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Prem Rawat 1RR parole proposal

The article on Prem Rawat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been unsettled since it was first written three years ago and it has become especially contentious in the past month. Parties on all sides have engaged in what some have called "protracted", "silly edit wars". It is currently protected for a week. The talk page is active but acrimonious and angry reverts have outnumbered consensual edits. User:Jossi has proposed article probation and I endorse the concept. We both agree that, at a minumum, a "1RR" preventing excess reverts would be useful. Here's the probation text we've agreed upon between the two of us, the two involved admins.

Articles in category:Prem Rawat are subject to WP:1RR probation for a period of one month. Probation will be re-assessed at the end of that period, and extended if needed. Editors violating 1RR (one revert per editor per week), may incur escalating blocks performed by uninvolved admins. Editors must be individually notified of article probation before admin actions are undertaken. Violations, along with a link to this probation notice, should be posted to WP:3RRN

I ask the community's consent to impose this as a temporary peace-keeping measure. I welcome improvements to the framing of this probation as well as dispute resolution interventions and suggestions. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The wikilawyer in me says you want to say "articles currently in Category:Prem Rawat, being...", or anyone can impose 1RR on a page just by adding it to the category. Pedantic I know, but I can't help myself :D Happy‑melon 10:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

From my own experience with article probations, 1R rules can easily be gamed by people who will continually be inserting new tendentious material, or similar material with varying wording. That way, they never "revert", but keep being uncooperative and POV-pushing. No matter how glaringly tendentious their additions may be, a pure 1R regime gives this form of POV-pushing a tactical advantage over constructive editors. I would recommend adding a safety valve to the rules, defining some class of obvious, blatantly tendentious edits that can (and should) be reverted. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly Fut.Perf.. And how do you deal with the often anon IPs, who insert an unsourced, defamatory comment. Three editors may delete it, but it may be reinserted 5 times. Does this mean that the unsourced defamatory comment remains in place for a week and then the same thing happens the next week, 5 editors insert an unsourced, defamatory comment and three editors delete it? Cumulatively adding one unsourced defamatory comment a week. That situation is clearly unacceptable. For example. here an anon IP inserted Rawat is "an ugly lying scumbag cult leader" ]. So for a start, editing the PR article must exclude anon IP editors and addition to dealing with Fut.Perf. comments.Momento (talk) 11:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Anon editing can be curtailed by semi-protection, and removal of obvious vandalism or obvious BLP violations will not fall under the 1RR probation. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The BLP violation would have to be quite obvious in order for an edit removing it to circumvent the probation. Some editors have abused the BLP exemption in the past. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, only obvious BLP violations would apply. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Isn't WP:1RR usually understood as 1 revert per day, not per week? If you go with this proposal, I would suggest to either stick with that, or make the "per week" very explicit. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:06, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the probation needs to be extended to include other edit disruptions beyond 1RR, as per concerns expressed above. An example of community enforced article probation Talk:Homeopathy/Article_probation, which include all what is needed to ensure orderly debate and editing. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The rules on that page are all about how to be nice to each other on the talk page. That's all good and well, but I doubt it's sufficient here. Editors can be spotlessly nice and civil to each other and yet be thoroughly disruptive by making persistently tendentious edits. What you need is rules about what kinds of content edits are or aren't within debatable limits. Just my 2c. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:11, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you offer some wording for additional restrictions that may help us here? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Difficult, I don't know the article well and what kinds of problematic edits actually get made. On an etirely different type of conflict, I have moderately positive experiences with the rule set shown at Talk:Liancourt Rocks, where the focus is on what constitutes an "uncooperative edit". Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

One thing of concern here is that there seems to be varying interpretations of what may or may not constitute a BLP violation, and thus exempt from the 1RR. Momento, for example, is a bit strident in his reversions generally (but not always!) in what he feels are not acceptable. If there is a disagreement whether something is a BLP violation, who makes the determination? Certainly no involved parties, because a disputed BLP violation is not automatically excempt from 1RR or 3RR. Once this is codified as part of the probation in as close of a manner as possible to make it impossible for any "side" to game, I would support this long term 1RR restriction, applying to all editors and admins. Lawrence § t/e 16:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

What about this version? Would this work?

Articles in category:Prem Rawat are subject to community-enforced article probation restrictions for a period of three months. Probation will be re-assessed at the end of that period, and extended if needed. Editors violating 1RR (one revert per editor per day), or that engage in disruptive editing may incur escalating blocks performed by uninvolved admins, or have other reasonable restrictions placed on them in relation to these topics. Editors must be individually notified of article probation before admin actions are undertaken. Violations, along with a link to this probation notice, should be posted to WP:AN/I, where uninvolved editors will make a determination.

≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

(Amended as per FT2 - three months + other restrictions) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Much better, to use disruption as the measuring tool, since that leaves it for the uninvolved community to decide rather than someone playing games by saying "BLP! BLP!" when it may not be valid. Lawrence § t/e 16:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

One tweak--I changed "uninvolved admins will make a determination" to "uninvolved editors will make a determination" as admins have no extra authority in consensus. Perfect otherwise. Lawrence § t/e 16:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been asked to visit and give a view here. Quick thoughts. It looks fine, but a couple of thoughts. First, a month (4 weeks) may not be very long. If it's enough of a problem to need probation, maybe consider an initial period of 3 months, not one. The aim of probation is to see the article stable and with time to get sorted out, and a month isn't very long. Second, consider the bahaviors seen, and the (apparent) goals of those editing on each side, and consider if disruption and reversion are sufficient, or if blocking is the only remedy to be considered. A good option might be that editors engaging in disruptive behavior may incur escalating blocks "or have other reasonable restrictions placed on them in relation to these topics" by any uninvolved administrator, etc. (The wording "in relation to these topics" allows better coverage of disruption related to the topic on other pages, project pages etc too.) It gives a bit of flexibility if you have an editor who engages in problem behavior. But this is a pure generic outside view, and if not needed, ignore them :) My $0.02. FT2  17:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Amended as per suggestions. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

As an outside editor who is currently involved in editing this page, I strongly support this probation, esp. with Lawrence's and FT2's tweaks. One additional thought -- and I hesitate to even bring this up, because I'm sure it's a very touchy subject. It's very clear to me that the edit warring, and the uncivil discussion on Talk is driven in 90% of the cases by a handful of current and bitter ex-devotees of the article subject fighting each other. I don't know Misplaced Pages traditions nearly as well as others here. Is there any way to address this in the probation? Msalt (talk) 21:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

These may be covered under the proviso of "disruptive editing" in the probation notice. But if necessary, the probation could be extended to abuse of talk page. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

My point, in case it's not clear, is that perhaps restrictions should focus on the editors with admitted COI issues, on both sides of the issue -- both current devotees and bitter ex-devotees. I admire and appreciate very much, Jossi, that you have recused yourself from editing. Unfortunately, only one other person on either side has taken that step, and the ones that haven't are causing all or nearly all of the problems on the page. I don't know that much about different restrictions and how they've worked in the past, so I don't have any specific suggestions. But I think they should be focused on the clear cause of the problems. Msalt (talk) 06:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Re. "... we need some assistance to tweak the wording of these restrictions ..." - I'd appreciate a 0-CANVASS on this one. I don't like Jossi's pre-emptive idea that this will fly, and only needs "tweaking" of the wording. There's no consensus, it's badly set up, and it bends good guidance in all sort of directions in order to give POV-pushers an unjustifiable advantage. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You must be jocking.... I asked one experienced editor and arbCom member, and you call that canvassing? I am starting to doubt your ability to remain neutral in this dispute. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I haven't changed my opinion since Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive128#Article probation - proposal - archived last week. "community-enforced article probation restrictions" (with an included piped link to WP:RESTRICT, a page talking *only* about restrictions on users, not restrictions on pages - similarily WP:1RR is about users, not pages) would be a very bad next step. There's a lot of POV-pushing on the article. Relatively uninvolved editors (at least, with no involvement in the article's subject), have shown up and do a hell of a job of working on the article content (as said, a "thank you" is not needed as far as I'm concerned, but please let us do the job, it's difficult enough as it is). Several involved editors work on the talk page with (self-imposed) editing restrictions to the page for COI and/or "too angry" and/or "not believing Misplaced Pages can get the article right" reasons. Then there are *a very few* still edit-warring on the page. The Prem Rawat article needs to be dynamic, at least for some time still to come, and not give the POV-pushers an advantage ("I can't edit the page for COI, so others should also be restricted in editing the page" or whatever flaky rationale). The advantage should be to the relatively uninvolved editors, and we will revert POV-pushing. Individual POV-pushers can be set on a WP:RESTRICT as foreseen by that project page, thus applied to users, for disruption. Similarily for WP:1RR restictions, to applied (as foreseen) to users, not pages. I'm not going to impose such restrictions to users, but will bring to WP:AN/WP:ANI when such restriction might be warranted, for others to decide. For example above Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Slightly disruptive editing of Momento (talk · contribs) --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Not really. There are precedents for 1RR probation on articles (such as Talk:Homeopathy/Article_probation. Note that 1RR is a good thing even for editors that are not disruptive, unless you believe that edit-warring is a viable option, that is. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I contest the usefulness of the measure, even for the Homeopathy articles. Some time ago we had a sudden raise of Homeopathy-related rants at WT:NPOV. Finally I know how come. Even if you think it worked regarding Homeopathy-related topics: the situation hardly compares with Prem Rawat, where I definitely see no reason for the same. I'd oppose it. I'm no POV-pusher and would not allow myself to be forced into restrictions on the same level as the POV-pushers who might need such restrictions imposed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Your proposal for restrictions on Momento, had no traction, Francis. And the disruption at that article, was not just from Momento, but from many editors actively editing that article. You yourself engaged in revert wars, so I do not understand the distinction you are trying to make. POV pusher or not, editors should not engage in edit wars, period. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

In fact, it has traction from every contributor appart from Momento and Jossi, see above Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Slightly disruptive editing of Momento (talk · contribs).

Re. "You yourself engaged in revert wars" - I haven't, so I invite you to stop your poisonous language. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

1. 08:24, 14 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 191344759 by Janice Rowe (talk) per Talk:Prem Rawat#External links disputes pls take part there if no agr")
2. 22:42, 15 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 191736297 by 24.176.193.149 (talk) per talk, also replacing dmoz by p-r-m")
3. 23:08, 15 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 191743263 by 32.155.57.53 (talk) per talk page and previous edit summary")
4. 09:59, 17 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 192032024 by Momento (talk) Per talk page, and discussion ont Momento's talk page")
5. 21:19, 18 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 192370604 by Louise.Po (talk) undo edit by SPA (had messed grammar; had added unsourced statement)")
6. 21:29, 18 February 2008 (edit summary: "rv some edits by SPA; keeping to talk page discussions")
7. 08:57, 19 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 192408147 by Momento (talk) + cite")
8. 09:19, 19 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 192514791 by 121.218.20.254 (talk) IfD not concluded yet, see talk page")
9. 17:58, 20 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 192767943 by Rainer P. (talk) it's what the website says, no need for interpretation, see talk")
10. 18:04, 20 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 192524515 by Momento (talk) per Talk:Prem Rawat#Balyogeshwar")
11. 18:05, 20 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 192514791 by 121.218.20.254 (talk) IfD still not concluded, see talk")
12. 12:56, 21 February 2008 (edit summary: "Undid revision 192926449 by Momento (talk) IfD still open. Have asked its conclusion ASAP. Already would have been if urgent BLP.")

Sure, it is always the others that are edit warring. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Your alleged proof is a sham. No revert-warring, as I said. POV-pushers are reverted, as I said. The remedy is to stop the POV-pushers, not to protect them, as I said. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The diffs above say otherwise, Francis. The remedy is to assure orderly debate and assist involved editors in finding common ground, reach consensus and improve the articles in that manner. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The diffs do not show otherwise, so please remove your PA.

Re. "The remedy is to assure orderly debate and assist involved editors in finding common ground, reach consensus and improve the articles in that manner." Of course, thats what I'm defending. As I said, the current page protection is not very well contributing to orderly debate, . I fear the restrictive measures now proposed will have a comparable effect.

