here is not to discuss content, rather the lack of proper WP:AGF by Randykitty who still clearly believes he made the right call referring to my edit as "vandalism". Regards. Gaba 12:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I should have looked at the talk page first, everything I've said above has been said there. But it was clearly a content dispute and no one should have called that vandalism. Dougweller (talk) 13:03, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

"Author mill" is as negative as "diploma mill". If someone would change the lead for some small rural college or university to claim that it is a "diploma mill", without any reference to back this up, I think that could validly be seen as vandalism. Same here, I really cannot see this as a good faith edit. As for "canvassing" other editors, I contacted User:DGG, who is our greatest expert on academic publishing. I do this quite often. If someone cares enough to look through the connected histories, you'll see that often enough DGG does not agree with my initial point of view (and he almost always -say 90% of the time- manage to convince me that my initial reaction was wrong; in addition, anyone who knows DGG only slightly knows that he cannot be canvassed, he has his own opinions, regardless of what others say). So I was certainly not soliciting his help, but his opinion, which is invariably given in a gentle and reasonable way and very often succeeds in calming a disagreement. I am perfectly willing to be convinced that Nova is not an academic publisher (although I really don't see the moniker "academic" as anything other than descriptive), but slapping "author mill" on an article on a publisher is another matter, if this would have been a living person instead of a company, that would surely have been seen as a serious BLP violation. Perhaps one can argue about whether "vandalism" was the correct term, but the edit was grossly inappropriate whatever you want to call it. --Randykitty (talk) 13:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

But that's precisely what I argue Randykitty, as I mentioned quite a few times at your talk page. Let me quote myself from comments I made over there: "You can call my edit a "badly-sourced POV-edit", that's fine", and "You can disagree 10000% with my edit, that's fine". I presented a source for "author mill" (which we later agreed would be best left out) and at no point did I try to force that into the article after you took it out. Why would you not assume good faith? As has been told by not only me but 4 other editors now (one in your talk page and 3 here) my edit was definitely not a "vandalism" edit. I have no problem with you whatsoever (I think you are an amazingly prolific editor) but you made a mistake and it shouldn't be that hard to just accept it and take it back. Otherwise you are failing at WP:CIVIL and WP:AFG and misinterpreting WP:VANDAL. Regards. Gaba 14:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Calling an edit vandalism just because one disagrees with it (even 10000%) is unwarranted, obviously. If you're happier with "badly-sourced POV-edit", that's fine by me, as I think I already implied on my talk page. To me, "badly-sourced POV-edit" equals vandalism. And as the diff you posted at the start of this discussion shows, there was no source in your original edit. --Randykitty (talk) 14:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

But you're still doing it Randykitty, you are still calling my edit "vandalism" and that's the issue here. I'm not "happier" with "badly-sourced POV-edit" since it still fails WP:AGF, but at least it doesn't carry an implicit accusation of WP:VANDAL. You have been told it was not a "vandalism" edit by 4 editors now (not counting me) and yet you still keep at it. There was no source in my original bold edit but I immediately presented it when you reverted me. Calling an edit "vandalism" is an implicit accusation of WP:VANDAL and that's in clear opposition to WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF and a broad misinterpretation of WP:VANDAL when applied to my original edit. How can you not see this? Regards. Gaba 14:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

RevDel abuse by Wifione

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It has been brought to my attention that Wifione has abused RevDel by using it to hide the history of his or her user talk page - 210 revisions hidden with a claimed reason of RD6 ("Non-contentious housekeeping, RevDel corrections, notes, conversion"). I am bringing this up here rather than simply wading in and resetting the visibility of the affected revisions because I am severely concerned at this misuse of a privileged tool. I would draw the community's attention to the severe warning on Special:RevisionDelete that Redaction to hide block log entries or hide mere poorly considered actions, criticisms, posts, etc, outside these criteria and without required consensus, or agreement by the arbitration committee, will usually be treated as improper use and may lead to arbitration and/or desysopping. (Emphasis in original). — Scott • talk 13:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Did you attempt to ask Wifione for an explanation before running off to ANI? GiantSnowman 14:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the snotty reply. Abuse of privileged tools is a priority matter that requires immediate and maximum attention. — Scott • talk 14:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Scott, just because we are talking about a possible abuse of administrative rights doesn't override the requirement that "Before posting a grievance about a user here, please discuss the issue with them on their user talk page." I'm not saying your concern isn't valid, but it is common courtesy to give someone a chance to explain before escalating matter. -- KTC (talk) 15:01, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Scott. Sent you an email on this. Kind regards. Wifione 14:12, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't discuss apparent administrator abuse matters in private email. If you have anything to say to me on the topic, you can do so in public. — Scott • talk 14:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:AGF - why immediately assume there is abuse of tools? GiantSnowman 14:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not assuming anything. Deleting conversations after a year and a half on the public record (as RD6, to boot) and then claiming the material is eligible for oversight removal is abuse. RevDel is not a convenient memory hole for administrators to remove chunks of their talk page history if they get embarrassed by it further down the line. — Scott • talk 15:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• 210 seems a bit much. It really depends on the content of said revisions though. Like, what was the reason behind Vejvančický's contribution that needed to be revdel'd (it's the first revdel I see)? Regards, — Moe Epsilon 14:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

It looks like to me that the reason for RevDel is just the simple task of achieving his talk page.--Jeffrd10 (talk) 14:28, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

No, it cannot possibly look like that. I'll assume good faith on this one and urge more caution before responding on a public board in a thread full of contention. Drmies (talk) 15:41, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hi Moe, Jeff, Scott, I'd informed the oversight team about these revisions a day or so before rev-del'ing them and had sent them a detailed breakup moments after rev-del'ing them as per procedure, giving the issue over to them to decide (of whether to oversight the revisions or to reinstate them). Kind regards. Wifione 14:31, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

If this is an oversight issue, I do not understand why it has taken you a year and a half to decide so. — Scott • talk 14:41, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Good point. I'd informed the oversight team of the issues involved and the reasons for the delay. Regards. Wifione 14:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

(Replying to Jeffrd10, EC with all others above). It looks like that at first glance. But actually, it's doesn't go back to the beginning. More likely there was something revealed or mentioned a while back (by Vejvančický), that was not removed until very late so the only way this could be dealt with was by deleting all edits in between. This is an unfortunate but necessary part of the revdelete process. Considering this is a user talk page, and the lack of evidence for anything major being lost, the number of revisions doesn't really seem to be an issue. The main issue is whether whatever it is that was removed was justified. I have no idea, but it does seem to me discussing it with Wifione first was indeed the correct course of action, particularly as there may be privacy issues involved or other things we're missing. As for the latest single revision again by Vejvančický, there is some mention of an email. It may be an agreement was reached here between the two to remove the revision, an agreement between the talk page owner and the person who originally posted the message would seem to be sufficient consensus to remove. Even if it's not the case, it may be it's the same thing posted so we come back to the same issue. Again, discussion first would likely have clarified what's up. If you're not happy with the explaination and it's clear there's nothing that's being missed (e.g. the person has contacted arbcom about it), then bringing it here would be fine, but not before. P.S. Wifione's reply reenforces my view this shouldn't have been broought here without discussion. And there seems to be something going on in external sites, which perhaps explains why this has came to head now. Nil Einne (talk) 14:58, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The elephant in the corner: There is concern that Wifione was formerly the user known as Nichalp and he has been interested in removing all evidence of questions about a possible connection. Why, I don't know. Perhaps he'll explain here.Dan Murphy (talk) 15:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Possibly because of WP:OUTING, and that repeating it again can lead to a block? ES&L 18:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

How on earth does linking one pseudonym with another pseudonym violate Misplaced Pages's absurd and childish "outing" policy?Dan Murphy (talk) 18:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Childish? People have lost their REAL LIFE day jobs due to outing. So, how is it absurd and/or childish? ES&L 19:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Looking further into this, I see that Wifione also inappropriately revision-deleted part of his or her talk page archives at the same time. I am also concerned that he or she appears to have a habit of applying full protection to his or her talk page archives. This is an absolutely inappropriate use of protection; see WP:FPP and WP:PP#User_talk_pages. — Scott • talk 15:50, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Isn't someone inherently involved when it is their own talk page, to where someone else should do whatever needs the tools? North8000 (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

No comment on the protection issue (although I know this isn't the first time I've seen someone protect their own talk page).

The deleting archives bit isn't surprising. If you look at the history as I said above, it seems clear that the revision by Vejvančický stayed on the page until it was moved to the archives, hence the need to delete so many revisions. It evidentally stayed on the archives until recently when Wifione removed it, when they also had to revdel the older archives.

Again, I'm not commenting on whether this material should have been deleted. But there's nothing surprising about all this, it's simply expected due to the way revdeletion works and the difficulties removing something which was not quickly excised. And it all comes back to this material which Wifione evidentally feels should be suppressed.

You can perhaps criticise Wifione for not quickly excising it, particularly since, as I understand it, the material was noticed at the time so I guess it's simply that they reconsidered the implications of the material. But it isn't unheard of that someone will only appreciate the harm of something later. And in any case, that's surely between Wifione and the oversight team.

If Wifione was doing this all without asking anyone, there may be legitimate concerns. But since they have contacted the oversight team about it, I don't see that there's anything for us to do. If the oversight team rejects the request for suppression, but Wifione still wants it revdeleted without suppression, we can discuss that then.

I don't see that being involved is an issue either. The whole point of revdeleting something while awaiting oversight is to reduce the harm of it still being visible and people are supposed to do it on the quiet. Particularly since it involves Wifione's own talk page and the actual harm for this material being missing for a few days is surely minimal.

So WP:NOTBURO, WP:IAR suggests there's nothing wrong with Wifione being the one doing the revdeletion provided they make a timely request for suppression and either undelete or involve third parties if the suppression request is rejected but they want to keep it revdeleted. (Perhaps it would have been wise for Wifione to seek a third party in the first instance, not because they did anything wrong but to reduce the chance of this kerfuffle, but that's not particularly relevant to ANI.)

Nil Einne (talk) 18:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

After my communication to the oversight team as per the rev-del policy, they've replied a few minutes back saying that the edits do not meet the criteria of suppression. Again, as per what the rev-del policy advices, when the material is not found to be suppressible, the material may be restored or admin-deleted. Of the two choices, I've chosen to restore the material. Thanks. Wifione 18:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Let me just add, then, since I've been watching this thread, that there seems to be considerable disagreement about whether links to the site that shall not be named should be revdeleted because of OUTING (and BLP) concerns, for instance. I thought, from my recollection of an AN thread not too long ago (but long ago to be oversighted by my advancing old age), that revdeleting such links was indeed acceptable. It would be nice if we could get clarity on this or, if such clarity was reached, a link to it. Drmies (talk) 19:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

IP 202.67.40.28 and its IP ranges violating WP:BLP, especially WP:BLPCAT

See IP 202.67.40.28's contributions, the IP's talk page, this report about the IP at the WP:BLP noticeboard and this section on my talk page about the IP. This user has been warned multiple times about WP:Verifiability and WP:BLP violations; the IP has also been violating the aforementioned policies as IP 202.67.40.24, one of its IP ranges. I have not checked to see if this user is doing this with other IP ranges as well. I also have not been eagerly keeping up with this user's edits. These latest two times I came across him or her have simply been due to my being at an article he or she recently edited, and my having checked the edit history.

Linking FreeRangeFrog's username here so that FreeRangeFrog will be alerted to this section. Flyer22 (talk) 15:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I would recommend a preventive block, to see if that will prompt them to communicate with us. I believe the IPs contributions are meant in good faith, however they are definitely in violation of BLPCAT. The spread and number of edits also makes it hard to deal with this by protecting pages. §FreeRangeFrog 19:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Consensus by exhaustion at Rupert Sheldrake

Sheldrake is a scientist who, for whatever reason, has gone off into some paranormal research. There has been a persistent effort of late to prettify his article to minimize the degree of scientific disdain for his ideas. This is overflowing onto noticeboard after noticeboard: FT/N, BLP, and NPOV. Now we are being subjected to an RFC attempt in the article on the part of User:David in DC where all the previous commenters are being told to abstain. The underlying problem is that Sheldrake's defenders are not making headway in keeping the article from telling what mainstream scientists think of his ideas. My personal participation in this is slight: I do not recall editing this article, and I made some comments in the NPOV discussion. But this has really gone on way too far, and it needs to be shut down with discretionary sanctions. In addition to David in DC's attempt here, a lot of this can also be laid to User:Alfonzo Green, whom I am informed has been blocked or banned before for edit-warring on this article; the BLP discussion was started b y User:Philosophyfellow, who has turned out to be largely a SPA about Sheldrake. There may be others; it's hard to sort out all the mountains of verbiage. Mangoe (talk) 16:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I wish the editors who think there is not enough material about his views would add a bit more and stop complaining (or present the diffs of all the times their WP:RS material has been deleted.) The ones who have added a tad too many criticisms from lower quality sources should agree to remove them. Then the issue could be finished.

