Misplaced Pages

unindent) In response to ">Cowman109, was MyWikiBiz not banned for sockpuppetry and/or making legal threats? Neither would apply in this case. Risker 21:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I've added url Democrat4president.org to the Blacklist, and it appears Democrat4president.org article has already been deleted.--Hu12 22:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, MyWikiBiz was banned for those it appears, but the outlying issue that started it all was the fact that he was paid to advertise for businesses on Misplaced Pages, I guess. That's the only similarity here I meant to bring up - the fact that we have another paid editor issue. Cowman109 22:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

So when did everyone turn psychic so that they can determine the motivations of an editor for contributing. As long as contributions adhere to the content policy and guidance then what justification is there for blocking or otherwise harassing them? If a contributor engages in persistent confrontations over the content that falls into the existing methods for censure and enforcement.

I really think people need to get a sense of perspective here.

ALR 08:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

ALR, this editor is perpetrating a fraud. I realize what a strong word this is so let me repeat it: this editor is perpetrating a fraud. This person is purporting to sell a service on eBay that would guarantee any purchaser a "homepage" at Misplaced Pages (read: an article, regardless of underlying notability) and guarantees twelve outgoing links to the purchaser's website. This person has no ability to make such guarantees, which are in blatant violation of WP:NOT, WP:OWN, WP:COI, and WP:SPAM. It is a play upon the client's ignorance and our goodwill. Durova 15:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

the nature of any advertising on eBay is eBays problem, not Wikipedias. Frankly as far as the eBay advert is concerned, and the Craigslist ones below, caveat emptor. If someone purchases the service and then discovers that it can't be fulfilled then that is between them and the vendor. Misplaced Pages has no place in the transaction, other than as a third party.

I'd go as far as to say that any effort to do something, beyond what's already covered in the content policy and guidance, about it probably increases any liability.

I'd consider a comparison with someone who is employed by an organisation and edits articles related to them, either during their work time, or in their own time. Take a look at the PA Consulting Group page for an example of someone in the marketing department of the company dealing with the article.

I appreciate that in any system there is a tendency for rules and administranium to self perpetuate, but frankly I'd like to see the jackboots kicking in more appropriate doors. wikipedia has enough of its own problems without sorting out eBay and Craigslist.

ALR 15:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Selling something which it is patently obvious is unable to be delivered is fraud. While Misplaced Pages probably would be seen in the courts as a victim of this, not a perpetrator, we've moved, independently, to avoid such problems. You see that as a problem? That's an unusual perspective, and you seem to be almost supportive of it. Further, if you don't like what User:Summilux is doing to the PA COnsulting group article, talk to him/her, and edit that article to be better. If talking doesn't work, go to the COIN folks, and ask for help. We have recourse available, nad saying 'well, they're doing it too' isn't a valid defense. ThuranX 21:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

My point with regard to PA consulting was that the blatant advertising was dealt with by discussion. That waas an example of a more general point, what is the situation with employees, or indeed contractors within an organisation, editing the articles related to their employers? I appreciate that the point was probably more subtle than is usual in this area.

I have no problem with someone making money out of this system, they've seen opportunities and they're exploiting them. If the advertised service is fraudulent then that is between the parties involved; Misplaced Pages is neither responsible for it, nor a victim of it. However I do object to some creeping effort to police the whole web. Policies and guidelines allow this to be handled without the rather excessive step of preemptive blocking of accounts, in fact you clearly identify two of the approaches yourself, and another is being used immediately below this.

So much for anyone can edit, frankly ones motivations for editing shouldn't be policed. Play the ball, not the player....

ALR 21:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_anarchy Just because anyone can edit doesn't mean they're welcome to roam wild. This site has policies and standards.
• WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_blog.2C_webspace_provider.2C_social_networking.2C_or_memorial_site We don't have homepages: we have encyclopedia articles.
• WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_your_web_host A more explicit policy statement of the above.
• WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory Misplaced Pages is not a resource for conducting business.
• WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information Subjects have to satisfy a certain threshold of verifiable information to merit an article.
• WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox Advertising and self-promotion are explicitly against policy.

I don't set out to police every entry at eBay or Craigslist, but as an administrator of Misplaced Pages I most certainly do pay attention when someone attempts to manipulate Misplaced Pages for ideological or profit motives. I deal with this kind of thing all the time. And if you'd rather participate in a different wiki where that kind of editing is welcome and I don't volunteer, you are most welcome to create one or join one. Unless you persuade consensus here to alter several fundamental policies and guidelines, I'll keep right on doing my thing. Durova 02:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Clearly there is something I'm not communicating here. I've pointed out several times that Policy and Guidelines exist which allow us to address content issues. I have a concern that there is a pre-emptive effort to ban people on the basis that they might break those policies and guidelines, predicated on their service offering; writing or editing articles for monetary reward.

If that's not what you're suggesting then it's not clear from your wording.

The effort to justify pre-emptive action based on your assumption that the actual contractual arrangement might be fraudulent strikes me as rather disingenuous, and comes close to being intellectually fraudulent in it's own right. Of course I might apply a very different standard of justification around punitive action than you do. It strikes me that you're seeking to justify making up your own rules on the hoof, which is a risky direction to take.

Of course your suggestion that I should f*ck off elsewhere does seem to be consistent with the approach you seek to justify. Clearly my expectation of self discipline and professional behaviour from administrators is misplaced.

ALR 07:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother so much about the "fraud" aspect, the fact that he might be unable to fulfill his "contract". I bother about that he is obviously willing to try to fulfil it. Which entails that he is willing to write articles regardless of the encyclopedic merits of the subject, and make an effort sneaking them into Misplaced Pages, bending our rules if necessary. Note that he isn't just selling his services to customers he judges suitable (as MyWikiBiz did, if I remember correctly); he is selling them to anybody, to the highest bidder. So, according to the e-bay rules, presumably he hasn't even got any control over which customers he accepts or not. If I hire him to write an article about my pet cat, he will be obliged to try and write one and fight to have it included. This is what he is publicly declaring he's willing to do. And this means he is automatically not a good-faith contributor. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This is interesting. What eBay seller is going to risk getting negged over something he can't deliver, and, as noted above, about any subject the buyer wants? The seller has 6500+ positives with 6 negs, none of them in the last 12 months. $100 just doesn't seem worth the risk, but it's a creepy little section of eBay anyway. Of the five or so buyers I found from the last month (seller uses exact wording except for names to sell Yahoo Answer, Google, Facebook, etc pages), two have left feedback...buyer Robbo0 bought on Aug. 16 and left positive on Aug. 27 and Diremine left positive on Aug. 31, while RayJasm left a cryptic positive on Aug. 19 (bought Aug. 9). Other purchases were buyer from Bulgaria, online store "My Native Creations" and GiaPromotions, which markets poker stuff. The two articles could be connected with the feedback, but I couldn't see the dates from the already deleted article to see if it matched up. Be interesting to see what feedback comes from these buyers down the road. Flowanda | Talk 19:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Craigslist

eBay is behind the curve compared to Craigslist. From a Google search of site:craigslist.org for "wikipedia":

• This guy has "two projects that should be of some interest to an accomplished author with a potential book deal sometime in the future" and non-disclosure/secrecy agreements. It helps if, despite Misplaced Pages's "encyclopedic" style, you could "employ some passion." Salary is negotiable, of course

• A local filmmaker in Philadelphia wants someone to "create a Wiki profile" about him/her

• Canadians will be glad to know that Misplaced Pages needs photographers in Toronto to snap photos for use in articles. The photographer even gets a link to his site from "whatever article(s) Misplaced Pages uses the photos in", in exchange for taking "pro bono" shots

• Here's a guy in Houston who "guarantees (to write for you) a Misplaced Pages entry free from spelling and grammar errors", plus a "chance to become part of history". (I never thought of myself as historical.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KrakatoaKatie (talk • contribs) 08:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

There are more like this that have expired and are unavailable for viewing. The things people will do to promote themselves never ceases to amaze me. - KrakatoaKatie 08:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually the third of those four listings is completely legitimate. The other three look very bad. Durova 15:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, he can't get a link in the article. In the photograph, maybe. But never in the article. Cary Bass 15:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I wrote to the photographer, explaining he can't offer a link *in* the article. Cary Bass 15:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Good to know the third one is okay – the phrase "Misplaced Pages uses the photo in" sounded very odd. - KrakatoaKatie 20:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Lordy. The fourth guy has had a long, illustrated, reasonably well written, but completely non-notable article for almost a year: J. Kevin Tumlinson. See you all when this AFD red link turns blue. :-). --AnonEMouse 17:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Arrgh! I looked for him in userspace, not the mainspace. Look at the article's history - I'm trying to WP:AGF, but how many believe User:Oldhatgolfer and User:Hat72 are different people? - KrakatoaKatie 20:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

They _are_ the same guy. See Oldhatgolfer's deleted edits, and Hat72's deleted edits. (Non-admins can't see these, sorry.) - KrakatoaKatie 20:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I almost forgot – I don't want to hijack ANI, but there's one more, and it may be the best one of all:

• A "Nude resort and spa" in Los Angeles wants a "WIKI expert to help resort on trade post for us". They "are seeking more help with really working wikipedia and some other sites like this as we cant seem to be able to post", and "and there seems to be many places for us to placemnt on Misplaced Pages". They're willing to exchange expertise for a free midweek stay at sea mountain inn for two people (URL removed) or two free dayspa passes for two" to their nudie spa.

If you're interested, please don't tell me about the experience. I have enough problems. ;-) - KrakatoaKatie 20:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Free midweek stay at a nudie spa??? WP:Conflict of WHAT? I'm there! Any female parties interested in that second ticket, you know who's Talk page to hit up. Awww yeahhhh. :-P Bullzeye 11:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess since it's not an offer of money, it doesn't violate WP:COI. However, some of us (like yours truly) aren't at our best unclothed, so it's not all that appealing of an offer. -- llywrch 23:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure it violates WP:COI. Durova 14:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Only if the editor in question seeks to insert content in violation of policy, and persists in doing so when that content is challenged by other editors. Although I'd agree that in this sense there is no real difference between a financial and non-financial reward.

ALR 15:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

A conflict of interest is precisely what its name implies: a conflicting motivational factor that could lead to behavior that works against the building of an encyclopedia. This is an old concept that managed situations such as free junkets long before Misplaced Pages or the Internet existed. You've offered no reason why Misplaced Pages should be forced to reinvent the wheel in this regard, and if you have some reason then you ought to advance it at the guideline talk page rather than here. Durova 17:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirey sure why you feel it neccesary to be quite so hostile towards me, peculiar really.

There is a potential conflict of interest in the situation, no doubt of that whatsoever. However it only becomes a conflict if the required edits don't meet the content demands of the community, recognising that those demands are somewhat fluid in places.

Whilst it remains a potential I see no need for any proverbial jackboots kicking the doors in until there is an attempt to break the extant policies. I'm not suggesting any need to re-invent any wheels, I'm merely cautious of pre-emptive action. In the UK we have this quaint tradition of considering people innocent until proven guilty.

ALR 18:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Deliberate, repeated violation of WP:BLP by User:Sesmith + incivility

I recently noted that User talk:Sesmith had, contrary to WP:BLP#Categories, made large numbers of additions to categories such as Category:Latter Day Saint entertainers, Category:Latter Day Saint artists, Category:American Latter Day Saints etc., despite providing no citations from reliable, published sources to justify the subjects' inclusion in the categories, and despite the fact that the subjects' supposed religious affiliation often played little or no part in the reasons for their notariety.

I pointed out to User:Sesmith with a friendly reminder that WP:BLP#Categories requires that: "the case for the category must be made clear by the article text"; he article must state the facts that result in the use of the category tag and these facts must be sourced"; "ategory tags regarding religious beliefs... should not be used unless two criteria are met:

• The subject publicly self-identifies with the belief... in question;
• The subject's beliefs... are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources."

None (or very few) of his additions to these categories, as far as I could ascertain, satisfied any of these criteria, let alone all of them: there was usually no mention of the subject's religious affiliation in the article text, which is a requirement. The absence of such information in the body of the article also tends to suggest that "the subject's beliefs" were not "relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life." As well, of course, the requirement "these facts must be sourced" from "reliable published sources" was completely unmet.

User:Sesmith responded with a dismissive note inviting me to be more specific. He deleted my notice from his talk page with an edit summary that suggested he was already familiar with the policy. I took his request for greater specificity at face value, and responded with a selection of the offending inclusions and citations of the relevant portions of WP:BLP to make it clear what was at issue.

User:Sesmith responded with a hostile note asserting, essentially, that he was already aware of the policy, and claiming that the violations were negligible and anyway (for some reason) not his responsibility because they were part of a "batch update" and were ancillary to category additions by previous editors -- implicitly conceding that in spite of being aware that they violated WP:BLP#Categories, he had made such changes to, in his words, "hundreds" of articles.

I responded by saying that he is responsible for his own edits, reiterated that the edits violated WP:BLP#Categories, and pointed out that he had created a large mess he should now clean up, and that he could consider removing any similar violations he might find in the articles which now required cleaning up. User:Sesmith deleted my message with an abusive and uncivil edit summary.

Not only did User:Sesmith not revert his improper additions to these categories, he actually restored specific ones I had mentioned as being violations and had removed -- again, evidently in full knowledge that doing so violated WP:BLP#Categories.