And again, remove the PA above, and the other PA I invited you to remove from the Prem Rawat talk page. I see no reason to be lenient on these PA's. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Query for uninvolved parties

In the interests and well-being of the wider community, I might delicately suggest that the view of the "regulars" who've been slugging it out on the article (or any article in similar circumstances) should have less weigh in whether this should be protected with the 1rr, once the idea is floated. They're welcome to slug it out; the community is equally entitled to say knock it off whether involved parties care for it or not.

What uninvolved parties support the above amended hopefully hard to game as written 1rr restriction by Jossi? Lawrence § t/e 22:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Lawrence, the most interesting parties to listen to in this case are those who have little interest in the content of the Prem Rawat article, but have jumped in to monitor and assist to get the article through a difficult period. Among which Will Beback, Msalt and myself. They're doing the job on the ground, hands on. Thus we need the instruments to perform the job we have taken upon ourselves. So it is more important to have a consensus on methodology among those putting their time into this from the desinterested angle, than have a decision pushed by those who do have a POV interest in the article. Jossi doesn't edit the article for COI reasons. Now he's severely pushing, using a myriad of methods, to have as much restriction on editing the article imposed on others, especially the non-POV-pushers, as possible. While it is evident that left to POV-pushers alone from both camps the pro-Rawat POV-pushers have slightly outnumbered the critical POV-pushers, this might lead to outside commentators assessing that Misplaced Pages is unable to improve, even when the problems on the Prem Rawat article are pointed out to its editors. For the ones committing themselves to keeping the POV-pushing on this article down, there is no consensus on the methodology of general editing restrictions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

You have not jumped in to "monitor", you have jumped in and engaged in the revert wars alongside others. There is no such a thing as fighting POV puhsers with revert wars.; that does not work and you should know that by now with your experience. People there made outrageous personal attacks, and you did nothing, and instead of assisting editors there in finding common ground, you have become part of the problem, Francis. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Jossi, this it the third PA on me in four days. Please remove it. Also please remove the other two, see above and the Prem Rawat talk page. Also, I never said "fighting POV pushers" - I really don't know what you're talking about. I think this has gone quite far enough. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:22, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not personally attacking you, Francis. I am making an assessment of your behavior, same as you are making an assessment of mine. You seem to think that asking for community input for remedies that may help in assisting and encouraging editors to engage in an orderly debate without drama, is "severely pushing". I beg to differ. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No again, I never said that nor implied it. I used the expression "severely pushing" because you used a myriad of techniques, some with drama. Having this on WP:AN is not something I object to in the least, although I pointed out it was recently discussed here, see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive128#Article probation - proposal.

The first sentence of your comment above is a PA, and I insist you remove it. Same goes for the other two PA's. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:42, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Side comment: Instead of saying that this applies to a category, which could change, the articles that this restriction would apply to, should all be listed here, so that editors/admins considering this proposal can see its scope of articles for the potential probation. Cirt (talk) 22:59, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Jossi (talk · contribs), this is not a "support" or "oppose" comment, it is a side comment related to this issue. Please do not move other editors' comments, especially not here, as you yourself are "involved" and should not be moving around other editors' comments. If you feel that strongly about the placement of my comment here, ask an uninvolved admin to act, instead of yourself. Thanks, Cirt (talk) 06:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

For the second time, Jossi (talk · contribs), please stop moving my comments. Diff 1, Diff 2. It is inappropriate. I am not casting a "vote" in this subsection one way or another, just commenting that the related articles that this proposal applies to, should all be listed here. If you feel this strongly about where my comments should be placed, please do not move them yourself, that is highly inappropriate of you as a very involved admin in this issue, rather ask an uninvolved, neutral admin for input, instead of moving another editor's comments. Thanks, Cirt (talk) 15:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I have objected repeatedly to Jossi's involvement, even on the talk page, to these articles because of his COI issues. I also suspect that Jossi is making this proposal because the Rawat article is currently locked in a version that he doesn't approve of. Nevertheless, since Jossi's proposal has the support of Will Beback, who appears to be trying to stop the POV-pushing in the Rawat articles, then I support Jossi's proposal. Cla68 (talk) 23:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

*comment by involved party trying to stop the POV-pushing* - Will Beback is no less, nor more involved than I am. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Support. The 1rr restriction seems eminently sensible, and I've seen it help with other contentious articles. Jayjg 02:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

A 1RR restriction will never work. The editors are too polarized. Independent admins like Jayjg should come and enforce the rules.Momento (talk) 13:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Momento, Jayjg just endorsed the 1RR proposal. If accepted, any admin can enforce, not just Jayjg. Cla68 (talk) 14:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Re. "If accepted, any admin can enforce", no: there are admins who could not enforce, for instance those with a COI involvement. Or am I erring and was this an underlying intention of the setup of this proposal? --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:28, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Per usual procedures, the proposal says "uninvolved admin". I don't think folks would accept Jossi taking further administrative actions on these articles, for example. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:54, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Nor you WillBeback.Momento (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Momento, that is understood. An uninvolved admin is one that is not actively editing the article. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I Support also. If only involved parties are going to object, I move we just do it. Lawrence § t/e 23:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm unclear if the current version of probation addresses talk page filibustering. The page is currently awash in endless discussions over relatively minor points (Momento alone is posting 10 or more times a day, 17 yesterday, many kilobytes, and PatW on the other side about the same.) My concern is these monologues have the effect, if not in fact the design, of sabotaging any possible progress, much less consensus. 3 editors on the pro-Rawat side, for example, have stated "vehemently" that they will support this probation only if an edit they don't like is reverted. This seems like a very bad start (and note, I don't like that edit either. But this attitude is 'my way or the highway', not consensus.) Msalt (talk) 00:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You may be comfortable with an editor making an undiscussed insertion of 10,000 bytes into the article but the talk page says - "This is a controversial topic that may be under dispute. Please read this talk page and discuss substantial changes here before making them. Make sure you supply full citations when adding information and consider tagging or removing uncited/unciteable information". And for your info Msalt, WillBeback has edited 17 times today and I have edited 11 times.Momento (talk) 05:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You have a clear COI, and a history of disruptive editing and Talk on this article. Will Beback has none of these. Please stop filibustering. Msalt (talk) 15:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

How dare you accuse me of a COI in this matter? You should question any editor who doesn't object to an editor inserting 10,000 bytes of badly written material into the article without discussion.Momento (talk) 23:02, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that there's a larger problem which 1RR won't cure. It's only a bandage to address a symptom. If editors cannot act reasonably together, and can't agree to mediation, there aren't many alternatives. While those are being investigated 1RR may reduce the turmoil caused by revert-warring. While even a simple solution like 1RR can be gamed it's better to do something rather than nothing.

I urge uninvolved editors who are reading this thread to express their support or opposition to this proposal so that we can either implement it or find something else. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support the article probation. All I ask for is more teeth -- esp. editing and Talk page restrictions on the admittedly COI editors who are causing literally all of the problems. Msalt (talk) 15:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

And who are the "admittedly COI editors who are causing literally all of the problems"?Momento (talk) 23:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably/mainly all the people that appear to be hear primarily to or only to edit Prem Rawat articles, to either make them sound nicer to Prem Rawat's interests, or the opposite. I'd guess. Lawrence § t/e 23:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, But since Msalt mentioned me, I wondered who the others were.Momento (talk) 00:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to be coy. There's plenty of COI on both sides of the debate. Unless I am remembering incorrectly, Momento, Rumiton, and Jossi are acknowledged devotees of Prem Rawat. Maybe Armeisen and Balius too, I'm a little vague on that point. John Brauns, PatW and Sylviecn are acknowledged ex-devotees. Maybe also Andries? I think Francis is a former devotee of another guru, and Jayen466 enjoys the works of Osho, by their admissions; they are more neutral in my opinion. NikWright2 has acknowledged pique over Jossi linking to or citing some web page that disparaged him. These editors, to my eye, are involved in 90% of the Talk and editing and 100% of the edit warring.

Jossi, PatW and perhaps Andries have all voluntarily agreed not the edit the article for the time being, even though Jossi is one of the most level-headed editors on the page, to remove any possible concern over COI. I think this sets an excellent role model. Msalt (talk) 01:12, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not easy to determine COI if users don't volunteer the information. It is clear that many single purpose accounts are concerned with this article. Among non-SPAs, Jossi has made a total of 3038 edits to the article and its talk page, while Andries has made 1708. Some active accounts that rarely edit other article include: Momento (1354 edits), PatW (484), Sylviecyn (327), Rumiton (326), and Mael-Num (213). The article and its talk page have received a total of 10,787 edits and of those Jossi has made just under a third. The combined SPAs have made 2704, about a quarter of the total. Comebined with Andries and Jossi, these seven accounts have made 7450, or three-quarters, of the total contributions. What this means for the discussion here is that the article is a battleground for a fairly small set of highly-involved users. If 1RR doesn't work then topic bans may be the another solution.

Reviewing input from uninvolved editors, I count one who is doubtful that 1RR will help (Fut.Perf) and four who support it (Lawrence Cohen, FT2, Cla68, Jayjg). I don't see any outright oppostion. Is that enough support to give the proposal a 3-month trial? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It may be useful to note that from all active editors, only two have objected to the proposal User:Momento, and User: Francis Schonken, with others either supporting or not objecting. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• I think before going forward and deciding on this, the uninvolved editors should list here all the articles that this will apply to. Cirt (talk) 00:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

David Shankbone

This is a request that the IP ranges found here User:David Shankbone/76.72 be blocked. The first IP range has been engaged in libel on Misplaced Pages against me, and I supply the diffs that show that. Additionally, they continue to edit-war, disrupt and troll the project as it deals with me and my work. Since this has been going on for a few weeks, and since the activity is illegal, I'm asking for a project-wide ban on the first IP range. The second IP range is an accomplice (they at times edit simultaneously) who engages in edit-warring, but not the crime of libel as the first IP range has. The things they are writing are illegal, I will be filing an abuse report with Bell Atlantic, and I have already contacted an attorney to look into criminal prosecution for smearing my reputation, the evidence of which is more than provided on User:David Shankbone/76.72. We will first see what Bell Atlantic can do in terms of providing help in finding out who is behind the libel. --David Shankbone 22:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

And the evidence, IP ranges, etc. I supplied are by no means exhaustive. --David Shankbone 22:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you possibly in violation of WP:NLT here? *Dan T.* (talk) 22:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Possibly. I will let other editors decide after looking at the evidence, but regardless it's time to say enough. --David Shankbone 22:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

David - relax, lay off the legalisms, and the admins handle it.

Checkuser shows that range is pretty active, so blocking the whole /16 block is probably not a good idea. When I have more time later tonight, I'll do the back of the envelope calculations to find the minimum CIDR to block. Raul654 (talk) 22:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I will heed your advice. --David Shankbone 22:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

In the meantime the campaign continues, see diff. . .R. Baley (talk) 22:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

How is a content disagreement over image inclusion an illegal smear? *Dan T.* (talk) 23:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh the content disagreement is just one tiny related matter. . .there's the smears + the content removal. Two prongs on the same fork. R. Baley (talk) 00:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The image removals aren't illegal smears; they are edit-wars against multiple editors, completely rejecting consensus. R. Baley is right - there are several prongs to this person's hate: First, illegal smears; Second, edit wars against consensus; Third, multi-forum disruption. I thought the evidence page fleshed that out clearly. --David Shankbone 01:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Please remove or strike the legal threats/rhetoric. Viridae 01:31, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Stating someone has done something illegal, calling a spade a spade, is not the same as threatening to take action against them, which is a legal threat. I have struck out the legal threat, but if you would like to play with the wording to hide what is clear then you are welcome to do so, but I feel I have already complied with policy. --David Shankbone 01:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

• Our policies on legal threats are designed to apply to interaction between good-faith users. In the past, the community has held discussion on potential legal action against banned vandals and trolls. See this discussion about Willy on Wheels (scroll down to where it says " Willy on Wheels legal action?"), and this discussion about The Communism Vandal which also discussed the potential of taking legal action. *** Crotalus *** 16:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The minimum CIDR to block all the currently listed IPs in the 76.72 is /17. Raul654 (talk) 16:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, a large block. But it may be that a brief exemplary block will suffice to show that we mean business and we can, should we choose, stop this festival of stupid. It is a large range to block to stop one abuser, but they are pretty determined. Guy (Help!) 18:08, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I think a brief block is a good first step, although I think Guy has been on the money in his observations. This person clearly shows some sort of obsession disorder that I think will prove any brief block futile, but I don't like the idea of blocking such a huge range for a long time. Does anyone know how they are tag-teaming with the other IP range? I have alerted Verizon/Bell Atlantic; I've always been curious how that system works. This would not be a big deal if we didn't have good-faith editors on the talk page questioning the legitimacy of this IP's harassment, which is what makes it defamatory. If nobody was listening and taking up the IP's arguments (say, by researching over-exposed, over-photoshopped PR shots of people to say 'Wow, they look nothing like these other photos'). --David Shankbone 18:16, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