I'm getting pretty tired of establishment academic types trying to censor any academic idea they don't like as "fringe". Having the same problem in the Austrian economics/libertarian areas. Misplaced Pages:ISNOT#Wikipedia_is_not_censored. If we can have Misplaced Pages:HOTTIE forward to someone's personal essay "Hotties are always hot" on good looking humans and survive multiple AfDs, we can add a few NPOV descriptions of people's alternative ideas without overwhelming them with criticism by tight ass establishment WP:RS protecting their turf and jobs. Geez... User:Carolmooredc talk 16:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

@Carolmooredc: the place to discuss changes to WP:VALID are at Talk:NPOV or Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy). However, until the consensus changes, your wish for minimizing the academic mainstream viewpoint is not policy compliant. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Please try to stay on topic Carolmooredc (talk · contribs) - it doesn't matter what your personal views are, or what issues you're having with other articles, we need to follow WP:FRINGE, and try to limit the discussion to this article. Barney the barney barney (talk) 17:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

In fact Carolmooredc is staying on topic. She is offering a solution that requires compromise and that does not require a sanction.

I have been watching this discussion develop with out involvement or position one way or the other on Sheldrake. I do know David in DC holds a moderate, intelligent position in terms of fringe content. He is aware of such content, wants to include it, but at the same time is fully aware of our BLP policy and the place it must hold in protecting the subjects of articles. He is in my experience willing to include fringe content without damaging another human being. Our job is to first follow policy-BLP and the other policies which govern article construction. "Fringe" designated as a guideline by the community, must be considered secondary to policy. It takes two side to Tango, and separating out one editor because a view of fringe is less extreme than another is hardly fair. An RfC brings in more eyes, more neutral editors, hopefully. If all of the editors now dealing with the Sheldrake article stand down and allow new eyes to take over, how is that a problem? I realize it is not usual to ask for input on a lead but so what. An RfC is a respected step in DR. take it. A discretionary sanction should be the very last place neutral editors go for help.. As long as there are ways of working this out and Carol has indeed suggested an obvious one; there is no need to sanction a good editor.(olive (talk) 18:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC))

• What Carolmooredc is suggesting is that we ignore POLICY such as WP:UNDUE / WP:VALID / Misplaced Pages:VALID#Good_research.
• while an RfC is a respected step to take to help identify consensus of the community at large, an RfC that is framed as a discussion about "What do you think about WP:FRINGE and WP:BLP?" and not "Should the article contain X or Y?" is a complete waste of time. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That's not what I'm seeing in Carol's statement, so have to disagree with you. If the wording of the RfC is a concern I'd suggest rewording. There is with out a doubt a war going on between fringe and BLP on this article. Seems to me adherence to policy is of primary concern and that one of the issues here is an attempt to allow Fringe to carry the weight a policy does. At any rate, there are ways of continuing this with out sanctions. I'd note also that a commonly used strategy when trying to include preferred content is to remove editors who stand in the way. I truly hope this is not what is happening here. (olive (talk) 18:47, 18 November 2013 (UTC))

the proposer was asked to withdraw and rephrase and they said No.

and I don't see how you can read "we can add a few NPOV descriptions of people's alternative ideas without overwhelming them with criticism by tight ass establishment WP:RS protecting their turf and jobs." as being anything other than in conflict with WP:VALID " While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, ... We do not take a stand on these issues ... we merely omit them where including them would unduly legitimize them, and otherwise describe them in their proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the greater world." and WP:PSCI "scientific consensus is the majority viewpoint of scientists towards a topic. Thus, when talking about pseudoscientific topics, we should not describe these two opposing viewpoints as being equal to each other. While pseudoscience may in some cases be significant to an article, it should not obfuscate the description of the mainstream views of the scientific community. " which were specifically upheld by the ArbCom Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Final_decision see 1, 1a, 4a-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I've been watching this discussion so I know that David in DC has made many attempts to collaborate. That he is his sticking to his RfC at this point is information for those dealing with him. Why does he feel he cannot compromise now.? I'm sure with both sides, not just compromising but respecting other editors there are solutions.Sure its frustrating when we can't see a way clear but for intelligent, creative people there are ways of collaborating to create content that does not require removing anyone. RfCs are not binding nor are they supposed to operate on consensus. They are request for outside eyes, for more information. I see no problem with going forward and seeing what happens. And as an aside while David is holding his position, so is the other side, so all have to work this out. Its not a problem with a single editor, its a road block in a collaborative process. Seems to me there are no good shortcuts.

This article itself is not a pseudoscience topic, its a BLP first, a human being's life first, that will then contain content that describes aspects of a life that could be considered fringe to the mainstream and or pseudoscience. The issue is Weight in a BLP. This is a person first that at a dinner party or on the street you might actually like. Treat him that way, and add content as needed to describe his life. Its not the other way around seems to me, making sure the subject's life is seen through the glasses of one aspect, that we have designated as fringe to mainstream. This discussion has gone off topic on this NB so I will remove myself. Thanks for the discussion. (olive (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC))

I'm no longer sure how accurate this claim is by the OP. I just posted this to Sheldrake's talk. Well damn. Just read an article in Psychology Review by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He not only referenced Sheldrake as a biologist, but a well known biologist. Just when I thought this might start to get easier. Research into claims of telepathy, or telepathy like claims in animals, appears to have a square footing with *some* biologists. I'm not sure how to deal with these conflicting sources now. How deeply should we involve ourselves in this issue? Is this a tit for tat between scientists as well as[REDACTED] editors? EDIT: Sheldrake is held in disdain by a number of scientists, there is no doubt. But not all. I don't feel comfortable with Misplaced Pages taking sides in this issue, especially when there are easy ways to resolve it. Philosophyfellow (talk) 18:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

the number of scientists in the "not all" category is so vanishingly small that it does not register WP:VALID. Thats why Sheldrake's Morphic fields are FRINGE. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The issue with having any RFC is that this has been talked to death already. Yes, the article should mention Bekoff's tentative support (which BTW is published in the popular Psychology Today, not the scholarly Psychology Review) but he's one guy working out at an edge himself. He's not stating the state of the field; he's expressing a personal view that the issue needs further investigation. Bekoff's position appears to be "there's a lot of behavior out there which at present we can't explain with material communication", not, "immaterial communication is the only way to explain this stuff." Anyway, this isn't what I'm seeing going on in the article; instead, there's a lot of distortion of what material is there in order to present a greater acceptance of Sheldrake's ideas than the sources actually testify to. Mangoe (talk) 19:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• I think it will be hard to attract sensible, clueful outside input so long as talkpage/noticeboard discussion is dominated by verbose single-purpose agenda accounts. DavidInDC is a good editor and I have no doubt he's trying to do the right thing here—likewise Mangoe and TRPoD. But there are clearly multiple accounts whose participation on Misplaced Pages is focused solely on influencing this one article. Under those circumstances, Misplaced Pages's existing conflict-resolution pathways fail miserably, and we're left with an illustration of rule #19 in action. MastCell  19:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

To the degree I implied that David in DC was one of the problem editors of the article, I would like to back off that. But the RFC he proposes is not going to help, and I don't see the need to do any such RFC. Mangoe (talk) 19:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Rather than tight-assed establishment, how about we discuss old vs. new paradigm and Paradigm_shift#Examples_of_paradigm_shifts as the context for discussing when a theory may at least be outlined? (I'm only talking about maybe 1/4 of the discussion in a bio, not an equal balance as someone may have misunderstood.) In the list of paradigm shifts are a number of issues whose theorists were ridiculed and would have had a hard time getting properly described in Wikipeida. In the 1950s and 1960s Misplaced Pages editors would have been rejecting things like theory an asteroid hit wiped out dinosaurs and evidence ulcers often were caused by Helicobacter pylori. Even anecdotal evidence (like the apple falling from the tree, or dogs that know when their masters are on the way home) may eventually inspire research that leads to some theory of merit, if not the one originally proposed. Brand new or under investigation theories may not merit more than a minor mention, if any, in an article on the topic. But a bio about a person as widely discussed, televised, etc as Sheldrake demands an intelligent description of his actual theories. I read him 25 years ago and a couple WP:RS articles; plus I've seen 3 or 4 documentary type tv shows about him since. But the bio did little to remind me of just what his theories were, and I actually used to know. So readers to the subject will be even more clueless after reading it. User:Carolmooredc talk 19:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Carolmooredc (talk · contribs) - science doesn't normally progress by paradigm shifts, they only occur rarely, and usually from prescientific ideas to scientific ideas. The idea that we go from scientific ideas to post-scientific ideas that are remarkably similar to the original prescientific ideas is not how science works. This is the history of science and the sociology of science. Ideas that claim to be the next big thing and then make no progress for 30 years, aren't the next big thing. Barney the barney barney (talk) 20:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Carolmooredc, there's no paradigm shift until the paradigm actually shifts. Personally I would characterize Sheldrake's views as an old paradigm which got set aside, but that's not the point. I don't have a problem with a reasonable summary of his views. The problem I see is that people keep trying to represent this as something which (a) is more widely accepted than it is, and (b) has better experimental support than it does. Our rules demand that we be "tight-assed" because we do represent the "establishment". You know that, and I wish you wouldn't use these incidents as an opportunity to go on about how we need to weaken our critical faculties and report these theories more credulously. If within the next year we get good and widely accepted confirmation of Sheldrake's ideas, I for one won't object to a recasting of the article (and for that matter an article on the theory itself). But that hasn't happened, and the smart money is on it not happening, and until then, we report the state-of-the-art. Mangoe (talk) 20:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Carolmooredc, do reliable sources describe him has offering a paradigm shift? --Jprg1966  20:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The reliable sources report Sheldrake as stating that his ideas are not accepted because the establishment won't see the paradigm shift. That's the second wave of his pseudoscience - his promulgation that the "materialistic scientific dogmas" are preventing science from moving forward and the requirements of materialistic rigor need to be put aside. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Is there agreement that the original RfC as proposed by DavidInDC, while intended in good faith, is not appropriate in scope and form and is procedurally rescinded? (without prejudice to a future RfC of a more focused scope and format that will allow for determination of community consensus between specific options). -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• There's no agreement from me about the characterizations of the RfC, my intentions or my contributions. However, I ask that someone with the knowhow shut this turkey down. This is only my second RfC. I shut the first one down, but don't remember how. And my closing statement would be intemperate. David in DC (talk) 20:50, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Question Is there any reason in particular this is at AN/I and not WP:AE? We have discretionary sanctions for a reason... Nformation 22:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Possibly because after reading the DS instructions it wasn't clear to me that I needed to post over there. But we can head that way I suppose. Mangoe (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a WP:AE motion against Alfonzo Green (talk · contribs) currently, but I think the other pro-Sheldrake, anti-WP:FRINGE (and therefore anti Misplaced Pages) editors, particularly WP:SPAs need to be considered there as well. Maybe one at a time though. Barney the barney barney (talk) 11:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm working on that, but the format there seems to dictate a one-by-one belaboring of each editor. I think we're done here, in any case. Mangoe (talk) 12:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Blocked by User:Aza Toth

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

Hi, I'm currently blocked on commons by an admin named Aza Toth, who is also an admin on English wikipedia. I have asked him on his talkpage here about his motivation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:AzaToth&oldid=581767937 , but this is now 3 days ago.

He seems to be connected with a vandal (and lier) from Russia (= User:St1995), see http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Vandalism&oldid=109754822#91.66.153.214

What should I do? (Please no cryptic abbreviations. I want to show this case also to people outside of[REDACTED] and to readers who have no regards for other wp-admins) 91.66.153.214 (talk) 19:28, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This is an issue that should be addressed at commons through whatever system they have in place to deal with block appeals. Posting here again would be inappropriate. John Reaves 19:47, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Alternative595

The page: https://en.wikipedia.org/Sean_Harris

The revision history: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Sean_Harris&action=history

The user: alternative595

This began in October. I stayed off the page for a month, thinking the user would cool down.