He then proceeded to the article List of Latter Day Saints, an article likewise afflicted with large numbers of unsourced claims about religious affiliation, and is the subject of a notice on the BLP noticeboard. I have been in the process of moving through the list removing entries involving living people where no citation from a reliable, published source justifies keeping them on the list and had explained the rationale here. User:Sesmith, who now appears to be following me around, intervened in the exchange with this uncivil and abusive response and then promptly restored all the violations to the list -- now without any doubt deliberately and in the full knowledge that restoring these entries violates WP:BLP. (Admin User:Jossi has since deleted the offending entries, and placed a warning against restoring them on the article talk page).

In my opinion, User:Sesmith:

• Should face a block for disruption (specifically, "persistently posting material contrary to the biographies of living persons policy") for:
  • deliberately and repeatedly violating WP:BLP, and in particular WP:BLP#Categories, in spite of having a clear understanding of the policy.
  • his repeated abusiveness and incivility ("ignoramus," "anal," "on a personal power trip" and so forth).

• Should be instructed to cease his incivility in the future or face the possibility of further blocks.

• Should be prevented from editing articles in this subject area unless he can commit to observing WP:BLP henceforth, and should face a longer-term block in the event he resumes violating the policy.

--Rrburke 17:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you give us the Cliff's Notes version of the above discussion? Raymond Arritt 17:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll try:

He did this, this, and this after I told him here that doing so violated this. Doing it after being informed of the policy, which he said he already knew anyway, means that he did it deliberately, knowing that the edits were violations.

He claims to have made similar edits to "hundreds" of articles, and in that last set of diffs implicitly acknowledges he was already aware of the policy, which confirms he was not acting ignorantly, simply ignoring the policy.

If more confirmation were actually needed that he engages in deliberate violations, he restored a whole host of WP:BLP violations with this edit, long after he'd been informed of the policy (the edits were later removed as WP:BLP violations by an admin in this edit) and after reading and participating in this discussion -- so he is not just violating the policy in question, he's repeatedly violating it actively and deliberately, and presumably plans to go on doing so.

He's also abusive and uncivil, as this edit summary and this edit, for example, make clear.

But the long version is better :) --Rrburke 18:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

If people making mechanical category changes (category renames/merges, etc) are to be held responsible for the categorizations of every article they touch, nothing will ever get done (except, possibly, deletion) at CFD. Why not go further and say that ANY violation of ANY policy in ANY part of an article is the responsibility of the last editor who touched it, even if they didn't insert it. This is essentially the same as holding someone who edits a template responsible for a pre-existing BLP-violating transclusion of that template. --Random832 19:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

A further question - why is it that BLP#Categories applies to ALL categories whereas BLP itself applies only to "contentious" material? This even seems to apply to stub sorting: Picking an article at random, Joe_Allen_Evyagotailak provides no sources for the claim that its subject is canadian, or that he is a politician. Or for that matter that he was born in 1953, that he's Inuit, that he's from Kitikmeot Region, or anything else the categories say. I'm not going to violate WP:POINT by actually removing the categories, but CLEARLY there is something wrong with WP:BLP#Categories as it stands. --Random832 19:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a live issue in this case: this case is these about improper additions of categories to individual articles -- lots of them -- not about changes to the categories themselves. --Rrburke 20:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The letter of BLP#Categories (and this complaint is definitely sticking to the letter in some of those cases) forbid ANY unsourced categories, which severely impacts stub sorting (no, this is not a case of stub sorting, the point is it's a clear example why the rule is messed up). And, the words that he's twisted into "admitting that he's deliberately violating BLP" (those words, incidentally, constitute no such admission) are clearly a case of (regardless of if it's true), him claiming that he's applying something akin to a category naming convention change rather than actively categorizing articles. --Random832 22:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "sticking to the letter": this is about as cut-and-dried an example of violating the policy in question as I can imagine: the policy requires that if you're going to add a living person to the category Religion X, the article text must also say the person belongs to Religion X. These (and a great many more I didn't include -- "hundreds" according to the editor himself) didn't. The policy requires that a reliable published source be provided to corroborate that the person actually belongs to Religion X. These didn't.

The policy is especially precise about category tags claiming religious affiliation: they "should not be used" unless "the subject publicly self-identifies with the belief" and "he subject's beliefs... are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life," with the requirement of verifiability: "according to reliable published sources." A great many of these category tags were added to articles on sports figures and entertainers, and so didn't satisfy any of the criteria -- and all of them need to be satisfied. Also, no sources were cited. Adding a category tag for Religion X to an article about a baseball player, when the article itself doesn't even mention the player's religion, let alone contain a quote establishing "self-identification" together with an inline cite, fails every one of the criteria -- and there were lots of examples just like this one: Roy Halladay.

I have to say I take some exception to the claim that I've "twisted" anything into anything else, if that's supposed to imply some intention to mislead. First, I never used the words "admitting that he's deliberately violating BLP" -- those are your words, not mine. If you're going to claim that I'm "twisting" something, please at least quote me accurately. I sent a short note to the editor on the assumption he was violating the policy innocently, asking him to remember to observe WP:BLP#Categories. He replied, "I always do, thx." So I gather from that he's already familiar with the policy, and was familiar with it when he made these "hundreds" of similar edits -- which is a different thing altogether from violating it innocently. If he then continues violating it, it can't be because he's never heard of it. Even if he had never heard of it, I then, in response to his request for greater specificity, quoted the relevant portion of the policy and gave specific examples of edits of his -- a few among "hundreds" of similar edits -- that violated the policy.

After you've had the policy cited to you and been given specific examples detailing edits that violated it, if you go ahead and do the same thing again, you're violating the policy deliberately, in full knowledge of what you're doing -- even if you hadn't already acknowledged you were familiar with the policy to begin with, which this editor did. And it's not a question of misinterpretation or different people having different understandings of the policy, because WP:BLP#Categories is a very straightforward and uncomplicated couple of sentences with a handful of easy-to-understand criteria.

You seem not to like WP:BLP. Naturally, that's fine and I respect it. I'm sure plenty of people agree with you. But your responses appear to confuse your dislike of the policy with the question of whether it was violated in this instance, matters which don't really have anything to do with each other. --Rrburke 11:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

If there were so many examples where it wasn't mentioned in the article text, why didn't you use those diffs in this ANI posting instead of the ones where it was? The reason I took exception to this was that you were listing articles where it _was_ present in the text - not sourced, but not contentious either, and seemed to be using a loophole in BLP that inexplicably makes it stricter with categories than with article text. The other thing that it seemed clear that in many cases he was simply adding subcategories to articles already in the latter-day saints category, and it's really not reasonable to hold him responsible for that - CFD would never get anything done if people can't make mechanical category changes based on already-present categories without opening themselves up to BLP accusations. Can you point to any examples where both of the following apply?

1. The article text did not already state the subject's religion
2. The article was not already in an LDS category not added by User:Sesmith

If not, I have to wonder if you have some other motive. --Random832 23:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

A couple of things: first, this is not the first time you've tried to insinuate that I'm acting from some ulterior motive. As you have no basis and no evidence for such an insinuation -- it also happens to be wrong -- I'll thank you to stop making it. Absent evidence to the contrary, you can assume I submitted this report for precisely the reasons set out herein, and not for any other.

Second, I chose the examples I did precisely because they were ones I had already specifically raised with the editor -- violations he decided to restore even after being made aware of the policy in detail. My purpose was to make it as clear as possible that these were not innocent violations, but ones made deliberately -- after being aware both that they were violations and how they were violations. They illustrated the point best, because they were ones about which there couldn't be any confusion. These were not mechanical mass additions of subcategories, but one-at-a-time manual restorations of categories in cases where the editor had already been made aware that the addition of them in the first place had violated WP:BLP. [split response, this paragraph is Rrburke

The majority of the diffs you cited in this ANI post either had a statement already in the article text that the subject was LDS, or had a _category_ that was already on the article, saying the subject was LDS. "when the article itself doesn't even mention" the religion is simply false for most of the diffs you cited. --Random832 14:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The addition of these particular category tags has to satisfy all the criteria: some failed certain ones; others failed other ones; still others failed all. These are the ones he chose to restore even after being made aware of the policy. So? --Rrburke 20:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I chose these edits and not others because they and not others are the strongest examples of the disruptive editing I'm attempting -- with little success, evidently -- to draw attention to. The "hundreds" (the editor's own words) of others are the background to these, but the editor acknowledged early on that he was already aware of the policy and didn't need me to remind him of it, which appears to me to mean that even at the time of adding these categories to hundreds of articles, the editor was familiar with WP:BLP#Categories and so couldn't claim ignorance as an excuse. There's a difference between being ignorant of a policy and ignoring it. [split response, this paragraph is Rrburke

A single edit where he was actually newly inserting the claim that the subject is LDS would be a MUCH stronger example of a BLP violation than any number of diffs where he is not doing so. --Random832 14:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That would only be the case if, to use the example again, the fact that someone previously added President Bush to the category "War criminals" would somehow negate my responsibility for adding him later to the category "American war criminals". Since it wouldn't, and the prior presence of offending categories has no bearing on a later editor's addition of more, neither does it have any bearing on the strength of the examples -- which, moreover, were offered to illustrate disruption, not simple, even knowing, violation. --Rrburke 20:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

If any confirmation of the deliberate nature of the violations were still required, consider that he later restored a whole host of WP:BLP violations with this edit, both long after he'd been informed of the policy and after reading and participating in this thread where the fact the material he later restored violated WP:BLP was being discussed. That edit more than any other demonstrates that the editor not only violates the policy but does it for a disruptive purpose, from a "wilful refusal to 'get the point' despite the clear statement of policy," as it's described in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.

Finally, the issue of whether the articles were already in LDS categories not added by User:Sesmith is irrelevant: if some vandal adds George W. Bush to the category "War criminals," would that somehow excuse me from responsibility if I then come along and add him to the category "American war criminals"? What's my defense? That's it's not my fault because I'm merely compounding somebody else's vandalism, not coming up with it all on my own? That's not just specious but silly, and I should expect to be held accountable for my own edit, whatever the earlier vandal might have done. --Rrburke 09:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't excuse you, but it would make it at least suspicious for someone to choose you alone to go after when the person who added the other category is equally guilty. Why are you going after him and NOT the person who added the other category, or the statement in the article text, in each of those cases. Is there any particular reason you have singled him out? --Random832 14:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) The reason is exceedingly simple (and not "suspicious"): when I glanced at the edit histories of the articles in these categories, I saw that this user's name appeared time and again in a large number of them, each time adding one of more of these categories. That is not why I "singled him out" -- because in fact I didn't single him out: I sent him a very innocuous note asking him to remember to observe WP:BLP#Categories when adding religious-affiliation categories to articles. He responded dismissively with an (erroneous) assertion that he always did so. Since that obviously wasn't the case, I cited the policy in question to clarify the matter, which occasioned an increasingly shrill and finally abusive string of responses, together with a restoration of the offending edits with no attempt to provide the required citations -- followed, finally, by a disruptive spite-edit which there can be no question he knew to be a violation. So I didn't "single him out": he escalated a simple matter with an easy remedy to the point where in order to prevent further violations, which he showed no likelihood of stopping on his own, few options were left but to bring it here. --Rrburke 20:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

One reason that BLP applies to all categories is that those seeing the category pages cannot see the citation or back-up, so looking at Category:Criminals if you see Joe Blow there you know that Joe Blow is a criminal and (if all is well in WP) that something in his bio is sourced saying that he was convicted of a crime. For me, I think that religious/ethnic/race labels are inherently contentious anyway: think not? Do you think that Bill Graham would object if you changed his religious category to something else - say Atheist, or Nelson Mandela would care if his race were changed to something else - say Afrikaaner? WP shouldn't be in the business of categorizing by these characteristics for a number of reasons (WP:V, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:OCAT, arbitrariness, and yes, WP:BLP). Carlossuarez46 02:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, it seems pretty obvious to me that "the facts supporting a category's inclusion MUST be sourced" (even if they're not contentious) is one of those rules that only applies if someone has it in for you. --Random832 22:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't seem at all obvious to me, and the issue seems pretty straightforward: "these facts must be sourced" in this instance merely means that in order to add a living person somebody to the category Religion X, the person in question has to have said "I belong to Religion X," and a reliable source has to be cited to prove he or she actually said it. This is a simple question of verifiability, a core policy -- with the added burden to get it right that WP:BLP places. --Rrburke 11:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

But even BLP doesn't put that much burden on anything other than a category. I brought up stub sorting because stubs are the articles most likely not to have sources cited for anything. What BLP is saying is that even the most uncontroversial statement, that would NEVER be removed if it appeared in article text without a source, is cause for accusing the person who added a category of repeated and deliberate policy violations. The written policy is not the same as what is actually done every day by thousands of users. --Random832 23:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The issue here is not any uncontroversial statement, but the claim that someone is affiliated with a particular religion -- a claim that would face the same scrutiny if placed in the text of an article, so there is no extra burden being placed on categories. Surely you're not saying that if I pick a biographical article at random and insert the unsourced claim "X is a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church" that that insertion would go unchallenged? It would be reverted immediately. Moreover, WP:BLP#Categories specifically sets out strict criteria for adding category tags claiming religious affiliation -- and the editor was aware of these criteria, because I had made him aware of them, and he chose to restore the categories anyway.