As I point out on my Talk page, the IP's obsession has been self-defeating, since when this IP started trolling in February he doubled the traffic to 800 hits a day on Lucas' article. So if the goal was to get people to not learn and think about Michael Lucas, they clearly have failed; if the goal is to say he has views that some people may find distasteful or even offensive, I don't think that comes as a surprise for anyone when they find out his career. --David Shankbone 18:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

(trolling removed) Tony Fox (arf!) 23:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that the comment above was posted by the harasser in question. It's a shame if David's "retirement" was hastened by admins' technical inability to block this person.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 18:39, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

More people should take breaks from wikipedia. It is emotionally healthy. When it is right for David to unretire, he will. Meanwhile, I'm sure we all wish him well. WAS 4.250 (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The harassment continues, even after David's latest retirement. I'm going to request protection.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 18:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I have semi-protected his userpage. Woody (talk) 18:31, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

We really do need some sort of rangeblock here, or this IP is quite obviously going to keep it up. Playing whack-a-mole is going to get tiring after a while. Tony Fox (arf!) 21:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the ANI thread that was discussing a ban on the IP vandal? I can't find it on the board or in the archives. The IP has been posting absurd claims such as this. Enough is enough. Let's choose a nickname for this person and file it under long term vandalism. Suggest Gay pornography vandal. Durova 00:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's a link to the thread here. I'm going to let someone else bring it back up (not sure if it should be a sub section here or brought back to ANI). R. Baley (talk) 00:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The ban discussion is unanimous, but nobody closed it before it got bot-archived. Would an uninvolved administrator please review R. Baley's link and make this formal? Durova 01:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

User was already blocked, but I added a notice, and put 'em on the list. Considering that David Shankbone seems to believe I'm his sworn enemy, I think this troll got the most favorable review he could ask for. This behavior is simply intolerable. Cool Hand Luke 01:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Luke. R. Baley (talk) 02:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Blanking or deleting userpages for indef blocked users

Why is it that we blank or delete the userpages for all indef blocked users? Some are trolls or whatever, and shouldn't be worth even a mention, but some are different. Some users have been around for years, and for one unfortunate reason or another, are unable to productively work with the rest of the community (for a lack of better words). These users often have a great deal of valuable contributions, and at one time where considered users in good standing. Blocking is not punishment, and blanking or deleting a userpage is not some way to embarrass or ridicule those who are blocked.

People seem to have confused the reasons behind blanking/deleting userpages, in that those reasons don't apply to every situation of an indef block. It's very unfortunate that whatever situation came to an indef block, but allowing that to taint that user's entire history on Misplaced Pages isn't right. We don't delete userpages for users that are no longer active, and that's how we should treat these users. Unless they're a troll or a vandal, or the content of the userpage is related to why they were blocked, leave it alone. -- Ned Scott 05:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Simple vandals and trolls who only make half-dozen edits? Delete. Established contributors with decent, notable edits who unfortunately are indefinitely blocked should stay, especially when they relate to sockpuppetry, as that further documentation could be useful down the track. This is of course excepting rare circumstances where either right to vanish or real-life names are involved. Daniel (talk) 12:42, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Me too, Daniel summed it up well and....I agreed with Ned...(gosh I've gone all dizzy....) ] (] · ]) 13:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

PS: Is there a specific incident we're referring to here? ] (] · ]) 13:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, User:EliasAlucard. It was blanked and the indef template applied, Carcharoth removed the temp category, Tourskin posted a note to the userpage, Boodlesthecat removed it, Tourskin posted it again, IronDuke removed it... Ned restored the page, I blanked it again saying why I thought it was done, and Ned restored it, and Valtoras removed it again. Avruch 14:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree mostly with Ned. As part of SSP it's mandatory to post the sock notice on the userpage (and these shouldn't be deleted). Only when userpages contain promotional material; contain only indef-block notices or otherwise vandal notices should they be deleted. Rudget. 14:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Any user or usertalk page with a non-trivial history should not be deleted. It's only really the throwaway vandal-only accounts and usernameblocks where it's appropriate. The pages can be blanked or replaced on occasions, but should not be deleted. I think we are talking here about replacing the page with a banned template? That is quite consistent with policy. The other way to deal with it is to subst the indefblock template to remove the temp category. -- zzuuzz 14:37, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah we're talking about blanking. Carcharoth removed the temporary page category already, using some new magic word I think. Avruch 14:59, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

(undent) For the record: I'm the one who blanked User talk:EliasAlucard's talk page - it contained very offensive racial attacks, including in the unblock requests he had posted. I'd be all in favor of not deleting them (I'd rather that record was left alone), but I don't think the contents should be restored to plain view. — Coren  15:42, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I dunno. Keeping the talk page up makes it quite clear why he's banned. --jpgordon 16:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The history serves that purpose adequately (especially when combined with the block message), IMO. I don't see any reasons to leave the bile in plain view. *shrug*, I don't feel strongly about it either way, though. — Coren  20:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you could argue either way. Hiding it by blanking will pique the curiosity of some. I only scanned through the bottom half and it seemed more silly than anything else. Leaving it there highlights the problem and leaves no doubt to any who pass by why he was indefblocked. OTOH it may serve as some form of graffitti, so maybe that is a reason for blanking the invective...interesting. ] (] · ]) 04:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Vicki Iseman

I've asked User:VirtualSteve, closer of the AfD, to undo his protection of this article. There was no edit warring, he simply seems to have decided that the pending deletion reviw of the article must go through before any more editing (even a redirect per WP:ONEEVENT) is performed. I believe this is an abuse of admin powers to win an argument and have asked him several times to undo, but he refuses. Would somebody please review. If someone agrees that protection really is necessary, I'll be very surprised but I'll accept it. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 14:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I see edit warring about the redirection in the history. Redirected by Doc, reverted by Buster, redirected again by you. Probably better if he hadn't reverted again and then protected; but there clearly was an edit war forming, so somebody needed to step in. Had he seen a consensus to redirect or merge; he'd have said so, so he believed he was locking it in the consensus version. Protection is appropriate; and the most I'd do myself is remove his protection and immediately reprotect. Since the net effect is the same... why waste the time? GRBerry 03:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Magical Edit Changes at Killian documents?

Can anyone explain how the ref to "Texas Air National Guard" can change to "Texas Army National Guard" and then back again without any edit indications in this series of supposedly consecutive diffs: , , , ? Not a big deal, but the Killian-related articles seem to draw more than their fair share of odd stuff. -BC aka Callmebc (talk) 15:28, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

• I notice that you are still peddling WP:TRUTH there, displaying the same obsessive interest as before you were blocked. Hmmmm. Guy (Help!) 21:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The only "Hmmmm..." here is why you decided to pop by to make a rather derogatory sounding non sequitur. The past 24 hrs I've dealt with dubious short lived IP's, dodged being apparently baited into 3RR, and made some contribs to discussions in Global Warming, Killian Documents (of course), George W. Bush military service controversy, Dan Rather and Universal health care. And the only thing I've been "obsessive" with has been WP:HONESTY and WP:VERIFY, which occasionally, I suppose, means peddling the "Truth".

All of which, though, has nothing to do with my posting here. Any thoughts on that sequence, or is it just one of those "nothing to see here, folks, just move along..." things? -BC aka Callmebc (talk) 04:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Where is that ref? -- SEWilco (talk) 04:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of non sequiturs.... .

It has this to do with it: you were unblocked on the strict understanding of improved behaviour. Your behaviour is marginal at best, looking at recent comments on the talk page. And you're still advocating your novel synthesis of primary sources. Guy (Help!) 11:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Considering all the provocations, I think I can honestly say I have been keeping my cool rather nicely. Trying to keep politically sensitive Misplaced Pages articles from descending into things that more resemble transcripts from conservative radio shows is not exactly the most enjoyable of activities. Last Spring my only intention had been to update some discussion issues on the Killian related Talk pages I had participated in the prior Fall and then leave. That instead turned into a massive edit war with several apparent LGF puppets and apparently at least one hacker. When that was done, and I had an evident opportunity to make big changes to the articles unmolested, I didn't -- I was pretty fed up with the whole situation by then. This last bit of excessive scuffling came about my spotting a bit of nonsense inserted into an article and my merely trying to do the right thing in removing it. That brought out that the articles are now "owned" again, and any and all efforts to deal with even blatant issues like un-cited POV nonsense with dangling "Citation Missing" tags left for ages is met with massive resistance.

And in regards to your novel synthesis of primary sources claim -- for the sake of a "clarifying" discussion on a Talk page, I made use of the provision of WP:PSTS that allows for citing primary sources when "they only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge," and "make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source." If you are citing, say, a picture of a Zebra, it's not exactly synthesis to say it's a picture of a Zebra unless you want to claim that even this sort of thing is not "easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge".

Does this cover the situation accurately? But again this has nothing to do with why I'm posting here -BC aka Callmebc (talk)

Seriously, can anybody explain that magic-seeming edit and re-edit sequence? -BC aka Callmebc (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 06:59, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Although both "Texas Air National Guard" and "Texas Army National Guard" are mentioned in the article, I see no changes to them, magic or otherwise. Can you please be really specific about what you're seeing? Bovlb (talk) 07:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be some sort of red highlighting when it gets changed from one to the other? I have more specifics below. -BC aka Callmebc (talk) 14:31, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

There are two instances of the string "Texas Army National Guard" and five of the string "Texas Air National Guard" in all five versions of the article; and they appear in the same places in each. "Texas Air National Guard" appears in the diff table of two of the diffs, and "Texas Army National Guard" appears in the diff table of the other two diffs, but this is because different paragraphs of the article are being shown. Both of the paragraphs in question are present in all versions of the article. —Random832 07:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I thought when you make small edits, the changes appear in red. For example, the very next edit in the sequence shows SEWilco changing the text in question again, this time from "Texas Air National Guard" to "Air National Guard" and you quite clearly see the change. But in the immediate prior sequence I had listed, , , , , the text simply changes from Texas Air National Guard to Texas Army National Guard and then back again with no highlighting to point out the changes.

Again I don't consider this a big issue, but I am kind of curious.... -BC aka Callmebc (talk) 14:31, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It looks like you're just quoting the same diffs again. Please indicate which of the various uses of the two terms you see changing in which direction in each diff. Thanks, Bovlb (talk) 16:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Grrrr...I think a very big Whoops! and apology is in order here -- it now looks to be only a very dumb screw-up on my part because I was advancing through the edits and thought I was looking at the same area of the article when it was actually bouncing from one paragraph to another with similar terms in somewhat similar positions:

The text I was looking at is in the very first paragraph of the article where it goes (currently), "The Killian documents controversy (also called Memogate, Rathergate or Rathergate) involved six documents critical of President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard." The bit that's currently called the "Air National Guard" is what I was noting.

1) In the 1st diff of the sequence, you see that IP 149.169.94.153 makes a vandal entry, and that Bush's service is listed as being in the Texas Air National Guard.

2) In the 2nd diff of the sequence, you see IP 149.169.94.153's "contribution" being reverted by SEWilco and then another change being made by IP 149.169.94.153. If you look at what at first glance appears to be a change to "Texas Army National Guard (TexARNG)" in the first paragraph is in fact another paragraph further in.

3) In my 3rd diff of the sequence, you see Otter Smith reverting IP 149.169.94.153. Again you're still seeing a paragraph further in.

4) In my 4th diff of the sequence, you are now back to the first paragraph with an edit by Jc-S0CO, where Texas Air National Guard now "reappears".

5) Of course it doesn't help that in the 5th diff of the sequence, SEWilco actually does change the wording of the service to Air National Guard.

6) And what really didn't help my distracted thinking was that Bush's Guard service had been wrongly listed as United States National Guard for a long while until I pointed it out a short time back.