User repeatedly removes my edits which consists of updating credits, dates of release for films and source material or correcting misspelled names or adding the name of the character. Further, they place "hidden" messages with threats and foul language stating that my "****ing edits will be be removed" and then some name calling -- see history or edit where they "hide" the message within the text. They have been warned. I wrote to wiki media (cannot insert e-mail address here) but all they could do was to warn about the hidden warning messages with the foul language. They cannot stop this back and forth undo of my edits.

And a new foul/hostile message appeared this evening, despite the earlier warning. Yet, when alternative595 performs an undo, they revert back to old, incorrect or misspelled information.

They do not own the page; they did not even create it. This began in October and I stayed away for one month because the person is hostile, angry and the hidden messages are foul and threatening. When I arrived, the page was cited for lack of source material. Yet as I added source material, this user began removing and undoing. Now they undo or remove everything I add. I do not revise their material, or any former material. I update credits, synopsis, dates of release for a film, and provide a source for a statement or credit.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Legaleze (talk) 22:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• I gave them an only warning. That page is pretty poorly verified, BTW, but that's not my concern here. Please re-report if they lose their cool again; they promised they wouldn't — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drmies (talk • contribs) 14:55, 18 November 2013‎ (PST)

And again, before the warning but after the promise. 2Awwsome 23:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

As I was preparing a response, they undid my last edits again. Of course, doing that made the offensive foul language message reappear AGAIN.

There is some odd attachment by alternative595 to this page, and they can have their foul language hidden messages, and the repetitious undo of any contributions. Yes, it is poorly sourced and verified; I was attempting to contribute but I think I am done with someone who feels the need to repeatedly hide foul language hidden messages in order to prevent contributions. Something is wrong with alternative595. Thank you for trying.

Legaleze (talk) 00:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I've blocked Alternative595 for 24 hours, for the insertion of hidden abusive/foul comments into a BLP when told not to by Drmies. I've asked that Alternative595 provide some sources and to start discussing their edits if they would like to be unblocked early, similarly, I've threatened to extend the block if they refuse to collaborate with others. I'm unable to keep an eye on things until morning now, so if there's progress, any other administrator has my blessing to lift or alter the block as appropriate. Nick (talk) 01:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I hoped in vain that this could be dealt with by maturity on their part instead of a block on our part. I might pry a little further. What does experience tell you, Nick? That this ends with an indefinite block? Let's hope you're wrong, if that was your answer. Drmies (talk) 02:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
• I don't see anything in the editor's history that explains this--the hidden warning and the blatant disregard for a bunch of warnings and an ANI thread. Perhaps a momentary lapses. I hope this can be closed tomorrow this time. Drmies (talk) 03:03, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I agree, it's a bit unusual for the editor in question. I've just had a look at Alternative595's talk page and I see they've removed your warning and my block notice so we do at least know they've seen our warnings. I'll leave the block to expire and see if that brings a change in behaviour, this was encouraging but four hours later we've got this so it's worth giving the editor another chance to see if they're going to improve their behaviour. The problem we're facing is that it's BLPs that Alternative595 is editing and we can't be allowing them to go around making unsourced edits, reverting without discussion and leaving obscene comments hidden in the markup for the page, so if there is no real change in behaviour, we will have to consider blocking the user again. Nick (talk) 12:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Experience tells me that it will not end, even if I stay off the page (which I will do). Eventually, there will be someone else or the page will just age-out. I posted on their talk page that this discussion was going on and invited them here, as instructed. Why are they not here explaining what is going on? The page is unverifiable/unsourced (they removed that Wiki message too; the page had been flagged as unsourced more than once). I don't know Wiki's options, but there is some issue going on about edits; the page will never become verifiable/sourced. If the option was to remove the page, that would be my decision. Think "King Solomon."

Legaleze (talk) 03:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This is for user Drmies, in reply to above. I disagree that there is nothing in the editor's history, alternative595, that explains this. Yesterday you flagged the page for lack of verfiable sources, and posted same above here in response to me. Your flag was immedately removed by alternative595'; check the history at the top. One cannot update or source the material when another controls the page.

Furthermore, in the history, if you go back, on October 26th, a user, Dream Focus, also removed a similar and virulent hidden warning of foul language and threats. At that time I was already on hiatus and had stopped making edits weeks earlier because I saw what alternative595 was doing; I had not been to the page for weeks. In fact, is it not a consideration that the indiscriminate and repetitive use of "undo", as alternative595 uses it, is something that Wiki asks to be avoided?

Realizing that in some part this is all very childish, alternative595 is also using bully tactics and that most people will just go away and leave the page alone, rather than complain. I was thinking I am done here, but I see no reason why anyone needs to be intimidated by this alternative595 who also chose not to come here either. This tells me that there is no defense for such actions of intimidation and harrassment of other users.

My vote, if I had one, is to remove the page entirely now. It was once flagged for deletion, much earlier. It's of little value; one cannot update the page; information is lacking or simply wrong, and updates or edits are rolled back to incorrect information. The page is being used solely for the purposes of intimidation, harrassment and control of others -- certainly not for informational purposes because they would want it updated. It makes no sense. It's become a bully tool for alternative595.

At the least, there has to be some way to prevent the repetitious inclusion of foul language threats and name calling that are hidden within the text, even if Wiki cannot prevent abuse of the "undo" feature. Because when there are no reprocussions for this continued behavior, what stops using any page as a vehicle of intimidation? Just something to think about because this can escalate into a bigger problem if alternative595 gets away with this and is allowed to continue. It may now be helpful to examine alternative595's other histories to see if there are other pages with similar hidden threats. Thank you for your help.

Legaleze (talk) 13:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Apology and request for more eyes

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

I am reporting myself here to the Administrators Noticeboard for this edit, where I modified another user's post, in the interest of civility. I promise that I won't do that again. On the same token, though, I hope that an administrator will please look at the escalating intensity of User:Jytdog's language on that page, to potentially issue a warning to him. Thank you. - Stylecustom (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

While I appreciate Stylecustom's concern (the harsh but not actionable post in question was directed at me and another user), I would opine that there is no need for further action at this time and suggest that this matter be dropped. Coretheapple (talk) 00:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

fine by me. I don't think Stylecustom knew what he was doing and believe he knows now. Thank you Core for your graciousness.Jytdog (talk) 00:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

In the Interest of Preventing an Edit War

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

After exhaustively researching my options herein, I have concluded that seeking intervention here would be the best course of action. Now for the dispute in question:

• 13 November - Farrtj has rather gratuitously and without rationale (vandalised?) the Anthony Burgess page to remove the references to Burgess's status as a musician. (diff)

I didn't remove the references to Burgess being a musician at all. There was still an entire section in the article dedicated to Burgess' "Life in Music".Farrtj (talk) 01:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• 13 and 19 November - Farrtj repeatedly ignores to discuss the issue with me or any other editors.

I assumed this was essentially trolling. Perhaps English isn't your first language, and if so I apologise, but your phrase "The article in question would so happen to be of the Burgess variety." did not seem to me to be entirely serious. Farrtj (talk) 01:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

English isn't my first language, but I consider myself to be fairly competent in writing and reading. As I understand, what I write is at least coherent. Maybe you can assume good faith? --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 01:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

You haven't demonstrated that assumption on my behalf. Farrtj (talk) 01:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I assumed good faith, and you ignored me (because you didn't like my English?) --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 01:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• 19 November - Farttj again removed references to Burgess's musical work.

There were no removal of "references" to Burgess' musical work. The subject is amply covered in the article. I question whether "musician" (which he is not) should be put before writer. Farrtj (talk) 01:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I concede that his work as a musician is mentioned elsewhere, but being that you removed the most promiment statement of his status as a musician, my point still stands. --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 01:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

It is not completely clear that these seemingly-antisocial edits on the part of Fartjj are in good faith. I've tried numerous times to resolve this issue myself, to no avail. And so I defer to the experienced. --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 00:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

* Reason 1: Burgess would likely not merit a Misplaced Pages page on the basis of his musical work alone.

* Reason 2: you put "musician and writer". Burgess was not a musician, he was a composer. Secondly, "writer" should come before "composer" as he is better known for the former. *If* we are going to include composer, which isn't a given. Farrtj (talk) 01:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

He was a musician. He was also a composer. Do you understand that composer is a subset of musician? --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 01:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

He was not known for performing music. It is more informative to use "composer" instead of "musician", therefore. Farrtj (talk) 01:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Given that this user's account was only created earlier in the month, I did assume he was a troll. I also note that he has already been admonished regarding WP:Civility. His response towards accusations of a lack of civility earlier in the month went as follows: " There must be some misunderstanding, you see, the link to Joli OS was probably shameless self promotion on the part of some hapless, worthless scum who couldn't otherwise attract users to Joli. The link was completely out of place and nonsensical." Farrtj (talk) 01:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Accusations of trollery and ad hominem attacks are too grounds for admonishment under WP:Civility. --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 01:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate that you responded this time, instead of undoing my complaint as usual, and I disagree with most of what you said, but this is not a forum for discussing the changes to Burgess's article. This is about your blatant ignoring of my requests to discuss this with you until now, when I decided to involve others. I will be happy to rebut your points, but not here. Instead, I would like you to explain why you reverted my edits without giving a rationale, even when I asked you twice. That sort of behaviour isn't acceptable. --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 01:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

You didn't give any rationale for your edits in your edit summary. Furthermore, you asked me once, then brought the issue here. Farrtj (talk) 01:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I asked you once on your talkpage and once more on an edit summary in the history tab. Believe me, I treated this as a last resort. And by changing the introduction to "English writer and composer", you implicitly admit that the introduction was it complete was it was, so an edit summary on my part was not needed. --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 01:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Update

Farrtj edited Burgess's article to now say "writer and composer", so the Anthony Burgess issue is effectively resolved, although why he couldn't have done this earlier instead of reverting my edits without discussion or rationale is still an open question, and I encourage users to chime in regarding this. --Kaj Taj Mahal (talk) 01:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I intended to do this but haven't had time. For the time being it was easier to undo your edit, because just saying "writer" is more accurate than saying "musician and writer". And as you can see from my talk page, I have otherwise been busy: one article under FA review, and two articles promoted to GA status in the last week. Perhaps next time you will make note of these things and be more patient when I don't immediately get back to you. Farrtj (talk) 01:53, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Persistent disruptive, non-collaborative, edit warring by User:Tiller54

User:Tiller54 is a prolific editor who focuses almost exclusively on U.S. political topics. See here. However, this editor has repeatedly demonstrated an inability and/or refusal to edit collaboratively and constructively. Just recently, he/she has been warned by at least two editors that he/she is guilty of violating WP:OWN: here, here.

User:Tiller54 has a long history of engaging in endless edit wars with numerous editors: here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, this laundry list of scrubbed complaints here, here, here, the laundry list of scrubbed complaints here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, this laundry list of scrubbed complaints here, here,here, here, and here.

User:Tiller54 has been warned by administrators: here, been warned for various violations of WP policies & practices: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,and here,

Also User:Tiller54 has been repeatedly warned about the need to use edit summaries, especially when reverting: here, and here. This is because s/he makes wholesale reverts without discussion or consensus. Another tactic is to make those same large reverts with only a minor, passing mention of their extensive nature in summary. Several recent examples of this, on just one article, may be seen here, here, here, here.

This is also not User:Tiller54's first ANI. This was just a few months ago: See here. The editor was blocked. At the time, sound advice was given to the editor about what to do "Instead of reverting back and forth": here, but obviously the message didn't sink in, because here we are again, just a few short months later for the same thing. But instead of learning from the experience, s/he and another editor found humor. Other editors have also noticed and complained about this collaboration before: here.

These two editors regularly work in tandem, without identifying their long-time collaboration: to impose their will on editors and articles and give the appearance of "consensus" where none actually exists. Thus preemptively placing a chill on real efforts to obtain consensus from legitimately unengaged 3rd parties. Obviously this comes perilously close to a vio of WP:TAGTEAM, if it doesn't actually already cross that line. But the most recent responses are instructive: see here and here. Or here.

Further, User:Tiller54 was also blocked again, barely 2 months later, for even more edit warring here.