So it is completely erroneous to claim that on the basis of an "uncontroversial statement that would NEVER be removed if it appeared in article text without a source" I am "accusing the person who added a category of repeated and deliberate policy violations." Talk about "twisting"! First, the kind of statement in question is not uncontroversial. Second, it would be removed -- immediately -- if it were inserted unsourced into the text of a biographical article. And finally, that's not even the "cause" for the accusation anyway: the cause for the accusation is that the editor restored specific categories to particular articles when I had already made him aware that the addition of them in the first place had violated WP:BLP -- and that then, presumably for spite, he restored other unrelated violations after participating in a discussion which detailed how and why they violated the same policy.

I won't question your motives, although you've questioned mine, but I could be forgiven for ending up with the impression that you're trying not to understand. --Rrburke 09:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Rona - not only does the article text say he's LDS, it asserts notability solely on that basis. If the claim were removed from the article, the entire article would be {{db-bio}}. No, it's not sourced, but neither are a lot of stubs. I could probably take an afternoon and clear out most of any given stub sorting category if I felt so inclined. (this is the other part of why I was suspicious - if you have to rely on a policy as fundamentally broken as the current WP:BLP#Categories to do what you're trying to do, is it really what's best for the encyclopedia?) That you cited an edit to that article as one of your three top pieces of evidence does NOT help your claim. --Random832 14:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The article Daniel Rona is completely unsourced, so none of the claims in the article are verifiable anyway, which means that any addition of a religious-affiliation category tag would WP:BLP#Categories. The article also seems fairly spammy and cites no reliable, third-party sources to establish notability. If it did, which it should or else be deleted, adding the categories in question would've been defensible. So if the editor wished to restore the categories he could have chosen, having been made aware of the policy, to seek out reliable, third-party sources to establish the claim in order to make the category restoration comply -- and he would at the same time have been improving the overall quality of this until-then entirely unsourced article. Instead, he chose a reflex-revert to show that he wasn't going to be told what to do, no matter what the policy says.

Let me try to clarify again why I chose these edits using a list of three ways to violate a policy. The list is not meant to be exhaustive:

• I've never heard of that.
• That doesn't seem important so I'll just ignore it.
• Screw you, I'm going to ignore what you told me and do it again anyway.

I chose the examples I did not because they were the strongest examples of violating the policy, but because they were all Screw yous and Screw yous constitute disruption. It's the fact that they were Screw yous, otherwise know as a "refusal to 'get the point'", that made the edits disruptive -- and it's the disruption that the primary basis of this complaint. The "That doesn't seem important so I'll just ignore it"s, which are the majority, are ancillary. They're violations, certainly to be distinguished from "I've never heard of that"s; they merit reversion and a caution, but they're not the main thrust of this complaint: "That doesn't seem important so I'll just ignore it" is knowing violation; "Screw you, I'm going to ignore what you told me and do it again anyway" is both a knowing violation and disruptive. It's the disruptive edits I'm trying to highlight, because disruption is the basis of the complaint.

I notice, by the way, that you've studiously avoided addressing this edit in which the user deliberately restored a whole list of WP:BLP violations even after participating in a discussion whose headline was "Large number of unsourced entries violating Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons." That's not just a Screw you, that's a "F--k you: I'm going to go on doing this and worse as long as I like". There no mistaking what's going on in this one. It's called disruption, and it merits a strong caution or temporary block. Is there a reason you've chosen not to address this example?

And who, exactly, says the policy is "broken"? It sets out a handful of simple, commonsense and defensible rules: don't put a person in a category unless the basis for doing so can be readily discovered from the article, otherwise it's not an important-enough part of the reason for their notoriety to include. The part of the article that is the basis for the inclusion requires a source -- like any claim that might be challenged. In particular, don't add a person to a category that claims they belong to a religion unless they've said they do, and don't add such a category unless their affiliation with this religion is an important part of what they're known for. What's unreasonable about any of that? --Rrburke 20:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

""He replied, "I always do, thx." So I gather from that he's already familiar with the policy, and was familiar with it when he made these "hundreds" of similar edits -- which is a different thing altogether from violating it innocently."" You're SEVERELY violating WP:AGF here by assuming that his claim that he's following the policy means that he is in fact aware of it and deliberately violating it, rather than simply not sharing your interpretation of the policy. Many experienced editors misinterpret policy, or don't keep up with changes to it. It was absolutely unwarranted to take his statement that he was following policy as anything other than that he honestly believed that his edits were in line with policy. --Random832 14:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

What's special about religious affiliation tags is they're specifically mentioned in the policy:

Category tags regarding religious beliefs and sexual preference should not be used unless two criteria are met:

• The subject publicly self-identifies with the belief or preference in question;
• The subject's beliefs or sexual preferences are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources.

The criteria are very simple, exceedingly clear and unequivocal. There is really no "interpretation of the policy" to founder on here. A person would have to be wilfully obtuse to pretend to be confused by it once it's been shown to him.

And taking the editor at his word is not a "severe" violation of WP:AGF -- or any kind of violation at all. Res ipsa loquitur. Moreover, you still seem to be misunderstanding me: the only instances in which I'm saying the editor is violating the policy in a way that constitutes disruption is in those instances I've cited. In the others, he appears to be aware of it and is choosing to ignore it -- which, as I've said, merits reversion and a caution but is not by itself disruptive. The disruption begins after you've had the policy, which is not complicated, explained to you in detail and you restore the material anyway -- and then follow the editor who's informed you of your violation of the policy to a wholly different article just so you can violate the policy again just for spite, and toss in uncivil abuse and infantile name-calling just for good measure. That's disruption, plain and simple, and signals an intention to keep at it.

Finally, you keep using words like "suspicious" and intimating that I have "some other motive" despite the fact that I've asked you to stop doing that unless you can produce some evidence. So here it is in plain English: if you've got an accusation to make, then come out with it already and I'll refute it point-blank. The insinuation and innuendo are getting tiresome. It's time to decide whether to put the matter out there or else drop it altogether. --Rrburke 20:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Query - positioning markup

Why do we allow "floating divs" in the first place? Is there any plausible use for them other than to obscure parts of the MediaWiki interface? >Radiant< 10:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Floating divs are everywhere - infoboxes, etc. The problem is absolute positioning. People use that functionality to do cute things on their user pages but, otherwise, I'm not aware of places where it helps the encyclopedia. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear about terminology, a floating div is typically a box that floats left or right of the main text. It moves things out of the way to make space for itself. This is a very useful feature. A floating div will not obscure other things. Absolute positioning, also known as layers, puts a div a set number of pixels away from an edge of the screen. This can cause the div to obscure other things. Here are the beans if you want to test this:

<div style="position:absolute; top: 200px; left: 200px"> <h1>Beans! Beans! Beans!</h1> </div>

Try this in your sandbox, not on a live page, please. - Jehochman 11:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• Okay, so I used the wrong term :) the question stands - why do we allow this in the first place? I believe the MediaWiki software can filter out unwanted kinds of html tag. >Radiant< 11:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• Well it's used by a whole host of templates that put various icons and such up next to the article title (FA stars, padlocks, geographical coordinates etc). None of that is rely critical to the ensyclopedia, but are they causing a lot of problems though? I've seen them used to block out the toolbox on one or two userpages, but I generaly don't think of it as a problem. If someone is using it to be disruptive just revert and take apropriate measures if they are beeing dickish about it. --Sherool (talk) 12:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Ok, good answer. Thanks. >Radiant< 13:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Can their use be restricted in software, to template space then? They are being used for spam and links which (being hidden) are on the pages, disrupt editors, and assist SEO, but are not always visible casually. FT2 13:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In response to Wknight94, there are (IMO) valid uses for absolute positioning when captioning various features on an image or diagram - see Broadwater Farm Estate or Hampstead Heath, for example — iridescent (talk to me!) 22:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

On Rambutan etc

1. Rambutan has been disruptive in the past – Not completely untrue, as a user who has been in dispute with Rambutan, I can say that he has been unhelpful and unwilling to listen at times. However, he responded well to reason in the past, learned from his mistakes and has been willing to collaborate.
2. Rambutan agreed to move on with the GFDL banner, which hovered over the GFDL links before he was blocked.
3. It would be interesting to note that Rambutan had only recently nominated an article for deletion over which Phil Sandifer seems to have an active interest. See Judd Bagley and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Judd Bagley (2nd nomination), soon after which Phil commented on the AfD page, and then commented upon how Rambutan was "deliberately" – trying to make his talk page unusable. This petty dispute escalated and resulted in the non-admin getting blocked for a duration of one month(?).
4. Phil Sandifer has repeatedly introduced material – , , which can be considered to be libellous on a permanent medium of information like an encyclopedia. On that very page itself, Phil Sandifer misused his admin tools to semi-protect the page to prevent the anonymous IP address from editing again. This was soon followed by the petty issue been addressed on Rambutan's talk page.
5. Rambutan has been blocked many times during the months of June and July, majority of the blocks been executed by Phil Sandifer himself – . The very first block made by Phil Sandifer (citing Removing talk page comments is disruptive.) was overturned by another administrator. This did not discourage Phil Sandifer from continuing blocking this user.
6. I would strongly recommend other administrators looking into the dispute, to delve into the issue rather than making observations solely on what it appears on the surface. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 17:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

At the very least, I implore Phil to stay away from Rambutan, and let other admins deal with him. This is not to say that Rambutan is in the right, just that Phil should focus elewhere. Will 23:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

For the record I find this intervention in the block of Rambutan most disturbing, particularly given the very serious, and as far as I can tell absolutely unfounded, counter-accusations that are made against his blocker. Rambutan is categorically disruptive, responds badly to polite requests, and has been rightly blocked on many occasions. That Phil has fielded this disruptive behavior is no reason to treat Phil as the problem, when Rambutan is the author of his own very poor reputation. --Tony Sidaway 10:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Article: Jasenovac Concetration camp

Kindly asking for the mediation in the case of the above mentioned article, due to the fact that all of my contributed and 'documented info-s and photos' have been deleted by the user Rjecina, who in my opinion tries to block the influx of valuable informations to the article and subject involved(see discussions to relevant article too,pls).

Sincerely, --Votec 22:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I accept mediation but still demand block of user:Votec because of his personal attacks on me and his 200 or more edits during last 3 days in this article. --Rjecina 22:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

...well, 200 or more edits were done because I am just on my third day on Wiki-line, did not know how to apply changes efficiently and as well have done a lot of grammatic corrections of the article...in addressing of member Rjecina 'demand for blocking': first of all be so kind and do not demand anything, but do try to kindly request:)...second of all, it won't help the mediation and third of all, calling you possible 'Holocaust denier' ( due to your activities concerning article 'Jasenovac concentration camp' and involving relevant discussion of the article) is not the insult, but in contrary my argumented claim.

....with hope of having constructive mediation.

sincerely, --Votec 00:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have started a single purpose account. You have accused two WP editors of being holocaust deniers. Please read WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:NPA and WP:POV. All edits must be supported by verifiable sources. Mathsci 01:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

...well, as per calling yourself 'pure profession mathematician', Mathsci, you should not be starting direct and explicit qualifications before doing some basic readings!...what about, just my comment above your one: there it clearly states that I am registered and on line user just for, now it would be four days so, as per following that simple fact you certainly CAN NOT label me with 'single purpose account' label...and for that 4 days I have addressed only 2 articles...so, your claim is per such just intentional fantasy!!!

...and BTW, in the major contrary to your deliberate above claim yours 'two WP editors - namely Rjecina and Ante Perkovic' are the one and the members with 'single purpose account'...that is clearly obvious after just a short look to their activities!!!...with your 'pure profession math brain' you should certainly agree ? :)...right?

...secondly, the article (Jasenovac), I did partially contributed, does have EXTRA verifiable sources, clearly two of them, as per bellow: <<http://www.arhivrs.org/jasenovac.asp>> 'Archives of Republic of Srpska' = for your kind attention Web page being listed on the UNESCO's Archives Portals !!!...and...

<<https://cp13.heritagewebdesign.com/~lituchy/index.php>> 'Jasenovac Research Instite' = which does state in it's first sentence: " The Jasenovac Research Institute is a non-profit human rights organization and research institute committed to establishing the truth about the Holocaust in Yugoslavia and dedicated to the search for justice for its victims. The JRI promotes research and activities designed to enlighten the world to the crimes of genocide committed at Jasenovac and wartime Yugoslavia against Serbs, Jews and Romas and provides assistance to all groups and individuals who likewise seek justice for these victims." >>>goal which sounds very noble to me...humbly hope you certanly agree too !!!

...thirdly, concerning the two WP editors ( members Rjecina and Ante Perkovic, I believe ) being accused by me( as you wrongly claim ) of being Holocaust deniers: It is not an accusation, but argumented claim, due to the deliberate activity of this two members!!!...kindly visit discussion page of the member Ante Perkovic and there you will find member's Rjecina claim that they are practising here on WP 'reversing wars' !!!!...HOPE THIS IS CLEAR ENOUGH..AND ANY TRY TO MINIMISE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE CARNAGED IN THE HOLOCAUST OF WWII...I DO NOT TOLERATE AND CALL HOLOCAUST DENIAL!!!

...can I kindly question your good intention and ask you...are you possibly the friend of above ones and trying to advocate in their behalf ? !!!...team work, maybe ? :)

very sincerely,

--Votec 12:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Please comment on the content not on the editors. The editors are not important, the content is. --Rocksanddirt 19:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

This page is not a blog and comments here are usually designed to be helpful. Please read the links I provided to avoid any future misunderstandings and kindly refrain from any form of personal attack. --Mathsci 22:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

...you certainly haven't done much of reading of above...as I can see I am the only one who is using the argmented talk and not the only direct attacks!

--Votec 20:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

For the note of administrator: by --Votec 20:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

On Wednesday, September 5th I have requested the 'mediation' of the 'English speaking page administrator' due to the repeated vandalism and deliberate deletion of the chapters in this article( not only contributed by me, but in his vandalism, by everything what did not suite his fancy...deleation have happened twice and with his second deletion on September 5th at 23:35 user Rjecina deleted (-3034) contributions by me and other users by not giving the explanation!).

If you kindly look and follow mail exchange of user Rjecina with his fellow user Ante Perkovic( and on the profile of Ante Perkovic), you can simply find that they do claim that they are doing 'reversing wars'!!! In addition following their 'line of interest' ( which can easily be concluded following their discussions) they are 'single purpose members', and if I may use the therm 'sel-made quasi WP historians'!!! Following their malicious work they do not deserve to be the part of this vibrant community.

In addition, following the history of discussions with the article 'Jasenovac Concetration Camp' I am free to conclude that this article has been constantly vandalised ( most horrible example being...(kindly read relevant comment in dicussion)...statement added on the page by irrelevant user: 'Dear Catholic God, make all fucking Serbs die!!!"

This article is not about Serbs, Croats or Jews...it is about HOLCOAST and humans being exterminated in the horror of thier coexistence and as such should be adequately protected.

Once when I started added to the article 4 days ago, I found article to be genuine ruine: written in pour English, with obvious numbers of delations in the chapters by various members with their various 'interests'...which have made article hardly cosequent and readable. As well, due to the primitive involvements of the numbers of users from all sides, the 'most elaborated' chapter was about recounting the victims, but not about, for example, the conditions in the camp, human suffering, history, background. Shameful!!!

My editing on article was focused on conecting 'the bits and peaces' in one readable story. I did have added historical facts about Zagreb's WWII archbishop Stepinac( using the info's from the relevant WP article about him). Also I have added 29 photos and related informations from the two Web pages:

<<http://www.arhivrs.org/e_index.asp>> "Archive of Republic Srpska" which is listed on UNESCO Archives portals!!!...and...

<<https://cp13.heritagewebdesign.com/~lituchy/index.php>> "Jasenovac Researh Instite" which on its first page states: "The Jasenovac Research Institute is a non-profit human rights organization and research institute committed to establishing the truth about the Holocaust in Yugoslavia and dedicated to the search for justice for its victims. The JRI promotes research and activities designed to enlighten the world to the crimes of genocide committed at Jasenovacorganisation and wartime Yugoslavia against Serbs, Jews and Romas and provides assistance to all groups and individuals who likewise seek justice for these victims."... cause I do certanly find noble and justify.

Both Web pages being mentioned, have been attacked by user Rjecina in his malitious manner and informations concerned and relevant( including the pictures of children bing victims in camp DELETED by this vandal!!!).

As well I have deleted with explenation short sentence towards the end of the text, addressing the awards given, finding it inappropriate( reasons and notice for deletaion given at the end of my above comment, in section discussions ).

Following all above mentioned and the history of the article I do consider and kindly ask for this article to be fully protected. Certanly I do not expect, that version which is actuall now ( being last edited by myself and in my opinion still very poorly elaborating the subject) should be the protected one, but I do ask for your mediation in finding indepentent and prominent source ( for example, United States Holcoast Memorial Museums, which is having the info-s, certanly willinness to do so, and computer knowledge to contribute). After their contribution article should be fully protected.

I do respect Misplaced Pages philospohy of being the open information source, meant to built up the knowledge and share, but in the certain ocassion ( as I have noticed you have implemented it few times with 'difficult subject'...example 'Roma people' ) and this is certanly, in my opinion, the case ( due to the expolosion of primitive emotions accumulated and due to the wars in ex-Yugoslavia), I beleive that this would be the adequate solution.

If no, I am certain and positive that after this, or any other future conflict situation and mediations, this article will be repeaditly and repeditly vandalised and missused.

Holocaust thematic and Jasenovac as World Heritage Site do certainly ask for full protection.

Thanks for you readings and kindly advise with your point,

--Votec 20:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

User:RJ CG editwarring again

He seems to have started the old reverting on Bronze Soldier of Tallinn and Rein Lang again. Together with editmessage chatting. He also accuses everyone of personal attacks while throwing personal attacks himself.

I am not sure wether or not he has broken WP:3RR yet, he apparently tries to avoid it by claiming that some of his several edits are one revert or something similar.

Every time his block expires he seems to start the same stuff what he has been doing for a month again. Don't know what to do about that, maybe someone else does? Suva 21:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Disruptive Editing by User:Armon

Armon (talk · contribs) has been extremely disruptive on Southern California InFocus. He appears to be taking advantage of a legitimate content dispute between other editors on that page in order to revive his little war against me. He has been threatening to take me to Arbcom for months, and he appears to be revert-warring on the page simply to antagonize me. I don't know his goals here and I don't want to know - I would just like him to stop. I have asked him over and over again to leave me alone, yet he continues. Lately he has been inserting material on that page that fails WP:V -- a self published web page that keeps changing -- and he refuses to reply to arguments in talk. I decided to avoid his revert-warring trap and instead put an NPOV tag on the page. That tag should not be removed until the dispute is resolved. Rather than discussing the dispute he simply removed the tag with a cryptic note about WP:POINT. Before that he made another mass revert with a very deceptive explanation -- the edit summary said "cleanup with cite fixes- there is still is a problem with the Townsend cite" but he changed more than that; most notably, he added "tabloid-style" to the intro even though the other editors had agreed that the opinion of one person that it is "tabloid style" did not belong in the intro and needed to be attributed as an opinion. His editing is extremely disruptive on this page. csloat 23:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add that after he was informed about this report, Armon went ahead and removed the tag yet again, adding a nonsensical edit summary about "defacing" the article. The NPOV tag is not vandalism; it is Misplaced Pages policy that the tag stays on until a dispute is settled. csloat 23:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggested a rfc instead diff. <<-armon->> 00:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

An RfC may also be appropriate here, but the NPOV tag should not be deleted when there is a valid content dispute here. csloat 00:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

:::Please note two things:

I do not feel the drama in the note above is called for. The WP:AN/I page says that this is not the wikipedia "complaints department" I believe that if CSloat feels he has a legitimate complaint about Armon he should formally file a user conduct RFC. I believe it would be helpful for him to follow the process of stating exactly what policy he thinks other users are breaking, supplying evidence of this, and supplying evidence of his good faith efforts to resolve. Bigglove 00:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I actually did all that above, bigglove. Unlike your accusation that I have been disruptive, which you have provided no evidence whatsoever of. csloat 00:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Just want to make one thing clear, the type of rfc I referred to is a content rfc. We are at an impasse with sloat. <<-armon->> 01:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

:Yes, I know that Armon was talking about content RFC, and I agree we could use one. Sloat, please refer to the talk page of the article for specific comments from me about your recent disruptions. This is not the place for it. I was just pointing out that your post here was an example of the pot calling the kettle black. Bigglove 01:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)::No; what you were doing was making a false accusation with no evidence or explanation whatsoever. csloat 01:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

:::This was/is simply not the appropriate forum for any of this. You certainly had a valid beef about the tag, but the talk page of the article was the place to discuss. Bigglove 02:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the article Southern California InFocus a day ago, because Cslot and Bigglove had a heated conversation in my talk page. User Armon seems to be a very neutral and reasonable person, who provides convincing arguments during a discussion. I even tried to keep a segment of Armon's text in the article, but only got accusations of wikistalking from cslot at my talk page. It might be a good idea to protect this article.Biophys 03:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Biophys (talk · contribs) appeared out of the blue on the page and his sole contribution was to revert my changes twice, and then when another user had reverted him, to revert again. It did feel like wikistalking to me, so I posted a polite note to his user page asking him to avoid what looks like harassment and inviting him to contribute to the discussion page if he felt like participating. In response he blatantly lied, stating that he had only made one revert of the anonymous user. He has an old grudge against me because of a dispute from months ago and this is the third or fourth time he has carried that grudge to unrelated articles or comments. This AN/I has been resolved as Armon has left the tag up and come back into the discussion, and we are actually making progress on that page towards a solution, so it is not helpful to have biophys come here and ask for page protection. csloat 03:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

You just said "blatantly lied". But I made only one revert of an anonymous user in this page:, exactly as I said. Please provide your diffs to support your accusation me as a "blatant lier".Biophys 04:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC) I "came out of blue"? Not at all. It were you and Bigglove who came to my user page, which was fine until you started making all kind of accusations Biophys 04:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow; you just lied again. Your actual words were "I made only one revert at this page, a revert of anonymous user." Yet you reverted three times on that page, only one of which was a revert of an anonymous user, and all three of which were restoring the exact same material, the material that I was arguing should be excluded. You showed up on that page without participating in the discussion and refused to participate in it when I invited you to. Now you have lied again about all of this -- I really think you should stop now. csloat 04:55, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

So you failed to provide diffs proving that I did revert three times. By the way, this your request was about Armon, not me.Biophys 05:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. The diffs were above but here they are again: Now let this go before you embarrass yourself even further. csloat 05:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

No. You must provide diffs showing that texts from the left and right sides are identical (like in 3RR reports). See - this is my only revert: . Once again, this request was about Armon, and I commented about him. But you started accusing me, instead of discussing Armon. This is not good.Biophys 15:31, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you really going to keep lying about this? It is really abusive and ridiculously petty, and everyone can see you are lying. You lied, you were caught, I provided the proof, and lucky for you, I'm willing to drop it rather than turn this into a separate RfC. I think it would be best for you to drop it as well. Have a good day. csloat 19:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Variation AGF personal attack in edit summary

CBDunkerson accused me of assuming his bad faith (no clue as to why) which I interpret as an inverse variation on the AGF personal attack described at WP:AGF#Accusing others of bad faith. It's in an edit summary where only an admin can remove it, and I would like it removed, please.

Here's the diff of CBDunkerson's the over-the-line edit summary: "Response to assumption of bad faith and refusal to accept very clear statements of my position"
Nothing of the kind happened. For the AGF claim, I never assumed or mentioned anything about his good faith, or even thought about it. For the position claim, I did accept his constructive position that he was not going to answer the topic question, which was his only position in which I had an interest. I simply pointed out that his other statements of position were not answers to my question as stated.

This is one of those situations that gets worse with my every reasonable response, and I'd appreciate some help before the situation fulminates. He certainly isn't going to listen to my advice on avoiding NPAs generally, or as being especially disruptive in edit summaries. Also, given his demonstrated misreading of fact, I think it would be unwise for me to post anything at all to his user page, even a notice that he is being discussed here.†

The background is that I asked him an on-topic question which he refused to answer as stated, and then went off on a fevered tangent based on misreading my post for calendar month. When I pointed out his refusal to answer the question as stated, he claimed he had answered it repeatedly, which claim I find to be tendentious debating. Though I had civilly given up asking, he finally did answer the question as stated. That would have been the tedious end of it, except for the variation AGF PA in the edit summary where it can't be deleted by me. I would like to have it removed by admin, and Mr. Dunkerson reminded that Wikiguides apply to everyone.

†Mr. Dunkerson's debate style has most recently been aggressive certainty of his one-and-only rightness, while making repeated mistakes of fact and interpretation — suggesting to me that he needs new glasses and debate mentoring. This loose cannon behavior is that of a WP long-timer, admin, and a 36-year-old professional adult who ought to know better, maybe used to know better, but now doesn't perhaps due to admin burnout. Having read his RfA of 03 April 2006, the editor I encountered recently doesn't even seem like the same person as then received a (111/1/0) admin approval ratio. Milo 02:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, I love the C-style comment in the header! - Alison ☺ 02:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps not the best time to say that Allie? I think you're overreacting a bit Milo. CBDunkerson may be just a little frustrated about the debate... Doubtful it requires much admin intervention, so it may be best to talk to him about it first. Cheers. --D_arkF_alls 02:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

"Doubtful it requires much admin intervention" Oh? How you propose I remove the PA without admin tools? Milo 02:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

While it may be a little uncivil, I would not call that a personal attack that has to be removed from the page history. I can see that he was frustrated and the message was directed at a contributor not on content. I don't think it is worth it to remove it from the page history though. 1. No names are mentioned in the edit summary or text. 2. The attack (if it can be construed as one) is quite minor, its not like he called anyone an idiot or something. 3. The page has over 4000 revisions, deleting that one would require deletion/undeletion of the whole thing. I'd rather not crash the server now (I almost did it a few days ago with a page with fewer revisions). 4. Some of the comments made here about CBD are much worse than his comment about assuming good faith. "it would be unwise for me to post anything at all to his user page, even a notice that he is being discussed here." That seems a little underhanded and sneaky, talking about him behind his back. "needs new glasses and debate mentoring" - I would consider that a personal attack and do not see how it is really related to the topic at hand except to try to make CBD look as bad as possible. Mr.Z-man 03:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

We have now entered the stage known as blaming the victim. I'm the victim here, and I did nothing to deserve being victimized. CBD's edit summary personal attack came out of the blue.

