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• Refining the administrator elections process
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• Proposed rewrite of WP:BITE
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Spies appear to be editing on Misplaced Pages

Yesterday, I alerted AN/I of a BBC News article reporting that Misplaced Pages has determined that the Democratic Party in the United States has been attacking its opponents on Misplaced Pages. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6947532.stm The CIA also has done the same thing.

Almost immediately, the AN/I warning was removed. I also placed a warning on 4 controversial articles (2 about Democratic Party members and 2 on Republican Party members). All except 1 was immediately removed. This suggests that there may be spies working for 3 of the 4 politicians.

One of the articles that have potential spies working for it is Barack Obama (warning was immediately removed from that talk page.) Ophrahwasontv was writing in that article.

It seems that spies have fooled an administrator into blocking an editor who was proven not to be a sock. See RFCU clearing Ophrahwasontv.

See where it says Unlikely for Oprahwasontv Collaborating with spies, even if by mistake, is bad for wikipedia. Remember, wikipedia determined that there are spies working against us according to the news article. I am shocked by the spies on Misplaced Pages. Orginally, I thought that there would be little controversy about the article since Misplaced Pages, itself, determined that there is spying.

Ophrah should be unblocked as she was blocked because of spies campaigning against her. More importantly, any content dispute should be examined for content, not number of editors editing because that is subject to manipulation by spies.

I don't care about Ophrah so much but people who reported to AN/I (causing her block) fail the duck test. They (the spies who attacked Ophrah) appear like socks and they were NOT cleared by the checkuser. The article they edit contentiously had my Misplaced Pages warning and the warning was removed within seconds.

The duck test is "If you complain about the spies being socks" then you must be a sock (because once a sock did make such complaint). With that flawed duck test, the spies are invincible (everyone who complains about the spies will be blocked indefinitely).

I am not so concerned about Barack Obama or Ophrah. I am concerned about the spy issue on Misplaced Pages. Since Hillary Clinton's article talk page still has my warning, I don't think she has active spies on her article.Warningwarningwarning 23:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

If you feel that there are editors pushing a POV for or against certain politicians, it would be best to name them and provide edit diffs. Otherwise we can't really do anything about it. --Hemlock Martinis 23:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This little tool, http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/, will identify IP edits on wikipedia coming from a specific organization. seems to be down quite a bit (sever load) and slow, however its amazing what it uncovers. Happy hunting--Hu12 23:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This user has been indefinitely blocked for disruption. They were blocked earlier for similar behavior on politician's WP articles, promised the blocking admin they would positively contribute, and then re-started this all as soon as the shortened 24 hr block expired.

I have indef blocked on the grounds that this is disruption and a single-purpose account. Georgewilliamherbert 23:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Warningwarningwarning (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has just given himself away as being another sock of banned user Dereks1x. Oprahwasontv (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was just blocked as another one of his 30 socks. See this and above here. I would suggest that bhwin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) also be blocked as per this: not as a sock of myself, Bobblehead, Jersyko et al, but as another SPA sock of Dereks1x, established, again, in a lame attempt to legitimize the bogus RFCU on us. Tvoz |talk 23:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

"Spies" editing Misplaced Pages? That's a fresh new twist on the cabal conspiracy theories... Grandmasterka 00:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually no it's not. I heard on the radio just the other day about how government officials in the US have been tampering with the Iranian pages... Timeshift 00:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and you don't have to just hear it on the radio, it is on the wikiscanner website, so you can see for yourself once it is back up. Not to say that the edits are bad, particularly from the CIA. Although it is a tad distressing this is how they are passing time. =) daveh4h 01:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not about whether there is factual evidence of those edits by the CIA, other agencies, companies, etc... That's now widely known, and has been for some days now. There was no emergency or emergent situation that justified trying to plaster large sections of the encyclopedia with warnings like this. Georgewilliamherbert 01:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If it weren't for the sockpuppet relation, I would say that indefinitely blocking this guy is a bit out of line. It is not unreasonable to imagine someone, not familiar with Misplaced Pages, hearing about this and trying to start discussion about it. I recall not too long ago a teacher being blocked because they posted a survey (about Misplaced Pages editing) to some user talk pages, without even getting a warning before the block. We shouldn't forget that many people will not know how we normally do things, and we shouldn't be quick to block like this. -- Ned Scott 00:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

In this case, the deciding factor for me was that they promised to change behavior to get the first block length reduced, and then immediately turned around and started the behavior once the block expired.

I am much more tolerant of troublesome editors who just don't get it than I am of ones who appear to intentionally decieve admins. There are many explanations for not getting it; there's only one for such deception: it's an account for which WP:AGF has been shown to be a mistake.

Anything is possible, and if this turns out somehow bizarrely to have been a misjudgement on my part then so be it, it can be reversed. But this person had several chances and has done pretty much the clearly worst thing they could after each one, short of outright baldly attacking other editors here.

If you want to give them another chance, I won't stop you, but I suspect you'll be dissapointed. Georgewilliamherbert 00:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, a good point. Given that he said he would change his behavior, it would be at that point that we know he was aware of how we do things. -- Ned Scott 01:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

You can submit your findings here as well. By the way, your thread title is misleading. I don't think a NYT editor can be described as a spy when editing wikipedia from h/er office. -- FayssalF - 10:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

A quick aside about the CIA editing wikipedia

Although cyberspace has no national boundaries, Misplaced Pages's servers are based in Florida, USA, and the domain name ".org" is a US registration. If my reading of Tom Clancy novels - and other sources of folklore - are correct isn't the CIA prohibited from operating within US territory? I don't suppose it matters much to the Foundation, but it may have implications for the Agency. LessHeard vanU 13:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK (and I too am a fan of Clancy) they can't carry out illegal actions on US soil, or operations such as surveillance or wiretaps. I don't see that this would stop them editing Misplaced Pages, which anyone is entitled to do. However, I'm not an expert. Walton 13:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

According to a CIA spokesperson, "the US Intelligence agency is editing Misplaced Pages pages in order to save Americans lives". Of course they are entitled to edit but i just find their reasons odd. Editors here are not entitled to defend anyone's interests. -- FayssalF - 14:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, if they put outside interests ahead of Misplaced Pages's interests, that's a conflict. There's nothing special about the CIA as far as we are concerned. I'm not aware of any law that says website operators must allow the CIA to review and modify content as they see fit. Somehow I don't think many Congress people will vote for CIA censorship of websites, given that we have the First Amendment and the Constitution. - Jehochman 14:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes WP:COI but sneaky vandalism as well at Ahmadinejad's article. ;) -- FayssalF - 14:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I can imagine a number of BLP violations that could put lives at risk. THF 14:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(Reply to Jehochman) So you're saying that our internal policy of neutrality is more important than saving lives? For the record, I'm not American, and I certainly don't endorse routine censorship of websites. However, it's established that the intelligence and security services of the free, Western world have a right and a duty to do what is necessary to protect citizens' lives. Misplaced Pages's policies are important to us, but they are not the most important thing in the world. Morally, we should not be fighting against the intelligence services (whether American, British or otherwise) who are daily risking their lives to protect citizens. The situation would be totally different if a dictatorship such as North Korea or Iran, or a terrorist group, was editing Misplaced Pages to advance their agenda - they should be stopped. But not the people whose mission is to defend the free world. My moral commitment to freedom and protection of lives trumps my commitment to Misplaced Pages policies any day, and I hope others feel the same. Walton 14:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree w/ you about it is important to know what comes first (saving lives) but i believe your analysis is totally biased. What about CIA covert operations all over the world? (i.e Project FUBELT and tens of others) Saving lives? What about lies and misleading info about Iraq WMD? How many people died because of that war? -- FayssalF - 15:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

As an aside to an aside, I don't think OhmyNews is a terribly reliable source of information. The article FayssalF references above has several highly questionable, unsourced claims. I could be wrong, but until I see something more trustworthy, I sort of doubt that's a direct quote by a "CIA spokesperson". And did Wikipeida really "hire" Virgil Griffith? --barneca (talk) 15:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It is on the BBC link above. And did Wikipeida really "hire" Virgil Griffith? Is this a conspiracy theory? So Misplaced Pages may only have recruited Virgil to trap the CIA. What about SONY, The Vatican, Al Jazeera, etc... editting? Is this a joke? -- FayssalF - 15:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No, not a joke. The OhmyNews link you provided says, specifically, that Misplaced Pages "hired" Virgil Griffith. I don't think that is true. I use that as evidence that this particular source is questionable. The BBC article does not quote the CIA spokesperson as saying "the US Intelligence agency is editing Misplaced Pages pages in order to save Americans lives". That appears to be a paraphrase made up by the OhmyNews reporter. --barneca (talk) 15:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe but that's irrelevant as Walton was implying that CIA people are editing to save people's lives. How? He was also implying that CIA can edit but not the Iranian govt! This is insane. The important thing here are wikipedia policies and not charity. We are not a law enforcement body. If CIA has to edit here then it should abide by Misplaced Pages rules. If you think otherwise than CIA editing Misplaced Pages would not have appeared in most mainstream media around the world. And please tell me how come CIA editing would save lives? -- FayssalF - 15:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you think I have some agenda here. All I was pointing out is that I don't think a CIA spokesperson actually said the CIA is "editing Misplaced Pages pages in order to save Americans lives", and that the whole OhmyNews article should be taken with a giant grain of salt. Anything else you read into my comment is either confusing me with Walton, putting words in my mouth, or I suppose possibly my lack of clarity. That's why I called it an aside to an aside. I'll leave you and Walton to continue your discussion, and move on to other things. --barneca (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The news story may well be junk. As pointed out above, it's on a single website and isn't corroborated by published sources. And I, too, doubt the accuracy of the statement they ascribe to an unnamed "CIA spokesperson". In response to FayssalF's earlier comments, yes, my analysis is slightly biased. 99.9% of the time, I, like other Wikipedians, abide by WP:NPOV and Misplaced Pages's other core content policies while editing Misplaced Pages. However, Misplaced Pages is in the real world, and there are fundamental values which, for me, supersede Misplaced Pages's internal policies. This is not intended as a partisan rant; I don't endorse all the actions of the CIA, and, as I said, I'm not even American. But we have to trust the people whose job it is to defend freedom and democracy, even if they (like everyone else) sometimes make mistakes, or take morally questionable actions for the greater good. Walton 15:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Why? --John 15:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Which part of my statement does your query refer to? Walton 15:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Why? But we have to trust the people whose job it is to defend freedom and democracy. Do you have to trust people who lied about WMD? It was the CIA who were responsible of a death of almost a million people in this shitty war. -- FayssalF - 15:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, the CIA was pretty much on target about the intelligence leading up to the shitty war. Their reports were skeptical of claims that Iraq had a meaningful nuclear development program (or chemical weapons other than relics from before the first Gulf War), and generally agreed with the international inspection teams' failure to find any evidence of an active nuclear program.

The blame, in other words, goes higher in the administration, which ignored the CIA's skepticism and sought out competing intelligence that supported their desire for a case for war. The CIA has some very ugly dirt in its past, but as far as the Iraq war is concerned it seems to be pretty clean.

That doesn't excuse them for messing with Misplaced Pages to push an agenda, however. If they're making edits that go against the customary rules, they deserve the same reverts and locks any other agenda-pushing editor deserves. (And I agree that the "saving lives" argument is bogus; if something is public information it belongs here. If it's a "saving lives" sort of secret, it doesn't belong here because secrets are unverified, pretty much by definition.) -- Steve Schonberger 10:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) Sorry I wasn't clear. Why do you believe we "have to trust" an intelligence agency, who, for all they may well be trying to "defend freedom and democracy", will also by definition be working according to their own priorities, one of which is probably not to improve this on-line encyclopedia? --John 15:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Given that the CIA's covert operations are not public knowledge, any alleged revelation of any alleged CIA operations are not possible to verify according to Misplaced Pages standards, and are thus inherently ineligible for inclusion in Misplaced Pages. Baseball Bugs 15:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Just because a government agancy uses "saving lives" as an excuse doesn't mean its true. I am sure people at the agency see their core goal as saving american lives so they could say that everything they do is to save lives. We could also probably save lives by rewriting history and writing out all the reasons for strife. We should not blindly trust "the people whose job it is to defend freedom," or we lose the freedom we are trying to protect. I am sure the KGB and the North Korean intelligence services also claim to be saving lives and protecting freedom. If the CIA wants to edit wikipedia articles let them follow the same rules that we all follow. -- Diletante 15:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

To answer various points. In response to John, yes, of course the CIA and other government agencies are working according to their own priorities, and not to improve the encyclopedia. However, what I was saying is that the priorities of security and intelligence agencies - saving lives and protecting freedom - are more important than improving Misplaced Pages. Don't get me wrong. I value Misplaced Pages, I think it's a great project, and I've dedicated hours of my life to it. But we should remember that there are things in the real world which are more important than the accuracy and completeness of our encyclopedia; security and freedom are among them. As to Baseball Bugs' point, no one is aiming to reveal alleged CIA operations or include them in Misplaced Pages; that's not what this discussion is about. Walton 15:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, heavens. I am no fan of the new CIA, the political one, the one happy to undo the reforms of 1974, or any intelligence agency, but CIA editors are just editors. <shrug> It's possible that some wild-eyed editor writes, into an article, "Currently in a bunker at coordinates X by Y" and CIA editors know that that's actually a real position of troops, but the edit would be part of our usual process. If, on the other hand, they try to get Dick Cheney's house erased from photos on Misplaced Pages, that's another matter. They're just regular users, with regular rights, albeit with possibly specialized knowledge. Geogre 15:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of that, but not all. If the CIA, MI6, or another relevant agency privately contacted Misplaced Pages admins or the Foundation and asked to have a piece of sourced information removed from Misplaced Pages on the grounds of national security, then I hope we would do it. As a loyal British citizen, I can assure you that if MI5 or MI6 contacted me and asked me to make certain edits to Misplaced Pages, or use my administrative tools for a certain purpose, on the grounds of national security, then I would do as they requested. (Not that this would ever be likely - they'd more likely contact the Foundation directly.) Walton 15:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

And if there was an indication that you had done the latter, I would ask that you be desysopped. Hornplease 20:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

To put it another way, if a reliable, published source has some information about CIA operations, then it is eligible for inclusion. And if it's already published, then the "saving lives" argument goes down the drain. Baseball Bugs 15:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not at all what I was saying. I was saying that if, in theory, the CIA were to ask us to remove something that was cited to a reliable published source (whether about CIA operations or any other topic) on the grounds of national security, then we should do so. Bear in mind that even if something has already been published, putting it on Misplaced Pages (a high traffic site) is likely to significantly increase its exposure. If the CIA, MI6, or another relevant agency asks us to change Misplaced Pages in the interests of national security, we shouldn't ask why, or quibble. We should do it straight away. Walton 16:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That's the odd point Walton. In Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines, it is not mentioned that you have to accept requests from CIA agents AND NOT from the Thai or Zambia's intelligence. It is about common sense and not about which agency contacted you. Would you deny Pakistani or Iranian intelligence services requests in case they'd contact you? -- FayssalF - 16:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Woah, did something change while I was sleeping? We are still a free country, right? --Kbdank71 16:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree completely, If the CIA asks the foundation to do something we SHOULD quibble AND ask why. We should not do it straight away without talking to a lawyer and recieving a court-order. THat is what freedom is, bowing to the whims of three letter agencies destroys our freedom. In the US our FIRST right ennumarated is freedom of speech and the press. -- Diletante 16:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Since when is there any evidence that anyone who is actually from the CIA has asked Misplaced Pages to do anything? Baseball Bugs 16:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I have just been asked by my CIA handler to archive this hypothetical discussion begun by a disruptive sockpuppet so that we can all get back to work saving lives building the encyclopedia. MastCell 16:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes please because someone has just used this thread at wired.com in the form of a complaint! They even know who is an admin and who is not! -- FayssalF - 16:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Forsooth! Ods bodkins! Sufferin' succotash! Baseball Bugs 16:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)...Er, folks, it was just a lighthearted comment. As far as I am aware the FBI acts within US territory interest and the CIA outside - but a lot of Misplaced Pages is physically within the USA.

For one, I would be delighted if either or both agencies (and those of other Nations) were to openly contribute to WP - intelligence gathering is a lot more to do with sifting and analysing information from various legitimate sources than the cloak and dagger stuff; access to that kind of database would be incredible - but I am not so happy if some of the bastions of democracy (y'know - the goodies who would never lie or do anything bad, and are answerable to their mistakes) were to introduce bias into the encyclopedia. It is difficult enough trying to convince individuals that their beliefs or opinions are not legitimate grounds to alter pieces, I don't even want to try picking through the edits of professional purveyors of half truths.

As for the argument that defending democracy legitimises the use of non democratic methods is akin to the old joke of fucking for virginity. They are supposed to be working for us, not the other way round. LessHeard vanU 19:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

My comments here seem to have sparked a lot of controversy, so I'll clarify. All I was saying was that both individual Wikipedians, and Misplaced Pages as an organisation, have a duty to aid the lawful authorities of their respective countries. I stated earlier that if MI5 or the UK government were to ask me to perform certain edits or sysop actions to Misplaced Pages in the interests of national security, then I would do so; it's extremely unlikely that this would ever happen, however. I was just trying to make the point that my loyalty as a British citizen outweighs my loyalty to Misplaced Pages. Likewise, the Wikimedia Foundation is an American institution, and has a moral obligation to aid the authorities of the United States, if asked to do so on the grounds of national security. If the CIA or FBI were to ask the Foundation to make certain edits - including oversight removal of information - then the Foundation should just do it. They shouldn't quibble, ask questions, or throw the matter open to debate. There are values more important than Misplaced Pages's internal policies and guidelines, and loyalty to our respective countries is one of them. Walton 11:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry if my comments have affected you Walton or been misinterpreted but Misplaced Pages is no battleground. We have editors from all over the world here and if everyone would execute the orders or at least requests of their respective intelligence agencies then it would be a total mess especially that not all agencies are working together (well at least and according to notable media venues most intelligences have worked in harmony against the widespread terrorist activities around the world). CIA and the Syrian intelligence (just to name one and not tens) have been working together in good and bad stuff. Please also have a look at this . True or not true is not our problem as long as it is well sourced.

Please bear in mind that Misplaced Pages main activity is to document sourced events. It means information which was already been appearing at the news or at least somewhere where public has already been informed. In case there is something unsourced (most probably it would be controversial or maybe dangerous to human lives) then be assured that ANYONE can delete such garbage as we have policies giving us that right. So a scenario where an intelligence service would contact you is nonsense. In extreme cases, those people know whom to contact and surely would not contact you.

Again, everyone is allowed to edit unless WP:COI is affected or vandalism involved. In other words, Misplaced Pages already does its job which you think you could have done it in case someone contacts you. The problem is if those agencies come here to delete references to things they don't want people to read about, in most cases not involving people lives but any those organizations' reputation (i.e. "Black sites"). In that case, i assure you that Misplaced Pages comes first and not people lives as no people life would be in danger if someone removes something about "Black sites". Cheers. -- FayssalF - 17:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:COI is a guideline. --Tbeatty 14:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe you failed to get my point. As i said, if people's live are in danger than, they would know whom to contact and surely would not contact you or me. If there's no people's life in danger than they would have to pay attention to WP:COI. What about Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation editing the same articles the CIA would edit and they'd get into an edit war? Who would try to mediate or block one or both of them if they persist w/o "trying to discuss"? You? Or would you edit war yourselves?. - FayssalF - 20:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It would appear that Conflict of Interest is more and more acceptable in the encyclopedia. And not just for US interests (though they compromise the integrity of the project too). PalestineRemembered 14:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest always has been, and always will be, impossible to prevent. There is no way to police who makes every edit and people with a direct interest in things often know/care the most about it. That's why we have a guideline rather than a policy about COIs. We discourage users from editing in areas where they have a conflict, but do not prevent it. We have neutrality and sourcing policies precisely to deal with COIs and other biases. Thus, COI is no more or less 'acceptable' than it has ever been... it exists. And we deal with it in the same way we always have.