Most recently, User:Tiller54 is currently attempting to engage in yet another editor war with me here, and rather than discussing individual edits, which I intentionally made one-at-a-time to facilitate discussion, and ignoring my talk page warnings to follow policy and edit collaboratively see here; this is the response I get: One wholesale revert with an intentionally understated edit summary, followed by two innocuous subsequent edits here and here, to further impose his/her will on the article. This is also part of a predictable pattern by this editor: Huge reverts, followed by minor ones, so the larger ones cannot easily be undone. The same can be seen here, followed by here - with even the most basic request that User:Tiller54 follow WP policies, guidelines and properly quote official and reliable sources, getting answered like this.

User:Tiller54's edit pattern is clear. Persistent, argumentative, frequently combative, disruptive edit-warring, rather than collaboration; and when warned, the warnings have no effect. Even when twice blocked for periods of 48 and 72 hours respectively, User:Tiller54's actions indicate no change, and once unblocked, s/he simply commences the same disruptive behavior.

User:Tiller54 has also been warned more than once, as the edit logs reflect, of what appears to be aggressive POV pushing on several political articles. Instead of collaborating with opposing viewpoints, User:Tiller54 simply pushes back until the other editor, risking incivility, simply gives up or gets sucked into an edit war - which User:Tiller54 then uses to his/her advantage. This behavior harms the project and outweighs any positive contributions this editor may make.

Therefore, there remains no choice but to recommend a block of significant duration for User:Tiller54. As the record is clear that blocks of just days, as has recently been proven on 2 separate occasions, have had no effect in changing User:Tiller54's behavior. Bear in mind, this would be the 3rd block in just the past few months for User:Tiller54. All for the identical behavior. But since User:Tiller54 has demonstrated no interest in proactively changing his/her behavior, there is no choice but for the community to act decisively.

Especially since it would be very difficult to reasonably expect that another short term block would succeed - when two others have just so recently failed. 107.214.30.15 (talk) 01:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Most of those 'complaints' you cited are automated messages warning about missing brackets from BracketBot (talk · contribs); I tried to read through this complaint but it's so rambling and long that I don't even know what the complaint is, along with the 'complaints' being made by low edit IP's, including your IP which have been immediately answered by Tiller54. Please tell us what you're trying to say, in fewer words. Nate • (chatter) 04:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Your quotation marks - twice - around "complaints", reveal more than your question. The first three paragraphs link to over 30 examples of edit-warring and other policy vios. After those, the automated messages are listed: to show an editor who makes the same policy/format mistakes over and over, without ever learning to correct them. But you ignored all the disruptive editing to focus on the bot messages? As to "low edit IP's" - what edit number makes IPs eligible to address legitimate concerns here - in your view? Given your long tenure and the WP rights you are entrusted with, you already know your bias is not supported by WP policy. While you may be dismissive after a partial reading, editors reading the full complaint will understand that the record shows that User:Tiller54 was disruptive with all editors, not just "low edit IPs". 107.214.30.15 (talk) 08:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Generally going for bot notices from BracketBot or DPL bot in a notice like this cries out desperation to me; there should be no need to heckle an editor just because they missed a bracket here or there, or redirected to a redirect, and again, I don't know what you're wanting us to do. Asking for a long-term block of Tiller54 for only two short duration blocks for 3RR which ended up with both reporter and defendant being blocked that they learned from? That's not going to happen. Also, 3RR noticeboard≠ANI. The user has not previously been taken to ANI, and that difference needs to be made clear here. Again, re-state the action you want, in fewer words, because as I'm the only respondent it's clear everyone else has been unable to make sense of what you're trying to say. Nate • (chatter) 18:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

My intent here is to bring the record of Tiller54's non-collaborative and tendentious editing to the attention of admins to be addressed. If I've done so inartfully, feel free to fault the messenger, but not at the expense of the message. I've never used, nor felt the need to use, this forum before; as most disagreements with editors are generally resolved by dialogue and compromise. But when an editor refuses compromise, but only engages in dialogue: then ignores WP policies and guidelines; removes reliable sources; removes official sources; reverts all contributions by other editors; and fails to disclose the nature of his own edits in the edit summaries? What then? How about when the editor is addressed with these concerns? And in response, the editor simply doubles down and persists in the behavior and in refusing to collaborate? What then? How about when said editor then calls in another editor to "backup" his methods and edits - and you discover that the two regularly tagteam in this manner? What then? Please tell me what options are left beyond addressing the matter on a Noticeboard? So if all you see are BracketBot notices? They are not the real issue here, and I regret including them, as you've become distracted by them. But you asked what I want. I'm requesting some kind of mentoring, monitoring, warning, block or other mechanism that will compel Tiller54 to act collaboratively and less disruptively moving forward. How that is accomplished is a call best left for admins reviewing his edit history and some of the history I've provided. Because the history is also that short blocks haven't worked. I hope that I am clearer now. But if you still find my concerns indecipherable: at your request or others, I'll pull from the original, specific examples of each complaint I've just detailed. Also, it does not appear that both parties were blocked in both cases: See here and here. Only the reporter - Tiller54 - was blocked for 72 hours for edit warring.. 107.214.30.15 (talk) 21:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

When you add incorrect information to a page and I and another editor remove it because it's incorrect, that is not "refusing to compromise". As I've said now several times, I tried to explain why the edits were incorrect, both in my edit summaries and on the talk page, where I left a lengthy and still unreplied-to post that explained in detail what the inaccuracies were. You carried on adding them anyway, so I asked another editor to weigh in. Your claims that I "revert all contributions by other editors" are patently ludicrous and as for your allegation that Muboshgu and I "regularly tagteam", never mind the fact that we don't, but to what end? To ensure that pages are ordered properly and don't contain inaccurate information? Tiller54 (talk) 00:19, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. You've just explained and demonstrated the case against you. I'll use just a few examples to disprove your claim that I added "incorrect information" that you "and another editor" were forced to remove "because it's incorrect": See here: Where the only official source is apparently "incorrect". Here: Where quoting the official source is apparently also "incorrect". Here: Where the WP style guide on WP:JOBTITLES, which states they are common nouns, is apparently "incorrect." And... - Here: Because although the link with the abbreviation of "US" in Democratic Party clearly works (and is used throughout this project) "it is incorrect!" - and must immediately be replaced with Democratic Party with "United States" fully spelled out! So, in one single edit, you reverted: an official source (twice), a WP style guideline, a wikilink and more that wasn't to your liking - because they were all - in your view - "incorrect". Because, as you explain below in your 2nd response: "removing inaccurate information is not the same as refusing to collaborate." I could rest this case right now. 107.214.30.15 (talk) 08:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

107.214.30.15 has some kind of issue with me. A couple of weeks ago he tried to attribute others' edits to me. When I pointed out that none of those edits were made by me, he admitted doing so only to "bait me" into replying. In that same comment, he then falsely accused me of "edit warring" because I removed the same inaccurate and misleading phrase from several different pages (this, which implies that states without gubernatorial term limits actually have them). He then followed me to Virginia Attorney General election, 2013 and began trying to push a version of the page that contained numerous inaccuracies. After asking him not to revert and explaining on the talk page why his version was inaccurate, another IP reverted anyway. I did not revert again, instead asking User:Muboshgu to step in, and he did. This has apparently annoyed 107.214.30.15 because he's now accusing Muboshgu and I of "collaborating" for some reason. Tiller54 (talk) 10:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Predictably, your self-defense excludes several material facts, Tiller54. But I have no interest in debating with you, especially not on your terms. That's what you want. But if you or another editor would really like a complete recounting of the issues you've addressed - including the many points you've conveniently excluded from your edited narrative - I will provide them here. But I don't think the real nature of this forum is just more back and forth between the two of us. That's counterproductive - and that's the point. The time for solution-based dialogue between us was on the talk pages - where you consistently showed no interest in it. Your refusal to offer anything more than argument - i.e. zero collaboration - is precisely what brought us here. 107.214.30.15 (talk) 21:53, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

You have no interest in debate? Well that's obviously why my explanation of what was wrong with your edits was completely ignored on the article's talk page. As I said above, removing inaccurate information is not the same as refusing to collaborate, particularly when my explanation and another editor's edits go apparently ignored. Tiller54 (talk) 00:19, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I had no interest in debate - because you had no interest in dispute resolution. Without the latter, the former is just a futile exercise. Debate is also futile when you have no interest in collaboration. Which you have also, quite effectively, admitted here. 107.214.30.15 (talk) 08:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Kevmin

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

Please check here: Special:Contributions/Kevmin This user is removing interwikis to pages with useful content, and reverting attempts to replace them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RealityCzecher (talk • contribs) 03:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at WP:Plants here for explanation of my actions.--Kevmin § 03:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, Chzecher, and you are? This is a content discussion inasmuch as the value of the link to Wikispecies is concerned. It's also much more than that (interesting stuff, if you like a bit of gossip), but it is never something that fits on this board. Drmies (talk) 04:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• When looking at the discussion that Kevmin links, I don't see any substantial opposition (other than yours) to the removal of these links, but I see plenty of support for removing them. This is seemingly just an editor implementing consensus. Nyttend (talk) 04:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

So, you are saying that it is perfectly fine for a small group of territorial editors to agree to systematically remove content that has been added by another in good faith and in compliance with WP policy, are you?? RealityCzecher (talk) 04:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Nyttend, I don't know if you're a biologist or not, but that conversation is as transparent as a green pool. I think the suggestion is made that the Czecher is a well-known user, perhaps that supposedly tyrannical admin over on the species side. Do you have an opinion on that? Drmies (talk) 04:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
• Never mind, they outed themselves. Leaves the question of who Stephen and Gordon are; perhaps they're plants. Drmies (talk) 04:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Stephen is, I presume, Stho002 (since he identifies himself by his full name on his Wikispecies user page). Gordon is the source being used to support the idea that bryophytes are monophyletic. Guettarda (talk) 04:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
• Stephen is RealityCzecher/Stho002, no idea about Gordon Guettarda beat me to it, darn. And abusive admin? Drmies? No, it couldn't be... Ansh666 04:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Two wikispecies admins with a content dispute walk into a talk page. Says the one to the other, "I am trying to sort it out, and make several things consistent with each other, but it will take time to do so. Perhaps a week long block will teach you some patience?" And then blocks the other for a week, with email and TPA disabled. As an abusive admin myself, I love how they do business there.

If he thought the block was unjustified, he could have appealed it to a 'crat or a steward. Since he did not do so, or if he did he was unsuccessful, I really don't think this discussion about the block is relevant, do you, or are people here trying to bolster a weak argument with ad hominem issues to muddy the waters? RealityCzecher (talk) 05:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

BTW, if RealityCzecher has admitted to being Stho002, shouldn't he be blocked for block evasion? Guettarda (talk) 05:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

IF that strokes your fragile ego, then go ahead! I'm not sure what else it will achieve, though. It would be nice to think that we could resolve this issue without a Mexican standoff, but that would require sensible adults acting responsibly, so I'm not holding my breath! RealityCzecher (talk) 05:08, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oh leave that "fragile ego" nonsense out of it. You're "resolving" the issue by mass reverting Kevmin's edits, so I had no qualms about using mass rollback to undo your disruptive edits: there is clear consensus for removing the links on the Plants project talk page. If anyone's ego is hurt it's yours. Yeah, you should be blocked, but I'll leave that to the admins who were involved with you--Boing! said Zebedee, Bwilkins. Stemonitis, I am sure, has more propriety than to block a user he's been in a content conflict with. Drmies (talk) 05:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Short answer, yes, but through SPI. And maybe the bureaucrats over at Wikispecies ought to take a look at this. Ansh666 05:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

And I have now done the former. Ansh666 05:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I guess it begins to highlight a problem over whether wikispecies should exist at all. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, well that is what this is really about, isn't it? You want to push out what you perceive to be a rival project RealityCzecher (talk) 05:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

No, not really. What it is really about: no "community" project can exist with one person (you) holding all the strings. Jimbo tries here sometimes, but it never ever turns out well for him. From what I can pull out of this conversation, Wikispecies has deviated from its intended purpose into the knowledge repository of a professor in New Zealand (also you). Ansh666 06:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Kevmin is a longtime respected editor who understands the policies and guidelines of wikipedia. This other user is canvassing at WP animals and generally creating unnecessary drama, plus the personal attacks here speak for themselves. Montanabw 05:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
• This situation is bizarre. Stho002 should be deadmined, at the very least. FunkMonk (talk) 06:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Anyone know where to raise these issues on Meta (re validity of wikiprojects)? I just looked briefly and couldn't see....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:22, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

m:Proposals for closing projects I think? Though I don't know if such a proposal would be likely to succeed. --Rschen7754 06:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

As far as the issue of admin misconduct on wikis without an Arbitration Committee: any local procedure to de-admin users there should be followed. If not, one can be invented ad-hoc. With that being said, it is Wikispecies' decision to make and not ours, so don't go over there in droves to vote, as that's just rude.