Still, though, in any case, my bad -- I thought it was just some minor matter so I didn't pay nearly enough attention to what I was looking at in the sequence, and I very much apologize for bringing it up here and wasting people's time. If it helps any, I will likely not hear the end of this little kerfuffle anytime soon (seriously -- I can almost hear some lips smacking now....) -BC aka Callmebc (talk) 17:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

AfDs need merging

Over at WP:DELT, there are loads of AfDs all for "non-notable Dungeons & Dragons characters", that really want merging since they all impinge on the same point. I'm not sure how; could someone experienced oblige, maybe? Cheers! TreasuryTag talkcontribs 19:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

They were only listed there today, so should be closed (and possibly merged) when the AfD discussion ends (in about 5 days time) —αlεx•mullεr 19:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Surely they should be merged now to centralise discussion? I've often seen multi-article AfDs... TreasuryTag talkcontribs 19:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm seeing a number with different point (some in one supplement, others in multiple, some in books, others not). I'd rather have multiple AFDs, especially if they could be merging into different articles. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:47, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, sorry – I thought you meant merging the articles on completion of the AfD (if that's consensus). But yep, Ricky81682 makes a good point —αlεx•mullεr 00:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

User:The Undertow

As you may or may not know, The undertow has decided to leave wikipedia. He has deleted and protected his page, however, I've restored the the undertow's talkpage, added a courtesy blanking, and reprotected the page. I have done this on the basis of previous precedents that the userpage can be deleted, but the usertalk page can be accessed. The reason for my posting is I wanted to make sure that may reasoning of this is correct, and that I have done the correct thing. Thank you in advance for your input. Icestorm815 • Talk 20:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I, for one, am sad to hear this. He was one of the good guys. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 20:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is very sad to see him go *tear*, he will be missed. And Icestorm, I agree that it is good practice to leave and blank the talkpage for obvious communication reasons. Tiptoety 22:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears one of the reasons behind him leaving was that his private e-mail address was posted on his talk page. Correct? If so, maybe he deleted it on purpose. Selected deletion may be in order at the very least. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, was not aware of the circumstances, maybe that archive page (if it is an archive page) can be deleted. Or maybe it should be oversighted. Tiptoety 22:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just saw what you saw - that he left it undeleted in an archive page. It looks like quite a few revisions of more than one page would need to be oversighted to get rid of them. I guess let him complain if he wants to re-delete. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

He specifically said that he was not requesting oversight because he thought it would be pointless. Avruch 22:37, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Whatever. His call I guess. (I didn't read through the whole discussion - just enough to get a general gist). —Wknight94 (talk) 22:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

No! Not The Undertow! It seems a lot of editors have gotten pretty frazzled lately. Useight (talk) 05:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Good Lord. This is very unfortunate. bibliomaniac15 I see no changes 22:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

No Biblio. It's fortunate The guy grew to hate it here. Best we all move on, for The_Undertow and WP. Pedro :  Chat  23:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Lightwing1988

Lightwing1988 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Because of his personal attacks towards one particular user, I think he deserves to be blocked indefinitely. Not just blocked, but banned. And don't say he has not edited since January, because he has edited under his IP address (75.134.82.172). Please block the IP too. 124.181.64.190 (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You're asking us to block for something done a year ago. Lighwing1988 has not edited since January. This report is stale. —Kurykh 22:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I said, DON'T SAY HE HAS NOT EDITED SINCE JANUARY! He has edited under his IP address too, you know (I listed the IP above)! 124.181.64.190 (talk) 22:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

This may well be true, but the user he is said to have attacked hasn't edited for a year either. WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN 22:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

(EC)If it quacks like it duck, its probably a duck. Please remember to remain WP:CIVIL here. ;Tiptoety 22:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You're not letting Lightwing get away with those nasty comments, are you? 124.181.64.190 (talk) 22:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, would you like to point out how he has done anything bad under his IP? Parent5446 22:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

This IP is apparently a banned user, Jc iindyysgvxc (talk · contribs). JuJube (talk) 22:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing, but decided not to post it since the IP might be assigned to somebody else now (they do shift every once in a while). Parent5446 22:54, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

As for bad things he did under his IP, he did, for example, this. 124.181.64.190 (talk) 22:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

And you feel that warrants a ban? Tiptoety 22:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I see, I agree that some sort of short warning block is necessary if he continues this behavior. Parent5446 22:57, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

That edit is about three months old. Anything recent? JuJube (talk) 22:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I feel stupid that I did not see the date. Parent5446 23:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Plus, the attack (if I'm thinking right) was in March 2007... (edit conflicted seven times...) WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN 23:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Re "but he did it too!" - if he decided to jump off a cliff, would you, too? Two wrongs don't make a right. (But two rights make an airplane) Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 04:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Series of IPs harassing editors

This has been the second straight weekend but, I've noticed a string of IPs from various locations harrasing editors. Last weekend it was Jimbo Wales and User:Angela and now this weekend it is User:Webwarlock and User:Shadzar that are getting attacked by multiple IPs. This may be a large gang of editors, and looks more likely that it is not from one editor. Anyways, just to let more admins aware of the situation. I've protected the pages that were hit.--JForget 00:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

This page protected

Against trolling. Once they get bored, could someone unprotect? Thanks. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 03:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It's been a bit, I have unprotected. Keegan 05:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

With nine IP vandalisms in the past twelve hours, I re-semi-protected this page. Please feel free to dial it down if you feel I was overly enthusiastic. --Kralizec! (talk) 20:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Backup page brought online. MBisanz 20:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/75.47.148.75

This IP editor continues to make a few good edits and a lot of bad edits, often reverting someone's edit and reverting his own reversion without an edit summary. He's now removing {{DynamicIP}} from other IP talk pages he's used. --NE2 03:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried talking with this user about their edits, either about the highway content edits or about the removal of the AT&T Internet Services tags? I would suggest you walk down that road first. If you think someone is making bad edits, you should consider taking the first exit at the article talk page(s) or the second exit at the user talk pages, instead of continuing on and taking the exit to WP:AN. --Elkman 04:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I have many times; he deletes talk page entries and never replies. --NE2 04:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

RFC created at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/75.47.x.x. Evil saltine (talk) 06:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

References that have gone south for the winter

Suppose I find in an article some alleged "fact statement" followed by a HTTP source, and try to read the source, and find the reference is not there.

What is the Wikiproper procedure in this situation?

- delete the now unsupported fact statement

- add a {{fact}} code

- delete the code for the source, AND add a {{fact}} code

- leave the article code alone and put a note on the talk page

- none of the above.

??????????? Wanderer57 (talk) 05:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there a "date recovered" thing? If so, you might be able to Way-back Machine to it. --Haemo (talk) 05:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You could try using Archive.com on the URL to see if it can be recovered. If not, you probably need to find another source. bibliomaniac15 I see no changes 06:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I've never heard of Way-back Machine or Archive.com till now.

The paricular case that prompted me to ask my question is (when last checked) ref 14 in Dana Ullman. Could someone take a look at this and suggest what might be done?

My question is broader than a specific example; I have run into the problem quite often even though I don't edit a lot. Is the issue of vanishing references a big problem for Misplaced Pages? I'm curious because I have never seen a discussion of the problem. Wanderer57 (talk) 06:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

{{dead link}} --NE2 06:38, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

When I insert {{dead link}} and look at a preview, link 14 has become link 9. I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for that, but I have no idea what it is. Can you explain? Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 07:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you editing the whole article, or just one section? -- Zsero (talk) 07:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. That was it. Now I know why you guys/gals get the big bucks. Wanderer57 (talk) 07:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Many such links were to online versions of print news sources. Those can be cited without a convenience link if they're no longer online. Cool Hand Luke 07:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

So then links to online newspaper stories that are expired after X number of years must be a huge issue? Where might I find this discussed? Wanderer57 (talk) 07:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It comes up periodically on the talk pages of policies like WP:V. Here's the last time I saw it referenced, in a different question. Basically, newspaper citations are verifiable even if they're pre-internet and have no possible link, so it's not particularly problematic when the link dies. Internet sources, on the other hand, might be lost if they're not on the wayback machine. Cool Hand Luke 09:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Citing sources #What to do when a reference link "goes dead". Graham87 10:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Long term abuse, need assistance

For over the past year, there has been an editor who is a Bell Canada user who has been intermittently vandalizing any and all articles relating in some way to Haim Saban. This ranges from posting this slant or whitewashing mentions of Saban's productions from articles. Supposedly, this was dealt with. However, this individual has hopped ranges on his ISP, leading to rangeblocks to prevent abuse and leading to various e-mails by innocent anonymous users.

Abuse reports have been ineffective. Range blocks cannot continue to be used. Discussion with the IP proves fruitless (I would provide an instance where I had been trying to communicate, but I was met with the same disdain and edits to my own comments). It is pointless to continue to block these ranges and the IPs that this individual uses. I need a better solution.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I found a sample edit of a human-to-human interaction with this individual.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Announce protection for articles relating in some way to Haim Saban and after a week or a month protect the article. Edits can be made by admins only.Momento (talk) 10:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Protections have occurred. Haim Saban, Shuki Levy, and Saban Entertainment have been semiprotected for nearly a year. It is not feasible to protect every page that features Saban Entertainment or Power Rangers on it.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 10:35, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

76.64.20.176 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) came back as soon as I unblocked another range. I need to prevent this in other ways.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

And longer-term anon-only rangeblocks won't help? -- Avi (talk) 03:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Because there will be more and more ranges to be blocked. These are anon-only, because he has also created an account on one occasion to continue his abuse.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Too bad. There are only 1024 addresses covered by Sympatico HSE SYMF20070109-CA, but you're saying he has the run of all 524,288 in BELLCANADA-16? -- Avi (talk) 03:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Find/create a category that relates to them all, then add it to VoABot II's watchlist, and it'll be more attentive to changes made to any page within that category. Beware, though, as there's a limit of three active watch categories. --slakr 03:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

He went from 70.52.175.121 yesterday to 76.64.20.176 today, and in 64.231 something last year before the abuse report. It is difficult to keep this guy in check, and Bell Canada/Sympatico have not been helpful.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

We only have to block around 270M IP's to cover that, piece of cake! -- Avi (talk) 03:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Question

Why is the Incidents page protected? MarioPartyBitch (talk) 10:09, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Silly vandalism. Pretty constant at this rate, which is extremely annoying. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

What to do...

User:Hpt lucky has been around for about a year and a half now and, from what I can see, looks to be a good-faith editor. The trouble is, s/he has a habit of creating inappropriate pages; not wildly inappropriate, but rather pages about subjects which just aren't that notable. When I first saw his/her talk page, I was shocked at the number of AfD, SD and NN warnings. But still the user creates these inappropriate pages. Something needs to be done, but what? Blocking seems harsh, since Hpt really does seem to be making a good-faith effort to contribute. But s/he has literally had dozens of articles deleted over the past year (and also apparently has a penchant for copying and pasting info from elsewhere on the web, i.e. blatant copyvio). I deliberately have not informed him/her of this discussion, as I don't want to seem WP:BITEY. While s/he's been around for a while, s/he evidently hasn't really learned the way things work around here, and might take this discussion the wrong way, and I don't want to chase off a well-meaning editor. faithless () 11:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Well this is odd: just after posting this, I noticed that the user had blanked his/her talk page, and left a rather strange/uncivil message on my talk page. Nonetheless, opinions would be appreciated. FYI, there seems to be a language barrier with this user. faithless () 11:38, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

With the best of intentions, I think you may have fallen foul of systemic bias. It goes to the question of notability; I have reviewed the topics and found that they are largely outside of western culture interests - but that does not make them non-notable to an international English speaking encyclopedia. I also reviewed the deleted contributions for the editor, and while there are many they certainly do not overwhelm those that remain on the encyclopedia. Not only are we dealing with an editor with some language difficulties, but also a likely different cultural perspective. Misplaced Pages should be able to accommodate the gamut of English speaking cultures (and those cultures where English is a second, business or academic language) and fairly represent that which is both notable and relevent to that range of interests. Of course, this can present difficulties to a majority familiar with only one set of values but it is still possible to accept that there other points of view and that allowing editors to contribute to the best of their ability within the general ethos of "the 💕 that anyone can edit" should be supported. I think your approach of not contacting the editor and seeking advice here first was entirely appropriate, and it is unfortunate that the editor responded as they did (and to others). I am disinclined to think that any further purpose would be served by me or any other admin arriving on their talkpage and attempting to explain the western orientated culture of WP editing. Instead I think we should continue to AGF, and allow the creation of the articles in the hope and expectation that they will be further edited into even more valuable content. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:09, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. That does seem to be the best course of action. And while I definitely hear and appreciate what you're saying, I just want to note that I haven't deleted any of the page he's created. In fact, I haven't even given his contributions a thorough look-through to see if I agree with the deletions. But it definitely could be a case of unintentional cultural bias all around in this situation. Unfortunate, but there you go. faithless () 03:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for not making myself clear, I didn't mean to suggest that you had deleted content - I looked at the deleted contributions log for the editor; it gives an indication whether the community historically feels whether an editor creates a lot of poor articles. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression regarding your good faith interactions. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

BLP problem

See John McCain lobbyist controversy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Vicky Iseman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (latter at WP:DRV). The lobbyist controversy article is absolutely crammed with weasel phrases, half the headings are alleged this and alleged that, but I don't know enough about US politics at the moment to begin to pick it apart. As far as I can tell, the story itself is essentially a fabrication used to attack McCain, but that might be as unreliable as everything else printed about politics during an election campaign. Whatever, I'd encourage any admins with a solid understanding of policy (and firm resolve) to pass by these articles and work on them, because to me an an outsider in anytign to do with US politics the former looks like a hatchet job and the latter like a coatrack (and I'm a card-carrying liberal at that). Guy (Help!) 12:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLPUNDEL it. Will 12:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

This story was reported in the New York Times, who have insisted that their (unnamed) sources are true. Whether this incident is notable or not is disputable, but it is definitely not just an attack piece. - Revolving Bugbear 12:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, that redirect got changed - I mean, get rid of the article. It's violated BLP since day one. I've redirected for the same reason. We can't have allegations in an article. Will 12:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course, WP:BLPUNDEL (which, it should probably be noted, at least in passing, is not infrequently misused as editors misunderstand the Bdj RfAr and, more significantly, BLP and the community's construction thereof ) provides that an article summarily deleted per BLP should not be restored in the absence of a consensus for restoration. Here, we had a discussion, and the community, having considered all relevant issues, determined the article to be consistent with BLP. The consensus of insular discussions—which are presumed, open as they are, to reflect the judgments of the community about policy—is not to be overturned except where that consensus is plainly contrary to policy (which reflects generally a consensus of the community writ large), and here there is no plain error, and we need go no further down the road of the substitution of the application of policy of some group of editors, acting as individuals and without reference to a centralized, consensus-basedd discussion, for the deliberative application of policy by the community. Joe 18:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Many Wikipedians may not be aware that the New York Times' own Public Editor or ombudsman, Clark Hoyt, has severely criticised the Executive Editor, Bill Keller, for running the story: "The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics - sex - it offered readers no proof that McCain and (Vicki) Iseman had a romance...The article was notable for what it did not say. It did not say what convinced the (McCain) advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what Mr McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately - an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad.". --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 13:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Nail in the coffin, much? Will 13:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

First, it's Clark Hoyt's job to criticise NYT editors. But second, I didn't say that the NYT article meant it was true, just that it meant it was more than a wiki-fabrication. - Revolving Bugbear 13:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Guy's point is that the Times may not be a reliable source in this instance. Mackensen (talk) 15:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, um, no, of course The Times is a reliable source. That its reporting in this issue has been criticized is not in question. But the fact is, The Times reported it, has not retracted it and continues to stand behind its reporting. The Times is not a trash tabloid - it is the very farthest thing from that, in fact. It's essentially the newspaper of record for the United States. FCYTravis (talk) 21:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually all that misses the point - whether or not the Times is right does not change the fact that this is a clear case of WP:BLP1E. But there is still a huge problem with weasellery and other such naughtiness. Guy (Help!) 23:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

BLP1E? I missed the part where that applies to a major political question surrounding an American presidential candidate and undisputed public figure. When BLP1E is being used to erase mention and discussion of a still-smoldering political controversy that has gained wide attention and will surely continue to be an issue into the general election campaign, it's being misused. We BLP1E articles on <insert random Interwebs meme here>, not on national political scandals. I forked this article out of the Vicki Iseman biography specifically to prevent her biography from becoming a coatrack article about the scandal/controversy/whatever. FCYTravis (talk) 00:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLP1E is a good justification for redirecting Vicki Iseman, but it doesn't apply to John McCain lobbyist controversy. In fact, the latter kind of article is precisely what we're supposed to do. We are supposed to have an article on the event, so we don't have to pretend that our description of the event is actually a "biography" of one of the participants. Whether or not the scandal has any substance in the opinions of various commentators here or elsewhere, the fact remains that it was published in major newspapers that are considered reliable sources in almost every other context, and the reporting itself was further discussed in secondary sources. That's more than enough basis for a valid Misplaced Pages article on the controversy. *** Crotalus *** 00:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exactly that. WP:BLP1E is a problem with the Iseman article, WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, WP:V (no sources other than one newspaper reporter) and WP:WEASEL are, I think, issues in the controversy article. Guy (Help!) 11:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Not one newspaper reporter, four (Jim Rutenberg, Marilyn W. Thompson, David D. Kirkpatrick, and Stephen Labaton), plus two other people credited for help, all of whom work for America's "newspaper of record", and whose story, according to reports, was heavily vetted and sat on for months. No disrespect, Guy, but weasel-wording cuts both ways, and your making it sound as if this is the work of one hack journalist with some implied axe to grind is not on. --Calton | Talk 14:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Ryulong

My user page was recently deleted and violated by Ryulong. I was already informed that my editions on my user page were allowed because I was only keeping them on a temporary basis. I am asking that you please put my user page back the way it was before it was vandalized. — NuclearVacuum 14:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

He as also deleted every image I have added. Please also return my images to the way it was. — NuclearVacuum 14:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

(EC) From a quick look back through the deleted edits, it appears that you were using your userpage for long tracts about the made-up "United People's Darughas of Antarctica", as well as other fictional countries. Given that the information had been there for months (not a temporary basis), that you don't own your userpage, and given also that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopaedia, not a permanent free webhost, I don't see a particular problem with the deletion. I definitely don't see it as either violation or vandalising. _GB 14:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The deletion of the userpage material is probably within policy but if you dispute the delection, you can raise the matter for a deletion review. Or, if you need a copy of the deleted content to post it somewhere off Misplaced Pages, let us know and it can be e-mailed to you. (Admins should let users know this when deleting large chunks of userspace content, and should generally give a warning first.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

There are many other wiki sites with less strict focus than wikipedia, for a few see Comparison of wiki farms. I'm sure one of those could be suitable for your content. Like Newyorkbrad says, we'd be happy to give you access to the content so you can put it on another site. henrik•talk 14:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

NuclearVacuum's actions were brought up on these pages before. He has not been using his user page to hold this content for a temporary basis. He appears to only be here to host this content in a free place. If he wants to use a MediaWiki format, then there are other places that he can put this information. If he wants the raw code, it can be provided, but it serves Misplaced Pages no purpose to have it up on his page since November.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I am now aware of how to make a "wiki" page for my work. But for informational purposes, can you please put my userpage back the way it was and allow me to delete it in my own way. This is so I can take the HTML (witch I do not have backed up on my hard drive) and put it exactly the way it looked, but on a different web site. This is also because Ryulong (along with deleting my day dreams) also deleted my other projects I was using to add to Misplaced Pages articles. Like the "Slavic languages" box to show its history, I was using it so it would be something like the Germanic languages' box. He also deleted my many other projects, as well as ALL my userboxes. All I ask is that you restore my user page to its former status so I may clean it up my way (following all the guide lines of Misplaced Pages). — NuclearVacuum 22:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Blanking sourced content

I am experiencing problems with User:Mareklug on Diplomatic reaction to the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence article who keeps on removing content he dislikes, despite them being well sourced, without supplying new sources to justify these edits. He also got involved in personal attacks at me which caused other editors to warn him of WP:NPA policy (he for an example accused me of falsifying quotes on Cuba so I asked him to point at such falsification which he obviously couldn't do). To put it short the article is about diplomatic reaction to the recently declared independence of Kosovo. Suggested title "recognition of Kosovo..." was not adopted therefore we include all international reactions. Countries that do not recognize Kosovo have no obligation to publish an official document as they consider the situation legally unchanged (therefore their positions can be clarified through statements of high officials as there is no legal need to formalize this decision through parliament unlike countries that recognize and that must do this through the prescribed procedure).

I am afraid he is going for a 3RR, so that his edits could not be undone and that he is counting on lengthy dispute resolution process during which he will push for his unsourced edits. As he is not a simple vandal who makes the most obvious blanking but removing sections with sourced information which is vandalism per definition (Blanking - Removing all or significant parts of pages' content without any reason, or replacing entire pages with nonsense. Sometimes important verifiable references are deleted with no valid reason(s) given in the summary.) he could indeed succeed in this bypassing of rules.

I hope you can help us protect the article from such destructive behaviour. --Avala (talk) 15:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

He has just reverted the article with "That was your 3rd revert. You're done!". Previously he called me "Mr. Serb Misplaced Pages Administrator" and wrote some insults in caps. The only reason I am putting this here and not in dispute resolution is the fact that this article is currently active, on-going and cannot wait for the process to finish. It's not a dispute over some historical fact so that article can be locked until it's resolved. --Avala (talk) 15:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I've protected the article (please don't complain about the version I protected, see Meta:The Wrong Version) and hopefully you can reach a consensus on how to proceed with the article. Maxim_(talk) 15:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that there will be consensus. I am also afraid of sockpuppets - we have 2-3 users who registered just to spam the talk page. Block for the ongoing process article will also make the article itself suffer from any news getting added. So I have doubts over this being resolved so easily but I do hope it will happen. --Avala (talk) 16:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Mareklug deleted some of Avala's edits because the references were not relevant or reliable. So he had good reason to delete them. Ijanderson977 (talk) 18:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I did not even know I was being denounced here, until a friendly stranger left me a head's up on my talk page. Wouldn't simple courtesy require notifying me, that a complaint is being made re: my person and edits, so I could defend my reputation and those edits? :) To wit:

• I did not accuse Avala of misquoting the ranting Fidel Castro; this is a straw man, and I ignored his thread in this matter, which he now makes into my accusing him and failing to back it up.
• I did accuse him of misquoting the Foreign Minister of Armenia, as well as of misquoting me (he wrote on the article's talk page, that I called him "Mr. Serb").

The FM of Armenia was quoted by Avala in the article text as having said: "bla bla bla", whereas what he really said was: "bla bla bla yet. The matter is being discussed, and an official decision is forthcoming." Avala used this doctored, misquoted reference as evidence, to portray Armenia as having officially rejected the declaration of independence of Kosovo! He did so also on the requisite maps (Image:Kosovo_relations.svg and Image:Kosovo_relations.png), coloring hte country there red, and not once, but a number of times, finally desisting on this particular score, while introducing other "nonlinearities" :).

For the rest of how Avala edits, and other editors' reactions to same, please examine the article talk page (long!), the article's revison history page, as well as the edit war on Commons over the abovementioned maps, also sustained with Avala's participation, and which caused week-long page protection lock-ups there, as well.

I think this will suffice as evidence.

If I may have the benefit of commenting: An admin edit-warring, and causing page protections on two projects in the course of collaborating with others on one new subject? Oh my. I think, this certainly calls for drawing attention to his being an Admin on the Serb Misplaced Pages. Hardly a personal attack, it is an indictment of questionable admin oversight on that Wikimedia project. And, far be it for me to claim sock-puppetry (I hope, that his is not an insinuation leveled at me, because it is baseless; I am and always will be one Mareklug), but the two "other editors to warn of WP:NPA policy" (strictly speaking, only one mentioned "personal attacks") -- are gentlemen introducing skewed Serbian POV to the otherwise impartial many-editor presentation of material in this article. They are User:Top Gun, and User:Tocino. I suggest that they bear biased witness. One of them accused me of waging a jihad -- his word -- on behalf of the Kosovo Albanians; I have never met a Kosovar and wouldn't recognize a word of Albanian. :)

And so I suggest that interested administrators peruse the complete record, as well as complaints lodged uninwited, among others, on my own talk page, made by apparently frustrated editors, objecting to the poor quality of edits by Avala.

If possible, I would like to request an RFC on Avala's edits in the matter of Kosovo, as I find them disruptive, and his defense of them, intimidating and inappropriate. I am not the only one, to judge from the talk page content and edit summaries.

Furthermore, I object vehemently at Avala's use of wikilingo and wikiwarnings to justify his own POV edits and discourage the correction of these edits by others, including me. By making accusations of blanking and vandalism, whenever his shoddy edits are removed or recast, especially, when falsely sourced (as in the case of Armenia or Cuba (where no official stance exists, because apparently, Cuba has no official position yet), Avala is scaring away people who disagree with him on the merits. That's intimidation, and it is totally uncalled for. If anything here needs protection "from destructive behavior", it is the impartiality of Kosovo articles subjected to Avala's editing, and the typical friendly atmosphere of editing collaboratively, even if coming from divergent viewpoints.

In the matter of removing the Fidel Castro-rant at Javier Solana, which was used to buttress portraying the official state position of Cuba, I wasn't the editor who removed it, yet again, prior to the latest series of Avala reverts, that triggered page protection. There was lodged vehement disagreement from other editors in this matter, also evidenced by section "Cuba" on the talk page, which, distressingly, mirror several other sections-objections by variety of editors to Avala's edits on that page. Fair to say, I suggest there be a pattern. :) Cordially, --Mareklug 19:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

May I quote you? "Stop misquoting and introducing POV!" directed at me on Cuba discussion. And you called my sources (statements of high officials of Cuba) not good enough. What is a good source then? And you called these statements "a rant" - now if you call Cuban statements a rant is that POV or my imagination? --Avala (talk) 21:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

We have a saying in America: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, surely it's a ...quack? :) I did call Fidel Castro's rant a rant, for rant it is. Did I call it a rant in the article space? No. So, prey tell, why are you hassling me? Did you misquote me? Yes. Did you misquote the Foreign Minister of Armenia (and use this to source bad edits on two projects)? Yes. Did I ask you to stop? Yes. Perhaps it is your imagination after all?... Hey, " there's no countries... and no religion, too..." :)

"Did I call it a rant in the article space? No." I agree you didn't, even worse - you removed it completely. --Avala (talk) 23:10, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

And User:Tocino restored it. And then, some third person, who objected persuasively on the talk page, removed it. And it was that way, gone, when I got to making my changes. And I made my whole lot of improvements, quite apart from Cuba's absence. They you 3RR'ed your way into page protection (of course, your reverts were re-incorporating this Castro rant, as documentation for the purported official stance of Cuba, quite unencyclopedic of you, that). Your point? Something about blanking? Why are you dragging me through the coals here? Looks to me more and more like abuse of Misplaced Pages mechanism of noticeobard and harassment of editor who does not share your POV, Mr. Administrator Who Can't Administer Here. --Mareklug 00:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Tocino in main article space, on discussion page: "the Polish fascist Mareklug...."

Incidentally, the abovementioned User:Tocino, on whom you solely based your complaint above, as far as "other users" calling me on my alledged violations of WP:NPA (here : The personal attacks by User:Mareklug towards User:Avala are out of order. Mareklug seems biased in favor of the Kosovo Albanian side and it feels like he is on a jihad against Serbia' as evidenced by his proposed title for this article which smacks of POV (the offending title: Recognition of the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence :)), just referred to me further down the same talk page thusly : the Polish fascist Mareklug, who's unreasonable, fudges facts and has an agenda for all to see.

Ahem, since you are an administrator on the Serb Misplaced Pages, how long a ban do you suppose he would get for this ...on Serb Misplaced Pages? Considering especially, that nowhere have I stated that I am Polish, or a fascist :), (it hasn't come up :)) and, presumably, this violation of WP:NPA was sourced :) via some sort of cyberstalking, because even my Misplaced Pages user page does not state these characterizations of me :) -- and, I was not even conversing with User:Tocino -- this particular bit of wikipedistic ethnic clensing is a drive-by shooting. (I metaphorically call it an act of wikipedistic ethnic clensing, because, ever since rants on Usenet, an invocation of Hitler by anyone, or calling someone a Nazi or a fascist automatically ends the thread, so it is a terminating offense. :)) So, please, tell us, how long a ban?

Let's say, it's User:Tocino's only 2nd offense, albeit in 2 days (same talk page, day earlier, abusing another user and being called on it by yet another: ). Cordially, --Mareklug 23:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Transitguru

Reported a few days ago with this retrieved from the archive, but apparently no adminstrator action taken;

User has been permanently blocked for repeatedly spamming the Transit article and a few other ones as well. Since his block, the transit article has had the same spam link inserted by IP editors five times and also once in the Airport article. The IPs are all in the range 207.244.xxx.xxx. WHOIS says this range belongs to Qwest Communications Corporation in Denver. The spam is near identical and clearly still Transitguru, but I don't know what to do about a range of IP addresses. SpinningSpark 21:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

File a request at Misplaced Pages:Request for checkuser, listing the blocked account and all the IPs. It's straightforward and usually very quick. Darkspots (talk) 21:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Ask for the link to be listed on the spam blacklist. Corvus cornix_talk 23:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The IPs don't actually link to the site in the above diffs, however. Darkspots (talk) 00:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, SpinningSpark submitted an RFCU, which came back confirmed that this is indeed a case of an indef-blocked user using IPs to evade their block. Alison said one thing that could be done was a softblock of a tight IP range including most of the IPs used to spam the article. Can an administrator look at this and say whether the volume of spamming makes this kind of block appropriate? Darkspots (talk) 00:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Since this report the article has been repeatedly spammed again

Although this is not major league as spamming goes, it is persistent, getting more frequent and, I think, needs the message sent that we are not going to idly accept it. I therefore request;

• Semi-protection of the Transit article
• Soft block of 207.224.72.0/21 as noted at the RFCU
• Soft block of 71.37.240.0/21 the range the spammer is using now. WHOIS resolves this range to the same ISP, so it is clearly the same to my mind, but will submit a new RFCU if required. SpinningSpark 19:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

  DAB page Transit semi-pp for now. Other action reserved. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 19:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

  Airport has not been edited for a while, but I have it watchlisted. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 19:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Seeking resolution or response

I have posted this incident report for the third time; it was archived twice previously with no comment or resolution. Perhaps it was overlooked or maybe there is something wrong with it? Either way, I'd truly appreciate some sort of feedback or resolution.

Thank you. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much for you help!--Pgagnon999 (talk) 01:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Rschen7754

User:Rschen7754 keeps reverting tags on my userpage with my SSP case with User:Artisol2345 (my cousin). Users at WP:USRD accused my cousin as actually being me, especially since my cousin went on Misplaced Pages under my computer over last summer. The result of my SSP case was that I was a meatpuppet of my cousin (and I admit it, too), and the users have no definite answers.

Now, Rschen7754 keeps readding the sockpuppet categories onto my user and talk page. Although anyone can edit my page (as with all user pages), I believe that this is my userspace and I think that I can remove those categories. Even if I do, they can still find the past discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Artisol2345. The evidence there may seem convincing, but please note that I have always said this and I will continue to do so if necessary: I am not a sockpuppet of Artisol2345. All I'm asking is to have Rschen7754 leave my userspace alone, just as he asked me to do the same at User:Rschen7754/Problems with Misplaced Pages. I've been trying to assume good faith throughout my edits in WP:USRD, and I have been doing so. But Rschen7754 stated that "he was in the right and I was in the wrong." This person has gotten on my nerves long enough. I want Rschen7754 to leave my userspace alone. What should be done? ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 21:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

This is different than the user states. The RFCU was confirmed - therefore, the tags need to stay on. Furthermore, if you look at the diff, this is a straw man or distortion of my position - I was in the right in that particular instance. This user has been very disruptive during his editing career. --Rschen7754 (T C) 22:02, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't see it from his contributions. So I edit like him sometimes. Big whoop. So the CU was confirmed. It's not like I had a choice. I know I did some silly moves too, especially during the SSP. Then you came and accused me again when the 75 IP came in. I don't see my cousin's edits being disruptive. In fact, I checked pretty much a long time ago from his contributions when you and my cousin were building up exit lists together. (He taught me how to create a list, too, as well as other forms of wiki-markup.) I don't see any of his edits being disruptive (except the RfD you told me about, I guess...) And also, this is also different from what Rschen7754 states. He's the only one who bothers to keep those tags on my page. No one else cares. In fact, NE2 recently removed them for me this morning. (Thanks, NE2!) Rschen7754 is the only one who bothers to reapply those stupid categories, and ultimately, he's not leaving my userpage alone. By the way, this is my editing hobby, not my career. And I wonder why Rschen7754 still thinks I'm being disruptive after my SSP case. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 22:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You say that and then you pull one like this: - WP:USRD/A and the WP:ASSESS standard say that a stub article "is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible." Considering that SR 241 (CA) does not follow WP:CASH and is a mess, it must be a stub article. --Rschen7754 (T C) 22:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

When I read the Misplaced Pages policies, I learned that a "stub" is no more than one short paragraph. California State Route 241 has plenty of paragraphs; we don't want to make it misleading for readers. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 22:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Good grief... there's two kinds of stubs - the type that WP:WSS uses and the type that WP:ASSESS uses. They are not interchangeable. --Rschen7754 (T C) 22:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

So why don't we just create a category called "Messy-class" articles? ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 22:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Now Rschen7754 threatens me saying that he will fully protect my userpage if I remove the categories again. (diff) It gets to the point where Rschen7754 is becoming just simply irrational. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 22:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

AL2TB, I think you should provide counterevidence of why you are not a sockpuppet/meatpuppet of Artisol2345. The 75 IP is going crazy and believe it or not, based on IRC conversation, some people accused it to be you. I personally believe that you are not Artisol2345 or related to the 75 IP, but now it would be a good time to provide counterevidence so you won't get blocked again. PrestonH 22:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I wish I can provide counterevidence, but it looks like when my cousin introduced me to Misplaced Pages, he pretty much set me up for all this. Here's one: if you check Artisol2345's logs, you will find that he never owned an account at the Wikimedia commons, and that he does not know how to make an SVG image. The IP has a different style of editing compared to mine, as NE2 said so. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 22:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

AL2TB, you should probably be aware that "It was my brother/sister/aunt/cousin/whatever" is the standard defense against sockpuppet accusations. Sort of like "the dog ate my homework". Whether it is the truth or not, the nature of the defense tends to automatically raise people's suspicions. That said, it would probably cause the least amount of drama for you to just leave the categories on your talk page. To employ another cliché, "the truth will set you free" - just don't worry about it and after a while this situation will probably resolve itself. Revert-warring over it (no edit warring is justified, ever - that's why we have talk pages) will just make administrators testy. —Scott5114↗ 23:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I tried to do leave those categories alone, and I tried to usurp another username so hopefully there will be a higher chance that this case will go away. It was until when one user stated their concern about me that I have been abusing sockpuppets. And Scott5114, I provided a couple of counterevidence... might that convince you? ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 23:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

No - good faith and good quality contributions do. If you look at the user User:JohnnyAlbert10 - he was in a similar situation. But rather than fight it, he kept editing. He didn't initially have the skills, but he drastically improved and now he's accepted by Misplaced Pages editors today. --Rschen7754 (T C) 23:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Protected the userpage after AL2TB and the 75 IP edit warred, removing the tags. Could I get input? --Rschen7754 (T C) 23:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll give you my input. 1) I haven't finished my infobox page, and 2) This protection is just plain stupid. After all Rschen7754, you're the one who cares about applying those stupid sockpuppet categories; no one cares about this except you. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 23:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Rschen7754, I agree with your protection. Checkuser confirmed, cant say much more than that. AL2TB please change your sig and remove the big HTML markup. β 23:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I might change my sig again in about three months or so. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 23:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

AL2TB, let me be a little blunter, your sig is distruptive, remove the <big></big> markup. β 23:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

LBHS Cheerleader

We need to ban User:LBHS Cheerleader, she has been making a lot sockpuppet accounts and has been vandalizing many articles. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 22:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

A little more context is usually a good idea. Currently tagged as sockpuppets are:

• Jessica The Antivandalism Cheerleader (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Hoorayforlemonbay (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Brook2014 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ieattarponsforbreakfast (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 211.14.9.244 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

All are blocked. Most of the impacted pages have been semi-protected. I'm not sure if I see evidence of activity in the past few days; am I missing anything? At any rate, this an obviously problematic user and will probably be blocked on sight, but doesn't seem to need much in the way of community discussion -- only reporting in the event they return. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/LBHS Cheerleader for today's socks, though I'm sure I've blocked a few more. There is also Barnstargurl (talk · contribs) on the loose. There is something strange going on, I'm not quite sure who is being banned here. -- zzuuzz 02:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Go check out Misplaced Pages:Long term abuse. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 22:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Wonder if she is related to UCF Cheerleader (talk · contribs), though I realize it's too old to be provable, or to matter much. — CharlotteWebb 02:25, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It can be verified by a checkuser. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 21:58, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Not from so far back it can't. It will be declined as stale most likely. Woody (talk) 22:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

What else is new. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

tag teaming or sockpuppetry

• If you would care to look at the Michael Jackson or Thriller articles you will see that this user was using his account on 1 page and his ip address on the other, their were two of them (the same person) vandalising each page. You will also see that since then I have added an addition 6 sources to the 2 that were already there supporting my argument.