"Some of the comments made here about CBD are much worse than his comment about assuming good faith." That's not true, not fair to me, and over the top. I'm asking for help and you appear to be angling to justify my victimization.

" to try to make CBD look as bad as possible." You are wrong. I stated exactly what happened, no more, no less. If he looks bad, that is due to his own behavior, not my cautious and accurate description of it.

"... The attack (if it can be construed as one)" ... "I would not call that a personal attack..." Allow me to Wikiguide cite this point: WP:AGF#Accusing others of bad faith "If bad faith motives are alleged without clear evidence that others' editing is in fact based upon bad faith, it can also count as a form of personal attack." As I read it, CBD's edit summary says by Wikiguide interpretation that I PA'd him. WP:NPA#What is considered a personal attack? says that "Accusing someone without justification of making personal attacks is also considered a form of personal attack."

"...that has to be removed from the page history." Hm, that's difficult for me to judge one way or another without standards. I'd appreciate addtional opinions and comparisons.

"No names are mentioned in the edit summary or text." Ok, that helps, and his edit summary is isolated from my last summary by five edits; but, they are obviously connected by the little-edited section name.

"its not like he called anyone an idiot or something" You say that because you probably aren't a philosopher. My position in the debate is primarily based on philosophy, and maintaining perception and reality of good faith is vital. What he said is much worse to one's reputation than being junior-highishly called an "idiot", though not as inflammatory which is probably your usual standard.

Milo wrote (02:31): 'needs new glasses and debate mentoring' - Mr.Z-man wrote (03:26): "I would consider that a personal attack" Those are certainly not PAs - behavior is commentable: WP:NPA#Initial options: "Personal attacks do not include civil language used to describe an editor's actions"

"and do not see how it is really related to the topic at hand" They are directly related, as I'll explain. He grossly misread my "last June-ish" (obviously three months ago) for being June 2006 and made an emphatic point based on his error. That he might need new glasses is a perfectly fair and reasonable interpretation of his overt misreading behavior. His tendentious debating remark that he claimed to have repeatedly answered my question, when in fact he had answered his own contorted version of my question - that reasonably calls for debate mentoring, which is after all education in how to properly debate. Again, neither comment is a PA - again, behavior is commentable.

"Milo wrote (02:31): 'it would be unwise for me to post anything at all to his user page, even a notice that he is being discussed here.' Mr.Z-man wrote (03:26): "That seems a little underhanded and sneaky, talking about him behind his back." AGF - it was an hint for someone else to tell him. Really now, if I didn't want him (or you) to know, I sure wouldn't have told you that I hadn't told him, right? To the central point, one of the things I've learned about frequent communications with strangers at Misplaced Pages is that when they misunderstand you more than once, one wisely ceases communicating as promptly as is civil. It's too risky to do otherwise. Take my word for it that I can list the risks, but that's OT.

"The page has over 4000 revisions, deleting that one would require deletion/undeletion of the whole thing. I'd rather not crash the server now (I almost did it a few days ago with a page with fewer revisions)." Yeah, being a techie myself, I agree that is a problem. Sounds like a problem that should be submitted to development for dealing with large page histories.

So what do we have here? It's not practical for CBD's PA to be sliced out, and so far no admin here has the fortitude to tell another possibly myopic admin, while acting as an editor, that he shouldn't have attacked me, much less for absolutely no reason.

Y'know folks, access to small claims justice, and the cop on the beat to stop trouble in its early stages, is vital to neighbors getting along in the real world. Without small justice here, this is the kind of thing that causes good editors to leave Misplaced Pages in disgust.

So is there a just and fortitudinous admin in the house? Milo 06:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Milo, you continue to insist that I didn't answer your question despite my repeated statements that I did. That's the 'assumption of bad faith' I referred to in my edit summary... you are essentially claiming that I am 'lying'. I didn't really give you my answer, I was just pretending that I had. Or something. Now you claim that the situation was so dire (rather than an incredibly minor and silly squabble) that you needed to come here, not discuss the matter with me, and not even notify me of this discussion. That isn't assumption of bad faith on your part? Your refusal to accept that >my< opinion (which you had asked for) was really what I said it was, the various minor insults you have tossed my way, and your bad faith assumptions and actions are unfortunate, but not of any great concern. I'm sorry that you didn't like (or apparently heed) my mention of the need to assume good faith, but that is no more a 'personal attack' than your claims above that by saying so >I< failed to assume good faith.

We are entirely agreed that conduct rules apply to everyone in every situation... which is why I have responded to your insults and assumptions of bad faith with reminders that you should not be doing so. In brief; don't go about insisting that I'm lying to you (about my own opinion no less) and there'll be no reason for me, and other respondents above, to remind you of civility and the need to assume good faith. This was an incredibly minor disagreement which you have gone out of your way to inflate into some kind of notable disruption. There's no need. We disagree about whether spoiler warnings can be used without impacting the layout of articles. My original statement of that fact should have been the end of it. So why all this noise and bother? --CBD 11:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

"your insults and assumptions of bad faith"..."So why all this noise and bother?" In a nutshell, the latter occurred because of the former - being your erroneous notions of non-events that occurred only within your misunderstandings (which I will prove), leading to your edit summary personal attack (as Wikiguide-cited above) on my philosophical character, which is important to me (for reasons stated above), and is situated in an edit summary apparently no one will undertake to erase.

"incredibly minor disagreement which you have gone out of your way to inflate into some kind of notable disruption." I reject your attempt to trivialize and smear as a disruption, my evidence-based complaint of personal attack in an appropriate venue. Personal attacks are taken seriously at Misplaced Pages, and WP:NPA thoroughly explains why. The PA is there, whether intentional or not you did it, and it is in an edit summary where only admins can erase it. Like it or not, that's an ANI case. However, much of the threadspace "noise" above was made in refuting Mr.Z-man's outrageous attempt to blame the victim, which was not your doing.

Disclaimer: I suppose that because of your professional career, it's personally important for you to be correct. Ok, I feel the same way, but I'm not always correct, and neither are you. I politely ate three servings of crow yesterday, and you should go on the same diet.

I want to make it clear that we are discussing correctness in the context of English language debate, not money or math. English language debate is obviously not your field, and my criticism of your demonstrated debate and language skills doesn't reflect in any way on your ability to be correct in your money and math professional field. Also, I'm not saying you can't improve at debate and language, and I hope you will, if only to future-avoid the unecessary kind of trouble you have caused me this week.

"Milo, you continue to insist that I didn't answer your question despite my repeated statements that I did. That's the 'assumption of bad faith' I referred to in my edit summary... you are essentially claiming that I am 'lying'. I didn't really give you my answer, I was just pretending that I had. Or something."

This seems to be your key misunderstanding. There are two problem issues with your view.

1) The first issue is that you still think that you originally did answer my question. I'm going to have to prove that you didn't, point by point. That will have to wait until I pull out the quotes and annotate them.

2) The second issue is your unbridled leap of inference that because I said you didn't answer my question, and you said you did, that somehow equals a charge by me that you lied. It doesn't, and that's a specific example of the general reason for the WP:AGF Wikiguide. From my view, you obviously believed you had answered my question, but I merely concluded that you were again wrong.

Recall your misreading of my statement of "last June-ish" (obviously circa three months ago) as meaning circa June 2006 . That was you setting a pattern of being wrong. It was obvious for me to conclude from your first wrong reading, that your claim to have answered my question, was you being wrong again. Not lying, just plain wrong. It turns out that your unjustified and incorrect leap of inference was wrong #3.

Are we done with that second issue now? Milo 08:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User:130.132.208.28 sockpuppetry

An anonymous user from 130.132.208.28, is now claiming to be more than one person (alter-ego calling themselves Cyrus) to attempt to win their argument on Talk:Guitar. This discussion on NPOV has been going for some time no with no resolution in sight. The user refuses to follow Misplaced Pages etiquette such as signing their posts, no personal attacks, and use of sockpuppets. MegX 02:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

User MegX has abused me and avoided addressing my point of view since I started posting on the page. She has attacked me as a sock puppet and as a nationalist. She has similarly abused a previous editor on the site and was engaged in an edit war with them. She continues to be discourtious and does nothing but attack other editors personally. She insinuated herself into a discussion I was having with Peter Blaise and subsequently tried to intimidate me by playing tricks such as above. CyrusMilani —Preceding unsigned comment added by CyrusMilani (talk • contribs) 19:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

There was no other editor. You are the person pretending to be anoher user. You are using sockpuppet tactics to disrupt Misplaced Pages. If you continue making false statements against me I intend taking this matter further with your provider Yale University and to sue you for libel. In fact I intend right now to write a letter of complaint to your IT admin. MegX 01:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

No legal threats, and grow up. Don't label anyone anything, and sign your posts. Also, if you can't find a solution then ask someone else for a third opinion but that's probably why you're here. Ok, I'll help. Describe the problem on the bottom of Talk:Guitar and I'll see what I can do. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 02:06, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

My statement on this whole matter can be found here User:MegX/Statement. MegX 02:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this allowed, for her to threaten me with legal action after abusing me? I thought you said I was Australian. Make up your mind. We really need an administrator to sort this out. She is trying to intimidate me from disagreeing with her with legal action. btw how about you come out from behiund your cloak of anonymity so I can take my own action. CyrusMilani —Preceding unsigned comment added by CyrusMilani (talk • contribs) 03:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey there Cyrus, I would not waste my time with this rubbish, it does

not 

deserve the time and the effort. You could argue about Elam vs Anshan

until 

you are blue in the face, and then she'll just revert it. btw it is

Irwin 

not Irvine. Enough said!?!?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.29.126 (talk) 04:06, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

You are right there dude. She has succeeded in dissuading me from contributing. It is a waste of time. It is a very uncivilized forum. CyrusMilani —Preceding unsigned comment added by CyrusMilani (talk • contribs) 04:24, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User Jason Gastrich would like to be reinstated

See the discussion here - Nascentatheist 04:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Bad idea for the exact same reason it was a bad idea the 5 other times he was unblocked. There's a good reason he is banned, he's one of the project's most disruptive and notorious sock puppeteers, and there's no evidence that anything has changed. Bad, bad idea. I strongly oppose unbanning. FeloniousMonk 04:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, bad idea. I closed Misplaced Pages:Suspected_sock_puppets/Jason_Gastrich on Aug 31 with a finding that User:Creashin was Gastrich's sock puppet; I don't see him changing his ways in just a week. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I was going to ask "has he stopped using socks"...but Akhilleus has answered that question. He needs to show evidence that he has reformed first. Guettarda 06:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I forgive him, but I don't trust him. Sorry, but no. -Hit bull, win steak 07:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• Absolutely no chance whatsoever. Last time he asked for an unblock it was found that he was actively sockpuppeting at the time, and the ban was roundly endorsed. Jason Gastrich is simply not capable of following Misplaced Pages policy where it conflicts with his own personal agenda, whihc is pretty much all the time, since his POV is so far off neutral. Guy (Help!) 08:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• Nope, forget it. He consumed far too much volunteer time and evaded his ban far too much. Durova 13:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
• No way. Eusebeus 20:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• • Jason's irrational responses to his Google Group this morning show that this was a good decision. - Nascentatheist 17:37, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this acceptable?

Is keeping a record of (spurious) sockpuppetry accusations, such as held here User talk:Kitrus accepted? Interesting juxtaposition of warnings and records http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Kitrus&action=history. Thoughts? -- Avi 06:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• I always enjoy accusations of sockpuppetry against the likes of Jayjg, they make it so much easier to work out that the accuser is deluded :-) No, this is not an acceptable use of user space. Guy (Help!) 08:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I thought so. Thank you, and it's good to see you back, Guy! --- Avi 12:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
• Funny, before other things came up for Jayjg, he was editing so heavily any sockpuppeting would have prohibited a job, eating, and sleeping. --MichaelLinnear 23:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Needahotel.com

Please help! I created a factual and non flattering article on a company called Needahotel.com. In it's first draft it appeared to be advertising which I quickly corrected. It is a very similar entry to those of other corporate entries. The admins basically just agreed with each other one after the other and made no atempt to assess the pages content independently. They were very unprofessional in their approach. Only one or two bothered to suggest ways in which the article could be improved or brought up to standard. All arguments centered around the page seeming to be SPAM. How could it be SPAM? Please help in resolving this and having the page reinstated. The page has not been given a chance. If it is not aloud to remain then how are other independent sources meant to be able to contribute to the article?--Darragh.Flynn 10:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi there Darragh, on wikipedia, we have guidelines which show how a company is notable. Take a look at WP:CORP which is the guidline for companies and WP:WEB which is the guidline for websites. You will have to find reliable sources that show how the company/website is notable for the page not to be deleted. I'm sorry, but I don't believe this website at present is notable enough. Ryan Postlethwaite 10:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Ryan Postlethwaite for the advice. I was in the process of locating further references on the site when it got deleted. Now I am unable to recreate it. Bit of a bother.

• Travelport (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Galileo CRS (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Jeff Clarke (CEO) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) were all promotional in tone and written entirely by single purpose accounts with usernames suggestive of roles within the company. Travelport is the parent of Needahotel.com (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views); Darragh.Flynn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is also a single-purpose account. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Needahotel.com shows clear consensus. Looking at the history of these articles, and Darragh.Flynn's advocacy for this article, I'd say we've wasted enough time on this, Misplaced Pages is not a business directory and has no aspirations to be one. Guy (Help!) 11:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Nor would I ever consider Misplaced Pages as a business directory. This is corporate information on a company that is researched and studied by academics around the world as being a prime example of the Irish economy boom times. I am constantly answering the phone to students who are seeking information on the company and details such as the ones I put on the Wiki entry. Also, how dare you suggest that I am wasting your time. I posted here looking for help. GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE GUY. --Darragh.Flynn 12:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the deleted article and it is excessively promotional in tone. If you want to write a neutral article, that would be fine, but there's no way the article as it stood was appropriate. Regarding your final remarks to Guy (one of our most respected editors and administrators) you may want to look into a Dale Carnegie course. Raymond Arritt 13:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think what Guy and Raymond are saying is that Misplaced Pages, by virtue of its prominence on varous search engines, is targeted for quite a lot of promotional material. People who are serious about the encyclopedic mission of the site tend to react strongly, and negatively, to such material. Articles on companies and websites need to be based on independent, reliable sources that establish the company's notability; the more you avoid promotional material drawn from the company's website, the better. If you feel that needahotel.com can meet the criteria set forth in WP:WEB and WP:ORG, then the best course of action may be to work on a less promotional version of the article in your userspace (e.g. at User:Darragh.Flynn/Needahotel draft). When you feel it meets the notability criteria, you can propose that the article be re-created, using your draft, at deletion review. If you want to recreate an article that was deleted via the "Articles for deletion" process, then it needs to go through deletion review. Best of luck. MastCell 15:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It's also worth adding that, because Misplaced Pages uses nofollow tags, it won't boost the search engine rankings of any website you mention/link to — iridescent (talk to me!) 16:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

== Thanks to those who took the time to explain their position. It is appreciated. If the article in its current form is regarded as advertising then I did a poor job on the second edit. The company in question has an annual turnover of 100 million and it is not seeking to boost search engine rankings. They pay another company thousands for that task. This was purely designed in the hope of publishing some basic stats on the company so they would be easily accessible to students who seem to favour writing papers on the success of the company. To be honest, I am exhausted and disappointed at the poor attitude of some of the admins. I guess you resign supreme in your little kingdoms. I really couldn't be bothered trying anymore. Let someone else contribute if they want.--Darragh.Flynn 17:23, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

"I am constantly answering the phone to students who are seeking information on the company and details such as the ones I put on the Wiki entry." - That's not what Misplaced Pages is for. If you work for the company or act as some sort of PR/representative agent for the company, you should probably not be writing about it here as you have a conflict of interest. Misplaced Pages is not the place to just post information from personal knowledge about a company. It needs to be notable, it should have reliable sources or at least be verifiable with reliable sources (ideally sources independent from the company), andit needs to be neutral. Mr.Z-man 17:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I've userfied the the article for Darragh and I'll keep my eyes on it. If it gets up to scratch I'll run it through DRV. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Good solution. I'd be willing to advise him on how to bring the article up to snuff. Raymond Arritt 20:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Godzilla Boy (talk · contribs)

User has repeatedly changed a section title inappropriately ("Kaiju UNLEASHED" in all caps and bolded, italicized) in Godzilla: Unleashed. He has previously been blocked for similarly disruptive edits to the page. Just64helpin 11:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I have left a note at his talk page to avoid such conduct. --JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 11:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

He is still doing it... Just64helpin 10:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

1 week block for disruption. Ryan Postlethwaite 11:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Codyfinke6

Hello, I made a request earlier this week that this user be blocked (again) as that he is consistently making disruptive/unproductive edits and/or creating articles that are no-notable (I cannot find the archive of it). He has be requested to stop by myself and at least 10 other editors or administrators, yet he ignores our requests and continues to do so.

He has created at least nine non-notable articles that met the criteria for speedy deletion, two of which he tried to recreate several times. Several articles that he did create, he was asked to modify so that they met the criteria of a notable article, yet he did not and another editor had to. When he does create an article, it is usually just a sentence or two long, does not cite any sources and he fails to place a {{stub}} designation.

Here are some articles he has made disruptive/unproductive edits to:

• Burger King products - keeps putting incorrect or conflicting data in;
• List of CBS slogans - created an article that was basically a duplicate of the main article;
• CBS Records - put incorrect or conflicting data in;
• Dice Game (pricing game) - deleted a section of the article without sating reasons why, was requested to do so and did not. The edits to the article were were reverted and cited for vandalism on it as a result;
• Farmer Jack - deleted a section of the article without sating reasons why, was requested to do so and did not. The edits to the article were were reverted and cited for vandalism on it as a result;
• WLS-TV - put incorrect or conflicting data in;
• WNYW - keeps modifying their slogans with incorrect data.

Mr. Finke will not respond to any posts on his talk page, so this has been very frustrating to many editors who have tried to engage him in a productive dialog to help him understand what he has been doing violates the policies of Misplaced Pages. He has already been blocked once and I believe that he needs to be blocked again, for at least 30 days if possible. This will hopefully get the point across that he has been causing harm to this community.

Jerem43 16:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This sounds strongly like User:MascotGuy. Corvus cornix 17:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Has this user made any constructive edits? If it's not something from the sock drawer (as suggested by Corvus) maybe it's time for a WP:CSN? --Rocksanddirt 18:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid that any sanctions against him would be ignored as that he does not read his talk page. ---Jerem43 19:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Then why not just block him like all of his other sockpuppets? Corvus cornix 20:23, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

2 CFD discussions

Perhaps not exactly the right place to raise this, but it's probably the most expeditious and not wholly out of line, so here goes...

Would another admin please look at Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_September_5#Category:Wittgenstein and Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_September_6#Ludwig_Wittgenstein and see whether it is appropriate to close the latter one which only began after a user depopulated the first cat under discussion in an effort to moot the debate. Although there seems to be good rationale for closing one and merging the debates, I have participated in both so I would like an uninvolved 3rd party evaluate and decide whether to do so and actually do it. Cheers, Carlossuarez46 18:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it. --Kbdank71 18:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've repopulated the first category and closed the second discussion. --Kbdank71 18:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Carlossuarez46 19:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

User:feline1 accusing me of witch hunts

cross-posted from User talk:Spartaz due to his recommendation

I noticed that you had blocked User:feline1 for making some rather rude comments earlier. He is now making some very rude comments to me at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/David Talbott along the lines of claiming that I'm setting up sockpuppet accounts in order to start witch hunts. I asked him to stop harassing me at User talk:feline1 but he pleads ignorance. Can you please help? Nondistinguished 20:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

not blockable behaviour. Spartaz 20:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

(Sorry I'd already started typing this before Spartaz replied - I may as well post it!) Am I allowed a say in the matter? :) It just seems to me that Nondistinguished is the same person as User:ScienceApologist, who I'd encountered before on the Immanuel Velikovsky article. I'd recognise his aggresive editing style anywhere, not to mention his penchant for 'wiki-lawyering'. He seems to have a real bee in his bonnet about deleting "non-mainstream" and "pseudosience" articles. Anyways, I cast my vote on the deletion of the David Talbott article, if the community majority vote the other way then I'm happy to abide by the decision. I've no interest in fighting about it!--feline1 20:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

What's with all the ad hominems? Are editors allowed to simply spout their opinions regarding the personal character of other editors? I thought we were supposed to discuss content and how to best build an encyclopedia, not make personal accusations! Is this how the Misplaced Pages community responds normally? If so, then I want out. Normally I would simply ignore this kind of baiting, but in the case of an encyclopedia that works under consensus, such rude behavior can be very damaging to the project, I would think. Nondistinguished 20:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

AN/I is that way ---> Spartaz 20:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Feline1 are you saying that nondistinguished is a sock puppet or new account of scienceapologist? --Rocksanddirt 22:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

/shrugs/I think it's their new account; reading WP:SOCKPUPPET I'm genuinely confused as to whether that's a considered Bad Thing or not.--feline1 05:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

What is a "Bad Thing" is that Nondistinguished appears to have used no less than four sockpuppets in a previous AfD which WP:SOCK forbids, by "using more than one account in discussions such as Misplaced Pages:Deletion debates,". Suspect sockpuppets include (1) Nondistinguished (2) Mainstream astronomy (3) 216.125.49.252 (see diff) (4) 76.214.223.142. (4b) Mainstream astronomy look like a reincarnation of Velikovsky.

Coincidentally (?) 216.125.49.252 (above) was used by ScienceApologist when he was blocked for 3RR.. Another user has connected 216.125.49.252 with 71.57.90.96 and with ScienceApologist. 81.31.38.19 18:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Long term vandalism by 201.9.xxx.xxx IP range

Someone has been vandalizing The Fairly OddParents and related articles for some time now. The vandal will make a few to several dozen edits every week or so under a different IP starting with 201.9. The edit is subtle, almost always changing a date to be one year earlier, such as this recent series of edits. This has been happening at least since March 2007, earliest edit I found was this one.

Checking the other contributions of the vandal's IPs on these two pages shows that many of the edits go unnoticed, and many are still present. I corrected quite a few before discovering the number of edits (may exceed hundreds).

CoJaBo 21:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I've rangeblocked 201.9.0.0/16 for 1 week. Its a big IP range of a Brazilian ISP, so I did not block account creation to avoid excess collateral damage. Be on the lookout for possible similar vandalism from new logged in users. If that occurs or vandalism persists from more IPs or after the block expires, contact me. Mr.Z-man 22:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Vanessa Anne Hudgens

I have protected this page, because it is the subject of some vandalism regarding the recent release of a nude photograph of this actress, including the posting of the photograph itself. I don't have time to do this now, but I'd appreciate a few admins looking at the "Photo Controversy" section, determine what, if anything, should remain (it's all well sourced, but may not fit BLP), and possibly looking through the history to see if there's anything that needs to be oversighted. Ral315 » 21:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Persistent vandalism on The End's Not Near, It's Here

Hey all,
This is an issue that's been ongoing since early August, as far as I know. A string of very similar IPs have been vandalizing the above named article, all adding the exact same ridiculous block of text, suggesting that Donkey Kong and Rosie O'Donnell were guest stars in the episode, among other things. I've submitted this to AIV previously, and the IPs in question were banned, and the article was semi-protected. However, it expired three days later and the vandalism was picked up almost immediately by a fresh set of IPs.

216.208.153.226 (this one slipped through the first time)
209.226.39.141
216.208.153.230 (this IP also vandalized a string of game show-related articles)
206.47.105.218
206.47.105.212
209.226.39.147 (this IP also vandalized a page previously vandalized by 209.226.38.87, which was blocked after the previous AIV report)

The last one listed is the most recent; I've bypassed AIV to come here, as I think this deserves more than a standard vandalism block. I'm not going to suggest another range block, as I am aware that many innocent users would be affected, but perhaps an admin wouldn't mind going through and blocking the couple IPs that have been active thus far, and then keep an eye on the article to block any further disruption? Thanks. GlassCobra (talk • contribs) 22:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll submit the article to WP:RFPP for you; if semi'd again that should give admins time to root out the IPs responsible and block them for the disruption. -Jéské 05:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Sweetbox

Could somebody with a strong stomach and an expertise in popular culture please look over Sweetbox (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), it is quite, quite nauseating. In the old days I'd have asked User:Bdj but he's Left The Building, to the regret of many. Guy (Help!) 22:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

As their name is so close to my own user name I couldnt resist making a start including tagging it as unsourced but it needs more work, SqueakBox 22:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Which part of the article requires admin intervention? Firsfron of Ronchester 22:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

As its clearly not a speedy or even deletable I suspect admin intervention isnt required but I didnt postt he thread, SqueakBox 22:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It requires clue intervention more than anything else. No sources whatsoever.....⇒ SWATJester 05:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

A little help at Dragon Ball Z, please?

Apparently, theres some disagreement as to whether there is a live-action movie coming out soon and it's getting a little edit-warry over there. Perhaps if an admin had a word? HalfShadow 22:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Neo_Yi (talk · contribs)

I am getting very tired of this user. This user is not following fair use image rules. I have tagged a lot of their images. Can someone else deal with this user? Alpta 23:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I have had a word with her and offered her assistance in making fair use claims. If she continues to ignore the notices and uploads more images en masse then we may have to take further action. I'll try and keep and eye on it, but drop me a note if you see another upload spree occurring before I do. Rockpocket 06:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User harassing me

User Rjecina sent me this message after i reported him for encouraging edit wars. Now he has written on his userpage that he is going to spy on me and a couple of other users. I am not sure if thats against the rules, but it most certainly feels uncomfortable. Paulcicero 23:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

If by 'spy' he means 'take notes on behaviour', then that's acceptable as per this arbcom decision. It's bad manners to use that term though. —Crazytales talk/desk 23:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes... on the other hand, if by "spy" he means follow you around to other articles and make trouble there, then that's a problem. MastCell 23:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, though, it doesn't seem as though English is Rjecina's first language. HalfShadow 23:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Paulcicero has been spying my edits and has reported my for creating Misplaced Pages:Croatian Wikipedians' notice board. This is funny because "my" notice board is copy of Misplaced Pages:Serbian Wikipedians' notice board from word to word but his home notice board is OK for him. !! About spying evidence is his action about notice board and his reaction on my comments on Misplaced Pages:Hungarian Wikipedians' notice board about user:PANONIAN. I have writen comments in 15:23 he has send warning to PANONIAN about this discussion on 16:56. It is possible to see that my moves has happen only like reaction on his moves. About others which I spy they have confirmed before that they are spying on me so there is no problem Rjecina 23:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You are the one with stated POV pushing on their user page and said you have to spy on others. Left warning on your userpage.Rlevse 23:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

If we will play about "spying" please see list on PANONIAN user page. There is 33 users which he spy or better to say he is looking "contributions of other users that are interesting to me". Is this wordings OK ?? Rjecina 23:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Well rjecina if you werent spying on me, how did you find out about this incident-report? Paulcicero 23:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Quit fighting, it's lame and not helpful to Misplaced Pages. If you really have problems then both of you stop editing the articles where you overlap. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You are right, sorry for the discussion. I just wanted to find out if he could write that on his user page. Paulcicero 23:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I have been looking on user:Ante Perkovic discussion page if he has answered to my writing about Misplaced Pages:Croatian Wikipedians' notice board . In my surprise I have noticed that somebody has deleted this notice board and then I have started to look how when and where has this been deleted. It is very ease to see how I have been on wiki around 2 hours before I have noticed this. Better question is from where have you heard about this notice board ?? From spying ?? Rjecina 23:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• Ja, really. Besides, he says the other users are interesting and should think it a compliment. You all need to learn to get along. Also, it's better to bring specific actions here, they speak louder than words.Rlevse 23:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

He just wrote that now, earlier it said he wished to spy at us, by the way isn´t his whole page in violation with wikirules? See —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulcicero (talk • contribs) 23:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

People have more freedom on their user page in general. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• • Yes and I am interested in work of other users like they are interested in my work. Definition on my user page is changed ! Rjecina 23:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

If it spawns "behaviors that are found threatening or disturbing, and beyond those that are sanctioned by society" it's harassment which isn't condoned by Wikipedians, see Misplaced Pages:Harassment. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

PS: It might be this: Misplaced Pages:Harassment#Wikistalking. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

If we want to speak about stalking my only comment is that person which stalk me from August now demand that I be blocked because of stalking. Examples of this statement is possible to find on pages: Independent State of Croatia , Jasenovac concentration camp, Chetniks... My edits have been very soon reverted from this user. In my thinking I must survive users like him if I want to be on wiki. I do not even demand that he be blocked because I know very good that on 1 user which let me know that he is looking my edits there is minimal 2 - 3 which are staying in shadows.. I will not take anymore place on this noticeboard. Rjecina 23:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Beware of edits by 63.162.143.21‎

Is there any place better than here to warn editors to be on the lookout for edits by 63.162.143.21‎? I have just found two more instances of vandalism by this user. He has a long history of vandalism (see User_talk:63.162.143.21). Many edits look normal but there is enough vandalism that I distrust all of this user's edits. Editors who are familiar with the subject matter of his edits, should check his "contributions" to see if other edits are in fact vandalism. Sbowers3 00:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

This IP is one of the sensitive IP addresses which administrators should warn the Misplaced Pages Press Committee after blocking. The IP belongs to the Department of Homeland Security. Miranda 05:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Dizzydaboss187

This user has vandalized the article Jacksonville, Florida numerous times (8 to be exact) - all in the past two days. He just blanked the page 5 minutes ago. He has been warned one too many times. He should be blocked. - Jaxfl 00:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. In the future, though, please report things like this at Administrator intervention against vandalism. --Mr. Lefty (talk) 00:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Muhammad bin Qasim

There have been several edit wars on this page in the past few weeks. The first one started at the beginning of August, where two editors (User:Intothefire and User:Arrow740) repeatedly made additions that were often irrelevant, badly sourced, entirely unsourced, and/or badly written. They were reverted by User:Tigeroo and myself (just once), among others - the reverts looked like this. In general the article had major problems (spelling, grammar, repeated links, inconsistent spelling, badly sourced POV material, etc.) so I made a good faith (attempt to fix the problems. Well that only sparked more reverting, where User:Arrow740 and User:Hornplease got into their own edit war.

Now the "incident" I'm reporting is this - apparently a sockpuppet has entered the picture. This revert war does not seem to be stopping any time soon (Tigeroo and I, among others, have justified our edits on the talk page, and User:Intothefire is at least attempting to discuss his edits with us, but Arrow740, for example, has made only 1 comment on the talk page and it wasn't particularly constructive ("Yes, he didn't put much effort into his edit summary this time. Arrow740 08:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)"). Anyway this page might need to be protected - and I don't know what to do about the sockpuppet (first of all, it could be Arrow or Intothefire - how am I to know whom?). ugen64 00:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I strongly object to the characterisation of my attempts as an edit war: I specifically urged Arrow740 to contribute on the talkpage. A look at his edit contributions tells a clear story: this editor needs to be encouraged to stop reverting without discussion. It appears that over 80% of his edits are reverts, often using vandalism tools, and almost always without discussion. His user talkpage lists several interventions by different users that indicate that this is a pattern of behavior. Hornplease 02:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

MWWS - accusation of edit warring, trolling for duplicate tag removal?

SqueakBox (talk · contribs) has accused me of edit warring and trolling for removing a duplicated NPOV tag from Missing white woman syndrome. The tag is also contained in the "multiple issues" box which is there to remove, rather than encourage, tag clutter. SqueakBox has gone on to describe the article as "dreadfully unbalanced", "badly sourced" and "referenced to pursue a POV agenda", despite a multitude of reliable major media sources represented in the article, and the efforts of various editors to clean up the article and remove unsourced information. I don't get any of this. If someone could help me point out to SB the fact that trolling and edit warring do not apply to removing duplicated maintentance tags, and that the article is indeed pretty well sourced, I'd appreciate it. Deiz talk 03:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

He's doing the same thing to me but I don't know why this needs to be discussed in this venue. Let's keep on his Talk page and the article's Talk page. No admin action required here. --ElKevbo 03:24, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually I think it does need some sort of intervention. Squeakbox has a history of accusing people of trolling, when they are doing or supporting something he dislikes. Case in point he accuses an administrator of trolling simply because the administrator protected a page he was trying to speedily delete. Fighting for Justice 03:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

(EC) He's flirting with 3RR and accusing 2 long-standing editors of trolling and edit warring over nothing. As you noted, he appears to be editing quite strangely and your observation that he is "not himself tonight" is probably pretty close to the mark. If he continues to be disruptive, rude, turn simple maintenance tag cleanup issues into "trolling and edit warring" and make bizarre accusations then I would ask an uninvolved admin to step in. Deiz talk 03:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I NPOV'd this article yesterday based on serious considerations. There is still a dispute so where is Deiz coming from removing the tag and denying the dispute without lifting a finger to resolve the dispute. I agree with El Kevbo that there is nothing for admins here, other than perhaps to point out to Deiz that there is a dispute so he should let the NPOV tag be until the dispute is sorted (and I went mention details here, the talk page is for that and he hasnt even tried to argue that the article is NPOV in aserious way). IU just ecd but nothing Deiz says in his latest edit changes anythiong, this article needs more than maintenance tags and I am at l;eastrt as long standing as Deiz, who is the only one opposing the perfectly reasonable tag, SqueakBox 03:32, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't understand which part of this you don't understand:

• I removed a duplicate tag - It was tagged as NPOV twice. Routine cleanup.
• The "multiple issues" box is there to contain multiple tags.

If you continue to assert that I entirely removed NPOV tags from the article you will continue to be knowingly misrepresenting the facts, which isn't going to impress anyone. Deiz talk 03:37, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The NPOV tags were not identical and I removed the blue NPOV tag when you pointed it out to remain with the orange standard NPOV tag which is the one one I want as I believe the article currently merits it. Why not just leave the orange NPOV standard tag that I placed there. I cant understand why you would wish to remove it as its just a standard tag, nothing controversial except to let our readers know the article is tagged as NPOV, and explained when I placed the tag. This is such a lame edit war and your blue multiple-use tag failed to give the same impact. THis article is POV as it presents one side of an argument as fact, SqueakBox 03:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• There are now 4 editors attempting to use the multiple issues box, and one editor and a mysterious new IP reverting back. Deiz talk 03:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  • A UK IP. Problem is that I am in Honduras and according to my IP locator the IP is based in the UK. And even I couldnt get a meatpuppet to call my tune at 5 am (UK time). I have to say multiple editors removing an NPOV tag is disgraceful, a new low for wikipedia, SqueakBox 04:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
• Nobody - not one editor - has removed the tag. You like the orange stand-alone tag, we get it. Others are happy with the multiple issues box. Deiz talk 04:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  • NPOV tags arent consensus based, if you are as experienced as you claim you will know that, SqueakBox 04:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Nonetheless, the fact that those reverts are that IP's first and only edits is highly suspicious. — Ocatecir 04:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well if you believe I am currently in the UK please feel free to run a check user, but I am in Honduras right now, SqueakBox 04:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Tags are absolutely based on consensus - if there is consensus to add or remove them they get added or removed. "..which is the one one I want as I believe the article currently merits it"? Sorry, but you don't own your pet article. For good reasons. Deiz talk 06:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

While there is definitely a significant conflict going on here, I agree with ElKevbo -- this is not an issue that requires administrative attention at this time. A request for comment would probably be the best place to go from here. --krimpet⟲ 06:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Article was protected, there was also an apparent 3RR violation. Issue seems to have blown over for now. Deiz talk 06:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the catch-22. The page can't be unprotected till the neutrality issues are sorted out, as that would be the best solution to this mess, but until someone can edit out the issues, the page can't be unlocked to be edited. ThuranX 12:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The dispute has nothing to do with the neutrality issues. It's entirely concerning the template. :( --ElKevbo 14:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Mousepad

There's an anonymous editor on both Mousepad and Talk:Mousepad that's claiming that Armando M. Fernandez made the mosuepad invention, making rather serious accussations of plagerism and possibly personal attacks. The anon editor uses multiple IP Addresses, and has made very few other edits to any other articles.

The only citation involves one small document, which might not even make the requirements of a proper citation. Aside from that single document, there isn't much information that allows this to be verified - and another link seems contradicts the claim of invention (by stating the original demo used a cloth pad).

This needs escalation, and ANI seems to be the best catchall. While I'd go for WP:RFC, I strongly doubt that will resolve the issue based on the sidedness of the arguments. The references also appear in more than one wikipedia translation as well, thus escalation probably would affect a larger number of pages. --Sigma 7 03:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

However, WP:AN/I is not a place where content disputes should be resolved - more leaning towards user conduct. I'd go for WP:RFC first. And which other language Wikipedias are "affected"? x42bn6 Talk Mess 15:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

POINT violation

Darrowen (talk · contribs) just created an article, Indo-Aryan civilizations, as a reaction to the closure for Dravidian civilizations. While I agree that the closure for that article was poor (should have been 'delete' instead of 'no consensus'), Darrowen's article was obviously created in retaliation - "This page certainly has precedent if the Dravidian civilizations article is not a hoax.".

As the idea of such an article was in fact ridiculed by those who supported the deletion of Dravidian civilizations, I think it is easy to declare Darrowen's action a WP:POINT violation.

To get to the point, I don't want to bother grappling with Darrowen over deletion, so I'm wondering if anybody can just delete it for the POINT violation that it is. Thanks for any help dealing with this. The Behnam 04:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Beh-nam Personal Attacks

User:Beh-nam has personally attacked me on my talk page and User:Tariqabjotu - on his talk page, using harsh language and assumptions of bad faith. Atabek 04:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I have warned the user in question. --Tango 12:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

why has this guy not been indef-blocked?!

Can someone please look at the contributions of 89.33.147.117 (talk · contribs) and tell me why this total and complete troll was not blocked indefinitely the moment he showed up and started spewing his disgusting, idiotic racist filth? I know I'm a little late on this one as he hasn't posted for over a week, but shouldn't he be blocked anyway to make sure he doesn't get a chance to post that garbage again? K. Lásztocska 04:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Well admisn arent all-seeing but, yeah, this guy looks a definite troll and shopuld be blocked for a while, SqueakBox 04:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

To begin with, blocks aren't punitive, they're preventative. Indefinitely blocking a user a week after their vandalism helps no one. Moreover, indef blocking IPs is not usually a good idea, especially for one day of vandalism. --Haemo 05:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, point taken. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea though to keep an eye out in case he returns...K. Lásztocska 05:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. IPs are very rarely indef blocked, because an indef block of an IP means an indef block of more than one person, much of the time. Many of those people netted in with the indef block could be very innocent and interested in building the 'pedia. -- Anonymous Dissident 05:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

WHOIS puts him in Romania, so it looks like good 'ol fashioned national pride trolling is at play here. I'll keep an eye on him, though. --Haemo 05:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

national pride is one thing, spewing idiotic hatred against other ethnicities is something else again... Thanks Dissident for reminding me about the IP block usually catching more than one person--it's late, I had a weird day, my brain isn't working...ughhh.... K. Lásztocska 05:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

It was blocked for one week. If it continues after that, report to WP:AIV and mention it just came off a block.Rlevse 16:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

POV pushing yet again by MoritzB

I'd like to have a third (and fourth, fifth, ...) opinion on the behavior of MoritzB (talk · contribs). His constant POV pushing has already been the subject of an ANI thread (here) which basically died out without much action taking place. However, since that time, MoritzB has continued to systematically push his agenda which is best summarized by: blacks are genetically inferior to caucasians, blacks are more likely to be criminals, Africans did not build Great Zimbabwe because, well they'd be just too primitive to do that, the link between homosexuality and pedophilia is understated on Misplaced Pages, and so on. Sure, that's a bit of a caricature although I think someone looking through his recent edits won't find it much of an exageration. His edits have lead to the protection of a number of articles and to fairly intense edit wars on others (Race being the most recent example). I have tried to reason with him about his recent edits to Great Zimbabwe but to no avail and part of the problem is, I think, that he genuinely believes that he is correct in saying that, for example, the work of Robert Gayre on Great Zimbabwe is authoritative, despite much evidence that Gayre is brushed off as a racist nut by an overwhelming majority of modern archeologists. Nevertheless, his classical tendentious editing is increasingly wasting efforts of a number of editors. I can't see how an RfC would do much good but I'd be interested in knowing how other editors see it, particularly editors uninvolved in one of the many disputes spawned by MoritzB. Pascal.Tesson 05:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the edit summaries of his contribs but I'm not going to spend the effort to actually read his contribs. Instead, I'm going to assume that your assessment is accurate and unbiased since I've seen you around often enough to trust you. I don't understand why you wouldn't issue an RFC on him. Seems like the first step in the dispute resolution process. Without the RFC, you can't take him to ARBCOM and a community ban would be harder to justify.

--Richard 05:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Tend to agree with some of the assessment above. In my experience, he's been abrasive and incivil in general, and definitely tendentious. --Haemo 06:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I never add new points of view to articles without supporting my edits with reliable sources. Some information I add about genetics, crime statistics or homosexuality is politically very controversial and some editors tend to reject all additions which are inconsistent with their worldview. This leads to edit wars. My personality divides opinions but often many editors also support me though so I am not out of the mainstream. Also, because of my academic background and access to scientific databases I often have better resources to support my POV than other editors. A good recent example is the article dysgenics. I also disagree that my edits are unproductive. I have contributed large volumes a lot to many articles and helped to resolve content disputes (cf. Saint Maurice).

MoritzB 06:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

While I have not looked at the situation in detail, do remember that sourcing, in itself, does not ensure NPOV. It helps, but source material can be interpreted improperly, original synthesis can take place to make novel theories, information can be placed out of context, any number of things. Seraphimblade 08:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Including, of course, the possibility that the sources themselves are biased, or are otherwise not as reliable as would be desired. LessHeard vanU 12:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Pascal.Tesson's account of this situation is spot on. I've been monitoring MoritzB since warning him for soapboxing at Talk:White people. There is a continuing issue with Moritz soapboxing and generally using wikipedia to characterize mainstream academic sources as fringe and present minority opinions as mainstream - if this behaviour was limited to race pages it would be bad enough but he is also povpushing at Homosexuality. The amount of revert warring and push against consensus by MoritzB is disruptive but the soapboxing and trolling of talk pages has become tendentious--Cailil 14:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Most editors understandably have no background in biological sciences which makes my discussions with them perhaps quite tendentious. Anyway, you are gravely mistaken if you think that Neo-Marxism is a mainstream ideology today. MoritzB 15:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

More of this nonsense of calling mainstream sources "Neo-Marxist" without any sort of backup whatsoever. That MoritzB hasn't dropped this behavior by now, but instead throws it out at ANI, is rather telling. He apparently hasn't taken feedback in any way over the past few weeks. The Behnam 15:12, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed. The question was about Noel Ignatiev, some other scholars, critical theory and Frankfurt School. Countless Marxists published articles in the scientific press and wrote books in the 1970s. They are not ashamed that they are Marxists so why do you deny that? You can simply enter their names to Google and see that they identify themselves as Marxists. Please see this reference which describes Marxist-based critical theory and the Frankfurt School as one of the longest and the most famous traditions of Marxism. http://www.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/critical.htm

Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox and not a forum. Now, this is the fourth or fifth time I have had to point out to you, MoritzB, in the form of both talk page notes and {{Notaforum}} warnings, that wikipedia is not a soapbox, and that you are incorrectly characterizing a whole list of academic & scholarly work is being as 'left wing' or 'marxist', or 'neo-marxist' to advance your own point. The Behnam is right, you are not taking on board the feedback we have given you, and are so far flaunting the five pillars of wikipedia. Please stop disrupting wikipedia to make a point--Cailil 15:31, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Important notice. Because of a warning I can no longer safely participate in any discussions with editors or defend myself in this ANI. http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:MoritzB#Final_warning MoritzB 16:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) As a disclaimer, Cailil is one of my admin coaching students. I'd rather focus on more substantial issues than warning template removal and I want to see ample diffs and logic from both sides. MoritzB, you are free to seek a mentor or to e-mail me any evidence that supports your choices. I founded Category:Eguor admins and would give it a fair hearing. Or if you prefer, you could contact any of the sysops from that category. Most of them have no relationship with Cailil that I'm aware of. Durova 16:17, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, I no longer have any interest in the white people article or the Zimbabwe article which was mentioned. A consensus was reached although it is different from my original opinion. There are no content issues which need to be settled. Perhaps I will just take a wikibreak and let everybody cool down. MoritzB 16:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I have written an explanation, providing diffs for the 3 {{uw-chat1}} warnings that I gave MoritzB here. I don't think a level 4 warning for soapboxing should in any way prevent MoritzB from properly using this or any other talk page. The purpose of such warnings is to point out what behaviour needs to be changed, not to "gag" anyone. I sincerely apologize if MoritzB felt or thought that my intent was to "shut-him-up" - it was not. As with the other warnings I left, I have expressed my hope that MoritzB would take on board site policy and become a better wikipedian, I still hope he will do that. However, after giving this user fair and, what I consider to be justified warnings for repeated violation of site policy (spanning nearly 10 days), this beahviour continued. Therefore I see a level 4 warning as appropriate--Cailil 17:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, I was only involved in a content dispute about the article and it became rather lengthy. Meanwhile five other editors were chit chatting about smoking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:White_people#Time_for_a_smoke_break

MoritzB 18:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Atulsnischal redux

I have previously reported this, but had no response from anyone on this. Atulsnischal (talk · contribs) continuously floods various talk pages with "How to edit", "How to insert references" etc. guides, which I discussed in that thread. Sadly, he has yet again added the "How to edit/add references" guide to another unrelated talk page.

• Diff

He has also flooded various pages with similar unrelated content today:

• "Removing of Copyright text from Misplaced Pages articles by other users" at Mayo College talk page
• "Removing of Copyright text from Misplaced Pages articles by other users" at WP:Schools talk page
• Removing of Copyright text from Misplaced Pages articles by other users: at Mayo College Girls School talk page

The user is aware of WP:MULTI and has been requested many times not to flood various talk pages with the same message repeated ad nauseum. Also, in the previous thread at ANB/I, I provided other recent diffs of such behavior. I request an uninvolved admin to try reasoning with him, and make him stop flooding various unrelated talk pages with these bloated messages and "How to edit" guides. He has often removed friendly advices requesting a stop to such disruption.

Thanks. --Ragib 08:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

And here he goes again, inserting a "how to edit guide"!! Can someone else please stop this? My polite requests are taken negatively by the user. Thanks. --Ragib 08:46, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• You are over-reacting. The idea is sound - giving people editing hints on articles is never bad - but it would be better to link not include a big chunk of text, and I've commented on the user's Talk page about that. Now I strongly recommend you leave him alone. Guy (Help!) 09:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

That's needlessly harsh. Ragib's is not an over-reaction, in my opinion. This user has been told about this and similar issues very pleasantly before, but he has chosen to simply ignore policy in the past, even when linked and summarised. Thanks for stepping in, though. Hornplease 17:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Aye, I've had a (very mildly) frustrating time trying to encourage Atulsnischal not to add large numbers or tangentially related category tags to reams of articles. Atulsnischal is making good faith edits, and trying to be constructive, but seemed to me to be a bit functionally hard of hearing when it comes to constructive criticism of his edits. Still, I don't really see the need for admin intervention here, just the application of patience and perseverance. Pete.Hurd 19:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User One haer

Keeps adding indefblockeduser templates to users that aren't such. If I remember correctly this is a recurring problem with a specific user. ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk|Contribs) 08:27, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Blocked indef as a vandalism only account. Ryan Postlethwaite 10:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Blocked User:Jmfangio as a reincarnation of User:Tecmobowl

Following a checkuser, I have blocked Jmfangio (talk · contribs) as a reincarnation of community banned Tecmobowl (talk · contribs). Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 08:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Wha...Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson...*clears head*... Daniel 10:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Probably should have checked earlier, but it didn't click for me. Durova had suspicions which led me to it. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 10:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

shouldn't someone close the RfAr? ThuranX 13:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily, but this simplifies it. Durova 14:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Related to that, I've filed a report under Misplaced Pages:Long_term_abuse#Notre_Dame_vandal, added that vandal to the list of banned users, and indeffed his socks. There seems to be no precedent for this so I've been bold. Durova 19:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User redirecting page during MFD

Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs) has just redirected a page currently up for MFD, which is this page, to another page, see this edit. According to Misplaced Pages:Guide to deletion: You should not turn the article into a redirect. A functioning redirect will overwrite the AFD notice. It may also be interpreted as an attempt to "hide" the old content from scrutiny by the community. Should the user in question be warned about his actions? Davnel03 13:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• Have you asked Tony about this on their talk page? Spartaz 14:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Yep, he hasn't replied yet. I just wondered whether any further action is required. Davnel03 14:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
    • You only gave him 12 minutes to reply before you took the matter to ANI. Readro 15:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oh good grief ... it may be a technical procedural misstep, but hardly a matter worth bringing here. He was boldly, in good faith, redirecting a page that doesn't need to exist to a suitable target. I think he can be forgiven for not having the deletion policy memorized. There's nothing that needs to be brought here. --B 15:37, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

OK. Davnel03 15:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

user: BIG Daddy M

Their is a user named user talk:BIG Daddy M who continues to make unconstructive edits such as, repeated offenses of the 2RR, then every day he redoes it, Bad Faith Edits, Personal Attacks, Reveiling Spoilers and Rumors, and being uncivil. All of which we have warned him to read WP:CIVIL, WP:CRYSTAL, WP:PW, and he still deliberetly denies to follow the rules. What shall we do, because we try to work with him, but he just says "Stop stalking me." I don't know what else to do, can you please help? -- KBW1 16:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oh great, another obsessive tendentious professional wrestling editor. Now who does that remind me of? Guy (Help!) 17:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

If your referring to user: TJ Spyke this is not about him, Please that is considered a personal attack. -- KBW1 17:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe Guy is referring to this banned user, who has made upwards of hundred block-evading sockpuppets: JB196 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log). Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 17:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep, more than likely a JB196 sock. Is checkuser needed? Davnel03 17:32, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

NO, I don't think this user needs to be checked, I just think this user is unknowledgeable and is unwilling to learn WP rules. I think he needs to be blocked. -- KBW1 17:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

He will only be blocked for about 48 hours though. If you did go the way of checkuser, and he was a sock of JB196, he would be indefinitely blocked. Davnel03 18:08, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Sikjhad, a possible sockpuppet of User:Danny Daniel?

This is not a request to block anyone, but I wanted to inform the administrators that Sikjhad hasrecreated the hoax De-Animated. This page has been recreated several times in the past, mostly by Danny Daniel sockpuppets. In fact, the original page was created by a Danny Daniel sock.

Note that Sikjhad has made only four contributions, and all of them were made to De-Animated. Pants 17:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Jason Gastrich violates policy by continued baseless personal attacks and posting of a link to an attack site

Banned user Jason Gastrich was recently denied reinstatement and has responded by engaging in personal attack, in violation of WP:NPA, by insisting without evidence that I am a sock-puppet of another user. He perpetuates the problem by the repeated posting of an attack link to a domain that he owns . The Google Group to which Jason's domain redirects is nothing more than an attack site, and Jason's continued posting of it violates a subsection on Misplaced Pages's policy on civility by forbidding the use of those links on project pages. Jason no doubt feels that he's banned and there's nothing more that can be done to him, but even as the temper tantrum that Jason has thrown this morning means little, and his claims mean even less, the use this attack site should be countered in the interests of the community. Recommend that the domain be blacklisted. - Nascentatheist 17:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Endorse blacklist. Durova 18:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's any point in giving a banned user a platform to continue his disruption. I've protected the user talk page accordingly. -- ChrisO 18:08, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Attempted theft of user accounts

Runescapehacker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an apparent SPA created to talk people into e-mailing him their passwords to Runescape (). Recommend permablock. Eleland 18:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Help wanted

• Oliver Wyman (actor) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Oliver Wyman Group (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), reasonably neutral
• Oliver Wyman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), was a redirect, hijacked by SPAs and an IP belonging to Oliver Wyman (the company), reads as PR blurb.

Anyone who's up on "global strategy consulting firms" would be valuable in sorting out the crap from the reality on the article and helping decide where it should go in the end. Guy (Help!) 19:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)