Stewards will have to remove the admin flag in any case, but they will not do so unless a local desysop procedure is followed, or in an emergency. --Rschen7754 06:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

To be honest I don't think going to the WikiSpecies Bureaucrats will accomplish much, the last update to the list was pre -January 2013, and the only 'crat with any current regular activity on WS is user: OhanaUnited, all others are inactive. It really is a one admin show on WS at this point, with no interior way to remove/resolve the problem with Stephen.--Kevmin § 06:47, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, efforts need to be made to resolve the issue out at wikispecies. If not, you can always start a RFC on meta, but those tend to take months. --Rschen7754 06:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

So you are trying to achieve your agenda here by meddling in WS governance, are you? There is no problem at WS. The only problem in recent months has been User:EncycloPetey pointing out a problem to me, and then obstructing me from being able to fix it! Not to mention his subsequent move to WP to try to drum up support against WS! Your attitude of territoriality is so pointless! Think of it this way: there are at least 2 million named species, of which WS has pages for less than 400,000, and WP even fewer! There is PLENTY of work to be done. Even if WS managed to get up-to-date with all 2 million species, which is highly unlikely, I very much doubt whether it could stay up-to-date, given the rate of new species being named. I just contribute more of my time than anyone else, but it is still just a drop in the ocean. This whole discussion is wasting time. Wikispecies will NEVER be closed, because it has too much information which WP lacks. How about just getting on with adding constructive content, eh? That's what I'm going to do ... RealityCzecher (talk) 07:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

And that's great and all, and you've now been blocked for socking here. --Rschen7754 07:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

HCPUNXKID

Not sure if this is the correct avenue to go down. HCPUNXKID has been making repeated implications that i am a both a "fascist", have an "ultra ideology" and the numerals "88" in my user name signifies "heil hitler" (see diffs) ] ]. These comments started happening after i attempted to help the user by pointing out that the user boxes on his USER profile were potentially at odds with his edits on politically sensitive articles ( Battle of Aleppo (2012–13) - syria ) and that this could be construed as NPOV. Was genuinely trying to help out and after these attacks were made i have attempted a few times to both clarify my original position with HCPUNXKID and asked that he remove these comments (which he will not) ] Johnsy88 (talk) 07:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I would be curious to know how having a particular userbox on one's userpage has anything to do with whether or not a particular edit is POV? John from Idegon (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I think he means COI. 2Awwsome 21:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

User:AfricaTanz

I am seeking help with User:AfricaTanz for soapboxing, loading articles with content only tangentially pertinent to them (and then in a prescriptive, agenda-laden way), and for refusing categorically to engage with anyone who tries to speak with him.

He has persisted in using articles on LGBT rights in a set of at least thirteen African nations as a forum for soapboxing. The user has dropped large blocks of identical text into these articles, almost entirely addressing international agreements that often don't even mention the country in question at all, with the implication being that each country in question is supposed to be abiding by these agreements. This intent is made manifest by such section headings as "Ghana's obligations under international law and treaties".

Over time (this has now been going on for over a year), several of us have removed this content and attempted numerous times to reason with AfricaTanz. I suggested, for example, that the material could go in one place and that each of the articles could make reference to it to the extent it could be given relevance to each country. His response has been to ban us from his Talk page, to refuse to respond to any of the points we make, and to attack us in edit summaries.

The issue went to Misplaced Pages:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_53#LGBT_rights dispute resolution and AfricaTanz declined to participate in any way. At the time, User:TransporterMan suggested we could go to Rfc/U or here. Since AfricaTanz declines to participate and won't listen to anybody, and since Rfc/U has no enforcement power, I didn't see any value in seeking help there. Therefore, I've come here.

Most of the pertinent facts and links to related discussions are at the DR Noticeboard archive linked above. Recent activities can be seen in the histories of LGBT rights in Senegal and LGBT rights in Ghana (example diffs: and ).

I see that User:AfricaTanz, who until the last time I looked had an "on vacation" notice that ended earlier this month, now has one that started yesterday and ends in May. Yet he's editing today. For what it's worth. —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the edit history for LGBT rights in Ghana, it seems that AfricaTanz is edit-warring to include this material. I'd suggest this, together with the contributors apparent refusal to discuss the matter in the past, may well be grounds for a block, at least until AfricaTanz agrees to participate in discussions over the issue. Engaging appropriately in discussions over disputed material is a necessary part of being a Misplaced Pages contributor, and AfricaTanz needs to show willing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:53, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The material AfricaTanz is reinserting into LGBT rights in Ghana and other articles was already the subject of an RFC at Talk:LGBT rights under international law#Duplicated text on countries' obligations under international law. The consensus was that the material is original research, a novel synthesis, and/or not directly relevant to country-specific articles. To date all attempts to engage AfricaTanz in discussion about this material have been unsuccessful: messages posted on his user talk page are immediately removed, sometimes followed by a statement that the poster is now "banned" from his page, and discussions on project or article talk pages are likewise either ignored or boycotted. I'm at a loss as to what else can be done to get this user to start editing collaboratively rather than combatively. —Psychonaut (talk) 20:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The issue may be a little more complex. Back in August 2013, AfricaTanz was removing lots of stuff like this: - which had previously been edit-warred into many articles by a (dynamic) IP editor. What's going on here? bobrayner (talk) 20:11, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The IP accounts almost certainly are User:AfricaTanz, before he created an account. The accounts got blocked for the same sort of edit warring (see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive199#User:70.253.75.84 reported by User:Jenova20 (Result: 1 week)), and IIRC the pages also got semi-protected. This forced whoever was operating the IP accounts to create a named account, and they've continued ever since. The removals in question were apparently precipitated by the RFC; almost immediately after the RFC page got accidentally deleted he started reposting the material. —Psychonaut (talk) 20:20, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up! I agree that the material should go... bobrayner (talk) 20:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

At the risk of duplication, here are the search results for AfricaTanz on admin noticeboards. Two ANIs and two AN3 reports. Blocked once for a week as an IP in November 2012 and then once for 48 hours in June 2013 as a registered account. A complaint about AfricaTanz's edits on LGBT rights was filed at DRN in November 2012 but he chose not to respond. In my opinion we're getting close to an indef block if the editor has no intention of joining in discussions. Communication isn't negotiable. EdJohnston (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I've just removed some problematic content from many of the LGBT-rigts-in-Africa articles. These articles often seem to have other problems - IE. lengthy quotes from legislation and standardised exerpts from country-by-country reposts on human rights &c - which would probably need to be fixed, but we can deal with that later. Now is not the time for scope creep. bobrayner (talk) 01:25, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

So what's the remedy here? I just had another read through all the old links posted upthread, which contain reports of the same behaviour posted by many other users. Despite all these reports, the attempts at personal engagement, an RFC, and several blocks, there's been no change in AfricaTanz's behaviour. I'm led to believe that his editing privileges should be suspended until he demonstrates an understanding of why his behaviour has been disruptive, and agrees to start communicating and working collaboratively. Are we agreed? —Psychonaut (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

That's my feeling. (I'm realizing I wasn't explicit in my intro about the remedy I was seeking, but that was it.) I feel quite confident in what appears to the mutual consensus that has developed among a greater group here and elsewhere that AfricaTanz makes a lot of questionable contributions, that we have been correct in challenging and reverting them, that he has subjected us to bouts of incivility, and that we are frustrated by our failure thus far to prevent repetition of this cycle or get any cooperation from AfricaTanz in our attempts to do so. I believe that through a variety of channels we've more than amply justified an indefinite block at least until AfricaTanz joins us for constructive discussions leading to a mutually satisfactory understanding of the parameters. —Largo Plazo (talk) 22:03, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

(crickets) —Largo Plazo (talk) 05:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Has AfricaTanz done any worthwhile editing in other areas? If so, and if AfricaTanz can start communicating (obviously they've used their talkpage for other stuff in the past), I would suggest a topic ban first. I realise we've all got our pitchforks and torches ready, but if there's potential for productive work on other topics, I'd like to offer that chance. Of course, if they don't even comment, or if a topic ban were broken, go directly to Jail and do not pass Go. bobrayner (talk) 13:12, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea. He's gotten into edit wars regarding non-LGBT African topics before, which he persisted in prosecuting until multiple dispute resolution measures showed unanimous opposition to his edits. Looking at his recent contributions, I see some further minor revert battles and incivility regarding articles for airports and for the Indian subcontinent, though without further investigation I can't say who's in the right. Any topic ban would need to cover at the very least both African and LGBT topics. Psychonaut (talk) 18:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Removal of references by User:AfricaTanz

The user is constantly removing references from the article Chittagong. In this edit he removed two references from the article after which I left a note in his talk page. But the user continues to do so with the latest one being this where he removed 3 references. --Zayeem 06:53, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

No time to check it all now, but I see we have a complaint about him at the top of this page, there is and a few others at . Loads of stuff at this talk page. I also note that when he was given this templated warning in May, AfricaTanz changed the section heading to accuse the editor of posing as an Administrator. He doesn't seem to like warnings, he's banned several editors from his talk page. He's had one block in June for edit warring. Dougweller (talk) 07:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This is pretty clear disruptive editing. I think the community should consider the topic ban as noted above and get stricter from there. 209.255.230.32 (talk) 13:17, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

In the early-November thread about AfricaTanz there was a proposal for indefinite block until the user will join in discussions. Trying to impose an LGBT topic ban on somebody who won't talk about anything may not be worthwhile. EdJohnston (talk) 20:03, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

No Such User

Severe misuse of rollback. It is a tool for fighting obvious vandalism and the one thing it is not for is reverting edits you don't agree with. He has used it several times.

and many more all on November 5, 2013. Cognoscerapo (talk) 14:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Seems to follow user and rollback their edits without reason. I see no talk page discussion and I see no notification of this ANI being placed on "No such user"'s talk page. This does seem like a violation of Rollback, but it is important to hear both sides before condemning anyone. Was there any discussion prior to it being taken here though? 209.255.230.32 (talk) 14:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Rolling back Voice of America backed text may or may not be wrong, rolling back "Susequently, Serbia ended up with it's tail between it's legs" is understandable. Dougweller (talk) 14:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, those incorrect "it's"s are highly disruptive. No sticker on the homework of that user. Drmies (talk) 15:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Those particular insults to the English language were inserted by Cognoscerapo, whose complaints open this thread. More importantly, the sentence in which they appear was inserted by Cognoscerapo between previous text and a cite to a source supporting that prior text, making it seem appear that the new addition was also supported by that cite. So Misplaced Pages was asserting that the International Court of Justice found that Serbia had a tail between its legs.

Perhaps the complaining editor, while studying the proper usage of its and its, should also pay attention to sources and their proper use (cf. edit summary at this edit reinstating uncited assertion), and also brush up on our policies for WP:NPOV. Kablammo (talk) 16:47, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I would have appreciated an edit summary for the first one, yes, but rolling back the addition of the tail (and the donkey?) is perfectly justified. To IP 209's comment about following the user, such following can be perfectly justified in the context of discovery--one often wonders, after seeing one problematic edit, what else the editor has been up to. FWIW, I just checked out the plaintiff's history and found two more occasions where a revert of their edits should have been explained (with a "POV" note, most likely), here and here. Rollbackers, will you please take that extra step and explain, if only to prevent misunderstandings. Drmies (talk) 17:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

What Drmies explained is exactly what happened: I spotted an edit of the plaintiff, checked his contriburtions, properly reverted a few with an summary, and having spotted the POV-pushing pattern, didn't bother to AGF on the rest. In the process, I left a longish explanation at Talk:International_recognition_of_Kosovo#.22Yet_another_step_towards_full_recognition.22. In sum: should the complainer post a near-identical, pov-pushing, reference-falsifying fragment to about a dozen off-topic articles violating WP:NPOV and WP:ARBMAC, I don't think he should be entitled to equal treatment as good-faith users. On the other hand, I offer him a kudos for having a nerve to report it here. However, I trust that common sense (and WP:BOOMERANG) still applies. No such user (talk) 18:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That text about "Serbia ended up with it's tail between it's legs" is not a million miles from what independent sources say on the topic. For instance, this says "chastened". Obviously wording like that won't appear in a court document from a case brought by the Serbian government - which is widely cited because other editors prefer to cherrypick legal caveats from that primary source. Nonetheless, I agree that Cognoscerapo's editing is problematic... bobrayner (talk) 19:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

And the edits have now been removed, with edit summary. Nothing more to do here. Kablammo (talk) 19:31, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the explanation, No such user. There was one more thing to do: I slapped the ArbCom Balkan template on their talk page and logged it, just because we had server space left. Drmies (talk) 20:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikihounding from אומנות

I would like to raise an issue of possible wikihounding from the above named user. This behavioural pattern has been ongoing for a lengthy period of time. And despite efforts to try and resolve the matter peacefully and mutually, without the need to raise the issue with administrators sooner, it is with deepest regret that I feel the issue has reached the stage that only admin intervention may be required. I sincerely apologies in advance that this one is written in extreme length, however I feel that the more information that I provide, the better it may be for administrator's to complete the investigation as swiftly as possible.