• Infact its a triple sock puppet.

hereherehere

It seems to be 1 0r the other with someone posibbly using an ip adress as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Realist2 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

While I agree Kookoo Star and the IP are most likely the same person, I don't see the connection to MassassiUK... Please do not label other edits as "vandalism" without support and try to use the talk page... also, you have already been reported for a 3RR violation. Sasquatch t|c 07:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Bandurist canvassing for AfD

Are these: , , , , a violation of our canvassing policies? If no, please tell me. If they are, could an uninvolved admin address this? Jd2718 (talk) 03:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Isn't this pretty much the same as listing it at one of those deletion sorting lists? Ostap 03:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Alge Crumpler

Just looking for a bit of help here...earlier today there were reports that Alge Crumpler had signed with the Tennessee Titans. This evening, however, his agent denied those reports. I reverted the article to reflect that. Sometime later an anon replaced the Tennessee Titans bit; I reverted (but accidentally also reverted something he had added that I did not intend to) and notified him on his talk page; he replied understandingly. Later still a new account (User:Bart Hinson), apparently not aware of the new information, re-added that he had signed with Tennessee. Having had reverted twice and not wanting to give the impression of edit warring, rather than reverting again I explained the situation to him on his talk page and asked him to consider reverting himself. He appears to be ignoring that.

Naturally, this situation will clear itself up if/when Crumpler signs with *anyone*, but in the meantime when the player's agent specifically denies that he has signed with a team, I think it's pretty clear that the article should indicate that he is still a free agent. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 03:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I added a ref to the page from ESPN to try and clear it up. Since he hasn't officially signed, the Titans info could be officially removed until it's formally finished. Redrocket (talk) 04:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Next time, I'd add a hidden comment on the page. It won't stop the crazies, but it might make someone think for a second. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Seeking community sanction on DemolitionMan

After working with DemolitionMan (talk · contribs) for approximately six months to reduce his disruptiveness, and then consulting with Ryan (who seems to have a great deal of experience in dealing with disruptiveness), I am bringing this matter here for consideration of a community sanction. In short, DemolitionMan has been consistently disruptive at Indian Rebellion of 1857, maintaining a pro-Indian/anti-British POV. Of particular concern is that he seems to view the matter largely in a racial context.

The relevant details are summarized in this ongoing RfC. Given that the RfC seems to be having little impact on his behavior, I would therefore like to make the following proposal:

DemolitionMan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is placed under a one revert editing restriction on all Desi-related articles.

I would appreciate community input on this proposal. Ronnotel (talk) 14:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Having read his responses to comments on the RfC I'd suggest that a topic ban would be more appropriate. Leithp 14:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Despite the possible personal bias of being both British and a Slater in real life I concur that some restriction on DemolitionMan is necessary. There is enough anti British Imperialism academic literature to be cited to support DM's contentions to enable an appropriately NPOV article to be produced, and countering systemic bias is important, but DM's hostility and anti Imperialist (that is AGF) rhetoric is unhelpful. I wonder if there is the possibility of mentorship as well as an editing restriction? LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been in touch informally with one candidate who has expressed sympathy to DM and, I hoped, might act as a mentor. However, there was skepticism that DM would be conducive. If that person is watching this thread and cares to chime in it might be helpful. Ronnotel (talk) 15:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I think DM does bring a useful perspective and adds some value to the article in question and am willing to be a mentor (assuming he is willing to accept a mentor). However, I don't think it will work unless it is combined with a few preconditions that DM should agree to abide by - A short term voluntary topic ban and a commitment to editing at least three topics that are unrelated to India.--RegentsPark (talk) 17:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this would be appropriate. I would await the comments of the community, and DemolitionMan, before committing to this though. LessHeard vanU (talk) 17:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

With respect to RegentsPark and his generous offer of time here, I'd suggest that perhaps someone with more Misplaced Pages and, in particular, more experience of mentoring might be more suitable in this case. Also, looking over DemolitionMan's block log, I note that a previous short-term topic ban did not have the desired effect, so we may need to look at a longer term ban here. Leithp 18:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Very reasonable. I have not been editing on wikipedia long and have no experience mentoring here. Irrespective of who mentors him or whether he is mentored at all, I do think he will benefit by distancing himself from India and focusing on other topics for a bit. RegentsPark (talk) 19:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I have warning DemolitionMan not to engage in further abuses of dispute resolution. Jehochman 16:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am being castigated for being anti-Imperial? And how does one truly define what is rhetoric? I did abide by a short-term ban which wasn't really that short. And for those 3 months, I continued to argue my points on the discussions page to no avail. My hostility has been directed at people who have been directly hostile to me. It seems to me that Ronnotel wishes to pursue a single point agenda against me, when similar hostility has been flagrantly displayed by Josquis and SRS. So, you would excuse me for thinking that I am being singled out not because of my hostility but merely because of my views. If the tables were turned, and I was pushing a British POV instead ( against someone like me ), would I have to even reply to such allegations? I hope you see where I am coming from. I'll try and be less hostile - and I shall stick to one reversion on this article voluntarily for now and if I violate the self-imposed one reversion rule which I will follow for the next 2 months - feel free to permanently ban me. But do answer the questions that I have raised honestly.

1. Would I be here if I were pushing a British POV rather than an Indian one? 2. Why haven't the likes of Jos and SRS faced similar actions for displaying similar levels of hostility - is it because they hold diametrically opposite views?

DemolitionMan (talk) 18:46, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your offer to voluntarily limit yourself to WP:1RR. However, the fact that you continue to invoke racial animosity in your arguments (see for the latest) make me worried that you just don't get what WP is about. My concern will remain for as long as you continue to see WP as white vs. brown. Ronnotel (talk) 19:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not invoking racial animosity for crying out loud. I am stating things as I see them - that the views on this article are clearly divided along national and racial lines. Both sides see themselves as the "good guys". It is not like a WW-2 page where Axis are the obvious bad guys and the Allies are the good ones. This is a fact. No point being an ostrich about it. I continue to wonder why must the Indian view be given less credence than the British one - if there is no clear cut right or wrong here. DemolitionMan (talk) 19:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the content issues here, but it seems timely to remind people that our responsibility as Misplaced Pages editors to communicate civilly is unilateral, not contingent. We are not relieved of it when others are uncivil to us, nor when we see other incivility go unrebuked. Please think about this if you find yourself justifying your behaviour with an argument that sounds like, "I only did X because someone else did Y first." Bovlb (talk) 19:45, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, yes - there is an anti British POV that both generally and specifically exists, and some parties take umbrage when a neutral (which is regarded as pro by some) position is taken - and some take great exception when a British bias, such as British spellings and grammar, are preferred in British related subjects. It happens, it gets discussed, it mostly gets resolved, and hardly anybody gets referred to as Nazi's and when they do they get banned. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Copyright Question

Would it be a copyvio to take text from Misplaced Pages Italian, have it translated to English, and include it in an article in English Misplaced Pages?

(and supp question - if this was done, should the Italian Misplaced Pages be cited as the information source?)

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 14:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Since both Italian Misplaced Pages and English Misplaced Pages are under the GFDL, it's fine to translate from one to the other subject to proper attribution. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Translation has additional details. — Athaenara ✉ 15:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Seeking community sanction on Ronnotel (talk · contribs)

Any further discussion should be addressed to Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#Seeking_community_sanction_on_DemolitionMan.LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

After working with Ronnotel (talk · contribs) for approximately six months to reduce his disruptiveness, I am bringing this matter here for consideration of a community sanction. In short, Ronnotel has been consistently disruptive at Indian Rebellion of 1857, maintaining a pro-British/anti-Indian POV by exclusively sanctioning those who adhere to a NPOV. Of particular concern is that he seems to view the matter largely in a religious context by calling users pro-Hindu.

Ronnotel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is placed under a editing restriction for 6 months on all Desi-related articles.

I would appreciate community input on this proposal. DemolitionMan (talk) 14:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I Suggest you take this to WP:RFC first. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 14:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

He's already done that. Ronnotel (talk) 14:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, please note that I have already apologized for mis-identifying Demo's bias as pro-Hindu when I should have used pro-Indian. Ronnotel (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Given the outcome of that RFC, this thread looks particularly pointy to me but I will defer to a third party with more experience of this obviously long-term dispute. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 14:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• The is about as pointy as can be found; DemolitionMan is using exactly the same language as in the section a couple above to continue a content/editing dispute. Any discussion regarding Ronnotel's actions can be made there. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

  A minor clarification, I think the record shows that I have not been in a content dispute with DM. My objections have to do with his behavior towards other editors. Ronnotel (talk) 16:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• Question (perhaps naive) - Is it usual for the subject of an RFC to close it out? Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) 16:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

  I looked for precedent but finding none, and considering that the RfC seemed retaliatory, I was WP:BOLD and pointed further comments to a closely related RfC. If I acted precipitously please feel free to undo my action. Ronnotel (talk) 16:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

  No, my question wasn't a veiled criticism, but a real request for information. Thanks. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) 22:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

  Yes, I took it as such and if I sounded anything other than helpfully responsive in my reply I apologize. :) Ronnotel (talk) 22:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

  Further to Ronnotel's comments, it was a bad faith nomination in violation of WP:POINT and was liable to be closed by any party. The RfC on DemolitionMan may also address any query in respect of Ronnotel's actions, if needed. 212.139.83.129 (talk) 17:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)(that was me - I kept being timed out. LessHeard vanU (talk) 17:58, 3 March 2008 (UTC))

Help me, please from Singapur in Misplaced Pages Spain

Misplaced Pages Spain have delete last modifies to the link 'Singapur' and my discusion. I have the yesterday screenshots. I need help for this, many people are involve in this matter so dark. When I upload the screenshots? Please, help me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.223.217.252 (talk) 15:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Unless an admin here who is also an admin on the Spanish Misplaced Pages reads this, there is nothing we can do here. Can you not raise this on the corresponding page there? --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 16:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The Spanish Misplaced Pages takes copyrights a lot more strictly than here, the images were most likely deleted as copyvios, regardless of that there is nothing we can do about it here, try contacting the admins there. - Caribbean~H.Q. 20:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

WIKIFASCISM: new word; definition page deleted by wikifascist editor as contentless

I tried to add an important entry: sub-Planck Of course, some stupid editor administrator deleted it instantly; refused to reinstant an underconstruction project; I am not against him personally; he is simply ignorant of the physics. Afterwards he deleted my WIKIFASICM entry (about the general fascism behavior of editors that is killing off this encyclopedia turning into an encyclo-ego-ia on their part.

I know the editors and administrators don't want to admit it but there is an enormous amount of WIKIFASCISM going on these days; it is a problem wikipedia must consciously face and solve although it is sadly in denial.

See sub-Planck See wikifascism Wiki fascism: (noun) The tendency of editors and administrators (or those with Misplaced Pages power) to instantly assume all contributions, new pages, and other modifications are wrong, invalid, misguided, don't follow procedure, no wanted, and to delete them -- instead of letting these new pages grow by the user community's edits and additions. Killing the baby pages at birth; not letting them mature. This tendency was not prevalent in years before 2007 but is perhaps inevitable now that Misplaced Pages has grown. Also involves killing common knowledge additions to articles before the contributor has tracked down the exact reference on the assumption that the contributor is wrong or that the contributor has no clue what he is talking about. Also involves petty empowered Misplaced Pages experts playing “God” with the content and direction of the Wiki project contrary to its original sprit of a community and its replacement by a new orthodox order of privileged editors and censors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Physicman123 (talk • contribs) 17:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• I wonder if anyone's ever taught you that you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. It's also true that you persuade more people with logic than with vituperation. Justin Eiler (talk) 17:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes they did and they were wrong...I put in a valid physics entry with logic, math, etc. content; it gets deleted by a wikifascist; I meantion a real problem WIKIFASCISM and I get silly coments back instead of dealing with the issues; There is a lot of vinegar on wikipedia now; there didn'tuse to be. It is poisoning the honey; when I point this out; people criticize ME for being direct which is fine as I can take it instead of dealing with the real issues. A friend of mine told me not to bother with wikipedia entry addition any more because she had a similar experience; I didn't listen; she was right. It is not worth it...wikipedia has become an orthody of feel good types or perfectionists strangling the information additions people are trying to make... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Physicman123 (talk • contribs) 17:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Looking at sub-Planck, I'd say that it was extremely borderline as an A1 deletion. However, Physicman, it did read like an essay rather than an encyclopaedia article. I'd suggest taking another crack at writing it, only keeping it more encyclopaedic in tone and making sure it's referenced to reliable sources. I can provide you with the text of the deleted article if you need it. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 17:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Tell you what, if you can find ONE good reliable third party source for "WIKIFASCISM" (or even in lowercase) I will personally undelete the article and protect it from deletion... Or do you think that going by the rules is too constrictive? LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I should add that I agree that the deletion of WIKIFASCISM was clearly appropriate. My comments above are only about sub-Planck, which was somewhat dubiously deleted as an A1, in my view. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Was still speedable. The subject (under-construction for months to come, we are told) is clearly the author's own original theory. El_C 18:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Mm, not quite. . It seems to be a novel branch of physics, but gets ~5,700 Ghits, so presumably could be written about. Whether it survives WP:FRINGE, however, would remain to be seen. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 18:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I don't think that's the case; I didn't see sources cited in the article, but I don't think it was clear OR. He should have been given the chance to provide sources before the article was deleted. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course people write about what's beyond the visible universe, what happened before the big bang, and what is sub any given planck unit — that is not the point. It was clearly original research, with the main topic(!) being "under construction." El_C 18:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

OR isn't speediable, though. Those criteria are quite narrow on purpose. Natalie (talk) 19:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't get stuck on the legalism of it; use common sense. El_C 19:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I disagree, since it seems like it would be easy for an admin unfamiliar with a topic to assume it's OR when it's not. But whatever, it's not terribly important. Natalie (talk) 20:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Sure, though it's common sense for an admin unfamiliar with the topic not to make these assumptions. El_C 20:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

This is further to Physicman's concerns just above. Suppose someone creates a draft of a new article and wants to display it for the purpose of getting comments, edits, references, etc that may improve the article. How can they do this without posting the draft article in the mainspace? Wanderer57 (talk) 18:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Please refer to this manual. El_C 18:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The use of the Sandbox project pages with a note to the relevant interest group participants that an article is being crafted seems to work well. I have used this method on occasion when there is a topic that is not fully developed yet is in a working stage, and therefore, eliciting comments and edits to the sandbox project is appreciated. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 18:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC).

For those unfamiliar with high-energy physics, Planck units refer to the smallest measurements in physics (length, mass, time, charge, and temperature). Beyond those units, elementary-particle physicists generally do not go (similarly to cosmology and pre-Hot Big Bang era or what if any is beyond the visible universe). What the author did was write an informal piece about the Planck scale, then left the "sub-planck" bit (yes, the actual subject!) "under construction." I would have speedied it in a breath, as Natalie Nawlin did, too. El_C 18:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Wait, what? I don't think I did that deletion... I am confused. Natalie (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am of course referring to your deletion of sub-Planck. Oops, wrong person! El_C 19:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• Troo Fact: I Googled "sub-Planck" and found links to "Bogdanoff" - and yes, those Bogdanovs, see http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=20423563. Makes you think, doesn't it? About 4,000 Ghits, starting wiht some incredibly unreliable sources, so it's a likely valid A1, and a possible Bogdanov sock. Guy (Help!) 22:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• Somehow, it just does not strike me as being on that level of fringe-sophistication, but it is possible, I suppose. El_C 22:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

still not happy. --Fredrick day (talk) 23:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Article's back up as well: Sub-Planck, no doubt to the chagrin of "grossly Physics-ignorant Administrator Delete-jockies" everywhere. It appears to have one reference now - a letter to Nature which at least uses the words "Sub-Planck". I'm inclined to issue a pretty stern civility/NPA-type warning to the contributor and let the article go for a few days - it needs massive cleanup, at the very least, but nerves seem a bit raw at present. Thoughts? MastCell  23:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on it. If experienced people believe in good faith that it isn't a speedy candidate, it can't hurt anything much to send it to AfD and let it stand or fall on its own merits, anyway. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

If a page is wrongly deleted, just point out it was wrongly deleted, by discussing the matter with the deleting admin or taking things to deletion review. Running around screaming about FASCISM, FASCISM, FASCISM is entirely ridiculous, inappropriate based on a single incident with a single person, and does nothing but turn people off listening to any legitimate points you might have actually had. If there's a problem, state it simply and calmly. On the internet and on Misplaced Pages in particular, it is very much in your interest to appear reasonable and worth listening to whenever possible, lest people make the obvious conclusion. Perhaps this comes across a bit strongly, but good golly, if you plan on getting anywhere in a social enterprise, you'll need to develop some social finesse. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

• I have heard of the word WIKIFASCISM on the Internet, and it is problamatic that the outside community percieves Misplaced Pages to be as such. I have a paralel article essay that I have created WP:SEI which is about social engineering on Misplaced Pages and it is being POV to deletion because the topic is unpopular, more like Taboo for discussion. Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Social engineering Internet. Because I created the essay and have linked to it to show its relevency, now all my past good faith edits are being scrutinized and examined under a microscope. My references from my Websites are being scrutinized as WP:COI in an ANI thread Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Serious_Conflict_of_Interest_-_User:Igorberger. Is this type of behavior and action not resemble Fashism hence the terminaligy wikifascism. It is a real shame and a big problem for Misplaced Pages if the outside community percieves us as such and we do not even want tto identify that it is a problem and WP:STEAM and stonewall the issue to mute its apparent WP:notability Igor Berger (talk) 00:28, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio on user page

Can someone with more tact and, well, more patience with little girls than I have please gently break it to User:Beatlesnicole that the image she has on her user page will have to be deleted as a copyright violation? The text can be added directly to her page, but the image has to go. —Angr 21:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

More importantly, someone should also get her to remove her real name and birthday. R. Baley (talk) 22:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Why? Lots of people here give their real names, and many people give their birthday. If she wants to give that info out, it's her choice. But having a copyvio on her page is not her choice. —Angr 22:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Because she's a minor, and we don't allow minors to give out personal information here. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 22:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Since when? WP:CHILD has been rejected as a policy/guideline. —Angr 22:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm uncertain, but I think Florida law (where the servers are situated) have something about protecting the identities of minors. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Nevertheless, it is implicit in the ArbCom ruling that we should be circumspect about this issue, and I take it that we should err, if at all, on the side of caution. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 22:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I also don't think the page gave out too much personal information. She gave her first name, middle name, and last INITIAL only, not her entire last name, and gave only the country where she lives (not even the city, let alone an address and telephone number). —Angr 22:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I will delete and protect the userpage in the meantime, does anyone believe that it requires oversight? Per the talkpage, I think the editor is in breach of WP:NOT as regards social networking. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You deleted the user page, but not the image, so I did that. I don't see any reason to protect the user page unless she tries repeatedly to put copyvios on it. —Angr 22:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, yeah - I didn't mean to say delete and protect, I was just a little too salty in my expressions... LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Work for hire copyright

Recently on Evil Overlord List, I've had a bit of trouble with an anonymous editor who wants to paste in one of the two lists. Disregarding that Wikisource would be the proper place, I'm having issues persuading him that the list cannot be GFDL'd. On Talk:Evil Overlord List#Butler list copyvio, he asserts that the collector of the list, a Butler, claims "Legally, I am the sole copyright holder through work-for-hire transferrance. It says on my site explicitly that anything submitted to me becomes my property and that by submitting to me, you agree that its mine. That makes it mine. And I released the Evil Overlord List from copyright, and did so quite legally. So you tell that "arrogant so-and-so" as you call him that he needs to climb down off his copyright soapbox and smell the public domain."

I don't think this is right, because work-for-hire wouldn't apply to random people sending Butler submissions. Comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwern (talk • contribs) 00:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Commented at Talk:Evil Overlord List. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

How can I complain against an admins actions?

Piotrus (talk · contribs) is in apparent collaboration with Molobo (talk · contribs). I don't think that it is right for administrators to behave as he has done in the article Bloody_Sunday_(1939), or in particular Morgenthau Plan for example. Molobos edits are heavily contested in the Morgenthau plan, see the article talk page, and he simply selects to revert back to include all of Molobos edits. And don't even bother to explain himself at talk.--Stor stark7 00:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

To give a standard answer while I review it. You are at the right place to complain if you are looking that it end in constructive change. I'm reviewing the edits right now, and assuming there is a valid issue, a discussion will occur here. If this does not produce a satisfactory conclusion, there is the Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct process and I'll note that User:Piotrus has defined a recall procedure for users who wish him to seek re-confirmation of his adminship. But in 99% of cases, it can be resolved here without longterm issue. MBisanz 00:44, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've given it a once over. Doesn't look like any admin tools were used improperly. Bloody_Sunday_(1939) appears to be an issue of the reliability of sources. That is addressed at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. At Morgenthau Plan Piotrus did restore an older version, but does not appear to have used rollbacker powers. Its a POV issue that should be addressed at Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard or at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Cold War. MBisanz 00:52, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I guess I simply expected higher standards from an admin such as Piotrus than from the rest. I will proceed as suggested.--Stor stark7 00:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "Collaboration" isn't inherently bad -- Misplaced Pages is, after all, a collaborative project. There are ways in which it can be bad, but you'll need to be more specific in your complaint if you believe that's the case. Are they conspiring to violate policy or game the system? Has Piotrus used or threatened to use admin tools? Admins are perfectly entitled to get involved in content disputes, so long as they let uninvolved/neutral admins take care of any related admin-specific actions. If you have any more specific complaint, I'd highly encourage you to provide some supporting evidence (diffs are great, there). There are some affairs which will take a high precedence, but generally the dispute resolution process is the best way to go. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Should we be sending everybody to WP:NPOV/N whenever an admin performs an action that resembels POV. Not that I am saying it is in this case or it is not. But when an admin performce an edit should they not fall under the same guidelines as any other user? Should they not comment on their edits like any other user and get consensus to that edit? Do they just make that edit without any explanation and everyone else just have to take their action for LAW? I have had quiet a few edits like that done to me, and when I go to the admin talk page and ask for a reson they just ignore my request for an explanation. Misplaced Pages:NOT#bureaucracy and not a hierarchy. We have no bosses and we all suppose to be equals. Admins are granted sysop tools for maintenance, not as a show of power of superiority. And if anyone questions that status quote are labeled disrupt and violation of WP:CIVIL or now with the new board sent to WP:NPOV/N Igor Berger (talk) 01:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Responding to Luna Santin: Well, I'll have to see if I can collect relevant evidence then, I don't usually accumulate it as I go along. Might take a few days if at all possible, but the first thing that comes to mind if I remember correctly is that he apparently has an old history of unblocking Molobo, from before Molobos 1 year block.--Stor stark7 01:19, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. From Molobo's block log, it looks like that was back in 2005. Anything more recent? (as you said, feel free to take some time compiling -- if there's a history, here, it's important to document it) – Luna Santin (talk) 01:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

As MBisanz noted, I have not misused (or even used) any admin power w/ regard to Stor Stark7 so this noticeboard is hardly a place for a discussion of my edits; the edits of Stor Stark7 may, however, be of more interests to the community. The user Stor Stark7 has been placed under general ArbCom restriction since January that year for his uncivil and disruptive behavior in January - (see here for details); in my experience 99% of edits from this periodically editing account involve whitewashing (or plainly removing) references to Nazi crimes during WWII and unduly highlighting suffering of the German people. Such edits rarely survive in mainspace, which as far as I am concerned proves that Wiki works well (NPOV, UNDUE, etc.) and as far as I am concerned this is the end of this story. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

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