As to the whole 'CIA/MI5 over-ride' discussion... anything which can be properly sourced is widely available already. If Misplaced Pages is giving something vastly wider coverage than it had previously then it doesn't belong in Misplaced Pages to begin with. So, if Misplaced Pages reported Geraldo's infamous 'troop movements moment' that isn't putting anyone at risk because the info was already widely distributed... if a soldier in the field posted the same thing such that it was available on Misplaced Pages and nowhere else it couldn't be sourced and should be removed. Ditto Misplaced Pages reporting on 'Valerie Plame' vs a NOC outed only on an obscure website and not picked up by the mainstream media. Misplaced Pages collects and retains information about things which have already been found notable by the rest of the world. Any information which is 'secret' doesn't belong here. Anything else which we might be asked to remove would be more on the order of altering the historical record to hide facts that are otherwise commonly available... and thus I'd be very much against it. --CBD 12:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This is all getting very silly. Did you know that Misplaced Pages has contained CIA-generated content for years -- Misplaced Pages:Status of the porting of the CIA World Factbook. And did you know that we'd probably accept material from other intelligence agencies if they released it under a free license. (So if they can afford to lose all that copyright revenue on secret documents, they've managed to infiltrate Misplaced Pages.) Beyond that, as long as they don't violate the usual rules & guidelines (e.g. WP:COI), anyone can edit Misplaced Pages. -- llywrch 21:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's the most recent edit by the CIA, http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Lightsaber_combat&diff=prev&oldid=148067857 , go read it yourself. PROOF OF A CONSPIRACY!!! Calibas 02:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

BetacommandBot and commons

Ive started a bot to move images to commons please see User:Betacommand/Commons β 13:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If that bot moves any of the free images I uploaded, I will block it. I don't want them on Commons, where I can't keep an eye on them and have them on my watchlist. Are you going to bother to ask users first if they want their images moved, or do you know best? Neil ム 16:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

wtf? read the wording of the GFDL. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

He said he'd block, not sue for copyright infringement. There are a lot of things that are legal to do in the US that will still get you blocked on WP. --W.marsh 18:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

One do not make threats about blocking the bot. Two if they are free images they should be on commons. Three please see WP:OWN. Four if you want to civilly discuss this then please do but threats are not a good thing. β 17:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I hurt the bot's feelings. Why should they be on Commons? Please point me in the direction of the relevant policy that says this is the case. This is civil - please ask users before moving their images, as a courtesy, if nothing else. I would imagine many many users would not be happy, particularly if they hold the same opinion of Commons I do. Neil ム 17:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

What have you got against commons? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec - note I was refactoring my response and got conflicted). I don't like Commons because it takes away local control, and allows people to merrily upload pictures of their meat and two veg and vandalise Misplaced Pages with them. I also don't like it because I wouldn't be able to watchlist my images. Neil ム 17:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Commons has a watchlist feature just like en Misplaced Pages. Videmus Omnia 17:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

But I don't want to have two jump between two accounts. Sigh. Neil ム 17:22, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok please see WP:OWN as soon as you uploaded those images under a free license they no longer belong to you. so if wikipedians think they should be on commons then that is where they will go. as for not being able to watch images, do you have e-mail? commons e-mails you when pages on your watchlist change β 17:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No problem, I will delete them and reupload them under a suitable tag. Is there a tag I can apply to ensure they don't move to Commons? Neil ム 17:22, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

why not just use the commons e-mail tool? β 17:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Why should I have to? Neil ム 17:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think maybe you're missing the point that they're not your images. Videmus Omnia 17:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Neil, only if they are fair use. Otherwise, free images can (and preferably will) go to Commons. And once they are uploaded, they not yours. Majorly (talk) 17:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This isn't true. You own images you license under GFDL, you just have to let other people use them. But you still own them. Quite frankly, Neil is also well within his administrative priviledge to block Betacommandbot for disrupting Misplaced Pages to prove a point. Moving images to commons is disruptive. WilyD 19:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think suggesting I would block the bot was one thing I should not have done. Neil ム 20:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It makes perfect sense that they would be added to Commons, what doesn't make sense is that they would then be deleted from the English Misplaced Pages, an act which helps Commons not at all and only makes our life more difficult. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is with Commons rather than the bot which is unhelpful but legit

I share Neil's sentiment but I must add Neil has no means on doing anything to have it his way. By uploading the images to Misplaced Pages under Commons-compatible license he has no way of preventing them being uploaded to commons. That said, this brings us back to the most serious problem of commons, its being subject to flukes. Suppose the editor uploads a free image to WP. Then, someone moves it to commons. Soon enough the WP copy gets deleted. Then, after the new attack of Commons' wannabe copyright lawyers (wanna a couple of names? can give you ten!) the image gets deleted from commons because the commons' view on a particular copyright rule changes again. Misplaced Pages image is gone by now. Result: article looses an image.

How can it happen? Many scenarios. Only user-created images uploaded under GFDL or cc-by-sa are reasonably safe forever. PD? No. Rules change. One day commons may move to allowing only world-wide PD images. Are you sure there is no country where the life of copyright is 300 years since the death of the author? Or that there cannot be in 5 years? Copyright laws do change retroactively sometimes.

Next: suppose the PD image is sourced to a web-site. In three years the site goes down. Some freak from the "copyright patrol" (wanna name? I can give you ten!) tags it as "source invalid", in ten days image is gone. Image's author who would have a better chance noticing the event on-wiki has no idea with what is going on on commons. Result is the same. Article looses image.

The problem is not the bot. The problem is with Commons. Neil, I share your sentiment. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do. You can beg Betacommand and his friends to not move your image but this would be asking for a favor and I doubt it would work. --Irpen 17:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Neil, while you may hold the copyright on the images, they have been licensed in such a way that we can copy them any way we want. What is more, Misplaced Pages has never made any sort of promise to you that it will host your images. If you want them to stay on Misplaced Pages, you best bet is to ask nicely, because you are not in a position to demand. Blocking the bot for such an action would be a highly inappropriate use of your admin tools. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Massive edit conflict ... what they all said, with a few additions, the most important one being about the ability to restore deleted images. If the Commons policy is in some way different from the EN policy, we admins can restore an EN deleted image, drop us a note. Or, well, I hate to even mention this, but if someone deletes an image for ... other inappropriate reasons ..., we can restore it as well. --AnonEMouse 17:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

He's already deleting them. I am disappointed that an Admin would be this unaware of the terms of the GFDL, and would take such action. Of course, any particularly good photos can be undeleted, since the GFDL license can't be revoked. Thatcher131 17:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Does GFDL require that attribution must remain? Neil ム 17:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Thatcher131 17:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Then please explain where my attribution has gone from and . Then tell me again why Commons respects GFDL. Neil ム 17:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well that image wasnt copied from wikipedia, if you want I can show you a few examples of my move to commons. I copy the upload history, page history, and the page text. making the transwiki'ing of images 100% GDFL compliant and covering all the bases and ensuring all users get credit for their work. β 17:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That sounds great, Bc. Please do point to an example. --AnonEMouse 20:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Neil, I suspect the problem was that you didn't explicitly give attribution in the image text, you just put GFDL-self, and assumed the self-part would be obvious. Betacommand, can you make sure the bot notes any GFDL attribution when moving an image to Commons? This includes giving the user name of the uploader when using GFDL-self. --AnonEMouse 17:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Apparently commons user c:User:Billy1125 uploaded them without properly attributing them. You could ask on commons for them to be deleted or you could provide the proper information. Although I have not examined BCBot's code (and wouldn't know what to look for if I did) I suspect that the Bot will properly attribute all images, since failing to do so would raise yet another shitstorm. Allowing your images to be moved by the bot (or moving them yourself) would be the best way to guarantee proper attribution. Thatcher131 17:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

see my comment above. β 17:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Massive edit conflict. Thatcher, You are right about the "yes" above but not fully right that GFDL cannot be revoked. Technically it can be revoked but it won't affect the derivative work where the image is already used or prevent taking a copy from the source where the originally GFDL image is copied. But one can prevent the image from being copied from the original place he uploaded it to by revoking GFDL. This is a technicality that affects little though. However, this has little to do with the problem of commons that make editors resent having their images move there. But, again, there is nothing one can do. True enough. --Irpen 17:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Neil (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) appears to be using his admin-bit to delete his GFDL images in protest under the "user request" CSD criteria. This seems disruptive, petty, and poor conduct to boot. It's terribly disappointing, and sets a poor precedent. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If I were an admin, I would gladly follow his example. It's for nothing that I uploaded some of the images to Misplaced Pages rather than to Commons. Take Prokudin-Gorsky images, dating from before 1915. Some of them were modernized and colored by myself, and I could reasonably expect that my name as the uploader will be shown. Not at all. These pictures have long ago been moved to Commons and now may be seen on websites all over the world, without proper attribution of the original uploader or person responsible for their restoration. Can anybody name the person responsible for the restoration of Image:Sochi edited.jpg? Only I can. --Ghirla 13:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

He stopped at 13:31, August 17, 2007 Neil (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Image:Lincolnblack.jpg". Thank goodness. --AnonEMouse 18:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the few of them that were used in articles and not yet "commonized". The rest are only used in Neil's gallery and in one talk archive. Миша13 18:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

He just deleted another: "11:13, 17 August 2007 Neil (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Image:Dryskislope1.jpg" (GFDL revoked. See my talk page.)" Petty. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

You are entitled to your opinion, Chairboy, but name-calling is not helpful. I have used my revoked any GFDL licensing associated with those images, until I can find a satisfactory license. Please see the note on my talk page regarding this. Neil ム 18:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not calling you a name, I'm ascribing the motivation of "pettiness" to your actions. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it is a good time to start doing something about the commons' problems as outlined above? We should at least try. --Irpen 17:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

C'mon, you know that AN/I has no dominion over commons. The question is whether Betacommand's bot obeys all requirements (attribution, etc.) - it does. Some users may be concerned over images deleted at commons, but it's easy enough to keep track of all transwikied files, the bot could even be modified to include a "Images transferred by such-and-such" cat in the process. ˉˉ╦╩ 18:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, my higher priority than moving images is checking that things other people copied to commons was done properly. Just yesterday I found one of my photos had been copied there almost a year ago without attribution by someone who obviously didn't know it was necessary. In that time no one had figured out that a whole set of photos had been improperly copied from en.wiki to the very same image names. How hard would that be to check? — Laura Scudder ☎ 14:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Improper speedy deletions of the images should be reverted. The images should only be deleted if they've gone through a deletion review process. Neil, just because you uploaded the images doesn't mean you can delete them whenever you want to. Corvus cornix 18:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Would those images not be eligible for a speedy G7 deletion? Or does that not apply to images (and if so, why not? WP:SPEEDY says that "General criteria...apply to all namespaces."). --ElKevbo 18:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

As Neil has resumed his image deletion spree, now claiming to have revoked the GFDL from his images, and seems to have no intention of stopping, I have blocked him for 24 hours. I regret that this is necessary, but he is using his admin tools to disrupt the project on a potentially massive scale. --Krimpet 18:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocking an admin doesn't prevent him or her from using admin tools. Mike R 18:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a bit much for even a mop wielding mouse without a law degree. User talk:Mikegodwin#Time for the WP's official copyright lawyer to weigh in. --AnonEMouse 18:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Both Neils' deletions and blocking him are wrong solutions of a serious problem whose real solution is long overdue. --Irpen 18:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocking Neil is absurd and it's only going to make this conflict worse. If he isn't unblocked very soon, I'm going to review his unblock request. Sarah 18:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Krimpet unblocked Neil after off-line discussion in which Neil agreed to stop deleting and talk it out. Mike Godwin hasn't yet weighed in, but I suspect will probably be the definitive voice here. More news available at a very reasonable price ...  :-) --AnonEMouse 19:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict w/above)I apologize if my block was on the hasty side =/ -- I only resorted to a block as I was concerned that he intended to continue deleting images. After discussing it with him in private, he has promised to me that he will pursue his concerns in the proper forums, and I have unblocked him. --Krimpet 19:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, commons is a problem but this is even a bigger problem that plagues the Misplaced Pages. Please never ever "block on the hasty side"!. --Irpen 19:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• One potential problem with commons that I haven't seen raised is the reason why commons was created: to a be a common repository of images that could be used across a range of projects. In other words, all the different language Wikipedias, and other projects as well, I believe, can use the same image that is on Commons. This is a feature, and often a desirable one. The "usage" tool on Commons exists to allow people to track how their images (where 'their' refers to them as the photographer) are being used. However, there will always be people who don't want to do things this way, and would prefer to limit their images to just one location. I wonder if there is a way to have a licence that does this: "free, but only use here"? Or is that against everything that the free content movement stands for? One of my free pictures was picked up and used in the French Misplaced Pages, which I was very pleased about, but I'm less certain what my reaction would be if I saw a picture I took being used in an article that was written in a language I didn't understand ((eg. Japanese). I would want to be sure they were not misusing the picture, but maybe this points at the real problem. A photographer releasing free pictures must, at some point, trust the re-users of the content to use the free pictures responsibly. Carcharoth 19:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Misplaced Pages is free! You need to understand what this means. Anyone can reuse your photo for any reason they like provided the follow the GFDL. There is nothing to stop somone bypassing commons and copying and pasting your image to another language wikipedia. There is nothing to stop soming copying and pasting your image to another internet site, even one you heartily disaprove of. If you licence under a free licence users are free to do whatever they want with the image as long as they follow the licence instructions. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Krimpet... I agree with Irpen, please think and discuss before you block. Now you seem to be apologizing to WP:ANI for a hasty block — what's that about? How about a word of regret to Neil, in his actual block log? You do realize it was previously squeaky clean, but will now forever more be displaying your claim that he used admin tools disruptively ? Followed only by your rather ungracious unblock message? Think about it. Please. Bishonen | talk 19:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC).

Bish, Krimpet has apologised and I have accepted. I don't think it's productive going after her at this juncture. Neil ム 20:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see widespread condemnation of his actions. As entertaining as jumping up and down on him after he's unblocked might seem, he performed a block he felt was correct, and unblocked it when Neil agreed to stop his spree and help work out a solution to this mess. If you still have a problem w/ Krimpet, do something about it other than sniping at an 'easy target'. While you're at it, do you disagree with the assertion that Neil was disrupting the project to make a point? 1. This conversation is evidence enough that he caused disruption, and 2. He's doing this to make a point about Commons, which he has a self-described irrational dislike of. Before you try and start a pile-up, consider the context please. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I won't comment other than to point out deleting 4 images is not a spree in any sense of the word. Neil ム 20:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's not jump up and down on either Krimpet, or Neil, they've made peace. We can talk about the issues, try to reach agreement ourselves, wait for Mike Godwin to be the Voice From On High, or both, but recriminations can only make things worse, not better. Let's aim for better. --AnonEMouse 20:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm w/ AnonEMouse on this. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocking was a bad move. Images can be undeleted after discussion, there was no emergency here. Neil, as far as I can tell the problem with your images on commons is that a user uploaded images he did not own and used a false license. It's not as though this problem is unique to commons. There as here, no one knows about the problem until they are informed. I have a commons user ID and would be happy to fix the info if you wish. Or you could ask a commons admin to delete them and then transwiki them properly. In fact, the best way to preserve your attribution would be to let BCBot do your images. Thatcher131 20:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• Could someone please explain, or point to an explanation, of the problems with Commons. I agree with some of the descriptions of these problems, and have stated some above. I'd like to also respond to two points above:
  • (a) Theresa Knott said: "Misplaced Pages is free!" Yes, I know that. But images are different from text. Text can be mercilessly edited. Images can be edited too, but there are restrictions on that. This might boil down to creative control. Many photographers contributing free content have no problem with their pictures being redistributed, but do have problems with their pictures being altered: (a) cropping; (b) cleaning; (c) colour levels; (d) other photoshopping stuff. Ditto for inappropriate use (eg. misleading captions), and failure to credit the photographer. Could someone explain to me which CC licence (the 'some rights reserved' stuff) is best for addressing these concerns, as opposed to the GFDL (was that license ever even intended to be used for photographs?).
  • (b) Christopher Parham said: "It makes perfect sense that they would be added to Commons, what doesn't make sense is that they would then be deleted from the English Misplaced Pages, an act which helps Commons not at all and only makes our life more difficult." - could he or someone explain this in more detail? Or point somewhere where this is clearly explained?
• Thanks. Carcharoth 20:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
  • • What gives you the idea that images are different than text? Images can be mercilessly edited according to both the GFDL and the CC by SA. The fact that we choose not to on the whole doesn't mean the licence stops us. If photographers have a problem with their images being photoshopped then they must not upload them to wikipedia. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is the loss of control in moveing an image to commons and deleteing it from en. Commons is a seperate project with different priorities and lower levels of anti-vandle skills.Geni 20:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

When an image is deleted from here, editors can no longer include it on their English Misplaced Pages watchlist and administrators can no longer protect it. Changes to the image obviously affect our product but aren't in our recent changes list, aren't in our administrative logs. If we find recent changes, watchlists, protection, etc. to be useful features, why are we systematically destroying them in regard to free images? Deleting the image also introduces confusion about what is the proper place to discuss the image with regard to its inclusion in this encyclopedia: at the commons talk page or at the talk page of the deleted image page here? Commons isn't helped in any way by deleting the image from Misplaced Pages, so the effort we put into deleting images that have been moved to Commons is pretty counterproductive. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

You cannot "revoke" GFDL. From the license itself "Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein". "unlimited in duration". Thats the whole point of GFDL, and it is why people on Misplaced Pages do not get to control their contributions. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 21:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That would be true if GFDL were a contract; it is a licence, and can be revoked as long as the contributor remains the sole contributor. Neil ム 21:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Extreamly doubtful. Once you have released something under the GFDL people can continue to use it under the GFDL as long as they can get of hold of a copy.Geni 21:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There no such concept as a "contributor" in GFDL. When you upload an image you own as GFDL, you're giving the Wikimedia Foundation a irrevocable license to use the image for any purpose. And very time someone's browser downloads this image, this person gets a irrevocable license to use the image for any purpose. That said, if you delete this image from Misplaced Pages, I can, for instance, re-upload it under a different name, as long as I credit you as the author and tag it as gfdl. --Abu badali 21:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Now you're all talking about the trees instead of the forest, but let me just point out something really obvious. I write, "Flannery O'Connor's stories always have a theological content, and she said that her sole theme was grace." Now, it gets edited. Fine. It turns into, "Flannery O'Connor ate boogers and liked a girl called grace." That's no longer my contribution. I.e. no one would credit the last statement to me. No one would say that it was my contribution. In fact, it's so obvious as to hardly need saying. However what is going on with the editing of a photograph is that the edits make it no longer the same photograph. I.e. it is no longer "My pet bird" but "Editor Bobo's picture of a bird." Because photographs are single objects rather than documents, because they "mean" all at once rather than in sequence, there is no way to change it "a little" and have it be "mostly the same." The moment you edit it, it's not the same thing at all. Therefore, any edit of a photograph is, in a sense, a brand new photograph that requires separate licensure. The original contributor basically allowed others to use the photograph, including using it as the basis of a new artwork created by editing, but the edited object is not the original. I would be miffed if someone said, "Geogre said Flannery O'Connor was a lesbian," and I'd be miffed if the photo of my pet bird suddenly had a pirate under its claws. It isn't that people can't edit -- the license allows that -- but then the result of any editing is no longer covered by the original donation/license. Geogre 21:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I believe you're more or less mistaken. I can only change your Flannery O'Connor's statements in my Flannery O'Connor statement because you licensed your Flannery O'Connor under GFDL. My newly created Flannery O'Connor is a derivative work from your original work, and we are co-authors. And per GFDL, I have the obligation to credit you and me, and the obligation to license my derived Flannery O'Connor's statement under GFDL (the viral copyleft thing). If I fail to credit you or to license the derivative work as GFDL, I'm violating your copyrights.

This is in no way different with images. When I draw a pirate on your bird's picture, I'm using my gfdl-granted right to create a derivative work. Again, we (you and me) are the authors of the derivative work. If I refuse to license this derivative work as GFDL, I'm also refusing my GFDL-granted right to use the image. --Abu badali 22:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There are other laws which would see people get into a lot of trouble for inappropriately photoshopping GFDL pictures, such as those of a living person. That and basic ethics. This is why I, on principle, don't upload pictures of people under the GFDL. A more restrictive licence, yes, but not one that allows alteration of the original image. The equivalent here is changing a picture of Flannery O'Connor to "show" that Flannery O'Connor "is a lesbian". By the way, thanks to Geogre for using this example: Flannery O'Connor is a nice story, if a somewhat sad one. Anyway, the point is that images are different from text. Collaborative editing on a piece of text is very different to collaborative editing on an image. Try it some time. Carcharoth 22:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Which is why GFDL is not a very good license for pictures. See also the "moral rights" story in the Signpost this week, regarding the CC 3.0 license: Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2007-08-13/CC 3.0. Carcharoth 22:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you understand that Misplaced Pages's policies does not allow you to upload images of living people under any license that would prevent modification? --Abu badali 23:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes I do understand that. When I said "I, on principle, don't upload pictures of people under the GFDL.", that translates to "I, on principle, don't upload pictures of people". You seemed to have interpreted it the other way, as meaning "I upload them under a different license", which is not what I meant. Another way to put this is: I'm not going to take a picture of someone and then say to them "is it OK if I upload this picture to the internet under a license that allows anyone to do what they want with it?" I wouldn't give someone permission to upload a GFDL picture of myself, so I don't presume to ask other people that question. It's an ethical stance, based partly on personality rights: "the right of every individual to control the commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness, or some other identifying aspect of identity". Essentially, there are other ways to bar commercial use of content, over and above the GFDL. Essentially, the GFDL does not operate in a vacuum. You have to consider other laws. If modication of a GFDL image leads to fraud, defamation, libel or slander, then the copyright status of the image becomes irrelevant. Do you understand that? Carcharoth 23:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• And from that Signpost story: "Moral rights, as defined by most legal systems, include the right to "the integrity of the work", barring the work from alteration, distortion or mutilation." - that is the sort of clause I would be happy with. If someone can confirm to me that this new CC 3.0 license is better in that respect than the GFDL, I will upload any future pictures I take to Commons and allow free distribution, but not "alteration, distortion or mutilation". Or am I misunderstanding all this (quite possibly!). Any advice would be appreciated (and sorry for posting this here - where would be a better place to continue the discussion?). Carcharoth 23:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
  • On reflection, I think my position is better stated as "you are welcome to take a copy of the picture and modify it, but please remove me from the list of authors, I only want to be associated with the picture I took, not the modifed form you produce". But then that runs into the situations of people only cleaning or slightly cropping an image - I'd still want to be credited as the major author of the photograph. It is more the, "I'm going to take a copy of your picture, run it through a shredder, invert the colours, throw a can of paint over it, doodle on it, and then call it art" cases, that would lead me to say "well, I'd prefer it if you don't associate me with that". Does that make any sense? Carcharoth 23:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Christopher Parham's point above was a good one: deleting images that have been copied to Commons causes more problems than it solves, particularly with images whose copyright has expired. Since the English Misplaced Pages requires only that these images be public domain in the United States, while Commons requires that they also be public domain in the source country, the transwikiing process is full of traps for the unwary. Many images tagged {{PD-US}}, and at least some that are tagged {{PD-Art}} and {{PD-art-life-70}}, do not meet Commons's licensing requirements and are likely to be deleted there when someone finally notices them, but many people who transwiki images are unaware of this.

If we stopped deleting images after they have been transwikied, then Commons could make its own decisions about them without their being lost from Misplaced Pages articles. —Celithemis 00:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know why anyone hasn't pointed this out, but a huge problem with moving images to Commons with a bot is that all the time people upload images under "GFDL" or "PD" that aren't, and are found on Google Image Search or the like. These usually get deleted after a time, but odds are the bot will just mindlessly copy them over, aggravating the Commons folk and vastly increasing the damage. —Dark•Shikari 04:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • to address Dark Shikari's issues I will not automatically transwiki images to commons just because {{commons ok}} is on the image. I only allow certain users to tag images to be transwikied users who use the commons ok and are not approved just get ignored. Users who tag images to be moved to commons are noted on the commons image when its moved. If I get a complaint from commons I will remove said user from the list and ask questions later. β 05:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Not a lawyer, but I think that people are getting hung up on the difference between licensing an image and hosting an image. I think that it's GFDL for good once it's been released as such, but that doesn't mean that we have some moral obligation to keep the image here for people to see and copy. The free/unfree status of the image is not dependant upon its presence in any particular location, so it'd be just as free after it was deleted here as it was before - it'd just be less easily accessable. -Hit bull, win steak 15:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

"No Commons" template

I feel that Commons has thoroughly discredited itself on many levels, so that many wikipedians are reluctant to have anything to do with it. Is it possible for them to upload their images under GFDL, specifying that they prohibit the image from being used on one particular website (and that particular website will be Commons)? If this solution is legally possible, I will create Template:GFDL noCommons and reupload some of my pictures under this license. Your opinions are welcome. --Ghirla 13:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Ghirla, such a template is not legally possible, and is ludicrous besides. By releasing your image under the GFDL, you are giving blanket permission for it to be used by anyone who abides by the terms of the license agreement, which Commons most certainly does. This is a necessary requirement for something to be free. If a work cannot be freely redistributed it isn't free at all, and we wouldn't accept it on the site. We do not allow users to upload their images with restrictive requirements. No "by permission only" and certainly no restrictions on where the image can be used. --Cyde Weys 14:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if you want that level of control over your intellectual property, then don't set it free with a free license. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not think this could be legally possible. GFDL and such restriction seems to be incompatible. Perhaps the only way to avoid an image to be transferred to Commons would be to tag it with a licence that is compatible here on Misplaced Pages but not compatible on Commons. But an important point is that this argument is made of two rather separate points. One is that an image is copied to Commons and the other is that is delete from Misplaced Pages. Since the main part of the problem is the second one (since a person who has upload an image here under GFDL was ok that the image was copied anywhere and in modified version too, I can no see that the main problem could be the copy to Commons). So preventing the copy to Commons would not solve the actually problem, but it would just a way to stop this procedure. By the way even preventing a new image to be copied to Commons, would not prevent that an old image could be copied to Commons (and this even if the image was delete).

One more point that I would like to note is that if an image is delete and that is not what the community wants, the image should be restored. Now here there is the difference that it is automatically believed that an image once upload to Commons could be (safely) delete from wikipedia and does not to be restore on wikipedia. Now the short way to solve out the problem that an image is delete is to undelete it, and add a note of the reason of that, putting a note that the image is not delete again for it have been uploaded to Commons. But on the other hands it should be investigated the reason why an image should be delete (for instance having it on more than one place use disk space - i am actually not sure on this), and it would be a good idea to discuss the problem arose with this discussion among the involved communities (including not only the English Misplaced Pages and Commons, but possibly other projects too and surely involving developers - since the reasons for commons to exists are first of all of technical reason).

All of this actually rise me one more question. Would be interesting a feature that allow to include on a page a specific version of an image? This would avoid the problem that a page is vandalized by change an image that it include. (a similar result would be get by forbidding to uplad an image with the same name, but this is a way that I like less). -- AnyFile 14:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no license a Wikipedian is allowed to upload under that is incompatible with Commons. You must choose a free license when uploading an image, either (certain) Creative Commons, GFDL, public domain, or something like it. We do not allow users to upload their own work under more restrictive fair use clauses. --Cyde Weys 14:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Please see WP:AN#Crafting a response to attempted GFDL revocations; it is very relevant to this discussion. --Cyde Weys 15:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to second the position that you may not license an image to be used on Misplaced Pages under conditions that do not allow it to be copied to Commons. There are legitimate issues on Commons with miscopying information when things get moved, deletion policy, and such, which should be corrected or otherwise dealt with—but not by using a restrictive license as a tool to exclude content from it. (I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping a local copy of images that get copied to Commons, if people feel strongly about it.) Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 16:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

CSD I8 is not sacrosanct. It can be rewritten or removed, if that's what the collective wisdom suggests. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

If there is a real risk of an image we would consider acceptable being deleted on commons or replaced with a significantly different image, then I8 should be modified. I8 assumes that the existence of a commons image makes it pointless to have a local copy. A different risk of deletion or change at commons invalidates that assumption. I say this as a matter of logic, while holding no opinion on the actual risk level. GRBerry 03:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It is pehaps worth noting at this point that CSD I8 says that images may not be deleted under it if the image description page contains an objection to moving them to Commons. So, while you may not actually stop anyone from copying your free image to Commons — provided they do so according to the license you've chosen, in particular preserving attribution where required — simply writing "I do not want this image to be moved to Commons." on the image description page is enough to prevent it from being deleted from Misplaced Pages. (And yes, there probably should be a template to that effect, if there isn't already.) Personally, I think doing so is silly and counterproductive, but if you want redundant copies of your images to be kept on enwiki, you can have it that way. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The project has NEVER been wikipedia only. If you don't want your image to be copied to any website in the world then don't release it under a free license. We don't want non free material. Secretlondon 14:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm slightly amazed that someone can get to be an administrator and yet still not understand free content.. Secretlondon 14:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Preventing a move to Commons is legally impossible, obviously. But how about we change WP:CSD#I8 to say "The image cannot be deleted if the original uploader objects for any reason"? --- RockMFR 19:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Frankly, no. That only encourages WP:OWNership and petty WP:POINT responses like the above by Neil. I echo Secretlondon's amazement, and believe Neil should have his adminship revoked. >Radiant< 12:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  As per my message on your talk page, Radiant, either file an RFC or stop making such comments. I am not asking for the image to be Misplaced Pages only - I have no objection whatsoever to it being copied to Commons or anywhere else. All am I asking is that a local copy be retained. I am not sure how that should lead to my adminship being revoked. Neil ム 17:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  How is this statement supportable, in light of your attempt to rescind the GFDL licensing of your images? You were clearly disrupting the project to make a point about Commons. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  For which I was blocked while discussions took place, and when I agreed to no longer attempt to revoke anything, I was unblocked with a polite apology. Yes, I did attempt to revoke GFDL. I was convinced not to, for the good of the project, and will not do attempt to do so again. Can we let it go yet? Neil ム 21:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Something perhaps not pointed out so far

Guys, I see this, and all the legal wrangling in this thread is not what worries me in the slightest. What worries me is several problems with bad image uploads that newbie users seem to have. I do constant image patrol and see these all the time:

1. Faux licenses. There are dozens of images per day which are uploaded under a clearly false pd license (e.g., screencaps). A bot that blindly copies them to commons will be abetting this problem.
2. WP:NOT#MYSPACE problems. I also see a ridiculous amount of image uploads which are just "me and my boyfriend johnie!" with no other contributions. Why move these to commons.
3. Commons already has a huge backlog. You think ours is bad. There's is months - this will exacerbate the problem. This is not just a philosophical problem. Uploading ridiculous amounts of pd images means fewer eyes to spot errors, and fewer admins to hit the delete button. This will greatly compound problem images.
4. Notifying users of images up for deletion is no longer possible.

Please think of all this before wholesale approving this bot. The Evil Spartan 20:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Please note that I am the bot operator in this case and I agree with the points that you have stated. the automatic transwiki doesnt just happen because {{Commons ok}} is on the image. I only accept images tagged from approved users. (users who know what they are doing and have been added to my list) such users should understand and be able judge images that are ok for commons. all my bot does is allow users to easily move appropriate images to commons. those users are logged on the uploaded commons page. If I get a user who abuses the process and a commons admin brings this to my attention I will revoke access no questions asked and said user might be blocked under our WP:DISRUPT policy. such abuse is not welcome and I hope users who are trusted with access to the tool have enough respect and intelligence not to screw things up. β 21:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

If indeed the bot is run in such a way, this would alleviate a good many of my concerns. I just think that we should be sure there is a pair of eyes that see an image before it is transfered. The Evil Spartan 00:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've uploaded many images under the GFDL. Someone could legally re-upload them all with "This image sucks!!!" written over them. And yet I don't think anyone would say we have to provide hosting for that, even if it is legal, so arguments purely along the lines of "We have to allow it because it's legal" are naive here. My point is that maybe we should look beyond what's legal and think about what's best for the project. If someone is contributing images and really wants a local copy to remain, we don't have to let that happen... but would it kill us to do so? Deleting the local copy when all it apparently accomplishes is annoying the uploader, and possibly making them not want to ever contribute anything again, seems like the actual WP:POINT being made here here. --W.marsh 01:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we just say, then, that the uploader has no authority to prevent anyone moving a free image to Commons (and indeed voluntarily relinquished such authority the moment (s)he chose to license the image under a free license), but that a local copy will be retained if the uploader so requests? I personally don't see the point, the accounts are still as free at Commons as they ever were and come complete with a watchlist, but I've never had anyone object to an image move to Commons. For those few who do, we'll move it but keep a local copy too. What would be wrong with that? Whether anyone likes it or not, Commons is a sister project devoted to free images, and free images in the end belong there just as much as dictionary definitions belong on Wiktionary. Seraphimblade 01:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, then, to create a template that amounts to Template:Keep copy here which contains text for users and is recognized like a reverse robots.txt by bots ... it says 'go ahead and copy, but just copy and nothing more'. Or ... one could parameterize Template:Commons ok with 'leavecopy' and values 'y' or 'n'. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. --Ghirla 08:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Perverted Justice

I've just gone through Perverted-Justice and removed all outbound links to their site because they are redirecting all our traffic to page set up for the "Misplaced Pages Visitor" which discusses Misplaced Pages as a "Corporate sex offender" and our alleged protection of pedophiles, "Literally, anyone that points out the large-scale pedophile campaign to subvert Misplaced Pages is an enemy to Misplaced Pages itself, according to them. Due to that, we've set up this redirect to properly inform Misplaced Pages readers regarding this important issue. With Misplaced Pages continuing to try to get their project used in classrooms across the world, it's important to note the danger inherent in the public accepting the project as being factual considering their acceptance of even extremist special interests such as pedophile activists as legitimate editors of their "encyclopedia." " The page also has links, similar to those some might remember User:XavierVE posted before he was indefinitely blocked a few days ago, to a "Misplaced Pages Campaign" page which contains a list of Misplaced Pages editors alleged to pedophiles. Related AN/I discussion here. Sarah 07:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes should be delinked completely as an attack site and any related accounts blocked as necessary. Theres no place for ideological witchhunts on wikipedia, for any purpose. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 07:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What about all theese links from other wikipedia pages? Do they all need to go too? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 08:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe the policy is to remove absolutely all links to pages that attack wikipedia editors, and block people who re-introduce them. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 08:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

PJ itself doesn't host the content which complicates matters.Geni 12:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how that matters. Furthermore, wouldn't it be prudent to go ahead and add this to the blacklist (for now)? --ElKevbo 15:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That... is exactly what they accuse us of doing. Is there some reason why we're trying to hide criticism from a legitimate and active organisation? Would it not be better to counter it? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

...in fact, now I've read their post, to try and claim Peej is an attack site is utterly unjustified. Their reasons for listing us as Corporate Sex Offender is "Misplaced Pages accepts pedophiles as editors with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.". But we do. Pedophiles who do not self-identify as pedophiles are not blocked, but allowed to edit. Why are we trying to hide this fact and label the site that respectfully and politely points that out as some kind of vicious attack site? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how you can say it isn't an attack site. The page refers users to a site where wiki editors are labelled pedophiles. The basis for these allegations are little more than hearsay. The founder of that site was blocked from editing here because of such frivolous personal attacks. He's just taken those attacks elsewhere. That he's decided to manipulate the encyclopedia in this manner to further this personal crusae should not be tolerated. Vagr4nt 20:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dev. How do you think PJ is going to take this? Do you think they'll understand what an "attack site" is? Or do you think that will just support their case that Misplaced Pages is "supporting" pedophiles? Didn't ArbCom want to be informed by email about pedo related stuff?

I really don't see that this as an attack site. I think if outbound links to the PJ main site redirect to the "Hello Misplaced Pages Visitor!" page, that would be ok, the only issue is they are complicating outbound links where they are used as a reference. Maybe this can be explained to them. If the outside world hears the Misplaced Pages has labeled PJ an attack site, some eyebrows are going to be raised. Just a note. daveh4h 15:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I agree with your statement that it's " an attack site" but if all of our links to the site are being redirected then our links to the site are pretty useless for nearly every purpose. From a purely practical point of view, until those links are allowed to link to...whatever they're supposed to link to, our links to that website need to be edited or removed as they're simply not serving their intended function. --ElKevbo 15:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That is so completely not the point. If their redirection is making it difficult to use it as a source, we should be contacting Peej to ask if they will either take their redirect down or provide an option to go on to the page linked to in the first place. I fail to see how that in any way warrants blacklisting Peej altogether. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

If you (or anyone else) can resolve the matter then that would obviously be the way to go. It would certainly be easier than us doing anything (removing links, hiding them, etc.).

Further, I don't necessarily support blacklisting this website. I merely offered that it would be prudent if the decision were made to block the site then adding it to the blacklist would seem to be the easiest way to do it. --ElKevbo 15:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, if ArbCom asked to be notified of events like this, has anyone done so? --ElKevbo 16:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The whole idiotic "no links to attack sites" policy amounts to a witchhunt in its own regard; see my essay on the subject. Nevertheless, the site's redirecting of inbound links from Misplaced Pages to a different page is grounds for temporary delinking until they change this behavior. *Dan T.* 15:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it's useless like this, and given my experience with XavierVE, I doubt it'll ever be useful. Prohibitions against linking to attack sites are stupid, prohibitions against linking to attack pages make much more sense. As long as they're forcing us to do the latter, we might as well drop all the links. WilyD 15:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I will contact Peej to ask if they will either take down this redirect or allow people to go on to the original link. In return, could I please ask that this absurd delinking stop until I get a reply. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not experiencing this redirecting. Powers 15:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I am. Are you sure that you're using a link from Misplaced Pages? I just made one of the links in their main article active (in a preview; edit was not saved) and it does get redirected. --ElKevbo 16:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I am experiencing it too. I have emailed their admin address and will report back regarding what they do. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 16:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe your browser is configured not to send referrer strings when you follow links? *Dan T.* 16:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

As one of the blockers of XavierVE, I have to say, removing all these links is a mistake. PJ serves a useful purpose and that is not as an attack site. You'll note that it does not specifically target Misplaced Pages. It's a broad, partisan site that does publish some negative information, but it is not an attack site, and definitely not one that is designed against wikipedia. ⇒ SWATJester 16:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

If they're all redirected then most of the links do not serve their intended purpose. I think one could make an argument that links intended just to link to the website without linking a specific document on the website (i.e. the PJ official website in the article's "External links" section) be preserved. But other links that are used as references for specific documents no longer link to those documents and need to be dealt with as we deal with other "dead" links. --ElKevbo 16:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

For those who dont know Xavier got blocked indefinitely a few days ago. This isnt the first time this has happened, very reminiscent of when Daniel Brandt, who was also indefinitely blocked at the time, did the same thing (witht he same BADSITES controversy Dan refers to. I agree with Dev on this one. I think the links should be restored but with the nowiki command so they have to be pasted in to one's webbrowser, which is what happened in the Brandt situation, SqueakBox 19:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

First off, of course it's an "attack site", by any reasonable definition of "attack site". I don't think they'd deny that they're interested in attacking, exposing, shaming, and ultimately destroying pedophiles; that's rather the whole point! But if they're attacking Misplaced Pages as a "corporate sex offender" for not participating in their crusade, then they've strayed beyond that ambit: instead of targeting pedophiles they're now targeting anyone who is insufficiently zealous in rooting out pedophiles. Misplaced Pages has no obligation to indulge that sort of "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists pedophiles" attitude.

Second, if they're redirecting links from Misplaced Pages to a page full of attacks on Misplaced Pages, then those links are not useful references. If you intend to make links to various pages on their site, but in fact those links get redirected to a page full of libel about Misplaced Pages editors, then there is no point in having those links -- they're actually a net negative for Misplaced Pages readers. --FOo 20:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I broke all the links used as references, so now they have to be entered directly into a browser and no longer redirect. Problem solved as far as I can see. Arkalochori 20:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I just got a reply from Peej:

We could do that, but Misplaced Pages policies state that any redirection is

cause for delisting. Plus, the other point of contention, we're not going to stop linking the Misplaced Pages Campaign article on our CSO Wiki. Which ironically is linked from other places in Misplaced Pages without a massive firestorm of anger being raised (see, Pedophile Article Watch talk page).

We're quite pleased with the links being removed from Misplaced Pages. This will do two things, one, it will reduce the google relevancy of the Misplaced Pages article about us, an article rife with error and editors whose sole purpose is to try to use Misplaced Pages to attack us. Secondly, having the article without links to our organization but links to other organizations that attack us will make the average person, unaware of the problems of Misplaced Pages, wonder why the hell the article has such a overt bias.

Lastly, the idea that websites cannot "respond" to a Misplaced Pages article by redirecting is quite curious. The policy itself is nonsensical. It is Misplaced Pages saying that their editors, no matter who they are, can write whatever they wish about a subject and that subject has no right of response. 'Tis an unjust, silly policy and one we have no interest in

cooperating with.

So, ignoring the aggressiveness of the email, I have to ask: our policy on redirection says WHAT?! Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

They're clearly trying to provoke Misplaced Pages into showing bias against them, so that they can in turn use this against Misplaced Pages. Aggressive enforcement of the pseudo-policy against linking to "attack sites" plays right into the hands of people like that; all they have to do is make their own site into an "attack site" in the eyes of the BADSITES warriors to get Misplaced Pages to be heavyhanded in censoring it, which can be a public-relations coup for them if their aim is to show that Misplaced Pages is a nest of censors who can't stand criticism. *Dan T.* 21:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

We completely are if we block all of Peej because they don't like our policy on pedophiles. It's not like they're being abusive. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 21:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a situation where WIkipedia is damned if we do, and damned if we don't. If we remove the links, which PJ admits are only designed to insult and denigrate all of Misplaced Pages as a group of pedos, or pedo-lovers, PJ says 'they won't link to us 'cause we tell teh troof.', and if we DO link to them, then we're 'all STUPID kiddie-touchers who can't even prevent PJ from bringing teh ebil into da lite'. Either way, Misplaced Pages is going to look bad.

I'd also be willing to wager that XavierVE is monitoring this very thread, and enjoying our frustrations. This is also clearly him 'punishing' Misplaced Pages for banning him for his libelous behaviors and attacks on our editors. I am concerned he may go even fruther with this 'revenge' theme, and go after additional editors whove offended him in the past.

Given that we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't, I'd say that the above mentioned cut n paste situation is probably dishonest, and we should instead put a template at the top stating 'Some source links in this article may cause your browser to go elsewhere, as a result of deliberate hostilities against Misplaced Pages by PJ.com'. readers can figure out for themselves taht PJ isn't interested in promoting balacned and well cited coverage, and will (hopefully) understand that instead, PJ is agenda warrioring the situation, which would make them look childish. Go for a solution as radically transparent as possible, one that makes it clear that PJ won't allow readers to read about PJ if they come from Misplaced Pages. Let the readers figure it out. ThuranX 21:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

While our policies on pedophiles is significantly better than it was at the beginning of Martch (which PJ acknowledges while lauding the actions of Jimbo and Fred Bauder) it still, IMO, has a long way to go. Perhaps instead of trying to label PJ as a BADSITE we should look at our current pedophiel policy and certain things are going on re that on wikipedia (such as the locking down of the terrible POV pro-pedophilia activism and our tolerancce of editors who dont identify as pedophiles on wikipedia but do do so off wikipedia in a way that makes it obvious it is the same person). I put the PJ criticism, obviously with a ref, inott he criticism of wikipedia article a couple of months back and it was certainly still there before this lastest event came up. Thanks for giving us Peej's email, certainly confirms to me that we should not have an article about tis founder and be extra careful re BLP in the PJ article itself, SqueakBox 21:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, this is almost certainly the case, and I suspect they'll just keep escalating the provocation until we're forced to do something. I've dug through XavierVE's history a lot since I was the one who deleted his User talk after he was banned to purge all the problems (which it was rife with) and it's very clear he came here with the purpose of getting himself banned to show that Misplaced Pages is a safe haven for pedophiles. I'm sure he'll just keep provoking us, and I'm sure the only thing we can do that makes sense and will be effective is ignore it. As long as we can't link to his website correctly, I see no point in trying and failing. WilyD 21:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, with all the rhetoric going back and forth, I'm going to ask: Are they making unfounded accusations against specific editors? If so, we need to get rid of links to it posthaste, as we should most certainly not be linking to sites which call a specific editor a pedophile or anything else. On the other hand, it appears to me that they are criticizing Misplaced Pages in general. While they may do so in harsh tones, I see no reason not to link to such a site. Even the New York Times has criticized Misplaced Pages as a whole at various times, shall we ban all links to them? Refuse to link to Slashdot, as posts there are often critical of Misplaced Pages? There is nothing to be gained by simply refusing to acknowledge criticism of the project in general. If it is well-founded, we should take it to heart; if unfounded, we should simply ignore it. Attempting to suppress it lends it credence, is that what we really want to do here? Seraphimblade 21:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Acusations against individual editors are on their corporatesexoffenders site rather than their PJ one although the page you are redirected to links to the corporatesexoffenders site.Geni 21:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly how "doesn't appreciate it when you run around calling random people pedophiles" translated to "supports pedophiles," and yes, the timing of this with Xavier's blocking makes this all seem rather petty; those are factors to consider in terms of our overall approach, here, but we shouldn't be writing articles in terms of who we are or aren't on good terms with (see NPOV, after all), and I'd prefer we didn't let ourselves get sucked into an adverserial whirlwind for no particular reason. My greater concern is that, with the links redirected, they're no longer going where they're intended to go. The nowiki solution appears to fix that well enough, for the time being. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What a pointless thing to do. Misplaced Pages, as an entity, is now a "passive" sex-offender? Ten thousands people are being slandered because we refuse to acquiesce to his point of view in our articles and policies? Wonderful. Yeah, whatever. Personal feelings aside, he has rendered it impossible to link to his website.... however, you can still us his website as a source if you don't actually link the address. ELs are never required to cite a source... even if it's an online source. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not reasonable for anyone to expect to draft Misplaced Pages into their campaign, no matter how right and good that campaign may be. Misplaced Pages cannot be anti-pedophile any more than Misplaced Pages can be anti-Mafia. Indeed, we can probably talk about this problem more sanely if we use the Mafia as metaphor:

We report truthfully on notable and newsworthy crimes committed by the Mafia, but the project itself doesn't take a stand that the Mafia is evil. We certainly don't take the direction of Mafia-related articles from the FBI, the Carabinieri, or anti-Mafia crusaders.

Even if almost all Misplaced Pages editors hate the Mafia and regard it as an incarnation of evil itself, Misplaced Pages as a project is limited to reporting the facts. It is utterly wrong for an anti-Mafia project to demand of Misplaced Pages that we bar mafiosi from contributing. It is simply libel to accuse Misplaced Pages of being mafioso simply because we won't adopt anti-Mafia policies. --FOo 03:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

There are many efficient ways to deal with the possible problems of "pro-pedophile" edits and listing Misplaced Pages as a corporate sex offender is not one of them. Recently, I speedy closed the AfD of NAMBLA and was accused of siding with the pedophiles and of making Misplaced Pages a sex offender. In my mind, this is a clear sign that the push to expunge perceived pedophile POV from Misplaced Pages has taken a definite turn towards witch hunting. In fact, I would not be surprised if the mere expression of my sentiment gets me a few "who's side are you on?" questions. Let's make things clear: no we don't ask if editors are pedophiles and it would be rather silly of us to ask since anyone with an agenda can easily lie. That's not how we do things: we watch articles, we edit them, we block people who try to push a point of view with utter disregard for consensus. It's a lot more time consuming but it's also a lot more effective in the long run. We don't delete articles because we find their subject objectionable, we make sure they stick to the facts. PJ thinks we should do things differently and I'm sure they'll be welcomed at Conservapedia but this is how we've worked and it's working pretty good overall.

Of course, as a practical matter, the links should be removed or nowikied. But I suggest it's also worth revisiting their relevance on a case by case basis in any case. The website of PJ is most certainly not a reliable source or one with the required level of objectivity and attention to details like, say, truth. I just don't understand why they would even be mentioned on the Criticism of Misplaced Pages article. Let's face it, this is a marginal organisation with very questionable methods: if the New York Times or even The Christian Post starts labeling Misplaced Pages as a corporate sex offender then it'll make sense to include this but PJ? Give me a break... Whatever happened to due weight?

Yeah, I'm sure PJ will get a kick out of posing as the victim of censorship. But I don't see any sensible argument for why we should care. Pascal.Tesson 04:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you said, but I do feel obligated to point out that if Peej's methods were "questionable" they a) wouldn't have Information Sharing Agreements with 2/3rds of the law enforcement departments in the US and b) would not have successfully had 221 pedophiles convicted representing an 100% success rate. Given how useless my local Child Protection agency is in comparison to that, I find it very unfair that you would attempt to call them marginable. Certainly if I were a pedophile I would have stopped hanging out in US regional chatrooms by now. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 08:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree strongly with the removal of the P-J link from Criticism of Misplaced Pages. Such censorship (that's what it is, folks) just makes us look like we have something to hide, which is of course the (intended?) effect of the counterproductive BADSITES policy. But even if the link goes, I really can't understand removing all traces of P-J's criticism from the article. This absolutely makes us look like we're hiding something. It's not for us to decide if an organization like P-J is so "marginal" that we shouldn't even allow a reference to them in Criticism of Misplaced Pages. As Dev920 points out, there is at least a strong case that the organization isn't "marginal" in any objective sense of the word. I am restoring P-J's comments on Misplaced Pages to Criticism of Misplaced Pages, though I won't restore the link, pending a community decision. Casey Abell 13:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Replace "pedophile" with "communist" or "atheist" or "fascist" or "darwinist" or anything else. Attacking editors is grounds for delinking the site from wikipedia. People who re-introduce the material that is offensive to SlimVirgin and CBerlet get banned immediately, I don't see why this should be different.

It doesn't matter whether it's true or false. It doesn't matter whether a wikipedia editor is a convicted criminal, a pedophile, a war criminal, an Israeli spy, a CIA agent, a space alien - none of that matters, only the person's behavior on here, and trying to expose some kind of potentially damaging personal information about an editor is not acceptable. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 12:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that P-J's comment now restored to Criticism of Misplaced Pages is a general criticism of the project. The comment doesn't even mention any specific editors, much less attack them. If we're going to start censoring such general criticism of Misplaced Pages based on the asinine BADSITES policy, we deserve all the bad press we can eat. Casey Abell 13:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Harassment#Off-wiki_harassment Harassment of other Wikipedians through the use of external links is considered equivalent to the posting of personal attacks on Misplaced Pages...off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. see also WP:NPA#Off-wiki_personal_attacks. We need no longer believe that these individuals on-wiki actions in adding these sites was in good faith. Blacklisting is also a viable choice.--Hu12 13:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This is America, a relatively free country, and neither wikipedia nor any other organization or individual is under any obligation to make public statements about any public issue. The allegation that wikipedia is "protecting" pedophiles (or rapists or bank robbers or whatever), presumably by not asking them "are you now or have you ever been a pedophile (or rapist or bank robber or whatever)?" is your basic McCarthyism. I'm reminded of the story of a film director being grilled by the HUAC. A committee member asks him if he's ever made a pro-Communist film. "No!" Then another committe member, with raised eyebrow, asks if he's ever made an "anti-Communist" film. There's no winning that kind of game. Baseball Bugs 13:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind repeating myself. I am not restoring the link to the P-J redirect page, even though I disagree with its removal. I'll let community consensus decide that issue, though the redirect page contains no mentions of specific WP editors, much less attacks on them. But, yes, this is America, and P-J has every right to criticize Misplaced Pages in general for what they see as failings of the project. Eliminating all mention of that criticism from articles such as Criticism of Misplaced Pages just makes Misplaced Pages look bad and P-J look...well, not exactly good but certainly the more innocent party. Is this what P-J's critics want? Casey Abell 14:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it does not make Misplaced Pages look bad: it makes it look consistent with its content policies. That section of criticism of Misplaced Pages focuses on Misplaced Pages's presumed problem with "contributors with idiosyncratic beliefs". Ironically enough, the notion that Misplaced Pages is a corporate sex offender is precisely an "idiosyncratic belief" and one that should be given due weight. PJ is of course free to think this but it's important to stress that this accusation is not taken seriously by anyone of note and in particular is not taken seriously by law enforcement. I just don't see how this can be treated any differently than a rant on some mildly successful blog. Undoubtedly, PJ will have a field day with the removal and will pose as the victim but we have to stand up to the bully and recognize PJ for what it is: a small extremist organization with dubious methods. Yes, we tend to be more sympathetic to it because we perceive it as having ultimately worthwhile goals but this is beyond the point. They are unquestionably efficient and the parallel with McCarthyism is very good. Even participating in this thread is risky: if you bad mouth PJ you'll become a suspect, a censor, someone who for whatever motive is trying to protect pedophiles (and hey, what motive could that be? wink wink nudge nudge). You'll get accusations like the ones here thrown at you, you may end up on PJ's suspect list like User:Tony Sandel which most likely means you get a flood of abuse on your talk page from anons wound up by PJ's attack page. Let's return to sanity: there's no good reason to link to the PJ website from anywhere but the Perverted Justice article. Pascal.Tesson 16:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Why are you determined to badmouth Peej? I just wrote you a post above countering your accusation that they use dodgey methods and your response is to claim that they are small (which at 45,000 members and 221 pedophiles locked up, multiple websites and well into the Charitabke foundation process they emphatically are not), extremist (they want pedophiles locked up and children to be able to surf safely online - if that is an extremist goal you'd better lock up most of the Western world), and use dubious methods (221 pedophiles locked away, acres of press coverage, agreements with almost every law enforcement organisation in the entire United States, you'd think someone would have shut them down by now if their methods were dubious. Instead they get ask to work with departments to do mass stings. That's a ridiculous claim.). Every point I just made is readily available on the Peej website, and on the media coverage of Peej. So why do you insist they're an enemy? :::Peej's beef with us is that we don't hunt down and ban pedophiles - which we don't. I fail to see what is slanderous about that. If they want to label us a Corporate Sex Offender on their website, let them, meh. It's Misplaced Pages's role to allow everyone to edit as they wish, not put them through some kind of inquisition to discover the "right sort" of people. It's the duty of Wikipedians as individuals to report suspected criminals to their appropriate authorities, as we do stalkers and people who make detah threats. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless there is real evidence that wikipedia is actively nurturing criminals, then links to pages making such a complaint amount to nothing more than slander. Baseball Bugs 16:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I like how the specter of McCarthyism is being invoked to justify censorship. All sorts of what I consider unfair criticisms of Misplaced Pages are linked from Criticism of Misplaced Pages. I don't rip those links out of the article because I think they're nothing more than slander. The article exists to record and discuss, well, criticism of Misplaced Pages. The fact that some editors dislike a certain source of criticism is no excuse for eliminating any mention of the source from the article. The link in the article mentioned no names and made no accusations against individuals. I won't restore the link because there appears to be (wrongly, IMO) no consensus to do so. But the attempt to eliminate any mention of P-J's criticism is pure censorship and I will oppose it. Casey Abell 18:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You are however failing to address the issue of due weight. When did PJ become an organization that carried any sort of weight regarding "corporate sex offender" accusations? As far as I can tell these accusations have gotten zero echo in mainstream press and I don't see why it should be brought up here. In fact, in the blogosphere, they have often been met with a chuckle .

To answer Dev920, I love how you've subtly started asking "why are you determined to badmouth PJ?", thus continuing the kind of pressure tactics that are a growing concerns with some members of WP:PAW. Like I said, PJ is not an extremist organization for opposing pedophiles. It is an extremist organization for insisting that the best way to deal with pedophiles on the Internet is to expose them by any means and post personal contact information about them on the Internet so that they can be harassed. Anyone who stands in their way is quickly labeled as a pedophile or a passive supporter of pedophiles and they routinely divulge personal information about these people, again with little or no care that their accusations are well founded. There has been extensive discussion in mainstream press about concerns with these methods. PJ does get quite a bit of support but again it is marginal. The "45000 members" figure comes, I believe, from the Rolling Stone article and corresponds to the number of users registered on the PJ forum. This is not an unusual figure even for extremely fringe websites. And the idea that they are an important organization because they have a lot of websites is, well, rather unconvincing. Pascal.Tesson 20:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

As you clearly haven't read the site there's no point continuing this conversation. I'm going to find my guinea pigs. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 21:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

As Mr. McEnroe was known to say, you cannot be serious about the undue weight argument. This is the entire reference to P-J in Criticism of Misplaced Pages: "Misplaced Pages has also been criticised for failing to deal with pro-pedophile activists, and has been described as a "corporate sex offender" by Perverted-Justice." Depending on how you count, this makes about two dozen words – in an article of nearly 8,000 words excluding notes and links.

Frankly, you should stick with WP:IDONTLIKEIT on Perverted-Justice. At least this argument doesn't maintain that two dozen words in an article of 8,000 words is undue weight. Of course, I could argue WP:IDONTLIKEIT about lots of stuff in Criticism of Misplaced Pages. I think McHenry's comparison of Misplaced Pages to a filthy john is grossly unfair, nothing more than professional jealousy from a former Britannica functionary. I think the Misplaced Pages Watch whines about admin abuse are ridiculous, especially since admins gave Brandt his wish to have his article deleted. I think a lot of the allegedly humorous criticisms are the lamest gags since the last time I tried to make a joke. I think much of criticism in the article is exaggerated, unjust, flat wrong, stupid, silly and really really dumb.

But guess what. The article isn't called Criticism of Misplaced Pages that Casey Abell thinks is just and reasonable. We know what the article is called, and that title means it should include all sorts of criticism, even if it comes from people and organizations you and I don't like.

I've already compromised more than I think I should. I've removed a link that named no names and made no attacks on any individual editors. This means that I've basically given into BADSITES, which was the craziest, silliest, most misguided attempt to make policy since the last time I thought about writing policy for Misplaced Pages. But I won't acquiesce in total, outright censorship of criticism from an organization just because some editors don't like it.

Misplaced Pages's article Perverted-Justice contains a "Criticism" section that runs to more than 1,500 words. But whoa, if we try to put two dozen words of P-J's criticism of Misplaced Pages into an article, it's "undue weight." Sorry, but it belongs in Criticism of Misplaced Pages along with all the other sometimes unfair and wrong and not nice criticism. This encyclopedia really is not censored, and that will be my final comment on the matter. Casey Abell 21:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The difference here is that the criticism of McHenry was widely publicized and to a lesser extent, so was Brandt's. The PJ criticism on the other hand was not picked up by anyone of note and is, in effect, a rant from a collaborative blog. As such, its mention in the criticism of Misplaced Pages article is giving it more exposure than it has received anywhere else and that is undue weight. Pascal.Tesson 22:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Breaking my promise not to comment again. Another editor pulled the evil, horrible, intolerable two dozen words from Criticism of Misplaced Pages. I'm tired of the fight. Censorship wins. I could do something equally silly, like pulling all the criticisms from the article that I think are stupid. Or I could make a justified undue weight argument on the huge "Criticism" section at Perverted-Justice. But why bother? "Consensus" looks flat wrong to me here, but you really can't win them all. Casey Abell 15:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Cite a place where P-J's criticism of Misplaced Pages is mentioned in a newspaper, and it will be added to the article. Basically, there are a thousand websites out there critical of Misplaced Pages. There will be a hundred vandals indefinitely blocked just today, and I'm sure ten of them will run to their blogs, so that will be ten more. We can only mention the notable criticisms, as in Misplaced Pages:Notability. --AnonEMouse 15:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Chatmag News has picked it up in a way highly unfavorable to P-J, but you wouldn't consider that reliable, I guess, though it does show up in the Google news cache. But how many newspapers picked up the Black Mystery Month "satire" of Misplaced Pages, which gets about as much space in Criticism of Misplaced Pages as the former P-J mention? Or the vandalism to the Larry King article, which actually gets a lot more space (but is pretty funny, unlike the lame Black Mystery Month effort). I could cite some more examples from the article, but...you win. I won't restore the awful two dozen words. Casey Abell 16:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

This whole scenario disgusts me. I hate how PJ is trying to tear apart sites that are not totally in favor of the organization instead of trying to prevent sexual abuse. This attitude of Von Erck's will implode his organization. I would like to ask him to read Death Note - There are more than a few similarities to the main character, Light Yagami. Hopefully the overzealous attitudes possessed by Light and the character's ultimate fate will tell Von Erck that he needs to change his approach. WhisperToMe 15:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

What I find disturbing is the level of intimidation exercised by PJ, both as regards Misplaced Pages coverage of PJ in general, and their ability to go after individual editors. This 'chilling effect', as news analysts like to call such reactions, are invariably going to lead to a 'win' for PJ. Either we let them edit as they please, or we surrender our policies, or they pick any of us to report as a pedophile, or supporter thereof. Regardless of our clearly stated intent to maintain neutrality on Misplaced Pages, and regardlessof the Occam's Razor nature of such behaviors, no one here wants to be on the recieving end of such accusations and the resltant job loss, social death, and so on that come from knee-jerk reactions to such accusations. I note that many people here have said they're concerned about such patterns. I'm beginning to think that this whole mess might be best off left to the WP:OFFICE and Jimbo himself to sort out. We're just editors and admins, we're volunteers. Let someone who gets paid to deal with potential off-wiki harrassment and such deal with it. ThuranX 03:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Threat of physical violence from User:Doktor Who

In a brief followup to the Admin notice immediately above this one, User:Doktor Who just leveled a threat of physical violence against the rest of the editorship that he's apparently at odds with. relevant diff. I have tried to reason with him (see the discussions on my talk page and Talk:Electronica), but it appears that all he wants to do is attack other editors at this point, and stir up quite a bit of drama in the process. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 05:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, None could take seriously my sentence. The point is that I'm sure that there is some smart socketmaster using somethiung more sophisticated than Tor or similar proxies, agaoin, you cant fool me. I have no evidence, but Im not stupid.--Doktor Who 05:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Listen Dok, when you say you will beat someone if you ever meet them in real life, that is a physical threat, and a great way to get blocked indefinitely from this site. In fact, I would like to hear the other admins opinions on if at least a temporary block is needed in response to this. I don't think you were serious, but that is a physical threat. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 06:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

In space, no one can hear you scream. Online, no one can tell when you're kidding. Threats of violence are totally inappropriate on Misplaced Pages. You've said repeatedly that you're leaving Misplaced Pages for a WikiBreak — perhaps that would be a good idea until you can calm down and be civil to other users? --Haemo 07:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

He only threatened to "kbeat" someone. Maybe "kbeat" means a more positive thing in a language we all don't speak. Jmm6f488 07:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

KieferSkunk is likely a sockpuppet of George Cruickshank, also known as Gene_poole , same harrasment toward me, same wording, same self addressing as "we can't tolerate you" or smg.--Doktor Who 07:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Additional information:

User:Doktor Who's two comments above are representative examples of his immediate accusations of sockpuppetry whenever more than one editor does not agree with him.

• Doktor Who (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• likely short-term sockpuppet: Shadowshadows (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

I doubt he actually intended physical violence, but he did write it so it's hard to ignore. Also, K is not next to B on the keyboard, so that's a disturbing typo. Whatever he meant, he's very angry. His comments are often disruptive and angry and this one went a bit further than usual. User:Doktor Who regularly makes sockpuppet accusations and expresses hatred and fears that he is being trolled or attacked.

He often demands that articles be changed or deleted, and I have not seen him do a productive edit, only reverting and complaining. When he demands references, he's said things like he "knows people" who "know the real information", but when asked, he has not provided any references that I've ever seen.

I want to be fair, so I'll say maybe he does productively edit on other articles, and only that I have not seen it.

Sometimes his comments are lucid and almost friendly, but mostly aggressive and sometimes I don't understand what he's saying.

The WP:AN/I report filed by User:Doktor Who about me a couple hours ago, just above this one, was in bad faith and a waste of time for this noticeboard.

Here are a couple emotional posts from him on my talk page: and , with sockpuppet accusations and other strange claims that I don't understand. (his GC-GP abbreviation refers to his complaint about George Cruickshank/Gene_poole that he mentioned above).

He was away for a few months. I was wondering during that time if he would return and what would happen. Now we know. --Parsifal _Hello 07:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I didnt provide any reference because it was Saturday morning here when you challenged me to provide, where do you live, in a magic Castle, princess? I know the sockpuppets you have here, but I'm not so stupid to post them here.

I made lots of constructive edits as anyone can realize, outside the field of the articles related to your usual edits. You were user gardener of geda before, and likely you are very familiar with gene_poole and kaiferklunk even in your daily life. Of course I will not post further personal details, do not worry, I am not a fool, i am fully aware of the policies. Please Iask you to cease to edit articles according to your WP:OWN schemes and needs. You are not the person that will kick me off from here.--Doktor Who 09:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Nobody has accused you of not making constructive edits, DW. If your only purpose here on WP was to disrupt and attack, you likely would have been blocked a long time ago. But right now, you do seem to be causing more trouble than you're helping, and accusing everyone of being a sockpuppet of one another isn't going to get you very far. You should consider the possibility that more than one person thinks and types the same way.

Admins, how long do we need to put up with this? — KieferSkunk (talk) — 16:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would support a block in this instance, but will not do it myself: I'm involved, in that I intervened last evening in the matter involving Doktor Who. As such, I would prefer that a block come from someone else, so that he can't misunderstand it as a "vendetta" or anything equally creative. However, I endorse 's proposed block, above. - Philippe | Talk 17:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm uninvolved, and would support a block of at least a week or two for this. (I'm trying not to let myself be influenced by the way his username reflects poorly on my favourite television programme, either.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I have not vandalized anything, you can't block me. The pattern of my edits show that I am still a valid contributor. Doktor Who 17:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism isn't the only thing you can get blocked for. See WP:BLOCK#Disruption; the failure to remain civil and respect consensus in this case looks like disruptive editing to me. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and blocked him for 48 hours for disruotion and threats of violence. If there is 1 thing I wont stand for, it is a threat that you would beat somebody. There is NO reason that a conversation on wiki should EVER be associated with beating people. I think this is a serious statement as to this editors character, problem solving abilities and may entertain a longer block if the community would agree to it. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Good call, I was about to do the same. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Good move, Chris. As I said, I'd support a block of at least a week or two in this case. Between the threat of physical violence and the disruption, 48 hours probably isn't enough. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

And now Doktor Who is unblocked. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I again went out on a limb and did that too. He appears sincere in the apology and hope it will overturn a new leaf. It was his first block so i will give him another chance and try not to use the block as a punishment that he is (at least appears to be) sorry for, and quite possibly a mis-understanding. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention to this matter, guys. I appreciate it. I left an invitation to come back to Talk:Electronica when he's ready, and some tips on how to proceed with the discussion in a calmer, more civil manner. He seems to be taking it well and has said that he'll be taking a break from that article and other similar articles, and spending some time working on some other projects he'd started a while back. I think this is a very good course of action on his part, and hopefully it'll prevent anything like this from happening again. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 20:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks from me as well. I want to mention that I didn't add all that information above because I wanted Doktor Who to be blocked for a long time or have any other kind of trouble. My concern was specifically about the way he was communicating, and the problems that was causing.

Chris I concur with the block, and I also concur that you removed the block in light of his apology. Hopefully, the result will be a positive change and the previous behavior will not resume. Thanks again to all for taking the time to address this situation. --Parsifal _Hello 20:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

My further 1 cent on this mis-understood episode: some months ago, I talked with regarding the usage of the letter "k", and it can be found here, but beside that, I am into computers since a long time, and kilobytes-kbyte-kbit (same sound as "the infamous word kbeat that is the main target of the above complains) are part of my geeky way of joking, I guessed it was evident to other users, but I could be wrong, apologies if I can't express properly ironic nuances in my chats. Doktor Who 11:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiScanner trolling

User:Bmedley Sutler is on a WikiScanner hunt. Is this appropriate?. He's been warned before. If it were someone else, I'd simply revert it as trolling and leave a warning but I am somewhat involved with this editor. --Tbeatty 06:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

What is the problem? It is a NPOV question. His edits cause a concern. There is no NPA. Why are you 'Wikistalking' me? To the administrators. Look at the certain small group of RW editors and how many of the edits and complaints on this board and other administrator boards are from them. This can be seen by some as an organized campaign of harassment and intimidation. ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 06:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not a relevant question and it's a chilling form of intimidation of editors. --Tbeatty 07:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes your 'Wikistalking' and complaints about so many editors may be considered by some as a "chilling form of intimidation of editors". Please stop 'Wikistalking' my edits. Thank you. ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 07:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't complain about editors, jsut their actions that violate policy. You can end this particular one by reverting your post. "Outing" editors is not acceptable behaviour. You may also want to familiarise yourself with Misplaced Pages:Wikistalking#Wikistalking prior to accusing editors of it. --Tbeatty 07:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I trust we have no policy against asking people questions about themselves. I am unable to believe that these attacks against Bmedley are being made in good faith and not in retribution for his bringing Crockspot's vile statements to light during his recent RfA. ←Ben 07:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

We have policies against trolling. That question is trolling. This incident report is not an 'attack.' The question should simply be reverted. We do not support attempts to 'out' editors. It's a pretty fundamental policy. --Tbeatty 08:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Tbeatty, you have a whole page of links trying to out people, proxies and all the 'RFCU's are 'outings' trying to claim that honest editors are someone else! You shouldn't talk I think. Would it be better if I asked for an RFCU of Hypno against USGOV IP's? Is that what you want? ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 08:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Trolling per WP:TROLL is defined as disrupting usability, which the question does not. Per WP:COI editors are encouraged to declare conflicts and asking editors about their conflicts is absolutely common. ←Ben 08:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

So, my 0.02$ — there's nothing super-duper obviously inappropriate, but it's definitely not in the best of taste here. Asking questions, apparently out of the blue, about "are you an employee of this agency" is not very nice, since it implies that the questioner has some reason to believe they are — and thus, have been violating a laundry list of policies. If you have some real evidence, it would be best to discuss it with the user when asking the question — at least then there's something to discuss. Ensuring conflicts of interest are minimized is a laudable goal, but this is pushing it unless there is some evidence that no one is presenting that would lead a reasonable person to believe such a question would result in an answer other than "No". --Haemo 08:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It's along the lines of "are you gay?" "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party.", "Are you a jew?, "Did you stop Beating your wife?", "have you given money to political parties? Which ones?". This Wikiscanner mccarthyism needs to stop. IF there is a violation of policy, we have dispute resolution processes. But implying wrongdoing through use of "innocent" questions is not acceptable. --Tbeatty 08:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

HOW DARE YOU! Someone with your Blacklist shouldn't be so free with the charges! TB's blacklist How DARE you link to the Holocaust when writing about me! I will go to sleep now, but if that is there when I wake up, comparing me to a Nazi, and the killing of Six Million Jews, (and Gays and Gypsies and many others too) I will make an OFFICIAL complaint. HOW DARE YOU! Stop harrassing me Tbeatty! ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 09:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No one is harassing you. No one cares what religion you are, what country you live in or who you work for. Contrast that with your questions. For my "blacklist" see Misplaced Pages:No_open_proxies and you will understand it. --Tbeatty 09:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with Bmedley Sutler question as long as it's used in a targeted fashion (something in the edits has to prompt the question) and done politely. I don't see how he implied "wrongdoing" with a simple polite question. Bmedley Sutler, in future, you might also want to use it in conjunction with {{ConflictOfInterest}}, so that the person you are asking can read about COI and understand the context in which you ask it. Anyway I'm sure all the people following you around wiki will keep you straight. --Fredrick day 10:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Partially in Bmedley's defence, Tbeatty has posted a diff that doesn't tell the whole story (Bmedley's second edit to Hypo's talk page, made immediately after the first, expands on his question (), and does provide context. That being said, Bmedley, digging up people's identities is not acceptable. If a user wishes their personal background to be revealed, they will reveal it. If they do not, then they will not reveal it. Chasing after them and trying to find out undisclosed information that relates to their real life identity is a violation of privacy, and does smack of McCarthyism. It would be better to phrase it "I have a concern that there may be a conflict of interest in some of your editing. Is that the case?" Leave it up to the user to reveal as little or as much as they wish; if they choose not to reveal anything, then please assume good faith - we all have the right to keep personal information to ourselves on Misplaced Pages. See Misplaced Pages:Harassment#Posting_of_personal_information.

Tbeatty shouldn't have made any kind of Holocaust connection though, which was inappropriate at best, and an apology for that would not go amiss. Neil ム 11:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

While really Bmedley shouldn't be asking people's real-world occupations, that give in no way acceptability to Tbeatty calling him a disruptive troll. Honestly, give it a rest- you're worse than Raul and UBeR here. If you have a dispute with another editor, solve it, don't come to admins and try and get each other blocked. David Fuchs 11:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Where did I call him a disruptive troll? --Tbeatty 19:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Bmedley needs to calm down. The holocaust was a bad choice of an example, but it was used to show what he's doing, which is basically, disguising an accusation or implying something bad in the form of a question. It can be easily be taken the wrong way, intimidating most people who read it, and giving the impression of bad faith. I'm not taking sides, instead I'm suggesting you both back off from the accusations and be more careful in your wording in future. - Zero1328 _Talk? 11:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that efforts to uncover 'aspects' of other user's RW identities are in poor taste at best and violating our privacy policies at worst... but the fact is that they are becoming quite commonplace. We currently have an ArbCom case over an extensive digging expedition of the same sort - right down to what neighborhood in Brooklyn a user lives in. My understanding of the practice was that any such information which is 'dug up' and might be relevant to COI, sockpuppetry, or whatever should be mailed to the RFCU's or Arbcom privately... rather than being the subject of public interrogation and discourse. On the other hand we publicly 'out' editors from the government, companies, et cetera all the time. Basically, we seem to treat it as 'ok' to violate the privacy of someone who is breaking some Misplaced Pages policy/guideline related to identity... but that inherently allows the same treatment of users who are merely suspected of such. Yet some digging expeditions of the same sort (revealing location where users live or work) have been treated as the worst sort of villainy and resulted in lengthy/permanent bans. We should be more consistent on this. Either we protect the privacy of all our users or we don't. --CBD 11:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Entirely - I still don't see how asking someone if they work for organisation X because they only edit articles related to organisation X is outting them - it seems an entirely sensible way of etablishing if someone has a COI and pointing them in the direction of the relevent guidance. If he was saying "I accuse you of being Joe Blow of organisation X" then people might have a point. Anyway as CBDunkerson says, what is mentioned here is common everyday practice on wikipedia. --Fredrick day 12:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Speaking soley about using wikiscanner to search for identities, I too believe it to be unacceptable. It is an uncalled-for invasion of privacy, it implies the assumption of bad faith, and it is extremely rude. Other personal attacks against these various editors notwithstanding, I am firmly in the belief that wikiscanner dredging is a form of harrassment, and should be stopped. Real CoI violations can be handled on a case-by-case basis, based on the edit, the editors, and the article. But Bmedly Sutler, and others engaging in this activity, need to stop. -- Avi 11:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I feel very strongly about Outing and Outside Intervention in wikipedia so i've rubbed my brain cells together and come up with a solution that is good for everyone. If wikipedian A thinks wikipedian B has a conflict of interest then they can 1) Add a message saying "Are you aware of how WP:CoI can apply to Good Faith Edits" including the links to CoI and AGF and Thats it! No questions to B's talk page. If B continues to edit in a way that A thinks is a CoI then he takes it to Arbcom with his evidence. They can look into it in private. No accusing people of being this or that or demanding private information in public on thier talk pages. 01:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

These kinds of comments from the editor are nothing new, see this, and this. He has been warned several times for making these kinds of accusations and comments. - Crockspot 12:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikiscanner use

So, do y'all feel that improper questioning of editors based on wikiscanner use is considered a form of harrasment or the assumption of bad faith? Or should it be ignored?-- Avi 21:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I belive honestly asking users, based on some kind of contribution they have made, are associated with a company or not. Thats not harrassment, it's enforcing COI where possible. — Moe ε 21:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe you can do it in good faith, but I also believe that you should have something more than just a hunch; some real evidence is required here. Otherwise, it's crossing a line. --Haemo 00:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I tend to feel this way as well. To ask someone about their occupation, etc. based on nothing other than a WHOIS or similar device in my opinion is uncalled for. It is the edits and a possible perception of NPOV/COI that should generate any discussion. -- Avi 02:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, this persons (Hypo) edits were not found on Wikiscanner, so Tbeattys whole accusation is false. ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 01:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Am I missing something? Doesn't wikiscanner work with anon IP edits and not on anyone who can be bothered to register? I know that links between the two can be inferred/guessed at by looking at the history, but is there something else going on? just wondering. . .R. Baley 01:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

This is one of those things where people say 'it is ok when used in good faith' and I say 'so that means it is not ok'. The whole 'removing warnings' fiasco... we were assured that it would only be used against 'vandals' who were removing 'valid warnings'. In reality it was frequently used against perfectly innocent editors removing bogus vandalism warnings. The 'suspected sockpuppet' warnings... same deal. Anyone you don't like? Replace their user page with a suspected sock notice, edit war with them over it, and if an admin eventually looks in maybe they take your side or maybe you just got away with nasty harassment for a while before being told to stop. Now it is ok to violate/stretch the privacy rules for the purpose of 'good faith checking for COI or sockpuppets'? It never ends well people. There is no way to police EVERY action taken under such a practice and you can be assured that everyone is going to insist they are acting in good faith... they'll probably even believe it.

We can 'enforce' COI (which is just a guideline suggesting that users not edit where they have a conflict or follow NPOV if they do edit) just fine by saying, 'It might be helpful for you to take a look at WP:NPOV and/or WP:COI'. Allowing people to violate or stretch the privacy policy to 'enforce' the COI behavioral suggestions seems to me to invite abuse to no good purpose. We don't need to know whether someone is being POV because they have a COI or for some other reason... it doesn't/shouldn't change how we deal with them at all. WP:COI is a guideline telling people with conflicts how they should act. WP:NPOV is the policy telling us what to do when they, or any other POV pusher, don't. --CBD 11:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikistalking by Cyrus XIII

I am being wiki-stalked, and I really don't know what to do.

In January of 2007 Cyrus XII blanked a page that had come through consensous of 2 years to state that "Visual Kei" was a genre. I made a statement objecting . He then went through my recent contributions to edited any page I worked on recently including ], ]. He then followed the edits I did in January and February, to the point I was scared to edit any page, because he would come and blank it. I finally came back in July, and he has started stalking me again.

After I argued about blanking out the The Pillows page (you can see the arguments there) I left a small resource on Antic Cafe ] and left a request on the talk page for some cleanup. He then immediately did this edit: ] which removed perfectly valid sources, and had his friend repeat the exact words I put on the talk page onto my user page in order to intimidate me.]

Today I've done a lot of editing, and once again, he is making meaninless edits ] (he just blanked all the resources I put - all were completely valid magazine resources!) and he attacked this page that I created as well ].

I am simply tired of him stalking and harrassing me. These are not edits that benefit wikipedia in any way. As you can see on my user page, I am adding content to wikipedia using sources. He constantly pushes the 3RR rule, pushes revert wars, etc. I don't mind pages being changed over time by different users, but one user should not control every page I edit. I have tried resoning with him, but he only fights. Denaar 12:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Further proof he is stalking me - he is only making these edits to intimidate me. ]] I didn't use the best examples originally, but it was the same behavior - going through anything I had did that day just to change it somehow. Denaar 13:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Given that most of my editing on Misplaced Pages concerns Japanese music, it should come as no surprise that I have previously worked on (and subsequently watchlisted) quite a few articles in that field. Regrettably, most of them are still in a generally poor state in terms of verifiability and formatting, a situation I have been trying to rectify for well over a year now, which should become evident from the diffs Denaar provided. I won't counter these accusations of stalking (and apparently canvassing) with a list of problematic contributions on part of Denaar, as I have pointed them out to her/him earlier and if I considered them too much of an issue, I would file an RfC. I will merely state that a bit of tension between editors with similar fields of interest, yet different approaches is to be expected. - Cyrus XIII 13:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You only do your "strict editing" to pages of users who have had conflict with you, you do not do it systematically or randomly. Denaar 14:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I have been watching the pages on Japanse music for well over a year now, and from a neutral perspective, I would say that Cyrus's edits have been for more legitimate than you seem to express. Much of the information you've added has been sourced by unofficial sites, or has been irrelevant to the article. The point about me being sent to "intimidate" you is quite a mistake. I was only agreeing with you that something should be done about the member profile section of the An Cafe page. Cyrus later deleted the section altogether, which I wholeheartedly agree with, seeing as they do not pertain to An Cafe as a band.

No stalking has occurred here. I have watched Cyrus's edits, and the majority of them are very obvioulsy systematic. They take place on recently edited Japanese music pages, and you just happened to make non-standard edits to a certain page too much at once, and Cyrus happens to be the first person to take notice (possibly because of the time-zone differential). You should be a bit more careful in your accusations, as many of the issues Cyrus has with your edits can clearly be found in Misplaced Pages's basic policies. --Jacob 16:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that the above user is a close friend of Cyrus's (check out thier banter on their talk pages) ] - and is one of the people he recruited to attack me as stated above. They are currently trying to provoke me into a fight. Removing sourced material is not a "style" contradiction. Denaar 17:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

From what I can see, Cyrus is just removing trivial material (e.g. lists of the band's blood type, shoe size and perfume?), helping the articles by trimming things down and making it seem less like a blog for the band and fix templates and references... hardy a bad thing. On top of that, I don't see any evidence of trying to contact the editor and discussing these things before coming here... you should try that next time instead of making claims of wikistalking. Sasquatch t|c 17:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd also add that it's not wikistalking to see a bad edit by a user on one page and deciding to check their recent contributions to see if they are doing the same thing elsewhere. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm the one who requested the information be sourced, and re-written. Then they copied my words and pasted them back on my user page. Then when Cyrus did the change, he removed all the sources that were on the page. (I am not arguing the removing of unsourced material, just the fact that he left the page sourceless). He had editted that page many times without removing it before - he only removed it after I touched it. (I didn't add any of that info, my only addition at that time was to add one source to confirm the bands name - which was a Japanese magazine). The thing is, he has been following me around for 6 months reverting edits, saying that the New York Times doesn't count as a resource, etc. I have discussed it with him on many talk pages. I honestly don't see how or is hurting anything - it is added sourced information. Denaar 23:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't tried to edit anything on Misplaced Pages, but I'm am interested in Japanese culture, so I ended up in the articles about visual kei bands, which led me here. Looking back through the history on Aliene Ma'riage, for example, it looks to me like Cyrus is making unreasonable demands for sources in his edits. Description of a stage act documented on YouTube and featured on several fan sites shouldn't require a further "verifiable" source. If the band dresses in feathers and fishnet hose, it's obvious from the pictures and the video. Does that really require a source? The guidelines on verifiability say context is important in what sources are used. Since visual kei is something of an underground, cult phenomenon, it's to be expected there will be more information available through commercial and fan run sites than through university journals or even mainstream music magazines. Strict insistence on this will continue to result in bare bones articles that provide very little information about the bands and their particular style of performance. Since the discussion is in session, does anyone else have an opinion on this? Tattoo515 02:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is an example: I used the band's website as a resource to show that the band announced they were breaking up and he removed it as an un-usable source. The band breaking up does not concern ther verifiability only a detail that fleshes out the page. Denaar 05:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I looked through that and the band's official announcement is still there... I think he (as well as I) are more concerned about links like this. And you still haven't addressed your completely unfounded allegations of "wikistalking" as well as not actually using discussion pages before you posted here... Suffice to say I don't think any admin is going to take action as there's nothing to report. Just a content dispute. Sasquatch t|c 03:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Extended image syntax

User:MCBC.jack has repeatedly edited this page, apparently to advertise his/her company. I reverted it 4 times - I believe that is acceptable as it appears to clearly be vandalism. However, if this is not the case then let me know (even if action has to be taken against me) and deal with the article as necessary. Eran of Arcadia 20:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Clearly a spam-only account. Did not cease after multiple warnings. Blocked indef. ^demon 20:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User Masonhuang1 (talk · contribs) has since vandalized the same page, as his first edit. (I've reverted and left a {{uw-vandalism3}} warning.) I wonder if it's just a coincidence. CWC 10:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Thamarih: Persistent personal attacks, accusations, and now a threat.

Thamarih (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has engaged in persistent personal attacks and presumptions of bad faith. (See Talk:Azali & Talk:Subh-i-Azal.)

Thamarih has accused me and another user of sockpuppetry without basis or notice to the other editor.

Now, they have escalated to vulgarities and a threat of violence. To wit:

Now go jump. You want a war. You got one, mofo! There's a whole posse of people out for your stinkin heads!

Assistance is urgently requested. MARussellPESE 02:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for 31 hours. ~ Riana ⁂ 14:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Images uploaded by User:Migssant19

User:Migssant19 has uploaded a large number of images tagged with PD-self. However, it seems many (or all) of them have been uploaded with false licenses. Some of them have watermarks, some are labeled as being copyrighted by where is obviously not the uploader, and some explicitly say "I found this on a website". Should I list these en masse at WP:PUI, or just wipe them out myself? The user seems to be acting in good faith, but after reading discussion on their talk page, it is evident they do not know anything about copyright. --- RockMFR 06:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I just noticed the same person has previously been blocked indefinitely for the same stuff (User:Migssant). --- RockMFR 06:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wipe them all. It's clear this user is falsely giving copyright; I don't think we can really safely take their word that any of these is his own work at this point. --Haemo 07:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikistalking by a user

For those of you following the noticeboards, you know that there is an ongoing conflict involving content and behavior between myself and two others. Ksy92003 (talk · contribs) is not allowing me any "space" and has followed me to several articles and discussions - he is WP:STALKing me. He always "claims" they are on his watch page but in fact - many of them he has never edited before - so that seems highly convenient. The latest example is at Jeff Saturday's article. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  07:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Jeff Saturday's article I saw because B (talk · contribs) was on my watchlist and I saw the link you provided there. Also, I didn't see this ANI until after I left my most recent message on your talk page. Ksy92003(talk) 03:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• This situation has been amicably resolved. No more attention is needed. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  04:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Users pushing personal agenda

User:Tobbe 555 (previously under the IP 217.211.210.41) has made a string of edits where he/she claims that due to "popular opinion", content of a spoiling nature was removed in the article Little Busters!, but there is no such opinion layed out on the talk page. Not only that, but due to WP:SPOILER, it states It is not acceptable to delete information from an article about a work of fiction because you think it spoils the plot. I had warned him/her once on the talk page of his IP, and again on the talk page for the newly created account at User talk:Tobbe 555. Then another editor, User:DarkS Umbreon, also reverted it to a spoiler-free version with this edit. I ask that an administator tell them that there will be spoilers on wikipedia whether they like it or not.--十八 08:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a clear-cut content dispute here; WP:SPOILER is pretty unambiguous about this sort of thing. I'm not sure why you need admin help here — perhaps dispute resolution or a request for comment would be better? --Haemo 08:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Just revert the edits and explain the reasoning on the talk page. No need to bring every edit you disagree with to this page. --Tony Sidaway 09:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Maggie Grace

Can one of you Misplaced Pages Admins go to Maggie Grace and check out Image:Maggie-grace.jpg.

User:Vako chilashvili claims that it is his photo.

But just looking at it, you see the Virgin logo and from the pose, you can see that it's a publicity photo.

If you agree with me then please delete the photo and warn User:Vako chilashvili not to claim publicity photos as his own.

Tovojolo 09:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The picture appears to have been taken at the Virgin Party Summer BBQ Tour in June 2005. --Mathsci 10:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

If the photo is from a website then it is clearly a FU photo and not a free photo. Please delete it.

Tovojolo 10:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

And here is the photo on a website. --Mathsci 10:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

"Court Order" alleged - article removed by IP editor

208.110.218.226 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This IP editor removed all content from Michel Thomas, diff alleging it violated a court order from August 20, 2007. The IP resolves to Time Warner Cable Houston, which (to me) would seem to have no connection to Thomas, as he is a Polish linguist. My advance sincere apologies if I'm bringing this to the wrong board, but rather than revert it, and get into a revert war, I felt such a serious allegation against Misplaced Pages should be looked into by administrators. Thank you, 10:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Oops, thanks for fixing that link, Kevin! My lil fingers done got carried away with me! 10:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking the anon and/or USDC should contact OTRS. Not familiar with law so not sure how far we can take this - but I'm guessing it's an OTRS or OFFICE thing. x42bn6 Talk Mess 10:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't take anonymous claims about some unspecified "court order" seriously. Revert and block if he keeps it up. If he has a case, he can contact the foundation and send an official take-down notice. Lupo 10:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, Lupo, that's what I initially thought, but I also prefer to be careful, rather than just hit that 'revert' button, so I reviewed his contrib history (nada) and skimmed the article, and finally decided to just err on the side of caution and ask here. However, I also thought that it may be an OTRS issue as well, so I'll just leave that up to someone who may be more familiar with these types of legal threats than I am, and if needed I'm sure that it will be taken care of. I thank you all for the input! 11:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I semi'd the article for 48 hours and I'll contact our anonymous friend and point them towards OTRS.--Isotope23 14:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Theresa already instructed them to contact the foundation.--Isotope23 14:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add

I'd like to add that the user quoted a non-existent court. There is no United States District Court, Central Division, all US district courts are named after the state/territory of their jurisdiction. The use of "USDC" as a username, to imply association with the US District Court, should probably get them an indef block (with the option of creating a new account). VxP 15:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It should probably be observed that there are indeed United States district courts that include in their names central division (viz., those of California and Illinois), although there is no USDC, to be sure, the title of which does not include its geographic jurisdiction. The underlying point, to-wit that anyone with an order from a federal court is quite unlikely to refer to a United States District Court, Central Division, is, though, quite valid, IMHO. Joe 16:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect. It is not division. It is the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. There is no "division". ⇒ SWATJester 05:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a vaguely related OTRS ticket, but it contains clarification information on the article and not even a hint of court proceedings. I would request consideration that the account in question be blocked (no account creation limitations) to prevent future impersonation, as there is little other use. ~Kylu (u|t) 04:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Help with request on my talk page

I am hoping to get help with an admin request that was left for me on my talk page, but which I can't really take the time to investigate right now. User:Creashin has left me a message asking for help dealing with User:Nascentatheist. It appears that Nascentatheist has asserted that Creashin is a sock puppet of banned user User:Jason Gastrich. Could someone either confirm the sock charges or ask Nascentatheist to back off? --After Midnight 11:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Elvis Presley

Loki, usually a valid contributor, is vandalizing Elvis Presly, removing death date and whole sections. Maybe Loki's account or computer has been cracked by some malicious user?Doktor Who 13:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a lame "Elvis is Alive; the middle name on his gravestone is wrong" joke. You and I both asked him politely to stop. If it continues, please update this thread with a diff; the mainspace isn't the place for jokes in the form of article vandalism... Even from the trickster god.--Isotope23 13:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for support; but I 'll be away from my computer for several hours, hopefully in the meanwhile someone else will be around. -^_^- --Doktor Who 13:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Old dispute?

I seem to recall an old dispute with respect to PRT, some transport system that is allegedly a hoax, involving a number of disruptive, aggressive and tendentious editors. According to User:Avidor, this has flared up again (see his talk page). Does anyone here know what this is about and how to deal with it? >Radiant< 13:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Avidor failed in an attempt to bring a COI complaint against me ("Mr Grant - No COI" and parallel discussion), and he is dissatisfied with the outcome. --Mr Grant 18:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a bizarre dispute over personal rapid transit, centering around my area (Minneapolis) because a Minnesota senator supports trying to fund it. I've only ever heard of a handful of people that actually support it (although the bridge collapse adds an interesting twist to it) and why it's become such an issue on Misplaced Pages is beyond me. I can go back and find the long AN/I thread about it, but it hardly seems worth it. Grandmasterka 18:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It isn't a Minnesota Senator, it's a State Representative Mark Douglas Olson. What the Misplaced Pages article on Personal Rapid Transit doesn't explain is why this supposed transit mode has no support among traditional transit organizations or transportation professionals while support for PRT comes from individuals and groups opposed to conventional transit such as light rail and commuter rail. PRT is a classic stalking horse for people like Rep. Mark Olson who is opposed to rail transit because he can claim that there is a transit system that is "faster, cheaper, better than LRT". Since PRT does not exist anywhere, PRT promoters can make any claims they want... even that PRT guideways can be built with robots.... and David Gow (Mr_Grant) is the Seattle contact for the Citizens for Personal Rapid Transit.... Gow should be banned from editing the PRT page as well as other PRT promoters...Avidor 03:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I was thinking of a certain other representative who does support it. (Not state senator - my bad.) Grandmasterka 06:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Fidelfair (talk · contribs)

User was recently blocked for disruption regarding disruptive protests of the non-free content policy. Now is fresh off his/her block and repeatedly inserting a gallery of copyrighted material into Iraqi insurgency in violation of WP:NFCC#8 and WP:NONFREE#Examples of unacceptable use. Would appreciate a look at this, thanks! Videmus Omnia 13:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Issue seems resolved, please disregard. Videmus Omnia 16:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Sri Lankan Civil War

I changed the last version to the current version by replacing a suitable photo which gives the right picture to the Sri Lankan Civil War to the article's Infobox. Admin have a look on and comment on the discussion page if possible or do the right changes. Thanks Kulaman 14:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Trouble with IP sockpuppets

Over at Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/24.168.46.238 (which no admin has yet to look at) there are various IPs with the IP 64.38.198.xx. (The last two numbers constantly change).

Over at User_talk:64.38.198.55, one of these IPs admitted to having over hundred of disposable IPs for use in harassing me. Since all of these ips come from the 64.38.198 domain, is there anyway that that system can be indefinitely blocked?--CyberGhostface 14:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to notify you about this, but as an interim measure I've semi-protected your userpage, and if you'd like your talkpage that way as well for a short time, just ask. I'm not too handy with rangeblocks so hopefully someone who is will see this message ~ Riana ⁂ 14:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

That'd be great. Thanks.--CyberGhostface 14:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I set a range block which should take care of it. Let me know if you are still getting harassed and I can adjust it.--Isotope23 15:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I appreciate the quick help you two have given me.--CyberGhostface 15:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

User:NEMT

Please also refer Archive 176 as well as NEMT's talk page which explains the history of this editor's infuriating behaviour and wikilwayering/gaming the system. This otherwise productive editor has some weird compulsion to commit random acts of vandalism. Over the past few months (and I do mean MONTHS...check out his contribution history) he has taken to creating bizarre and inappropriate redirects e.g. Land of the Switzers, International Civil War II and who knows how many more that I don't have time to chase down. This user KNOWS that he's committing wilful vandalism, and seems happy to wikilawyer any editor who challenges him on his talk page. I'm pretty much done with this issue since nothing was done about it the last time I reported him. I'm just bringing it to admin's attention once again. My suggestion is and has previously been a week-long block, and continued increasing blocks for further infringements. However, feel free to waste your time discussing it with him while he games the system and gets a few laughs at your expense. Zunaid©® 15:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

AFD keep

I'm presently in conflict with another admin (User:Crum375) who claims that, if an article has an AFD resulting in "keep", that article may not be edited, merged, or renamed. I claim that all three of those are regular editing actions and that AFD does not in any way prohibit that. Perhaps not so coincidentally, he wrote the article in question. Could we get some outside opinion from other admins please? >Radiant< 15:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

In general hypothetical theory (i.e. without seeing an article) a Keep doesn't mean an article exists in suspended animation post AFD and those things you've mentioned absolutely can be discussed and undertaken if there is consensus to do so. This is essentially the same thing as when an article is deleted, it may be recreated at a future date provided it meets relevant policies and guidelines. An AFD outcome just decides if the current article as it exists stays or goes it's not a content discussion. I'd also mention that WP:BRD is a good guideline here.--Isotope23 15:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course every article can be edited - that's a fundamental part of wikipedia. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Also consensus can change. Majorly (talk) 15:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

AfD does not in any way prohibit normal editing actions on the article afterwards. If, however, there is consensus on the AfD about an editing-based decision (e.g. if there is a clear consensus at an AfD not to rename a page), making that change boldly afterwards (especially soon afterwards) without further discussion first is probably a bad idea, not because it goes against AfD policy, but because making a change that you know consensus is against is probably a bad idea. (I don't know the details of the specific situation, so what I say may be irrelevant to it; I'm talking in general terms here.) --ais523 15:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreement with ais523. If an article survives AFD, it certainly can be edited, but immediately merging it away is probably not the best idea. Unless, of course, that's what the AFD said. Please give the specific case if you want more details. --AnonEMouse 15:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The article in questions seems to be Mourning sickness. As best I can tell, the main point of contention is that it was originally at Anna Svidersky. The AFD on that article, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Anna Svidersky (2nd nomination), resulted in a "keep". As soon as the AFD ended, the article was redirected to Mourning sickness. Radiant, who did point out Crum375 was the creator of the article, didn't mention it was Radiant who created the AFD on Anna Svidersky, and when it was closed as a "keep", promptly redirected it. I don't really have any comment on the actual discussion, just thought all the facts should be mentioned. Neil ム 15:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

In the AfD it was pretty much acknowledged even by the "Keep" voters that the article wasn't actually about Anna Svidersky herself, but the reaction to her death. I would have thought, though, that the article should probably have gone to "Death of Anna Svidersky" or suchlike rather than to a catch-all article about public mourning. ELIMINATORJR 16:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The Mourning Sickness article was created after most of the editors at the Anna Svidersky article noted that the one single element that was notable or encyclopedic was the reaction to her death. As Crum himself noted "The notable element in the article is the so-called (and reliably sourced) 'mourning sickness' phenomenon, Crum375 19:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)" Unfortunately rather then focus on this encyclopedic element, the Svidersky article tried to act as a biography for a decidedly non-notable person and essentially became a memorial filled with details about when Anna was a little girl and got a reprimand in elementary school for acting up and the time she cut off her hair and donated it to charity, etc. The overwhelming consensus of both AFD's is that Svidersky is not notable nor is her death but rather only the reaction to her death. The section of the Mourning Sickness article dedicated to Svidersky is meant to retain the notable info that the Keep editors wished to retain but with the focus squarely on the encyclopedic content. Agne/ 16:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

To get back to Radiant's question: of course an AfD keep does not preclude later actions such as redirection, moving, merging, or editing of any kind. That said, when an article has just been kept at AfD, it should be thought of as a debate that bears on what to do with the article. To ignore the opinions in the debate is probably unwise... but then, WP:BRD gives a simple way to resolve it, and those debates don't always show a clear opinion on particular solutions. Mangojuice 16:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Heh. Looks like the AFD had some people saying it should be merged, just like this, and some saying it shouldn't. Good faith dispute. Go talk it out on the article talk page; you may want to contact the people who participated in the AFD. --AnonEMouse 17:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the point that most people are missing is that the "article to merge to" is, as Agne points out above, not a seperate article, but a rewritten version of the same article as started during the AFD. >Radiant< 08:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Radiant has blatantly misrepresented Crum375 (note the lack of diff), who is far too experienced to make the claim falsely attributed to him. What Crum375 actually said, less than an hour before Radiant posted here, was, "Please leave this article alone, with the correct post AfD Keep name, until consensus is reached on this talk page." That is entirely in line with the AfD consensus, which the closing admin summed up as, "The result was keep. Please defer merge related comments to article talk."

The history of this is that on 7 August, without any discussion, Radiant moved the article (about a murdered teenager, Anna Svidersky) to the name of the murderer, David Barton Sullivan, which is peculiar, since the sources focus on Svidersky, not Sullivan, as indicated by Google hits 26,500 and 73 respectively. When this was reverted Radiant immediately nominated the article for deletion. The result, as above, was keep and discuss any merge; Radiant then redirected the article, again without any discussion on the article talk page, to Mourning sickness, when it was obvious that this would be a controversial action. His action was reversed and he reverted.. I left a note asking for consensus to be reached first before the redirect was made. The matter was still in dispute on the article talk page, and Radiant made the redirect twice more, (with needless history merge) and (incorrectly claiming consensus). Discussion is still ongoing on Talk:Anna Svidersky, and there is no consensus for the redirect. Radiant's conduct is not exactly a shining example.

Tyrenius 04:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• • Irony strikes again. My point is that there is no such thing as a "correct AFD keep name", as the many editors above state (since AFD is irrelevant to article naming and renaming). You're just mudslinging here, rather than contributing to the actual discussion. >Radiant< 08:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Content of User page reads like an ad for a product

This was raised at the pump... Please take a look at the user page of User:Liquidroof, it really reads like an ad for a product. Is this appropiate? Blueboar 15:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Blanked. Neil ム 16:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Potentially illegal use of Misplaced Pages logo

Could someone who is better versed in usage rules take a look at Image:Wikiswing.gif for me? I think it's a copyright vio, as it uses Wikimedia trademarks outside fair use, having usage only on user page, but it is Wikimedia, so I'm not sure if special rules apply here or not --lucid 16:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

We really need a statement by the foundation about whether they allow these derivative works. Also, as a nonfree image, this logo shouldn't be on user pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't work out what this was made for. 2 wikipedias (nl and lt) use it in the article space, the rest use it on user pages. I suspect it is a breach of commons policy, if nothing else. I can't see it ever being used by the Foundation. Secretlondon 16:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I've asked on the commons village pump. Secretlondon 17:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe it's use here on Wikimedia projects much like Image:Bouncywikilogo.gif is allowed. And lets be honest, the logo is on our own servers used by people who participate on thier project. Who are they going to sue, themselves? — Moe ε 18:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

This image has been around for a year-and-a-half nearly two years, is a common fixture on userpages, and while technically it's copyrighted, I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation will sue itself, or sue you, for using it. (Or, at least, it hasn't yet in the two years this has been used.) Let's not let copyright paranoia go that far. Grandmasterka 19:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

As a general principle, could we avoid using "I don't think anyone will bother to sue us" as justification for our actions? Our tests should be "Is this legal?" and "Is this consistent with our policies and project goals?"—not "Can we get away with this?" TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

We should also avoid process wonkery and rules-lawyering for the sake of process wonkery and rules-lawyering. You're welcome to try to get the image deleted from Commons and removed from the userpage of everyone who uses it. Grandmasterka 21:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Reinsertions of SPAM links on Victoria Beckham

Can someone range block with the possibility of creating an account 196.206.xxx.xx, because she/he keeps inserting SPAM links to Victoria Beckham, after being repetitively warned not to do so. Examples are shown below:

1

2

3

Thanks,

Miranda 17:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Update: This person also uses the ranges 81.192.xx.xxx as well, as shown below:

1

2

3

4

5

Miranda 17:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Might it be easier just to blacklist the poramor.forums1.net site? I don't see any situation where the link would be used legitimately. --Onorem♠Dil 17:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, forgot about that route. Blacklisting the site would be much better (and preferred) than range blocking. Miranda 17:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Zordrac

Zordrac has just (about 15 minutes ago) send an email requesting unblocking to unblock-en-l. If you are subscribed to the list, the message can be viewed here. Obviously this is not something that can be decided on the list, so I am posting this notification here. Prodego 17:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

See also 123.2.168.215 (talk · contribs) and Internodeuser (talk · contribs). Although 123.2.168.215 has denied being Internodeuser, that was not true (as per unblock-en-l). --Yamla 18:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Repeated personal attacks by Rondus (and his sock C00483033)

Rondus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is a supposed new user who from his very first edits began personal attacks against me, starting with his third edit. This message was spammed to multiple pages, and when it was reverted by multiple editor, began also to be posted by C00483033 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). The latter is clearly a sock of the first. Here is a list of the subsquest posts and reposts:

• 04:50, 8 August 2007 by Rondus
• 05:09, 8 August 2007 by Rondus
• 05:20, 8 August 2007 by Rondus
• 06:01, 8 August 2007 by Rondus
• 06:03, 8 August 2007 by C00483033 (first edit)
• 06:06, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 06:17, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 06:23, 8 August 2007 by Rondus
• 06:34, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 06:36, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 06:46, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 06:47, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 11:31, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 11:34, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 12:06, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 14:24, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 14:59, 8 August 2007 by C00483033
• 19:43, 9 August 2007 by C00483033
• 19:49, 9 August 2007 by C00483033
• 11:16, 10 August 2007 by C00483033

It is interesting to note that the edits by C00483033 were not done using undo or revert, but appear to have been copy and pasted.

These posts continued until C00483033 was blocked for disruption. Rondus was not blocked. He continues to make personal attacks against me despite explanations and then warnings on his talk page.

Two sockpuppet reports have been filed, first Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Frater FiatLux (2nd) and later Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Kephera975, yet despite the obvious sockpuppetry and disruptive editing, no action has been taken. Could someone please take the time to look into this? IPSOS (talk) 18:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. Rondus / C00483033 have accused you of conflict of interest and vandalizing the article. You characterize this as a personal attack in violation of the WP:NPA policy. You are pretty sure that they are a pair of socks, and have asked for a review. The diffs you posted are from 11 to 12 days ago. Is this ongoing? What sort of remedy are you asking for from the admins who monitor this board? --Rocksanddirt 18:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is ongoing. Here are the latest attacks: , , , , . He has been warned repeatedly by myself and by other editors on his talk page and on Talk:Alpha et Omega. The sockpuppet C00483033 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was only blocked for 3RR and not indefinitely as is usual for obvious socks. I would like an admin to block the sock C00483033, warn Rondus about both sockpuppetry and his continuing attacks, and for someone to evaluate the sockpuppet reports to determine if it is reasonable to believe that Rondus is a sock of indef blocked user Frater FiatLux (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and indef block him if he is. IPSOS (talk) 21:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

A Misplaced Pages administrator recently proteted the "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" page due to the behavior of User IPSOS and 3 other users. The administrator characterized this behavior as "HOGD activism." I have merely pointed this out in related discussions, which has caused User IPOS to harass me, despite my repeatedly telling him that his issue is with the administrator rather than with me. User IPSOS has dogged me wit improper tags, filed frivolous sock puppet reports, etc. In short, he has used ever conceivable bullying tactic possible while trying to skirt the rules of Misplaced Pages. Today's episode is just one more instance of his bullying me as a new Misplaced Pages member.--Rondus 23:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: that hadn't happened yet when you started attacking me on your third edit on 8 August, and the frequency of repetition you have adopted even after I have clearly denied the accusation multiple times makes your actions definitely qualify as harassment. IPSOS (talk) 00:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment from third-party. This disruption is active today on Talk:Alpha et Omega. There was a gap after the AfD, and now they/he are/is back and making insulting and unfounded accusations against IPSOS and other editors.

In his comment above, Rondus mis-quoted the admin who protected that article, to manipulate the discussion. This statement from Rondus is false:

The administrator characterized this behavior as "HOGD activism."

Here is the actual edit summary from the admin who protected the page:

too soon to revert war over, or merge, content; let's tone down perceptions of Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn activism

The admin mentioned perceptions of activism, not actual activism. Rondus has used this mis-quote several times in his repeated personal attacks against IPSOS and others.

I'll re-post for convenience the links to the two sockpuppet reports. These reports both list Rondus and C00483033. While the reports are not conclusive about all the listed editors, those two accounts have:

• virtually identical behavior
• cross-posted the same comments multiple times as listed in the reports
• both were created in the first week of August,
• both immediately began posting to the identical topics
• both have between 50 and 100 or so edits.

here are the SSP links:

• Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Frater FiatLux (2nd)
• Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Kephera975

About my interest here: I did not know of IPSOS until the recent AfD where I also encountered the two disruptive accounts. I have edited the related articles a couple times, but before the AfD I had never edited them. I have thousands of edits on completely unrelated topics and no vested interest in this topic.

It appears that C00483033 and Rondus are either sockpuppets or meatpuppets.

But whether they are or not, I know from seeing them in action that their comments continually contain personal attacks and disrupt article talk pages from the topics at hand. --Parsifal _Hello 02:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Maoririder316

This user has made a number of articles that are being deleted as fast as they are found) that consist of one sentence with no context. According to an edit on my talk page, he has been hard-banned previously. Eran of Arcadia 18:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be already banned? --Rocksanddirt 19:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Disruptive attacks by user Matthew

User Matthew (talk · contribs) repeatedly readds an attack to user User:Videmus Omnia, calling him "Soldier Boy" . Mathew had been warned by me, Quadell and by Videmus , but removed the warnings with funny edit summaries . Although Videmus, the target, keeps calm, such attacks are disruptive to all involved in the discussion. Would someone try to explain Mathew that this kind of behaviour is inline with our community spirit? Thanks in advance.

This is not the first time Mathew has ignored warnings about calling names. , . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Abu badali (talk • contribs).

I'm considering a block. It's really time we put an end to this situation where hordes of people think they can get away with hostilities against editors who do the thankless job of image patrolling. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The diffs regarding me can be seen at User:Videmus Omnia/Attacks and incivility. Videmus Omnia 19:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The user continues to readd the attack and mock the warnings. --Abu badali 19:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Matthew has been informed of this thread. — Scientizzle 19:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Since Grandmasterka (talk · contribs) blocked him for 24 hours I don't think he will be contributing here.--Isotope23 19:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

As I said above (edit conflict?), I have already warned him about this thread, but he mocked the warning. --Abu badali 19:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I was just about to post here: Blocked, but with room for leniency. I might be gone shortly, so handle any unblock requests without consulting me. Grandmasterka 19:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yep... I'm not convinced 24 hours is enough time for Matthew (talk · contribs) to grow up, but I support the block. This isn't the first time Matthew (talk · contribs) has engagend in this sort of silly trolling so I'm not sure I see a case for leniency.--Isotope23 19:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Matthew's talk page specifically states "No spam" - this means for image warnings as well. Spamming generic image warnings is both annoying, and, in Matthew's case a waste of time, since it states "No spam". I'd disagree it's a "thankless job". Thankless maybe, because who wants to thank someone who has nothing better to do than go round tagging images with a script? It's hardly difficult work either.

As for the personal comments, I have to agree that he's taken it too far. Majorly (talk) 19:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It's thankless because you become the target of such attacks, and have to patiently and diplomatically repeat arguments about unnecessary non-free images... But if you don't think it's difficult, feel free to join the team. We're hiring ;) --Abu badali 19:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The image warnings aren't spam, they're mandatory. Can you imagine the screaming that would ensue if images were tagged and uploaders not informed? Videmus Omnia 19:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

(To Abu) No thanks... I'm here to write the encyclopedia, not as a robot. Anyhow, I know exactly what it is like (see my early Commons edits where what I did was mostly robotic tagging.)

(To Tim) If I ever get them, I'd remove them as spam. See Misplaced Pages:Don't template the regulars. Majorly (talk) 19:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Removing them is entirely legitimate: it means that you've read them. Just don't use a snarky edit summary :) In most cases, however, the purpose of using such templates is to inform someone about the state of an image they've upoaded, not explain Misplaced Pages's entire fair use policy. Yet, these templates do the latter, possibly a dozen times over, on the same user talk page. Why not make a shorter version (something like "Your image, Image:Image.png, has been tagged with {{rfu}}, tilde tilde tilde tilde"), and use only one section for all image notifications? Image template spam sucks. Gracenotes § 19:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

A good way to avoid the templates is to check back through upload logs to make sure that uploaded images are in compliance with policy. :) Videmus Omnia 20:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, editors are supposed to go through every image in their upload log several times a day to make sure that it hasn't been orphaned (replaced by a free image)? I don't think so :) Given that fair use is more about the usage than the image itself, this doesn't seem feasible. Regulars don't like to be annoyed by long policy explanations; since notification is mandatory, do so without policy explanations. Simple enough! Gracenotes § 02:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Endorse block. That was just plain silly, and an enforced wikibreak is merited. We should treat each other with more respect, at least in public. Moreschi 19:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong but Matthew also equals MatthewFenton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) where the block log is quite impressive. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Why was the talk page deleted on the above account? Videmus Omnia 20:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

RightToVanish, though that evidently isn't working. Moreschi 20:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... Pardon my inexperience with m:Right to vanish but how can you invoke that but then not only not vanish but continue tacking on numerous entries to an already long block log? —Wknight94 (talk) 20:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

He had his account renamed using usurpation, and apparently never redirected his old pages to the new ones. As far as I know, he never used Right To Vanish. Grandmasterka 20:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, guess he did try to vanish once. I've re-redirected those pages. Grandmasterka 20:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Endorse block. Matthew seems to have some problem with image patrollers. Either way, Videmus Omnia is an important part of the project, and we need to take measures to stop people from needlessly insulting him. --Deskana (banana) 20:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

...and if you see his smarmy response to the block message, which apparently tries to tack onto the insult with what Matthew no doubt feels is a clever play on the term "vet" I tend to think he got off a bit easy with 24 hours.--Isotope23 20:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

fully endorse Matthew has been long over due for such. hes been making personal attacks and other CIVIL issues for months. (I wish I had this kind of support when I was getting attacked for my non-free image work) β 21:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Matthew's recent conduct and comments have been unacceptable, but the deletion of his prior userpage and talkpage containing his full real name were user-requested and were reasonable requests based on off-site trolling and harassment to which he was being subjected at the time. Newyorkbrad 22:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'mma get choo banned! actually, I'm not - I'm just making the 66 cabal paranoid ;) Will 01:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If the previous usertalk was deleted under a Right to vanish request, his subsequent return to Misplaced Pages under the new account would seem to indicate that the vanish has been canceled. Perhaps they should be restored, comments? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 01:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

On a side point I find it ridiculous that what Tim is doing is referred to as 'templating the regulars'. 'Templating the regulars' is about things like civility warnings, those twee AGF warnings, etc... The image warning templates contain such information that can really only be communicated via a template - I'm not about to go making that stuff up as I go, I would leave key information out. VO is doing a fantastic job and gets more than his share of crap for it. Block was totally justified, but I think it would take rather longer than 24 hours for Matthew to learn how to get along with his fellow users. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Responding to Chairboy, I tend to agree. Can you invoke right-to-vanish and then not vanish? When you leave behind a page-long block log in the process, that seems more like "Avoiding scrutiny from other editors". —Wknight94 (talk) 11:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocking socks edit warring on Video Professor

There was an impressive (60 reverts and counting) edit war today at Video Professor (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Nsk92 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was blocked for 3RR because they reverted after a 3RR warning. It has just been confirmed by Checkuser that Skporganic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is using Crrockford (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) as a sockpuppet to evade 3RR. Furthermore, 74.134.229.95 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) just showed up to take Nsk92's place.

Can I suggest an indef puppet block for Crrockford, a block of whatever length is appropriate for Skporganic for 3RR gaming and sockpuppetry, and an extension of Nsk92's block for pretty obvious sockpuppetry to get around being blocked?

Also, I've updated the appropriate RFPP entry, but it was marked as declined earlier today, and I'm not sure if someone will see it unless I relist (or mention it here). I think, if the blocks above occur, that semi-protecting the article to prevent further puppet games would be all that's needed.

I'm fairly sure, but not positive, that I'm in the right place. if not, please let me know. Thanks. --barneca (talk) 19:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Geez... what a mess. I've protected the article for the time being whilst this is sorted out.--Isotope23 20:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Nsk92 is already blocked. I blocked the IP for the same 24 hour period. I blocked Crrockford indefinitely as a sock of Skporganic. I blocked Skporganic for 48 hours and issued a warning about sockpuppetry... it if happens again the block will be much, much longer. I'm leaving the page protected for now; if someone wants to make changes they can request an unprotection, or wait until the protection expires.--Isotope23 20:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Isotope23. You protected The Wrong Version, of course, but you really had no choice. One is wildly pro-company, one is wildly anti-company. If I decide to try to find a middle ground, I'll use {{editprotected}} on the talk page, or go back to WP:RFPP. --barneca (talk) 20:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I always protect The Wrong Version... it's what I do. In this case I just protected whichever wrong version is current. I'll tag it for POV though.--Isotope23 20:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

User:207.172.87.121 making subtle changes to fictional names

207.172.87.121 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) (with several vandalism warnings) has been making fairly subtle changes, mostly changing fictional names to close variants. In some cases, he's been correct (I happen to have that book in front of me, and could verify it), in others obviously wrong. Others I can't verify. If someone could keep an eye on this user I would appreciate it. henrik•talk 20:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Service Corporation International

While looking through recent changes today I noticed that the user Service Corp had completely rewritten the article on Service Corporation International, after which the article went from detailing notable events Service Corp. international was in the news for, to reading something like a puff or promotional piece on the company. I think that a conflict of interest appears to be the case here, and I don't know how best to handle it. I reverted the major rewrite of the article, and the user then completely blanked the scandal and sources section. If any administrator could give me some help in knowing how best to handle this, I'd appreciate it. --ForbiddenWord 20:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Good catch. Ordinarily, you could report them to Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard, but in this case it looks like it's been reverted back and I blocked User:Service Corp as a promotional username. - Philippe | Talk 20:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, you should give a uw-coi warning on the editor's page, and only if they disregard the warning should you report to COI/N. It's permissible for editors with a conflict of interest to edit, so long as they comply with Misplaced Pages policies; these edits did not for the reasons you stated. THF 21:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, what User:THF said. Thanks for clarifying. You're right, of course. - Philippe | Talk 21:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course, the blocked user was correct that the sources section was inappropriate under WP:NOT#INFO. I've moved the sources to the talk page and added a cleanup tag; to the extent the sources are useful, they should be integrated into the article as sourced information and footnotes. I suspect there is a WP:WEIGHT problem as well, as the article is mostly a hit-piece against the company. THF 21:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

User 216.75.131.205

User:216.75.131.205 has just vandalised Tsunami, and deserves a block (see user page to understand why) - however, I can't report him to AIV because one of the lovely bots won't let me, stating that he's already blocked. He's not, he's just vandalised Tsunami, and I'm not making the same mistake as yesterday. Please sort this out... _TheIslander 21:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

No mystery, just closely-timed occurences.

21:47: Last edit made by User:216.75.131.205

21:48: Blocked by User:El C for 25 minutes

21:49: Your report to AIV, after block was already in effect.

The block expired 25 minutes ago, and no further vandalism has come from this IP, so it looks like the miscreant moved on to spray painting his school hallway or cherry bombing the toilets or something. --barneca (talk) 22:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, OK, thanks. Would be helpful if admins always left messages for blocks... _TheIslander 23:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

El C might have just figured the anon knew the routine by now :-) Someguy1221 23:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

(e/c)That (leaving block messages) was discussed somewhere recently, probably on an archived talk page somewhere, but I can't find where now. The gist, I think, was that some admins felt that not leaving a block message was a form of DENYing them recognition. IMHO it's a good idea to check the block logs prior to going to AIV anyway; for this reason, and because it gives your report more ooomph if you can say "vandalism immediately coming off a 3 month block". --barneca (talk) 23:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh God... As if We didn't have enough issues with pseudo-policy enforcement already! Circeus 03:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sly200

This user, who I also suspect is IP 141.151.167.121, keeps adding a news article to America's Funniest Home Videos and Ricky Lake, stating that Lake is AFV's new host, while the news article in question is very much unrelated to AFV and Lake, making a passing guess. I also believe PR News Wire fails WP:NOTE. ÆAUSSIEevilÆ 22:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Roblefko

Moved from WP:AN.--Chaser - T 23:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The CVG project ("Roblefko") has recently reported getting spam messages from banned user Roblefko (talk · contribs). Can someone block with email disabled? hbdragon88 23:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I see that he has been unbanned. However, given that Essjay has left, I think this is the apporpriate board to bring this issue up. hbdragon88 23:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I left a warning message on his talk page, but (at least now) he has email disabled. My understanding is that someone can't send email through Misplaced Pages's system unless they are setup to receive it, also. Was this recent spam or a few days ago?--Chaser - T 23:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC) Never mind. Blocked with email disabled. I did an experiment. Even with email from other users disabled, one can still send email to other users.--Chaser - T 00:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The Kate McAuliffe vandal is back

These days, I am seeing that the IP block list is partially covered with Kate McAuliffe usernames again, and these usernames are created by the Kate McAuliffe vandal. I found 5 Kate McAuliffe related usernames this week:

• User:Andrew Hartford has a crush on Kate McAuliffe
• User:Lord Zedd has a crush on Kate McAuliffe
• User:Andrew Hartford has a crush on Kate McAu!iffe
• User:Optimus Prime has a crush on Kate McAuliffe
• User:Optimus Prime has a crush on Kate Kate McAuliffe

Since I attend the same school as the Kate McAuliffe vandal, I would have to talk to him when I see him, but I don't know if this will work. This has been going on on Misplaced Pages since last year (months before I was new to Misplaced Pages). Yet I found more Kate McAuliffe usernames on Simple English Misplaced Pages as well. There needs to be a way to stop this sneaky socks parade. NHRHS2010 00:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Ask the librarians to suspend his internet access from school AND have lunch time tutoring. And, have his parents monitor his internet access. Misplaced Pages should be blocked from this person's computer. Miranda 00:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Hopefully all his usernames are blocked and the good news is that I know that his original IP (User:67.81.102.11) is definitely indefinitely blocked. Is this the first time you've ever heard of the issue about the Kate McAuliffe related socks? If not, when was the first time you've heard of this issue? This person is really annoying since in addition to Misplaced Pages, he endlessly talks about Kate McAuliffe...anytime. NHRHS2010 00:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, you might want to tell the school principal as well about this incident and have someone on the Misplaced Pages press team to send an e-mail to the school to be aware of the situation. I have heard of him before on creation logs as well as WP:CHECK. Miranda 00:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the good news is that everyone at school knows about this situation. NHRHS2010 00:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I just yelled at the Kate McAuliffe vandal on the phone and threatened to report him to the school administration and he says that he will stop (I really hope so). Hopefully I don't see one piece of "McAuliffe" in the user creation log or IP block list. NHRHS2010 00:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I'm a bit late on this, but we do have a username blacklist. MER-C 10:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism covered by Misplaced Pages Policies

Greeting, Admins! There is a Wikipedian named Durin. He vandalized images on my user page. I try to put three images. However,But he takes them away and lies that it is part of some policy. Then he removes a semi-lrotection iamge which I just put to fool panels. You are experts at Misplaced Pages. If you agree with him (which means I stand corrected) talk to me about the errors I made and I will apologize to him right away but if you agree with me (which means I prove my point as a victim) than have him blocked from editing for a month because not even blocking should last forever.--Angel David 00:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Greetings, Angel David, Durin is not a vandal. Before anything else, please read WP:AGF, it defines one of the cornerstones of the project, and in many ways is the most important because it makes collaboration possible. That said, Durin is very well versed in the policies we have in place to protect the project from legal risk, take a little bit to review the applicable policy pages he linked you to. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Durin is quite certainly in the right here. Fair use images don't belong on userpages, and {{pp-semi-protected}} does not belong on pages that are not semi-protected. android79 00:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Heed Friday's advice. ˉˉ╦╩ 01:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Borderline sexual harassment of a user

I found this edit disturbing in light of User:Nagara373 making edits along the lines of this. I issued this warning, then considered that this issue is beyond my expertise. Thoughts? Darkspots 00:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Along the same lines, but unrelated, this just popped up on my watchlist and needs attention. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment - the diff linked by SandyGeorgia reads more like a threat of physical violence than sexual harrassment. DuncanHill 00:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Either way, blocked indef as an abusive vandal.--Chaser - T 00:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that was a straightforward nasty case, and I'm glad that guy got indef blocked. My case, I'm not sure if I did the right thing. Darkspots 00:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I personally find that edit disturbing as well, particularly since the recipient asked what that was all about and got no reply. Nagara373 also has a history of not very productive edits, such as this bizarre BLP violation, although they do not seem to be in bad faith. Endorse warning; let's see if he keeps this up, and I certainly wouldn't rule out a block in the near future. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I removed stuff about who he's looking for from his userpage and left a msg referencing the part of WP:NOT about myspace and dating sites. That's enough for now.--Chaser - T 01:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Darkspots 01:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Alice Bailey Board

Hello,

User:64.142.90.34 is engaging in disruptive and tendentious editing on Alice Bailey.

1. User:Kwork tried to link one editor to external links (unknown as to whether or not these links are really related to the editor). I warned him that this is not appropriate and he defended himself but didn't push it. Then, User:64.142.90.34 made personal attacks against another editor quoting heavily these external links (really escalated the discussion into a strong personal attack).

2. User:64.142.90.34 continues to revert good faith efforts at neutralizing the Alice Bailey article, using known wiki words to avoid like "claims." Here's where I made the original change: Here's where he reverts: Here are my efforts at trying to discuss the issue with him, to which he has never responded and just reverts:

3. This is a small issue but it shows User:64.142.90.34's pattern of disrespect for other editors. Despite repeated requests from multiple editors, both in the talk pages and on his personal talk page, he refuses to sign his name. Recently, he has agreed to at least date stamp his posts. But again, this shows a lack of willingness to work with other editors in a good faith manner. For example:

a. It would help if you would sign a name, any name, so I know which editor I am talking to. Kwork 22:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I am the editor that does not sign a name. :-) ... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.142.90.34 (talk • contribs) 21:44, 16 August 2007.

b. Also, would you please sign your talk page discussion? Sethie 03:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not necessary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.142.90.34 (talk • contribs) 04:41, 16 August 2007.

And, on his talk page:

The above postings show a pattern of disruptive and tendentious editing that many editors have had to deal with (please see talk page for very strong POV pushes that are motivating edits). Again, the most serious recently is the wholesale link and pasting of external postings on the page, linking them to an editor.

Thanks for looking at this. Renee --Renee 01:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

As a regular on the Bailey page I would confirm I think there is a problem, SqueakBox 01:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I have put the "non-discussion forum" template at the top of the page, and asked people to stop throwing around their conspiracy theories about why people edit the way they do.

However the page is on the brink of going out of control any help would be greatly appreciated. Sethie 02:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Alice Bailey semiprotected for one week. Please discuss edits on the talkpage before editing, even non-affected editors. Also, please consider archiving the talkpage. Thanks. ~Kylu (u|t) 04:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Abuse by user:Tariqabjotu

I feel harrassed by admin Tariqabjotu. He keeps blocking me whenever he gets the chance when I get into disputes on some articles. I don't break 3rr and I never instigate edit wars, but he keeps blocking me for "edit-warring". I'm looking for outside opinions on this before he gives me the "I'm just being a neutral admin" speech. I just noticed that he's edit-warring on the Israel article right now, so I don't understand the double-standard. Egyegy 02:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

First, I fail to understand how his edits on Israel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) at the moment constitute edit warring - they seem to be uncontroversial changes, and he is reverting no one. As to instigating edit wars and violations of the three revert rule, neither of these is a prerequisite for blocking for edit warring. If a user is disrupting Misplaced Pages via multiple reverts, uninvolved sysops may use their judgement with regards to blocking the user in question. Your recent edits on Arab (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) seem to fit that description, ie disruptive edit warring that doesn't seem to be violating the three-revert rule, as do your recent edits on Middle East. Tariqabjotu seems to have been correct in his block, "03:17, August 18, 2007 Tariqabjotu (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Egyegy (contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 36 hours (revert-warring on Middle East and Arab, despite previous blocks)". I have don't have a good way of assessing whether he's completely uninvolved, but he certainly hasn't been involved in those two edit wars. In conclusion, I see no abuse. Picaroon (t) 02:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

SallyForth123 evading 3RR block with dynamic IPs

Earlier tonight I blocked SallyForth123 (talk · contribs) for violating 3RR on Hurricane Dean. Shortly after the block, she resumed edit warring as 75.36.172.192 (confirmed by checkuser). After blocking that IP and resetting Sally's original block timer, she returned again to edit war under 76.221.184.143, also making similar changes and removing quotes from Hurricane Katrina here. I blocked that IP for a week and extended Sally's block to a week. Now she's back as 76.220.203.157. Hurricane Dean has since been semi-protected, but she may return to carry on her edit warring elsewhere (MO seems to be changing all present tense to past tense and removing quotes from articles despite the referencing and consensus to keep them in). Also, the Dean article is linked from the main page, which means it may not be semi-protected for long. Could someone help me resolve this issue (possibly with a rangeblock, although ISP is AT&T so may be difficult)? --Coredesat 02:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

COI

Hi, I think I may be witnessing a conflict of interest issue. I'm not trying to out anyone, or to get the editor blocked. I think he may just need to be educated about the conflict of interest policy. Another editor has informed him of it, but he has continued to make edits, some of which are POV (although some of his edits were actually quite helpful). Reference #7 in the article provides some data which gives a clue as to his identity. Either he isn't the subject of the article, in which case I'm jumping to conclusions, or he is, and he's unaware of the policy. Please advise. Popkultur 03:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:COI/N is the place to report conflicts of interest if an editor has a conflict of interest and is not adhering to guidelines for participation. The Pat1425 edits obviously violate NPOV and BLP, and I have reverted them, and will give him a message, but the page itself is questionable under WP:BLP1E, and I have prodded it. THF 03:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth "Pat1425" is the same user id as the email address of the indicted article subject (according to the indictment), but it's entirely possible that it's not actually Syring, but someone trolling in his name. Either way, the edits are unacceptable. THF 04:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've nominated for deletion. THF 04:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Photos

I have been criticised for putting too many photos in some articles, and some of them have been deleted.

Are there any particular guidelines or policies on photo content of articles?

Sardaka 03:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It is really an editorial decision. An article should have enough text to support its images. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 03:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Not when you're adding an entire gallery of images, such as in this edit. That's just ridiculous and clutters up the page with a useless gallery, especially when said article has enough images as it is.--十八 03:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Instead of placing large galleries inside articles, you could assemble and/or link to a gallery of free images on Wikimedia commons. Someguy1221 05:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd second Someguy1221's suggestion here. Use {{Commons}} to link to a Commons gallery page or {{Commonscat}} to link to a Commons category (either should appear in "External links", I believe). Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 06:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Paulie's World

I usually don't worry too much about what a user has on their userpage, but I think this particular page might require some administrative action. It includes a message encouraging other users to upload copyright infringements and an infobox stating that he approves of vandalism, both of which are plainly inappropriate. As a separate issue, there's also a link to a photograph that might violate US laws on record-keeping of sexual materials, in that it depicts two young nude boys. I don't want to engage the user directly, since I don't have The Tools and thus can't take any administrative action if it becomes necessary. Would someone else please have a look at things and maybe see what they can do? Thanks. -Hit bull, win steak 04:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think that communication is unlikely to be helpful, considering the following message at the bottom of the user's userpage: "Leave me a message on my talk page and I will read and respond as soon as I login." -Hit bull, win steak 04:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• I slapped a speedy tag on it. Pure trolling, with few, if any, actual contributions to make this even borderline. Hopefully an admin unburdened by excessive bureaucracy will nuke it. --Calton | Talk 05:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Matt57

As posted on User talk:Matt57#WP:HARASS and Elonka, I've blocked Matt57 for 24 hour for intimidating behavior and stalking another editor. A certain amount of oversight over other editors (including admins, of course) is obviously beneficial: it keeps us all honest and playing by the same rules.

Going so far as to dig through someone's life and prying out things the other person is trying to keep from public view, when they're quite frankly none of any of our business, however, is quite something else. I've redacted a comment (which will hopefully be deleted soon) of Matt57's which in my opinion shows disturbing behavior on his part.

Hopefully, instead of backfiring on me and causing more wiki-drama, this will cause him to rethink his current behavior and change it to something a bit less frightening to us. Just think of how you'd react if someone were digging up your personal information and posting it all on a site that gets mirrored and google-indexed many times a day.

I can only hope that this causes more help than harm. Opinions and views on the situation are requested. I've obviously been opaque on the actual subject matter for a reason. Thanks. ~Kylu (u|t) 05:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen the deleted comment, so can't offer any review of it - perhaps it is blockworthy, as you say…

…but you invited Matt57 to edit articles which Elonka isn't editing. To my knowledge, Matt57 isn't editing any articles which Elonka is also editing (though she's invited him to do so.) Which articles did you have in mind when you wrote that?

What Matt57 has been doing is vetting articles that Elonka created last year contra WP:COI - for example this glowing resumé for her father - for original research and other unsourced material, of which they are mostly comprised. That's not harassment.Proabivouac 05:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not it is harassment, it is, IMO, incivil of him to single out a particular user in such a way when he appears to have a history with Elonka. I also note numerous complaints about the zeal with which he's taking an axe to them. IMO, it would be wise of Matt57 to keep away from these articles in the future and leave fixing them to other, uninvolved editors. There are plenty of other bad articles on Misplaced Pages; in fact, there are many far worse than this. I've seen no credible allegation that these articles contain inaccurate statements; rather, that they contain possibly unverifiable statements and are unduly favorable to their subjects. I'd suggest that Misplaced Pages can survive a few puff pieces on Elonka's relatives quite well, that no harm will result by their remaining for a while in an unfixed state, and that Matt57 find something else to worry about. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 06:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"…they contain possibly unverifiable statements and are unduly favorable to their subjects."

Unverifiable and unduly favorable are violations of policy which I should like to correct. Will I, too, be blocked if I do so?Proabivouac 06:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I supported her RfA, albeit with strong misgivings, per Danny's oppose, due to COI concerns. I became aware of this issue when MAtt57 was unjustly blocked after having been framed by sockpuppets of two banned users; see this thread.Proabivouac 06:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It would depend on how you did it. Why is it so important to you to fix THESE particular possible flaws in the encyclopedia above others? Why is it so important for Matt57 to do so right now? There are some issues that need immediate fixing; those covered by BLP, copyright violations, etc etc. Other issues like these can be handled slowly if necessary, and are best handled when there is contention by attempting to involve as many others in the decision as possible, so that the results are seen as fairly representative of consensus rather than a personal dislike or issue. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 08:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not: I'm involved in all kinds of things. This is just item that's been on my plate since it was brought to the community's (and my) attention on this noticeboard.

Although I will point out that there is a probable BLP violation on Elonka Dunin right now: "Dunin, however, investigated further, and got Dunn to admit that he faked the impersonation, as well as his own death, in a pathetic attempt to gain attention." Hopefully, someone will fix that soon.

Re "It would depend on how you did it."

The following diffs illustrate the model I'd like to apply to the articles in question: Granted, I might be accused of being partial toward the editor who did that; however I'm confident that he wouldn't have taken this action were it not mandated by policy.Proabivouac 09:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been unfortunately dragged into this dispute over the past few days, and I must say I fully endorse this block. Matt57's behavior towards Elonka in this dispute has been wholly unacceptable: digging through her contributions and stalking her across wikis and other websites, aggressively attacking contributions she made years ago, and constantly accusing her of shady wrongdoings, such as accusing her of conspiring with administrators against him in IRC (accusing third parties who offer an outside opinion as being part of her "cabal," which is how I got dragged into this), and even accusing her of harrassing and wikistalking him. Even after Elonka made a completely reasonable request for him to stop (complete with many diffs of example of the behavior I just mentioned), he only seems to have stepped it up further. Matt57 needs to know that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated whatsoever. --Krimpet 06:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Krimpet, you threatened me with a block on Commons following Elonka's threatening me on this wiki, (since-deleted page) and conversing with you on IRC. So if Matt57 has accused her of "conspiring with administrators against him in IRC," I'm afraid this strikes me as very credible.Proabivouac 06:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Proabivouac, your levels of incivility and serial assumption of bad faith has been on par with Matt57's in this dispute (and it appears that I have conflated your allegations with Matt57's; it was not he who made the accusations of her conspiring with administrators, it was you). I did answer a request for informal third-party clarification from Elonka on whether Image:Mohammed kaaba 1315 bew.jpg was acceptable on Commons, on the public channel #wikimedia-commons. It was after answering her question and ending the conversation with her that I noticed that this appeared to be part of a larger dispute, so I dug deeper and noticed it was spilling over from here on en.wiki, so I gave you a mildly stern warning that disrupting Commons as part of this dispute on en.wiki would not be tolerated. You then immediately accused Elonka of conspiring with me to threaten you with a block on Commons, though I could have just as easily discovered your disruptive behavior through Recent Changes or any other number of channels -- Commons is a much smaller community than en.wiki. And I notice after another uninvolved admin came across the dispute and concurred with what I said on your talk page, you accused him of exactly the same thing. Your pattern of assuming bad faith and instantly accusing other editors of wrongdoing is completely out-of-line. --Krimpet 06:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Krimpet, when I see a threat on this wiki, followed by an IRC conversation and a threat for a block on Commons, what am I supposed to think? I asked Elonka about this several times (deleted page, e-mail) and got a carefully-parsed non-answer each time, which does nothing to promote an atmosphere of transparency and trust.

On Misplaced Pages, it would certainly not be considered disruptive to remove a user-degraded image from a gallery of otherwise historic artworks; rather it would be considered disruptive to repeatedly add it, as Elonka has done. If things work differently on Commons, and original user art or defaced (literally) historical works, is welcome, contra stated policy, then I suppose it is - I've nominated it for deletion, and we'll see how that turns out. You made no attempt to discuss any matter of substance with me on my commons talk page, or on the talk pages of the relevant galleries, you made no attempt to answer any of my questions about Commons policies - I had to find them on my own - (talk about WP:BITE) - and your accusation of "disruption" remains completely unfounded. If anything, it is another excellent illustration of why discussions should take place on-wiki wherever possible, so that the matters can be examined openly, without being prejudiced by one-sided conversations to which affected editors are not privy and cannot respond.Proabivouac 07:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I remember one of Matt's comments at Elonka's RfA. It was quite excessive. There is no sign of acceptance of anything in Matt's response to Elonka's comment here .

Aminz, we've been talking about this for awhile now at User talk:Elonka/Work1 for awhile now. You can't see it, because it's been deleted. The bottom line here is that Elonka views bringing her COI articles in line with Misplaced Pages policies as harassment. You can say, well, it'd be better if someone other than Matt57 did it, and perhaps you're right…did you have anyone in particular in mind? Because these articles have been blatantly out of step with WP policy for over a year now, and no one's anything about it.Proabivouac 08:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Matt is unique in several aspects: There is only one user that writes the username of Itaqallah as "ItaqAllah" and it is Matt (can one ask why only and only Matt does that?). Matt insists in using people like Craig Winn in criticism of Islam article. Just to give you an idea of who this guy is, I'll provide some quotes from him: "Hitler simply followed Muhammad's path...Muslims, like Nazis and Communists, can’t be trusted...Muhammad, Islam’s lone prophet, qualifies as the most evil man to have ever lived...Prophet of Doom is the best documented and most comprehensive presentation of the Islamic scriptures ever written...Muhammad was the perfect Satanic prophet...As an expert on Islam and terror, I know that all good Muslims are terrorists and that most all terrorists are Muslims...Decadent egomaniacs like Muhammad are deeply troubled and tortured souls..Muhammad was a terrorist." --Aminz 07:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

You appear to be canvassing, and to have forgotten hadith Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220. Arrow740 09:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I am unsure, Aminz, how this has any bearing on the discussion at hand. Neil ム 08:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Matt needs to stay away articles associated with Elonka, because his behavior looks like stalking. Whether it is or not is irrelevant; it's what it looks like that matters. He has followed other editors around after disputes with them, which has been discussed on AN/I at least once, so this isn't an isolated incident. SlimVirgin 08:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I endorse the prevention of the posting of private material on this website and therefore and by extension the blocking of users, for what seems like a necessary and or appropriate length of time, that introduce such content; blocking is not punitive, but preventative, so I think that what has transpired between Kylu and Matt57 is probably to the benefit (and, possibly, the safeguarding, in relation to the consideration and insurance of every users right to keep certain private information/s unrevealed to the community) of those involved. -- Anonymous Dissident 08:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I, too, strongly support this principle and any actions taken to uphold it.Proabivouac 08:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

However, according to Matt57's unblock request, this information was already avaliable on User:Elonka/About…

if so, it seems that Matt57 has been blocked twice in a row for infractions he did not commit.Proabivouac 11:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• That was hardly a "completely reasonable request to stop". Rather, something that starts with "formal notification" is probably misguided to begin with, and it appears to contain any number of leaps to conclusions. Something doesn't seem right here. >Radiant< 11:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• I only glanced at this in the past, and assumed Elonka was mostly in the right. The behavior of her more aggressive supporters is making me think again, and making me wonder if I was foolish to support her RfA. Blurring out the face of Muhammad bothers me, but that is a question I would let Commons to deal with, as long as we do not use the bowdlerized picture in any of our articles. Tom Harrison 12:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Hacked account being abused

Minor, bored student-type vandalism by Ben chang93 (talk · contribs) appears to be due to the account being hacked per Template:Australia-school-stubby will hickman. Perhaps it should be blocked. Flyguy649 _contribs 06:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like he stopped, don't think it's a hacked account, just a new account with which this kid is pretending to be one of his friends. I'm inclined just to watch for now, but if the vandalism starts up again, I think an indef is warranted -- Samir 07:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Be on the lookout for an open sock drawer

I would keep an eye on Scientology-related topics per this indef'd user's page before I reblanked it per WP:DENY. It seems to me he may be planning to use sockpuppets. -Jéské 07:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi's Continued Trolling After Block

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

user:Muntuwandi has just completed his second block and it looks as if his behavior has not improved, or even changed since beforehand. His first edit, other than to go fishing (a Checkuser for me), was to delete information from the Negroid article here . I reverted this deletion, as it was made with no discussion or even an edit summary. He reverted again . I promptly reverted this, and in my edit summary cautioned him of the 3RR, of which he is now very familiar.

Please, could an administrator deal with this little nuisance, kind regards, --Phral 07:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This isn't really "trolling", though it is disruptive, and the latest block doesn't seem to have done anything to dissuade him from edit warring. I'll keep an eye on the page to make sure that this doesn't get out of hand. --Haemo 07:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Haemo, and he has just reverted again . I don't want to get into a war so I've left it for now --Phral 07:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

{{Funkynusayri (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is the editor who has been blocked for inserting this photo into the article. The photo says African types, nowhere in the text is the word Negroid mentioned, and even if it was the term is sometimes considered pejorative, So images should not be used and if they are to be significant care should be taken when selecting images, in which case nothing has been done. Muntuwandi 07:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not the place for a content dispute, Muntuwandi, that is what the article's talkpage is for --Phral 08:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Then don't edit war. The last word on the discussion page about this was 5 days ago, and ended with a compromise to include the image while citing the source it's from which calls them "Negroid". Edit warring over this, especially without input on the talk page or in your edit summary.

And User:Funkynusayri was blocked for edit warring over this image, just like you were. The moral is to not edit war. --Haemo 08:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

What I am saying is that this is an old discussion, if you check on the talk page the use of images has been discussed exhaustively, that I do not have anymore energy. Two users have been blocked for adding the images to this page, one the other is Nordic Crusader (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) for whom I have put in a request for phral as a suspected sock puppet of. Please read the caption of the photo, nowhere does it say Negroid. Their aim is to obtain the most stereotypical and unphotogenic photos of Africans and say that they are Negroid, a term that is sometimes used as a slur. the oxford dicitonary says the term is "best avoided".Muntuwandi 08:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

And their rejoinder is that, while the caption does not say that, the text which accompanies it does. I don't know whether or not that's the case, of whatever else is going on here — however, I can see an extensive discussion which ended in a compromise to include the image. There's no excuse for edit warring -- if it turns out that Phral is a sockpuppet of another user, then he'll get blocked and you'll never have to deal with him again. However, being tired is no excuse for edit warring on a page — if you need to, just walk away for a while and edit other articles until you regain your ability to discuss controversial edits. There are other editors on "your side" (note the scare quotes) who will make sure that consensus is upheld on the article. Just please, please don't edit war in the place of discussion. --Haemo 08:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It is an anthropological term, and do you expect the article Negroid to avoid use of the word Negroid? What are you on sonny? --Phral 08:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

And this ain't productive, either. --Haemo 08:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, this is not appropriate and I consider it a personal attack. I am not a puppet, so to insinuate I am and then make comments based on that is inappropriate --Phral 08:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think if there is discussion to be on the article we should not use images, the term is considered pejorative because it sounds like the word "N----r". Why then Haemo will you give ammunition to those whose positions maybe construed as racist. Muntuwandi 08:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not. All I'm doing here is telling you not to edit war. If you discuss this on the talk page, then there's no problem. I really have no opinion about whether or not this image is included — however, edit warring is totally unacceptable, especially with no comment in either the edit summary or on the talk page. You've spent thousands of bytes here telling us why this is inappropriate — why not do the same on the talk page instead of here? This is not a venue for content disputes. --Haemo 08:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The article is called Negroid!!!! What is wrong with you? Is everything racist to you? --Phral 08:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Negroid is a term not a person. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Muntuwandi (talk • contribs) 08:40, August 22, 2007 (UTC).

Because the same thing are on the talk page, phral, funkynusayri, nordic crusader based on their edits are promoting more of a racist agenda, than any real interest in the anthropology or terminology of the term. Muntuwandi 08:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, this is clearly a content dispute at this point, which is not appropriate for this page. I suggest everyone just move on and discuss it on the article's talk page. --Haemo 08:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The reason for discussing here is that the talk page has been used exhaustively. At this stage we just need independent external people to review. The reasons why some editors who are racists(not naming any names) pick on this article is that it is not active and has few editors. They wouldn't dare try to insert their racist photos into articles with several established editors because they know they won't last. Muntuwandi 08:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Then file a request for comment. This isn't the proper venue for this; this is for pages that require admin attention. All this needs is, apparently, some external people — which is specifically what the RFC system is for. If this is not productive, then there are other dispute resolution venues you can follow. --Haemo 08:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Problems that can be solved instantly do not need to go through long bureaucratic processes through which few other editors are interested in. The fact is the term Negroid is hardly used anymore and is never referred to individuals, it is considered pejorative. Can't you see that these editors never add any text to the article, they just want to add images. That is a sign of bad faith. Muntuwandi 08:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Wait what? Since when is wanting to add images a sign of bad faith? Lychosis /C 09:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

A picture is worth a thousand words? Again, if you need external comments about content, this is not the venue. You are looking for WP:RFC or WP:DR. I cannot solve your content disagreements. --Haemo 09:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, please stop trying to force the hand of a neutral Admin, he has stated plainly he has no interest in the article. --Phral 08:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This is clearly a content dispute. Take it up on the talk page, or at a request for comment. --Haemo 09:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Pictures of Negroids

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Adding pictures is not bad faith. but when a person is only interested in adding pictures to one article and nothing else, it is enough to raise suspicions. There are millions of photos out there. Look at the Black people article. These photos were selected with the consensus of good faith editors. Furthermore phral has in the past been wikistalking the edits I am interested in. phral wikistalkingMuntuwandi 09:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe that when a discussion's closed, you might think of taking it elsewhere, as has been suggested? Just a thought. Lychosis /C 09:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

A discussion is only closed when everybody agrees to stop discussing. Nothing has been resolved. Muntuwandi 09:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The discussion was about your reverting, not your content-related whining --Phral 09:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Other editors are also calling for a block of phral diff. It is best not to use the image, and we can continue the discussion. Muntuwandi 09:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

So, Muntuwandi, it's either your way or nothing? That's not how consensus works, and the consensus was to keep the picture. --Phral 09:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Guys, guys, shouldn't you take it to Dispute Resolution or something? I thought it was already established that this wasn't the place for this. Lychosis /C 09:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi seems to be waiting for a sympathetic admin to carry out his Afrocentric agenda --Phral 09:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

All right, enough. When a discussion is closed, it is closed. Please do not start it again; take your concerns to a talk page, dispute resolution, or a RFC. No admin attention is required here, except in the RFCU, which is pending and independent of this noticeboard. Both users here are reminded to be civil and refrain from personal attacks, or else they may be blocked. --Coredesat 09:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Muntuwandi Still Reverting

Here are the latest, can someone please do something permanent! He won't even use edit summaries --Phral 09:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Birmingham Pub Bombings

Edit War. Should this page not be protected? Banksareas 10:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet of User:Aatomic1, who is currently blocked for a week for edit warring on that page. Kind regards. 217.44.10.252 10:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This is obviously a sock of a blocked user blocked for trying to insert lists of dead in numerous articles, dispite no consensus to do so being achieved on the talk pages of these articles. These lists add nothing of encyclopedic value to articles and are just memorials.--padraig 11:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This editor is now using a second sockpuppet 217.44.10.252 12:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Confirmed RFCU

Hello administrators. I have a incident.

User:Dutyterms was confirmed by administrator Voice-of-All, as a series of sockpuppets of User:Bason0. But Dutyterms has not been blocked yet. Can someone cope with it?

A related WP:RFCU is Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Bason0#2nd request. Thanks. --Nightshadow28 11:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet editing abuse

Is there anything that can be done to bring one user under control? AGENT 7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created a number of Salamis-related articles (in poor English, unreferenced - and difficult to reference because sources are mostly in Greek).

After warnings and a couple of blocks for removing cleanup and {{unreferenced}} tags, he/she - judging by identical edit patterns - has switched to working via variable IP sockpuppet addresses: continuing to add unsourced material, removing maintenance tags whenever they're put back, and refusing to communicate on the matter.

Articles concerned are:

• Aianteio (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Aias Salamina F.C. (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Ampelakia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Agios Georgios, Salamis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Batsi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Dimitrios Mpogris (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Kaki Vigla (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Memos Mpegnis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Paloukia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Salamis Island (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Selinia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

I asked for semiprotection, but they didn't think it was important enough. No response from Wikiproject Greece. This is very unhelpful: surely someone shouldn't be allowed to evade editorial checks in this way (as well as impeding the cleanup process). Gordonofcartoon 12:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

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