Brief history

A year or so ago, Project Eurovision opened up a RfC regarding layout proposals on articles such as Eurovision Song Contest 2012. For a while now, I have noticed the project itself to be somewhat on the quiet side, with members rarely engaging in team discussions, especialy via the project talk page. I personally see myself as a very active member and will eagerly participate in discussions in order to bring the project alive again, so to speak. As you may notice, I was the main contributor in that particular RfC with many suggestions put forward by myself. During the RfC I offered to do a test on some of the proposals that had been made, so that participating members had something to compare against and thus able to see how something may look and perhaps tweak the ideas further. This resulted in a layout style being used on the ESC 2012 article. On 15 June 2012, I decided to nominate the aforementioned article for a GA review, something which these type of articles for the project had never had before. On the 16 July 2012 the article was awarded GA status, and this provided the project its first ever GA on such annual Eurovision articles, in the project's entire history. Please note that I also thanked the reviewer for their time taken to do the review.

Since that review the above named user started to make accusations that the suggestions put forward at the RfC had no connections to the article gaining the project its first GA. And so I decided that the only way to see if this was fact or fiction, was to initiate a bit of research (which naturally would take time). To do this, I decided that I would need to have multiple article examples in order to compare differences and see if the RfC suggestions were or were not resulting in such GA success. ABU Radio Song Festival 2012 and ABU TV Song Festival 2012 were then written using the same layout suggestions from that said RfC. On On 24 November 2012 I nominated those respective articles for GA review, and on the 11 February 2013 the Radio Festival was awarded GA (again, please note that I took the time to thank the reviewer). On 24 March 2013 the TV Festival article also gained GA. This gave Project Eurovision, 3 consecutive GA's on annual articles, using a layout style that was discussed at the RfC. The above named user, still continued to harass and cast assumptions of bad faith towards myself for no apparent reason.

The same layout style was then used on Eurovision Song Contest 2013 and on 27 June 2013 I nominated the article for GA review. At the time I then decided that it would be a good idea to also nominate one of the older articles that did not use the layout as per RfC, and on 7 July 2013 I nominated Eurovision Song Contest 2011 for GA, whilst keeping that article in its older layout format. At the time of nominating both these articles I had anticipated them both being reviewed at the same time, but also understood that the likelihood of that happening also being 50/50. However, as I had plenty of spare time at that time of year, then I was prepared to deal with both reviewers in the event they were to be done at the same time. On 14 November 2013 the 2013 article passed its GA review. And I thanked the reviewer on the same day. The 2011 review was also started at the same time, and I had informed Khazar2 the day prior of my unexpected busy schedule. As I'm sure most of you would appreciate, nobody ever knows when their partner decides to pick the moment to make a proposal of marriage. As I had accepted the proposal, I then realised that my real-life time and my Misplaced Pages time would be come a lot more hectic, and trying to find an equal balance would be difficult but one that I was prepared to work around.

Wikihounding

Anyhow, the GA review for ESC 2011 failed, and with that then provided comparison evidence in regards to the research that I had initiated in 2012. The layout style from the RfC had successfully gained 4 GA articles, whereas an old layout style failed to produce a single GA. As my real-life time has now become more hectic trying to organise a wedding, I had not noticed the 2011 GA closure, but the minute that I had, I took the time to thank the reviewer (Khazar2) and also thank for the clean-up checklist which they provided.

What I did not expect afterwards was our Israeli friend to also post a comment. This struck me as rather odd, considering that they were not the nominating editor. However, I assumed good faith in their comments, and felt that it may be polite to provide an explanation into the research that I was compiling. I did not expect to get an essay-sized hurl of abuse, which can be seen for yourselves. What gives someone the right to blatantly accuse me of "claiming GA credit for self-promotion", when I have always shared the GA accolades on team-contributions by means of a teamwork barnstar which I publish to all Project Members via the newsletter (as that is easier than spamming 50 or so to each individual member).

And not only that, the user continues to assume bad faith in my work, accuse me of copying their wording that they posted via another user's talk page, which basically implies that I am stalking them. Which I didn't even know they had made such posts until they mentioned it to me in their essay. And then twist out of context the phrase "unwise", a phrase which I had made on my own talk page, which actually proves that they had stalked my movements, especially to have picked up on the phrase "unwise" which was only posted on my own talk page. They then pick up on phrases that I had made on another discussion board, which they had not even participated in, again clear evidence of them stalking my movements in order to purposely single me out and cause distress.

And not only that, the editor than uses a dispute that involved myself and someone else and had nothing to do with them, as their own personal arsenal to cause further distress and attack me with it. This is clear evidence of singling out an editor to cause them distress. I wouldn't mind, but the dispute involving myself and a different editor has since been resolved and we've even buried it in the past and moved on. So why has אומנות decided upon themselves to use that dispute as their own personal prodding tool? If one is going to start poking at wasp nests, then one needs to expect to be stung sooner or later.

These behavioural patterns clearly demonstrates hounding and tendentious editing by the simple fact they are singling me out, for whatever personal gain of their own. Therefore I would appreciate if an administrator were to conduct an investigation into this matter, and if there are scenarios in which an administrator may feel as though I have stepped out of line, then I would accept that on the chin. But this behaviour from the user needs to stop, as it is not helpful to myself, to the project, or to the greater Misplaced Pages community. Sincere regards, Wesley Mᴥuse 17:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I can't judge the complaint easily (since relevant evidence via diffs is not given for hounding, for instance), though it's clear to me that the battlefield shenanigans between these two editors are disruptive enough: in the case of Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 2011/GA1, they are initiated by אומנות but they predate the GA--and Wesley returns as much as he's given. (As a side note, though, I have to say that I don't see how that GA failure proves that Wesley's "new" format is successful and the old one is not: I don't see how the reviewer failed the article because of layout issues.) But I'm almost afraid to ask for diffs, since that will no doubt be a laundry list. I've been asked before by Wesley to look into אומנות's attitude, and found it difficult to blame one side more than another. It's a pity that both work in the same, relatively narrow, area. Drmies (talk) 18:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I had provided the evidence via means of linking. However, if diffs are preferable, then I am happy to provide them although as there are that many then would it be possible to allocate time for me to do this? Especially with the current real-life situation that I had mentioned above. Wesley Mᴥuse 18:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I see links for the thanking of reviewers (not a relevant matter here) and GA reviews and a busy schedule. But you're asking us to investigate and possibly confirm your charge of hounding by the other user. Drmies (talk) 18:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Ah yes I see what you mean. I thought the link to the Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 2011/GA1 which contained the essay-like comments from אומנות, may have been sufficient. I'd happily accept if one sees my responses to the user following their essay, as being harsh, but when one receives multiple directly worded attacks and false allegations in essay-like statement, then how is one suppose to shrug it away under the carpet? It is like I said, if one pokes a wasp nest, then one should expect to be stung sooner or later.
• Examples of what I see as blatant hounding; "Quality is based on team work with various users making changes and improving, which you don't correctly comprehend, and therefore alongside your work and improvement of articles, you also result in more hold backs and discussions that get stuck for improving. Your very comment above actually battles with others credit and acknowledgement right to those who you claim to be your colleagues, which ironically repeats the same ignoring from others opinions to improve at the last RFC you "helped" with.". Which implies that I am purposely hoarding all the credit and glory of GA's for some sort of personal gain. However, I easily disproven their assumption in the fact that in 2012 I issued a teamwork barnstar to the entire project. Issuing this via the newsletter was by far easier than it would have been to visit each and every project member's talk page and post one individually. I'm sure one would apprecaite time efficiency. Also the 2013 review has only taken place a couple of days ago, and the next edition of the newsletter has yet to be published, but when it does there is yet another teamwork barnstar attached to the newsletter. What project members choose to do with the barnstar afterwards is their personal choice. I cannot force them to display it if they do not wish. Other examples include:

1. "You nominated this article which was not only still different with layout of style but also lacks fundamental sources and still written in future-tense..." - The user even acknowldges the difference in layout styles and the fact that it does not follow the layout style of previously awarded GA ones.
2. ...and you further copied my words from Khazar2 talk page to justify the nomination and ironically trying to show that you are the sole responsible for 2012 and 2013 articles... - The user accuses me of "following them around talk pages", when I had never done so, and was not even aware of their conversation. I was under the impression that we're suppose to assume good faith, even if we may personally think otherwise? So why come out with that remark like they did, which is openly assuming bad faith.
3. Thats after earlier you said you were "unwise" to nominate 2 articles together, and now you say that you knowingly nominated this article as differently written to verify for yourself that the 2012 and 2013 are good, which also shows no thinking for the reviewer's time... - This remark from the user actually contradicts their own allegations that I am following them. They have openly admitted to be following me around in a stalking manner. Especially when they quote phrases that I had made on my own talk page. For them to have known what I had said, then they had to have purposely visited my talk page.
4. ...all this only speaks volumes of how much you focus on the “GA” as a kind of self-promotion and being in competition, rather than improve articles patiently and thoroughly. And says volumes on your perception of "quality". - I found this to be a perplexed allegation to make. And I disproven their allegation by providing evidence that I do not look for GA glorifying and selfishly snatch the credit. I share the efforts by means of teamwork barnstars distributed via the project newsletter.
5. Anyway, this is really your problem and I only clarify as you should know by now, that I will fully and gladly express mine and others work on the ESC articles and enjoy this, and nobody will be eliminated by you from doing so. Try and learn to overcome yourself and share others good will and work. - Why would any user end their supposedly "innocent" comment with a clearly personalised and negative comment like that?

• I hope this helps. Wesley Mᴥuse 18:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I'd also like to add that this isn't the first time that the user has also cast personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith. The first such case was back in February this year, when the user assumed a discussion between myself and an administrator we're solely about them, when the discussion had nothing in connection with the user. Here are the diffs for that incident - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Wesley Mᴥuse 19:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Fellow admins, I hope some of you can drag your attention away from your ArbCom run long enough to have a look at this. I've been somewhat involved with these two in the past and my doctor told me I have to stop doing that. So please. Drmies (talk) 20:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

"Wikihounding is the singling out of one or more editors, and joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Misplaced Pages." WP:WIKIHOUNDING. I see no evidence of this.--Toddy1 (talk) 22:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I provided evidence above. Firstly in February, I was having a discussion with another editor that had nothing to do with אומנות. Yet the user barged onto the talk page, accused myself and the administrator of talking nastily about them behind their back. And then went on to attack both the admin and myself. (string of diffs attached above). Then there are other areas where אומנות has in black and white written that they "followed me to other areas". Please bear with me though as there have been that many discussion, that it is like trying to search for a needle in a haystack. And then there are the wording of bad faith accusations that אומנות made in the long essay at ESC2011/GA. Even in that they admitted to following me around various talk pages and following my actions. אומנות brought up a phrase "unwise". That phrase was something which I said to a different user on my talk page, a discussion that אומנות was not even involved it. The only way would אומנות have known that I used that phrase, is if he visited my page to "monitor" my discussions. Also אומנות has this habit of using as their own personal attacking device, a debate that myself and one uninvolved editor had months ago. אומנות was not involved in the dispute between myself and that editor. So why would אומנות even need to use an issue that is of no business of their, as a weapon to attack me with?

The problem as I see it, is אומנות too easily jumps to wrong conclusions and assumes that when two editors are talking to each other, that they are secretly talking about אומנות behind their back. Many a time the user has misinterpreted context and then twist it around and uses it to cast false allegations not to mention assumptions of bad faith. If the user is not sure what someone is talking about, or what their intentions/ideas may actually be, then ask to clarify, don't just jump to a potentially wrong conclusion and result in poking a wasp nest. Wesley Mᴥuse 22:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Furthermore, אומנות has clearly singled me out. All this behaviour stemmed off shortly after the RfC which took place at WP:ESC in 2012. If אומנות appears to have qualms with what was said in that RfC, and this is evident in the fact s/he keeps referring back to it at any given opportunity. If אומנות isn't singling anyone out, then please explain why אומנות only targeted myself from that RfC, and hasn't even conversed with others who also took part in that RfC. Wesley Mᴥuse 22:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

1. I nominated the GA for Eurovision Song Contest 2011, review talk page is Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 2011/GA1.
2. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but primary discussions for a GA review are between the nominator and the reviewer, right?
3. Why did אומנות (talk · contribs) post comments directly to the reviewer's talk page (time-stamped 00:58), when he was not the nominator?
4. Considering the length of the reviewer's closing comments, it took me quite some time to read through them all thoroughly, whilst also cross-referencing against the areas that were pointed out. It was at 01:25 when I finally got chance to reply to the closing comments. Yet I got accused of "copying text from another page". An allegation that I proved to be false.
5. I assumed good faith when אומנות (talk · contribs) posted a comment thanking the reviewer, despite him not being the nominator.
6. But why did אומנות (talk · contribs) use a talk page that is suppose to be about discussing article improvement, post a personalised and unprovoked attack aimed directly at myself? The user joined the talk page, posted a rather lengthy attack on me. That clearly demonstrates WP:HOUNDING - "the singling out of one or more editors..." (in this case myself) "...joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute..." (in this case the GA review which they were not the nominator, I was the sole nominator) "...in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work." Something which has been ongoing for several months, and they even admit this in the way they address specific scenarios.
7. He then continues by posting this perdsonalised attack on the same GA review page.
8. And finally, a different editor has even noticed that the user should not have took the opportunity of the GA review page to voice any personal grudges which they hold against me. There is a place called the users talk page, where such discussions should take place. The same user even notes that אומנות (talk · contribs) clearly demonstrates the holding of some kind of grudge with myself.

And this doesn't constitue hounding? That's ironic, considering all of the above behavioural patterns are exactly what have been describe in the WP:HOUNDING policy. The evidence is there, in diff format, and in black and white. Wesley Mᴥuse 00:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Well. I'll try to go point by point and tell you what I see. 1. is not a point, just a pointer. 2. yes, sure, though there are certainly GA reviews where others join in; I don't have a problem with it in my reviews or in my articles (I welcome it); 3. I know what you're getting it: you see another editor undermining your GA review but, more importantly, the previous ones with the "new" format; I think most editors here might be inclined to take it as a good-faith question asked by an interested party of an experienced reviewer; 4. I don't know how this point relates to possible hounding (no diff is provided for your quote or who says it or why or what it means), but (as a side note) I see in that comment (esp. "raw format") an indication that this wasn't really a good-faith effort to get the article nominated, especially since the history points out you haven't done a lot of work recently on that article, and many of your edits there are simply to revert; 5. good: you should; 6. in the post before your opponents (cited also in the diff) you actually ping them, so small wonder that they show up; 7. I don't see a personal attack, though your opponent could do with some paragraphing; I do see, however, a snarky "I await your apology", to which they respond in possibly snarky manner but no worse; 8. I don't completely agree with BabbaQ's remarks, but either way, they don't confirm a charge of hounding.

  Summarizingly, that GA review was an opportunity for you to try one format against another, but I don't see the editorial investment on your part to convince me that this was a fair comparison. And given that you and your opponent have been duking this out in various places, I'm not surprised that they would want to weigh in there as well: one might call your putting that format to the test pointy, and their response is to be expected. Sorry Wesley, but that's what I see based on the evidence you've given. Frankly, I don't think that you'll gain much traction here with your complaint, and it's only in part because of the word-to-evidence ratio of this complaint, which falls down heavily on the word side. Drmies (talk) 04:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hi again Drmies, yes I'm still awake at this ungodly hour a bit busy trying to organise a few things (off-topic: anyone know of reasonable priced hotels in Hawaii, for a honeymoon? if so ping me, thanks.) Now back to the topic at hand. In regards to point 4, you mentioned about no diffs being provided for my quote or who said it etc. It was this one from point 4. In the diff itself, look at the fourth paragraph down, seventh line which reads "and you further copied my words from Khazar2 talk page to justify the nomination". The user basically implies that my comments in response to the GA closure where a word-for-word copy of their own from a different talk page. But there are no similarities whatsoever. My rationale for nominating the 2011 article was purely for comparison sake to put my own mind at ease. The same discussion about whether or not GA's were as a result of the improved way of writing these articles was starting to get monotonous. So I thought for the sake of putting the whole issue to bed, that I would see if this was the case or not. If the article gained GA despite it not being written in the new style, then I would have agreed that what I had originally thought was irrelevant. However, as it failed, it provided something to work on, and by that I mean a style which had been changed via a RfC was showing evidence that it was producing better quality articles, compared to how they were being written previously (if that makes sense). All of this research was to assist myself to write an essay-type guidance for the project, which would provide some sort of rouge editors guide on how to write Eurovision-related articles to a good standard, and hopefully reduce number of factual errors, reduce edit reversions, and help the standard of writing flow easier. So my intentions were of a good nature. If people thought that my nomination was of a bad nature, then I do apologise, but that was not my intentions at all.

• In regards to point 6, I didn't exactly ping him purposely. I read his previous comment (as quoted in point 5) and the way it came across was as if there were some confusion as to why the article had been nominated; which is why I took the time to explain as simple as possible, in case there might have been confusion. However, I never expected to get the long-winded reply that followed it, especially with some rather harsh and attacking phrases. For example "The above doesn't make sense in the presentation that clearly comes from angst to hog everything while trying to eliminate others" I was not saying anything in angst in my prior comment, nor was I trying to hog everything. And I found that to be rather uncalled for, to be honest. What is the meaning behind "So I will try to make logic for you, which may clear (and probably not) your comprehension or deliberate twists, choose the best of the 2 options."? I have noticed that the editor uses quotation marks as a way of adding sarcastic emphasis on certain words too. In the third paragraph, the editor raises examples of cases from discussion that he was not even involved in. So why use those for himself in a combative manner? Also in the paragraph 4, line 3; the editors writes "Your very comment above actually battles with others credit and acknowledgement right to those who you claim to be your colleagues" How can a comment that was trying to explain something in a simplified manner be twisted into a "battle" to take credit away from others? I have never taken credit away from other, on the contrary I share the credit. And why come out with a remark like "all this only speaks volumes of how much you focus on the “GA” as a kind of self-promotion and being in competition". I have never focused on GA's as self-promotion. Although if he wishes to look at the competition side of things, then perhaps he should be aware of WP:WIKICUP, which in one aspect is a competition between editors to see who can get the most GA's and FA's. If working towards improving an article for GA/FA is going to be twisted into some sort of personal "promotion" then I think the wikicup should be abolished, as that is basically promoting such combative competition between editors.
• There's a plethora of places that the editor has very tongue-in-cheek cast attacks at me first, and then expects me to just sit back and take the blows! . The main issue is the casting of what I see as personalised attacks, the usage of other conversations between myself and other users, in a combative and attacking manner, despite the fact that he had no involvement in those discussion whatsoever and thus has no right to be using them for his own personal gain. If the editors wishes to receive civility, then he needs to understand that it also needs to be issued by himself in return. One cannot just cast false assumptions to others and not allow them to defend what has been said, and clarify any misconstruing areas. I'd be happy for that editor to just back off from me for a period of time. And to stop twisting my comments out of context, and then twisting them negatively. Something which he even did to one of your fellow administrators back in February. Wesley Mᴥuse 05:36, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Look, I'm not trying to argue that your opponent has clean hands, I hope that's clear. And if you like I'll reword "this wasn't really a good-faith effort to get the article nominated" to "it wasn't a good effort etc." I'm sure it was a good-faith experiment, but I just don't see enough investment; you did a lot more for the other articles (this wasn't really "your" article in the sense that many others are, so to speak). I see plenty of bad blood between you two, but I don't believe that the charge of hounding or of unacceptable personal attacks (that require intervention) has been proven. The best you can ask for, I think, is a mutual interaction ban, but that's hardly a positive thing given y'all's mutual interest. I still hope, by the way, that some other admins will give their opinion. Happy trails, Drmies (talk) 05:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oh gosh no, I never thought you were trying to argue of the sort. I truly appreciate that you're being helpful and trying to resolve this peacefully with advice etc. It's just the way everything has gone about, especially the fact specific phrases that I used on my own talk page, in which the editor was not even a participant of that discussion, where being quoted by himself. That to me is showing that he had to have been checking up on my talk page to see what I had said. How else would he have known I used the phrase "unwise" in a discussion, and then use the word against me? That to me feels borderline hounding. I'm not sure if it is because the user's English is poor that they word things irrationally, so that it comes across as attacking. But in my eyes, a lot of the stuff he has said has been directed at myself, and negatively at that. Every time he makes a bad assumption against my actions, then I try my best to explain in more simple terms. But I do not expect to receive more abuse after my explanations. If you may recall, there was one incident where you even said some of his words were clear attacking, and I asked the editor to kindly remove them, to which they refused. So I followed the guidance and place the RPA template. He quoted a comment that I made at a TfD when I referred to someone as being "bitchy". If he took the time to read the entire comment itself, he will have noticed that I struck-through the negative comment and then posted an apology to the editor. Yet our Israeli friend (and I'm only referring in that way as I get myself confused with Hebrew text going from right-to-left when typing) concentrated more on the context of the word "bitchy" in a bad faith manner and not notice that I had retracted my comment and apologised to the user. There was just no need for that. I'm happy to move on, and work amicably. But is it not too much to ask for the editor to show some decency and avoid making remarks like he does? Keep his personal grudges about me to himself, no need to be airing them publicly which end up offending and distressing me. C'mon even you know how tough I've had it this past 18 months, what with bereavements and whatnot. Naturally I've had to thicken my skin, but I am still human and still feel the pain of suffering a loss. I don't need one editor to start being nasty with me for no reason. Wesley Mᴥuse 06:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Obvious legal threat

, self explanitory. CombatWombat42 (talk) 18:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That is a legal threat, but also remember WP:DOLT if the information really was false. 2Awwsome 18:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Seems like the change made by the non-legal threat making user was sourced. Either way, I'm not touching it with at 10 foot poll. Thats the point, legal threats are a method of censorship. CombatWombat42 (talk) 18:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Tweaked the article a little to reflect what was listed on the website and the existing edits. Certainly there are problems but we should be able to work with them unless the OP makes another threat. I'll also drop a line about this on WP:WPRS to get some eyes on it from experienced editors. Nate • (chatter) 18:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I updated the page and infobox with more references, added more information to the infobox, after seeing Nate's WPRS post. I'll keep an eye on the page in case any other problems arise. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 03:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Did better on that page than I did, thanks Homer! Nate • (chatter) 04:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

You're Welcome, glad I could help. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 07:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Users 94.43.191.88 and Daylight15

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

• 94.43.191.88 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Daylight15 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Looking at this IP user's talkpage I would have expected him to be blocked, but seeing that he has recently edited Misplaced Pages is understand he is not. I don't know why he was blocked, but I suggest to block him again, because his edits are detrimental to the project. Also, he seems to be the same user as User:Daylight15, who has been making the same edits precisely. If that is so, then perhaps Daylight15 should be blocked as well. If however these two editors are not the same person, then for the registered user I'd recommend a warning or temporary block till the issue has been resolved. Their edits are undiscussed and unexplained changes to spelling on tens of Misplaced Pages articles. I have rolled back all their edits from today in this area. Debresser (talk) 18:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The IP was given a 3-month checkuserblock in June by User:Elockid. The IP is based in Georgia (country). Last July the IP made a request for unblock, but it was declined by User:Ponyo on grounds of block evasion. EdJohnston (talk) 19:56, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

So what about a block now? And what about Daylight15: is he the same user; should he be blocked? Debresser (talk) 21:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Daylight15 was blocked and tagged shortly after Ed Johnson pinged me here, and well before you re-opened my close in order to ask whether Daylight15 should be blocked. As you are now asking me for additional information on my talk page, is there a reason why this section cannot now be closed again?--Jezebel'sPonyo 21:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Since a checkuser has now reblocked the IP and blocked User:Daylight15 indefinitely as a sock of User:Imorthodox23 this thread might as well be closed. For more background see Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Imorthodox23 and WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Imorthodox23. EdJohnston (talk) 22:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

My block of User:Koala15

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

I would like a review of my actions with respect to User:Koala15. Earlier today I closed the discussion at Talk:A Bug's Life#Omit tracklist?. I then implemented the consensus as determined in my close by restoring the version which I understood to be favored by that consensus (I have not previously edited or otherwise been involved with the article). Koala15 twice reverted my effort to implement consensus with language denying the existence of the consensus that I had determined. I then blocked Koala15 (ostensibly for three hours, but I immediately explained on his talk page that I would be glad to unblock him when he is willing to recognize the consensus arrived at in the discussion). Koala15 has objected to my blocking him without warning. bd2412 T 21:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd have given him a warning that a block was coming on the next revert, myself. How about you unblock, saying you should have warned him first? Now that it's clear a block will follow if there's another revert with no consensus, I'm sure he won't just revert the article again, and that's the goal. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I am dubious, but I suppose it can't hurt to try. Thanks. bd2412 T 21:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Done. I suppose this discussion can now be closed as resolved. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Ivan Volodin

There is a normal discussion over a certain matter at WT:FOOTY; Ivan Volodin (talk · contribs) insists on adding this to the bottom of the discussion, it is basically his own personal summary of what he feels are the pros and cons of various possible arguments i.e. pure OR/SYNTH. Rather than helping, I feel it hinders. I have tried to discuss the matter with him but he is having none of it - I have already removed it twice and he has restored it every time. Further input appreciated. GiantSnowman 22:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Brief comment: 1) The discussion was started by myself, so there had been no "normal discussion" prior to that. 2) It is not what I feel are pros and cons, but a fair summary of four discussions that had been held elsewhere, as I explained when starting the new discussion. This is purely for the purpose of not repeating the same arguments but trying to build on previous discussions. 3) GiantSnowman may feel that it hinders, and if this feeling is shared by others - fine. But deleting the content straight away (and not after trying to discuss it) is clearly wrong. 4) The way GiantSnowman " tried to discuss the matter" can be seen on the page in question and on my talk page - this is not "discussion", in my opinion, it is an attempt to impose an opinion on the basis of alleged better understanding of how WP functions. My understanding had been that anyone who knows well enough how WP functions would not behave in that way. Ivan Volodin (talk) 22:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

So there has been no "normal discussion" but there have been (at least!) four previous discussions you took your info from? Mmkay. Who states that it is a "fair summary" of said previous discussions? You? Mmkay. I removed the content per WP:BOLD; you should not have restored it per WP:BRD. Forgive me for thinking I know a bit more about how discussions should operate than an editor with less than 500 edits... GiantSnowman 22:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

OwenX

I want to report an incident with OwenX. I was attempting to make some changes to page for 1.800.Vending to take care of some misinformation and clarify some things. I am not a Misplaced Pages editor and I was mistaken in my approach to doing this. However, OwenX was altogether unhelpful, rude and accusatory, assuming from the start that I was trying to edit the page with negative intent. You can see the exchange here, User talk:23.30.60.249, in which he accuses me of several misdeeds including "corporate cronyism", "vandalism" and others. I would like to request that a formal complaint be filed against him. I'm a firm believer in Misplaced Pages's mission, which I understand to be to provide correct information to the public. This can't be done with users like OwenX refusing to help make clearly logical changes to pages that need them because of some sort of vendetta. 23.30.60.249 (talk) 23:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow. I see plenty of COI, possible group use of an account and definite POV on the talk page referenced. Here I see bad faith. Can anyone say boomerang? John from Idegon (talk) 23:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Boomerang! The talk page is pretty clear that COI editing is going on. The ip editor needs to read WP:COI. The sourcing could be cleaned up a little but if think OwenX is on the right path. JodyB _talk 23:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I think OwenX did a great job on that talk page. Drmies (talk) 00:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Drmargi

https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Richard_Armitage_%28actor%29Talk:Richard Armitage (actor)

https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Richard_Armitage_.28actor.29

Guy Macon's Talk page

If this is too detailed a description of an slapfight, let me know and I will edit it down.

Recently, someone on the talk page of the Richard Armitage (actor) article noted that a recent interview in a magazine came out which contained a quote in which the Armitage said he was 19 at the time of a certain event. This contradicted earlier articles that stated his age was 17. I read the article, considered circumstances and decided it has enough merit. I edited the page to correct the age, including a proper citation. (I could not find the article online, but I cited, author, "article title," publication title, and volume & year.) I also added in parenthesis that this was in contradiction of earlier articles. Drmargi reverted my edit and then on the talk page said, "The article cannot rely on your calculations, which are WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Please find a reliable source that explicitly states Armitage was 19, or we have to go with what the reliable sources provided say. --Drmargi (talk) 18:52, 17 November 2013 (UTC)" I pointed out it was a reliable source and showed her a scan of the article. Again, she insisted the "article was not reliable and the edit not verifiable." I put in a request for a Third Opinion. Another editor came on the talk page and confirmed the article as a reliable source. Drmargi's response dismissed this opinion and included: "KiplingKat wants to be the sole arbiter of which is more reliable and which is accurate, but I find a TV interview and the London Sunday Times more reliable than a minor magazine's quote. KiplingKat needs to entertain the idea that the newer magazine contains the error. Related, WP:SYNTH was applied to her calculation of when he got the card based on when she believed he would have left school, not on the quote in the magazine, which wasn't posted at the time. One person's opinion is not arbitration, and it's just that. An opinion, one with which I disagree. This discussion should continue until there is consensus on one v. the other source, and KK refrain from forcing the edit."

I pointed out that personal attacks did not help her case, but went on discussing the article, pointing out that a Third Opinion had been given.

"I saw it. And it's just that; one editor's opinion, not arbitration, and not binding. The prevailing policy is still WP:CONSENSUS. Your interpretation of the difference between the two is WP:OR, as I noted previously. Again, please AGF; I made nothing like a personal attack, and find your lack of understanding of a number of pertinent policies troubling. --Drmargi (talk) 00:58, 18 November 2013 (UTC)"

This went on for a bit until I suggested a compromise that all parties seemed to agree too, but they insisted I wait for "consensus."

A second Third Opinion came in and concurred, so I edited the article to the agreed compromise.

"You were asked by more than one editor to wait and allow discussion, as just reinforced by Span, which was the move you should have made. I get that you feel you WP:OWN this article; that's been clear for some time, but when you are asked to wait a couple days, allow other editors to discuss, and then made an edit, you wait. We had two different options for the final product (omit age v. include both ages) under consideration, and there's no consensus for one versus the other. This is about the best interest of the article, not your personal agenda or timeline. I'm not going to delete it because I know you'll just edit war it, but you need to remember that you are part of a collaborative process here, not a law unto yourself (and none of that is a personal attack, before you try to play that card again.) --Drmargi (talk) 17:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

At that point, I lost my patience. You can read at the bottom of the article. I did not insult anyone personally, but expressed extreme exasperation of the situation.

I had already put in for a Dispute Resolution. On the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, Drmargi contribution was: "What on earth? By KiplingKat's own assessment, there was consensus on an edit this morning, she made the edit, and now this? It doesn't pass the laugh test. From what I can tell, KiplingKat want someone to tell me what to do, that is, to agree with what she wants.

We discussed the various options for editing and agreed on a course of action with two possibilities for wording (omit age/add both ages with explanation). At that point, Span and I asked KK to wait a couple days before making any changes to both finalize the language and to allow other editors to weigh in, as well as to allow her cool off -- and I'm sure any reader who cares to peruse the talk page history can see that the frenzied tone and equally frenzied revising and re-revising of her posts all day are indicative of the dire need for a cooling off period. But no, she wanted it done because of some earth shattering Hobbit PR thing that had nothing to do with the article (the best interest of the article being the last thing on her mind). Off she went in search of someone, anyone who would say something, anything she could interpret as permission to go ahead, and by morning she'd made the edit she wanted. WP:OWN strikes again.

So why on earth we're here eludes me. I have neither the time nor the inclination to be party to any more of her chaos. She's got the edit she agreed to, and made herself, and now she needs to live with it. --Drmargi (talk) 07:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

She then went on the resolution volunteer's talk page and said, "Thank you for your willingness to take on the requested Dispute Resolution regarding the article on Richard Armitage. Out of respect for your time and the work you have already put in, I wanted to let you know that I do not plan to participate in the DR any further. This is a conduct issue on KiplingKat's part, based largely in her need to WP:OWN the article. Consensus was reached, she herself made the desired edit. The article is accurate, reflective of the content of the sources we have available to use, and verifiable. There is nothing to dispute, much less resolve, and I'm not willing to do anything to encourage any further disruptive editing on KiplingKat's part. All the best to you, --Drmargi (talk) 22:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)"

"Again, thanks for the welcome. There are no content disputes; this is all conduct, and I know where to go. I just don't have any confidence it will do any good. I'd prefer to give KK a wide berth instead. She's most likely run me off the article, just as she has every other editor who has dared to challenge an edit she makes. Best of luck to you! --Drmargi (talk) 23:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)"

Wow. Just wow. I don't think this deserves anything drastic or anything like that, but I think someone needs to "sit down" with her and explain to her that yes, these are personal attacks that have no place in Misplaced Pages's editing environment. The fact she seems to think this is perfectly acceptable behavior is what is wrong. KiplingKat (talk) 01:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Before filing here, KiplingKat filed a DRN case at Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Richard Armitage (actor). As it says in the instructions at the top of the DRN page, we cannot accept disputes that are under discussion at other dispute resolution forums, so I closed the DRN case.

Also, I would have liked being notified that my name was mentioned at ANI rather than stumbling over it by chance. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

My apologies for not notifying you that I was quoting things on your talk page. I'm new to this process. I notified Drmagi, but did not think of the innocent bystander, as it were. I'm sorry. I filed the DRN case, but was told that a discussion of editor conduct was not allowed. I was content to discuss the article only. But Drmargi declared she would not take part in the DNR discussion, that left the conduct issues which I took here. I apologize for any confusion I caused. KiplingKat (talk) 02:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

GERAC

I'm currently engaged in a big dispute with User:Alexbrn and User:QuackGuru as they try to take the German Acupuncture trials article apart. The argument mainly centers around whether the Federal Joint Committee (Germany) can be considered a reliable source, and whether the GERAC are notable at all (I think they are, since they were one of the main reasons why the Federal Joint Committee decided that acupuncture is reimbursable by the statutory health insurances, for low back pain and knee pain). But these questions are already being discussed at the reliable sources noticeboard and at AfD (since Alexbrn has already started a case there).
The reason I ask for input here is the way these two users are going at it. Even though discussion is ongoing, QuackGuru has been tagging the article excessively and deleting sources he doesn't like , while Alexbrn just nukeandpaved almost the entire article when he came to join the discussion today . After reducing the article to a stub, he nominated it for deletion On my objection, I was simply told I obviously don't understand WP policy regarding secondary sources . When I reverted his nukeandpave, he threatened me to be blocked because of edit warring .
As laudable as the works of QG and Alexbrn are in clearing WP of pseudoscience and bogus alt med content, they're overshooting the mark here. Could someone please look into this? Of course I'm willing to discuss anything regarding content and sources, but I feel a little helpless against their rapid actions. --Mallexikon (talk) 08:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Poorly sourced text does not belong in mainspace. I explained this on the talk page. QuackGuru (talk) 08:33, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, we don't agree on this being poorly sourced, do we? But your rationale why the (secondary) Fed. Joint Comm. source shouldn't be used is bogus. And as I pointed out before, WP:MEDRS states very clearly, that in some cases primary sources can be used - to give descriptive information about how the GERAC where done is one of these cases. --Mallexikon (talk) 08:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• A content dispute, other than Mallexikon saying I threatened him/her. My posting an edit-warring notice on their Talk page and warning about 3RR does not constitute a "threat", I think. Alexbrn 08:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Well how about your nukeanpave of sourced material, and then presenting the remaining stub at AfD? (Which has so far be rejected, by the way) --Mallexikon (talk) 08:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

At the AfD page, a user conduct discussion regarding Alexbrn was recommended ... Is this the right place or do I have to take it to a special AN? --Mallexikon (talk) 09:05, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you mean "of poorly-sourced material" - good stuff eh? We're here to improve Misplaced Pages, after all ... Alexbrn 09:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards