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User:Marshallsumter disrupting Misplaced Pages for "research" purposes.

Marshallsumter, a previously productive editor, has recently created multiple articles which contain the words "Dominant group" and are essentially WP:SYNTH and WP:OR violations. Dominant Group was deleted at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Dominant group, while the others at Dominant group (disambiguation) are all at WP:AFD and heading for deletion. It is obvious from this page at Wikiversity that Marshallsumter is creating these pages for a somewhat arcane research purpose. I am not clear exactly what Marshallsumter is trying to do, but it certainly seems to be disrupting Misplaced Pages unduly. Marshallsumter is furthermore keeping copies of pages nominated for deletion/deleted in his userspace, as well as multiple drafts of similar "dominant group" articles, which is in violation of WP:WEBHOST and suggests that he intends to place them back in articlespace. The wikiversity page clearly states that the "research project" will last a year or more - "hopefully a conclusion can be reached in one year", and overall suggests that Marshallsumter is purposefully creating articles not to improve the 'pedia but to reach a conclusion about "dominant groups". Marshallsumter has produced other problematic pages recently, including Metadefinition and Repellor vehicle, but I cannot understand why. --S Larctia (talk) 21:25, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Yup. Conclusive proof that Marshallsumter is 'contributing' to Misplaced Pages for purposes other than improvement of the encyclopedia. He seems entirely unconcerned that his "target population" has given no consent for his research, nor that his actions have already caused considerable disruption. I can see no course myself but to block him on Misplaced Pages. And as for Wikiversity, I suggest that they should point out to him that such 'research' is unlikely to do their reputation any good. And incidentally, now that we know what he is doing, his results are going to be useless anyway (not that there looks to be much evidence that his 'research' was in any way useful in the first place). AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

An interesting discussion can be found at User talk:Tom Morris#Request for comment, where Marshallsumter tries to gain support for a Request for comment on his now deleted article Dominant group (art) - a clear case of him attempting to waste Wikipedians' time for the sake of his "research". --S Larctia (talk) 21:59, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Could it be seen as canvassing to post a link to this discussion in the ongoing AFD's? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support block- I have looked at a handful of Marshallsumter's articles currently at AfD and his research proposal over at Wikiversity. I have to agree that he is only here to waste people's time with his "research", which is irrelevant, incoherent crap. Reyk _YO! 22:25, 8 September 2011 (UTC) Changing opinion to oppose block- It seems MS is capable of writing credible articles on astronomical topics. As long as we get a commitment to leave his original research out of Misplaced Pages, there is no reason MS cannot be a productive editor. Reyk _YO! 23:39, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually the articles were a response to a suggestion made here Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Dominant group to disambiguate and mentioned here User talk:Spartaz/Archive15#Dominant_group. I also asked User talk:Spartaz/Archive15, "I just read the next entry regarding another article where you are asking if the article creator is asking to have you review the close. If this is possible, and you can, please do so for 'Dominant group'." To which there was the response "I will come back with a response to your comments later today as I'm about6 to take my kids out to play in the woods for a couple of hours.", which I guess was done but not in writing. The close allowed a later article to be created if the new one was different, which I believed (still do) it was sufficiently. But the admin decided it was not and deleted it. So now we are here. And, I am still a productive contributor: Cometary globule. No further 'dominant group' or related articles will originate from me and be put in article space, nor will I contribute further unless asked. Further research will be filed elsewhere. Marshallsumter (talk) 22:43, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you propose to continue adding incoherent garbage on other topics, as with your Repellor vehicle article? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:47, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Andy, you know I don't always approve of your grumpy words, but the gist of your question is valid (see my comment at the AfD). Drmies (talk) 22:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

• I see that the editor has shown no interest in contributing to the AfD discussions. That is troubling already. Their response here is a bit heartening, though. Anyway, it is clear to me that these articles are synthesis, and this is no place for it. That these articles were asked for sounds specious to me. Moreover, the AfDs clearly indicate that community consensus is against them. I was going to call for a block, even a ban, edit-conflicted with Reyk and Marshallsumter, and the latter's response takes the wind out of my sails. Anyway, what I would propose is a ban on creating new articles unless User:Marshallsumter agrees to study WP:OR and WP:SYNTH and agrees to not create any more articles that fall foul of those guidelines. I would construe that broadly, very broadly--and I don't know if that would be acceptable or not, but that is a way to prevent further disruption. Leaving the current articles alone while the AfDs run their course (they're on a fast train to deletion, on a snow-covered and therefore fast track) is a good start. If Marshallsumter can keep their word, "No further 'dominant group' or related articles will originate from me and be put in article space", to which I'd like to see them add "or user space", then I'm satisfied. Marshallsumter, you know that you interpreted this 'request' all too broadly; please don't do so again. Contributions are appreciated, but here we are, with an ANI thread and a dozen AfDs to plow through and close, and that is disruptive. Drmies (talk) 22:56, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. As it seems my understanding of 'original research', even after reading all of wikipedia's text on the subject differs from this group, may I suggest the following: I like to have people read my contributions, especially before put into article space, but my efforts in the past to get them read has been frustrating. If you would like, the next one I create I would be happy to request whomever's input where ever that might be convenient. My only restriction is this: you need to be a registered user and have written at least 20 articles that have been here for more than a year. Hopefully, this is fair. What do you think? Marshallsumter (talk) 23:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

• In a nutshell: putting together Darwin's uses of "dominant" with "group," that's a kind of synthesis. That's the work of scientists, not of Misplaced Pages editor. If a person is both, that's legal (at least where I live), but scientific writing (which really by definition is synthesis and/or original research) is not for Misplaced Pages. As far as editors are concerned, you're talking about a kind of mentorship. The list of interest editors at Wikpedia:WikiProject Science is not regularly updates, and I don't know anyone active in your field (whatever field that is...). I'm tempted to nominate User:Materialscientist, but I nominate him for everything. Anyway, you will want someone with both a knowledge of Misplaced Pages and some working knowledge of science, I imagine. We have such editors here; maybe some of them frequent this page and are able and willing. I have no desire to block you; I'd rather have good contributions. But I also like a place that requires less mopping, so to speak. Drmies (talk) 23:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support indef block. This editor cannot understand Misplaced Pages's WP:NOR policy. His creations are too often incoherent. His articles frequently get nominated for deletion. If he were unable to edit it would waste less time for productive editors. Binksternet (talk) 23:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

• I have to admit some confusion. I think that Marshallsumter has been productive in the past, he created a number of articles and was granted the "autopatrolled" right (which he still has). He also received a DYK for Io as an X-ray source. So what happened? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atama (talk • contribs)
  • Who are you asking? (I'm not being facetious.) Drmies (talk) 23:43, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Marshallsumter's forays into social science have been disastrous—plagued with synthesis, incoherence, lack of clear topic and full of original research. Here are the relevant deletion discussions, the ones which ended in delete: Sex integration and ageism, Sex integration and patriarchy/matriarchy, Violence and sex integration, Achieving sex integration, Religion and sex integration, and Sex integration and homosexuality. This discussion ended in a redirect: Occupational sex integration. This discussion resulted in a 'keep' decision with the article trimmed by 33%: Egalitarian mortality. The editor is best suited to astronomy and other hard sciences, but is at sea in the social sciences. Binksternet (talk) 00:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to insert a comment here: other articles in the social sciences that are doing okay: Sex-neutral skill, Sex integration, Religion and sex segregation, Origin of sex segregation, and Occupational gender segregation. Marshallsumter (talk) 01:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• • • • Binksternet, that is a pretty damning list of diffs. I wonder if Marshallsumter has any comment. But what do you think? Do you have any proposals? Drmies (talk) 01:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • As far as I can tell from my skim of his edit history (below), the problem is that he has not demonstrated any ability to tell what is and isn't WP:N, WP:SYN, and WP:NOR. If "Sun as an X-ray source" and the resulting WT:AST thread is any guide, I'd wait for "Io as an X-ray source" to be vetted by WT:AST//WT:ASTRO before endorsing it as an example of a good article (as opposed to a content fork of the relevant section of Astronomical X-ray sources). I am not convinced, based on the history skim, that the autopatrolled flag or the DYK selection is a reliable quality indicator. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support non-indefinite block. This came up at WT:AST over Sun as an X-ray source (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I've just taken a look at M's last 2500 edits or so (and that's just this year), and the vast majority seem to be synthesis-related (albeit with a substantial minority being things like minor linking). He's extremely prolific, and while I'm willing to assume he's acting in good faith, it's going to take person-months of effort to vet what he's done and clean up all of the messes that have inadvertently been created. Per above, he also has a large collection of both drafts he's moved to user-space and personal forks of articles, which means all of this is likely to happen again in the future. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:48, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
  • True dat, on the user subpages. They need to be removed. There are articles also which I'm not qualified to judge (a quick look at Star fission reveals that the writing is certainly not wholly encyclopedic). But block or ban or not, those need to be perused anyway. The critical point, IMO, is article creation, also per Lady below. Drmies (talk) 23:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
• At the very least, the "autopatrolled" status needs to be removed immediately. That so many articles so clearly in violation of NOR were created by one user indicates that other people need to be reviewing his or her work. With that addition, I could agree to Drmies's proposal. LadyofShalott 23:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, no one who gets more than 10 articles deleted in such a short amount of time should be autopatrol...--Cerejota (talk) 23:59, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

autopatrol is removed. Drmies (talk) 00:02, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• oppose indef, support remove autopatrol and remove article creation rights (ie force WP:AFC) - I am the nominator of a large number of the Dominantgroupcruft, but indef here seems excessive and punitve. Marshallsumter is communicative and has not been uncivil or performed vandalism, but clearly cannot be allowed to create articles for now. I suggest an indefinite ban to be revised upon request either every three months or after successful creation via AfC of ten articles (ie if denied then create ten more). Some people here are out for blood, but lets focus on the real problem: lack of judgement in creating articles.--Cerejota (talk) 23:55, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
• Quick comment. Understanding the essence of the whole WP:NOR guideline can be difficult; I've had problems in the past properly grasping exactly what it means, although I grasp it now. It sometimes takes time to get the hang of it, particularly if a person is predisposed to thinking and researching.Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree WP:OR can be hard to grasp and contentious when talking about article content, and in particular WP:SYNTH is an issue, but I disagree that is the case with article creation, WP:NOR is fairly straight forward: if a topic only exists in your mind, then it is not worthy of inclusion. And the deletion discussion of Dominant group made that clear to this user. This becomes an issue of willful ignorance and we must take action to protect the wiki. THis user can take the elimination of the privilege to create articles directly as an opportunity to learn the letter and spirit of WP:NOR/WP:SYNTH.--Cerejota (talk) 00:27, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems rather fierce and somewhat punitive. Some of us Wikipedians (myself included) have learnt by making mistakes. That's all I'm saying. I am not familiar with the specifics of this user or those articles. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:54, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Punitive is the indef block proposal, which I suggest be reversed by those who support it and proposed it. Removing the privilege of article creation from someone who in this very thread is telling us he disregards our article creation policies, is not punitive, it is the every definition of protecting the wiki. When the community is satisfied the rules are understood, then the ban is removed - no harm done.--Cerejota (talk) 01:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd see a block here as preventative, not punitive: the point is to not have even more volunteer-months of vetting and likely cleanup to do. I'm open to other options, but at minimum, whatever option is chosen should result in the articles-to-vet queue shrinking rather than growing. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 01:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support removal of article creation rights - having spent the better part of a morning last week looking through this editor's history, I think they clearly need more practice editing articles and learning[REDACTED] protocols. I'm not convinced at all that this editor is willing to do so, but at the very least, they should not be allowed to create new articles.AstroCog (talk) 01:15, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Guys, that isn't possible. Reaper Eternal (talk) 01:18, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Not through technical means, but a topic ban certainly is possible. Reyk _YO! 01:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• • • (edit conflict)Entirely possible, its called a ban. Or bans are only for interaction and topics/articles? --Cerejota (talk) 01:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Actually, I think an edit filter could do it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. I think that we should perhaps look further into the content of the article posted by Marshallsumter at Wikiversity. In particular, I refer to the section entitled "Hoax hypothesis": "Specifically, the principal investigator (PI) is perpetrating an elaborate (or maybe not so elaborate) hoax on the Wikiversity community by passing off nonsense as real research and fact". I would like to see an explanation as to what 'research' he considered that he was conducting on Misplaced Pages, and an indication as to whether he intends to continue with this supposed 'research'. Given what he has written in Wikiversity, I think there may be strong grounds for assuming that his disruption was intentional. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The idea is to disprove all hypotheses except the 'Term hypothesis' and to determine what type of term it is. I have found one source that's helping with that: "One dictionary has been found which does contain a definition of dominant group: "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society." Moseby's Medical Dictionary. Marshallsumter (talk) 01:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Well that definition is bollocks too. Nobody with any real understanding of the social sciences will assert that a society has a single 'value system'. Ridiculous. Still, if you use medical dictionaries for definitions of social science topics, what do you expect? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

You know, when I read though his articles last week, my first thought was "This reads like the Sokal Hoax."AstroCog (talk) 01:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I second that, when I first saw the Dominantgroupcruft farm, mfw: WIKISOKAL. Then I thought this was the guy from San Diego with autism that has created one of the largest sock farms ever (I forget the name) but then I saw the coherent communication at Dominat group so then I decided this was willful. Hoax or not hoax, no article creation and lets see what the edits are to see if further blocking is warranted. I think this should go to ArbCom if its more serious because of the interwiki component...--Cerejota (talk) 01:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Having now had time to read the Wikiversity page, I am also concerned about this "research project". It is one thing to research how a particular topic is treated on Misplaced Pages. It is quite another to deliberately provoke reactions from people and then collect those reactions... If that is not what has occurred here, I would like an explantation of how I'm misinterpreting it. None of us gave consent to participate in someone's research experiment. LadyofShalott 01:47, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

You haven't been but you've made comments that I consider valuable and I noted them there. Unless I'm mistaken these are in the public domain. Marshallsumter (talk) 02:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The above comment was added by marshall while i was writing my comment below. If what he just wrote is what it sounds like, that he is using our current comments as part of his research, he needs to be banned indefinitely. if i am mistaken, heres my thoughts before he wrote the above statement:

I havent read the Wikiversity page from start to finish, and i havent reviewed all of their edits, but im struck by the notion that they may be contributing material to the target "population" (hopefully this refers to articles not people) they are studying. If they are in fact editing material (WP) that they are using as the basis for their research, thats really, really, really bad research practice, like "lose your funding, your tenure, your job" bad practice. So we have either have an editor who is clueless as to original research, an editor who is deliberately writing bad articles to gauge responses, an editor who is using us editors as unwilling research subjects, or an editor who is engaged in flat out unethical research in their field (or some other as yet undetermined activity). I would support a total ban on article creation, a topic ban on any specialized fields where the technical level of discourse make it hard to judge content, and before that a time limited ban, say 6 months, along with hopefully someone who can mentor them. I also need an explanation from the editor that makes sense of all this arcane language at the wikiversity page, and explains in laymans terms what they were doing, and full Mea Culpas if they were doing any of their editing here as a research project with WP or the editors of WP as the subjects. I also would need to see all their subpages deleted that in any way mirror deleted articles or appear to be new articles blooming. I just dont feel comfortable with this material and this editor, and dont trust they are being upfront with us. I do, however, greatly appreciate that they are willing to talk with us and at least make some effort to stop some of the contentious editing. If they are actually a respected scientist in their field of expertise, i would love if they could tell someone who they are, who can confirm that without "outing" them. I would hate to lose an actual scientist or academic to our project.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Whether Marshallsumter is an 'actual scientist' or not I don't know - though what he is doing is self-evidently not 'actual science'. So, I'll put something else into the 'public domain' too - he is either a troll, exceptionally stupid, or just plain nuts (or any combination thereof). His last response suggests that he either doesn't understand the problem, or doesn't care - either way, he needs to be given the boot. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:55, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I've skimmed the linked wikiversity article about three times so far. As far as I can tell, it'd be best described as an "armchair research" hobby project: something he's doing for his own purposes that would be better described as "inspired by academic research" than called "academic research" itself ("goal is to disprove hypotheses A, B, and C and prove hypothesis D" was an especially clear indicator of this). Wikiversity isn't a university; it's a repository for people to create content that they feel might be useful to universities (much as WikiBooks lets you create textbook-like content). Long story short, the "research" appears to be a harmless personal project rather than any form of actual institutional meddling in Misplaced Pages.

That said, I don't know exactly what he's trying to do or how Misplaced Pages comes into this. I've found that I usually have an easier time of things if I focus on peoples' actions on Misplaced Pages, rather than trying to delve too deeply into their motivations (ObCaveat that you guys may be better at understanding people than i am). For practical purposes, the Wikiversity page doesn't matter much (beyond potentially giving reason to ask M, "are you deliberately writing articles that violate WP:V/WP:OR?"). What mostly matters is the article creation spree on this wiki, with mixed quality and a lot of review hours needed. How to deal with that is (justifiably) under debate. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 03:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support ban on article creation, but disagree that it is sufficient: in the first round of mass AfDs of sex integration-related articles, I seem to recall that the user responded to the impending deletion by adding the material in question to other articles (without indicating that it was a "merge" from an article about to be deleted). From what I've seen of his contributions, I think a topic ban on social sciences, broadly defined would be appropriate. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support indefinite block. I also read the Wikiversity article, and it seems to show a clear intention to use Misplaced Pages for something in direct contradiction to its fundamental purposes. If I understand it correctly (and no promises that I have--that thing is a mess), the logic is that xe uses Misplaced Pages itself as a test to so whether or not a definition exists for "dominant group", basically by throwing up every single possible definition in each field xe can think of, and then see if any of them survive our editing/deletion process. That is using Misplaced Pages to create new knowledge; we simply aren't here to do that. Would we allow a user to upload hundreds of images under various fair use rationale to test what a common understanding of "fair use" is among Misplaced Pages users? Would we allow someone to deliberately vandalize with the intent of testing human or AI ability to spot vandalism of various types? It is absolutely disruptive for dozens of other editors to now have to sort through xyr contributions to see if there is any actual, non-original research, verified information in the articles that is worth saving. Since Roscelese pointed out that this information extends to adding information to existing articles, an article creation topic ban is not sufficient. Since some of the articles, like Repellor vehicle fall outside of the social sciences, a ban there would be insufficient. More importantly, since Marshallsumter's fundamental purpose in using Misplaced Pages could easily be re-adapted to any topic, while retaining the same type of disruption, I cannot see any way to safely allow the user to keep editing. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Give him a cookie for good faith effort. He/she created ~270 new articles, and at least some of them (like Perinuclear space) are very much valid. Unfortunately, I do not have time to look at all pages created by him. Perhaps some of them should be deleted, but this must be decided by consensus at AfD. Biophys (talk) 04:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Site ban and nuke all pages created. The user clearly does not intend to abide by our core policy WP:NOR. After a look at their page creations, it is transparent that most or all of them are original research and that Marshallsumter does not intend to stop engaging in such. For instance, their most recent creation, User:Marshallsumter/Radiative dynamo, appears to be entirely original research by synthesis: while I have very little knowledge of physics, the term "radiative dynamo" is found almost nowhere on the Web except on Misplaced Pages and its mirrors, according to Google. It appears a reasonable assumption that all their contributions are at risk of being likewise deficient, and so require deletion as a precautionary measure. A ban on article creation is not sufficient, as that would not prevent the addition of original research to other pages.  Sandstein  05:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually, it turns out to be a WP:SYNTH-ish spin on a real concept. That triplet of articles (Radiative dynamo, Shell dynamo, and Distributive dynamo) describe various components of the interior flow within stars that generates their magnetic fields. The problem is we'd need a dedicated astrophysicist (with a university subscription to appropriate journal databases) to figure out what's synthesis, what's not, and what the final merged-and-trimmed article should look like (probably merged into stellar magnetic field and solar dynamo, though it'd be a shame to lose the more detailed content if it turns out to be verifiable). I made WP:AST aware of this triplet; what's needed is a long time spent with a mop while about three different wikiprojects work through the full article list and do merge/cleanup work. Preferably without any more such articles being generated in the meantime. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 06:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ummm, this one pretty clearly falls into the category of "crazy shit". Yup, ban it, nuke it, get rid of it. And stop wasting people's time by trying to take it seriously.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support three week block + indefinite ban on article creation - seeing the extent of Marshallsumter's creation of synthesis pages, including the sex integration ones. As s/he has been a productive contributor in molecular biology and astronomy before, some form of mentorship might be appropriate. I don't think Marshallsumter should be allowed to edit until we've sorted out the mess s/he's caused. S Larctia (talk) 06:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• I came across this user's articles a few months ago, and they certainly had a distinctive style which made them easy to spot without checking the history. I notified MS of this here (diff) and he then sent a very reasonable reply indicating he had accepted some of my criticisms. This 'research' seems misguided but I don't think a block is called for, certainly not indef. The user appears to be willing to self-impose a ban on article creation by having them vetted first (AfC?) Jebus989 07:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I've seen AfC proposed a few times here, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that that's probably a bad idea. I've seen a fair amount of dubious material pass through it despite the best efforts of the people manning the queue. It mostly functions to stop pages containing blatant vandalism, prank pages, or completely meritless content from being created. For articles like M's which take a specialist to make heads or tails of, I'd fear that AfC would function as a rubber-stamp and we'd be back to the status quo. Mentorship might work, but you're going to need experts in at least three unrelated disciplines to vet all of the topics M has been writing about over the last year or two, and he's prolific enough that it would be a full-time job to evaluate everything he wants to write. I'll be the first to cheer if you find volunteers for this, but I'm not sure it'll end up being practical. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 07:54, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree with this actually, AfC would likely not pick up the issues we expect to see in this editor's articles. And the volume of articles produced thus far has created a significant workload; I tidied a couple myself before leaving him the above message and would not fancy repeating that on a hundred more. The fact that the user responds reasonably to criticism, though, makes me hope that this thread will be a wakeup call and serious action can be avoided Jebus989 08:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support block with a caveat - Obviously this user has some issues that need worked out, though I see no reason to take it any further than the minimum required to achieve the desired results. I see way too many people above that are quick to jump on the bandwagon of an indef block based on information they don't really understand. I'm an educated man, I took college-level astronomy, and I will be the first to say I'm nowhere near qualified to pass judgment on the legitimacy of most of this user's articles, I don't think there are more than a handful of people on the project that truly are. Typically absurd Sandstein-style hyperbole like "nuke all pages created" just show a disturbing level of cluelessness that makes me remember why too much Misplaced Pages gives me migraines. Action obviously needs to be taken, but I don't think that it involves more than the minimum block needed to protect the encyclopedia (blocks are not punitive. period. full stop.) and to recruit the correct people to verify this user's other created content. For the time being, I think we need to start with removal of article creation rights, and see where we stand after that. Trusilver 07:45, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ban and nuke. MS seems to be continuing his behaviour despite this AN/I thread (see User:Marshallsumter/By definition, especially the section on Impredicativity: the individual sentences make sense and are true, the article as a whole is utter nonsense) Sampling a few of the articles, they seem to be created by copying and pasting sentences from various journal papers into an incoherent whole. Unless someone is willing to vouch for the accuracy of particular articles, I strongly suggest indiscriminately nuking all articles he created. —Ruud 11:13, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Having previously extended good-faith to this user, I checked one of his articles for evidence of the above claim. The entire article was copy and paste. Several setences were copied from their respective 'main' articles on[REDACTED] (e.g. hypotrohpy section, RUNX2 section) while other sentences were copied word for word from their cited sources; examples:

article: The HY box is the core promoter element responsive to RUNX2 in the human gene COL10A1 promoter

source: the HY box is the core element responsive to RUNX-2 in human COL10A1 promoter

article: The Runx2 site on the type X collagen promoter is required for canonical Wnt induction of col10a1.

source: the Runx2 site on type X collagen promoter is required for canonical Wnt induction of col10a1

Both of these were copied word-for-word from the abstracts of the respective sources, both under copyright. I retract my earlier good-faith assumptions, a large number of this user's articles may be copyvios Jebus989 11:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The same is true for other articles, e.g. Phosphate transistasis has:

"positive feedback loop in which Ras signaling promotes CD44v6 splicing, and CD44v6 then sustains late Ras signaling, which is important for cell cycle progression" (without quotes) verbatim from this; and

"the dominant feedback mechanism appears to be Ca2+ stimulation of phospholipase C once this enzyme has been activated by hormone receptors" (without quotes) verbatim except for 4 bracketed words from this.

-- 202.124.75.185 (talk) 15:03, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ban. Like Jebus, I also retract my earlier good-faith suggestion. Given the (admittedly barely comprehensible) mess at Wikiversity, the odd answers and suggestions given here and the general cryptic nature of their communications, the extent of dubious article creation tainted by charges of plagiarism and doubt about the facts, the broad reach of their original research and synthesis and their apparent unwillingness to understand those basic concepts (I thought it was incapability, but I know suspect bad faith in the existentialist sense), I think we have little option but to block/ban and hope that we can clean up this mess. I don't know if nuking is the way to go; I'll leave that to the experts. Drmies (talk) 15:12, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• In light of the copyvios, and mostly because of the research, I've blocked Marshallsumter indefinitely. I've encouraged him to read over WP:COPYVIO to help with that problem, but I don't see that he can remain a contributor while he is conducting this research; it can have a chilling effect much like a legal threat. Users will need to go over his contributions to check for more copyvios, which the below should help with. Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 15:18, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support nuking the articles, a topic ban and an article creation ban might be sufficient here instead of a full Site Ban. This user since 2008 has 8,821 live edits still, which suggests that they were contributing before this recent mess which is really bad. If this user decides to give up this disruptive "research" project he/she might want to come back as just a normal editor. Hobartimus (talk) 15:44, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure "8800 edits" is a good thing. The 2500 that I skimmed looked a whole lot like more of the "recent mess", and I have a nasty suspicion that all of them might end up being the same mixture (some wikignoming, quite a bit of synthesis, and quite a lot of linking to his synthesis articles). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 01:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support ban. We have a prolific and credentialled editor who is generating lots of content. Unfortunately, that content cannot be trusted even though it may have lots of citations. High productivity and questionable content creates a lot of work for other editors. On the whole, there's a lot of damage to WP. It reminds me of an editor adding a lot of cited material about ancient mathematicians: half the material was right, but half of it was wrong. The problem is bigger than just creating articles. Stop the damage. Glrx (talk) 20:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ban - the "research", the copyvios... this editor is a net drain on the project, not an asset. LadyofShalott 21:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Site ban and nuke all articles - per Sandstein. I took the time to examine a number of the articles, and too many of those I could understand were totally OR. The ones I couldn't understand need to be examined by an expert, but I feel that given the quality of the other articles, the assumption should be that an article created by this editor is suspect unless someone with expertise clears it. In any case, we are not a specialist encyclopedia, and an article on any topic with is not comprehensible to a reasonably intelligent adult shouldn't be here. The safest choice here is deletion of all the editor's articles, and a permanent site ban. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Let me add that it would be great if the articles could be cored sooner rather than later: I have a feelinng we may be in Sokal territory here (deliberately or not), and the longer these suspect articles are in the project, the more our reputation for accuracy takes a hit. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• I analyzed a few articles where I had sufficient knowledge to do so Basically they consist of a random sampling of material from sources somewhat related to the topic. So, while each sentence had some legitimacy somewhere, as articles they were random gibberish. We have a big problem here. North8000 (talk) 16:02, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ban and delete It's clear we have a massive problem here, and if North8000's findings ring true for the whole list, we basically have a series of worthless articles. Combined with the copyvios and the copy-paste moves into userspace, we are left with a huge amount of cleanup to do. N419BH 18:46, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
• Comment I'm up to 4 articles, and the situation was the same on all 4. I have a new theory. This is a second experiment about Misplaced Pages... generate random collections of material as hundreds of articles, intelligent-sounding, where each sentence is legit somewhere but where the article is gibberish. And see how long before it gets discovered.  :-) North8000 (talk)

Category

I created Category:Articles created by User:Marshallsumter based on the list from Soxred93's tool. Currently has top 100, but will add full list soon. This is to aid on cleanup. A cursory look revels most of the material is not deletable, but alot is mergable, some of it redundant (as such WP:COATRACK/WP:POVFORK) and otherwise problematic. I am tagging with "expert" attention tags as I get time. Please help by tagging the articles with the category and deleting from the list.--Cerejota (talk) 02:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks; I've pinged the astronomy project about it. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 02:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I update the cat with the list, and added a few to the cats and commented them out of the list, please help with that part too ;)--Cerejota (talk) 02:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Before too many AfDs get under way/too much cleanup work is done I suggest waiting until the copyright status of these articles becomes clear (see above). All the ones I have seen have sections copied from other WP articles without attribution (WP:CWW) and at least one contains copy-and-pasted copyrighted material (I would bet many more do) Jebus989 12:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that most PubMed abstracts (such as that one quoted at above) are available under NIH free access policy, and therefore their use is not a copyright violation per se. And even if there is a copyright violation, one should only remove a part of the text, not the article. Looking at Structural phosphate, some parts of the text are written by someone who was well-intended, but did not clearly understand the subject and terminology ("The structural phosphate becomes the hydrolyzed nucleotide" or "EC 4.1.3.8 contains one structural phosphate"). This is all fixable. Biophys (talk) 18:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Free access does not mean public domain material, it just means they are granting you access without charging you. See the PMC copyright notice at NIH. —SpacemanSpiff 18:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

also when dealing with non-attributed copy-paste, make sure the material is restored in the original source, some of these were forked with material removed.--Cerejota (talk) 18:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Cerejota is in my understanding correct: the abstract is publicly available, but in most cases it otherwise remains under the same copyright restrictions as the article, and may be viewed, but not republished. NIH copyright policy--the abstracts are not written by pubmed staff, but transcribed from the article. Open access is much less than "free" in the sense WP uses it. DGG ( talk ) 22:45, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and I was not the one who commented on pub med, I simply spoke about internal attribution, a topic I am very familiar with (see below soon).--Cerejota (talk) 23:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• More generally, under our own copyright policy, anyone may use Misplaced Pages content as they see fit as long as they preserve attribution. This does not mean they may contribute to Misplaced Pages content as they see fit. Misplaced Pages:Research isa guideline, not policy, but I think it has wide consensus, and says "Do not disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point, even if that point is in the name of research." If these articles are true research, it appears to me that the point is to examine what a community of people judge to be a fixed phrase as distinct for am ad hoc combination. Introducing a large number of very questionable articles under this guise is indeed disrupting Misplaced Pages. It might have been reasonable to test a few articles, choosing ones where acceptance by the community would be a real possibility, and be guided by the results. I doubt it would ever be acceptable to introduce articles that any reasonable person would know to be unacceptable, just to see how we get them out--certainly not in such numbers. There are quite enough genuine AfD discussions to observe. DGG ( talk ) 22:45, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I draw your attention to {{Notice-history-incomplete}} and {{Notice-history-incomplete-multi}} templates I created in 2007 for the purpose of drawing attention to attribution issues. So I am very familiar with these questions, and for some time :) I know we are now CC etc, I am just giving you an idea of the time frames we are talking here...--Cerejota (talk) 23:55, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Updated {{CWW}} and {{CWW-multi}}--Cerejota (talk) 09:13, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• DELETE IT ALL. I strongly suspect that there is a lot of copyvio buried here along with all the synthesis. I think the only clean way to root it out is just to delete it. Example: I tried some searches for phrases in calibrated camera (a topic that I believe can be encyclopedic) and found many long phrases copied from this 1987 paper. Together with the other known problems in this work I believe the cost of trying to salvage anything from them is too high, and the benefit too small, to do anything but delete them all. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
  • That was pretty egregious. Article deleted. — Scientizzle 17:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

That was one of the ones I reviewed in depth and found to be a random gibberish collection of material. So we have a random gibberish collection of copy vio's. North8000 (talk) 17:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• Delete as much as possible. I'm an astrophysicist, and I tried to edit some of Marshallsumter's bad articles (Proton-proton annihilation and Stellar surface fusion among others. They're incredibly disruptive articles---they seem to consist of vague keyword searches, assembled into boilerplate pseudo-articles citing every Google Scholar hit on a few related terms; furthermore, they link densely to one another, creating a tiny distorted walled-garden-pedia which I presume is the point of the disruption. Please scour it away before any more editors make my mistake---and waste time trying to "improve" this hall of mirrors. Bm gub2 (formerly User:Bm_gub) 02:01, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
• Delete as much as possible I analyzed some where I had the knowledge to do so and found them to be a random gibberish collection of material from elsewhere. I'm starting to suspect that this is some kind of a giant HOAX. North8000 (talk) 16:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Some texts indeed remind computer-generated combinations of paragraphs taken from[REDACTED] and other sources like texts in WikiGenes . But such texts can be used as initial version for human editing, and some articles created by him have been corrected by other editors (like here. So, please respect their contributions. No blank deletion without review, please. Biophys (talk) 20:52, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I took a look at the linked example. First, it appears to have the same problem, though I am not an expert in that field. Other than the first sentence, it appears to be a random collection of related material from elsewhere. Again, each sentence is legitimate/correct somewhere and has some relationship to the topic, but there is no real article writing writing here, and, as an article it is total gibberish. It has had only a tiny amount of work (like adding a ref) by others, no rewriting. Plus, regarding building a real article, the current state is "less than zero". Trying to edit such a random mess into a article would probably start with, after dozens of hours of careful deliberation, removing 100% of the content and then starting over. North8000 (talk) 10:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure, the Perinuclear space is not a good coherent article. But it is not a "total gibberish". No, this is more "than zero", because it defines the subject and provides some sourced information about the subject. I have seen many articles much worse than that. Neither of them was (or could be) deleted after AfD discussions. This is wikipedia, not Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Biophys (talk) 15:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

There might be a problem with using Category:Articles created by User:Marshallsumter to hold the list. I assumed incorrectly that it was a category (WP:Categorization applied to individual pages). Since it's in Category: space, the page cannot be moved or renamed normally. Moving it will require a cut/paste + list of authors, so sooner is better than later. Flatscan (talk) 04:31, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyvio issues

A number of instances of copyvio were noted above. Perinuclear space is also a problem, since that article talk page includes an admission of WP:CWW. -- 202.124.74.191 (talk) 00:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Should I open a WP:CCI? MER-C 02:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

That seems like a wise move at this point. LadyofShalott 02:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I still favor the nuclear option. No offense to the diligent folks who work there, but cleaning up through CCI can take a long time, and there are serious issues here beyond COPYVIO, particularly NOR and possibly HOAX. I don't believe this editor is any longer worthy of AGF: nuke now and ask questions later. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:49, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The easiest option might be to PROD every article this editor has created, on the basis of probable WP:OR and copyvio, and then handle the ones that survive. -- 202.124.73.9 (talk) 03:23, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Prod isn't even necessary. Just delete them. A CCI will identify his contributions to existing articles. MER-C 03:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support indef block and delete all Please do not open a copyright investigation. As others have stated, whether intended or not, the text introduced by the editor is indistinguishable from a hoax (albeit clever enough to waste vaste amounts of time from WP:AGF). Accordingly, the editor should be indefinitely blocked and all content should be removed. Johnuniq (talk) 03:40, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Does it mean that Wikigenes is a copyright violation? The entire resource consists from computer-generated combinations of phrases taken from PubMed abstracts . No one complained about copyright violation in wikigenes. Biophys (talk) 04:08, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Can't comment on WikiGenes, but it's copyvio for Misplaced Pages to copy from copyrighted abstracts. -- 202.124.73.227 (talk) 05:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

WikiGenes can probably claim "fair use" in a way that Misplaced Pages's licensing terms do not permit. -- 202.124.73.227 (talk) 05:54, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• No CCI, just G12 A CCI seems an incredible waste of time and space for this given all the other problems. In this case if two editors identify copyright issues in parts of the article they just ought to be deleted. A modified version of G12. {{db-G12|url=See Marshallsumter discussion at ANI; text in this article has been copied from xxx}} —SpacemanSpiff 06:09, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I second that and get all the open AfDs closed as delete per SNOW or G12.--Cerejota (talk) 06:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• I suggest that, per normal practise, we G12 cases which are obvious copyright violations, and send others (such as Io as an X-ray source) where the copyright violation is much less clear, to the copyright noticeboard. S Larctia (talk) 09:29, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Io as an X-ray source was not an unclear case. It had many long phrases copied from this 2002 paper. Someone else replaced its content with a copyvio notice and I have deleted it per G12. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
• Site ban, and delete most articles. All of the articles by this editor I have looked at have WP:CWW problems, many of them have direct copyvios from the references, and most of them seem in fact to be barely coherent juxtapositions of quotations from the cited sources. It may be possible that there is some small amount of worthwhile content out there, but I suggest that articles be deleted with prejudice unless a very good reason can be found to keep them. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:06, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
• Comment the user also seems to be copying articles they created from main space to a subpage of their user page User:Marshallsumter/Repellor vehicle is from Repellor vehicle. In doing so they seem to be copying the most recent version ( is in their subpages), regardless of changes by other users in the interim and without noting the source which is a likely to be deleted article. I.E. They are violating contributors copyrights. It seems they don't understand they need to request an article be moved, along with the history, to their user space if it contains contributions not their own. Given this problem (although it sounds like this should be obvious due to the possible copyvios with their content in general), I suggest all their user page sub pages be deleted. Nil Einne (talk) 16:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree that we need to deal with his user space articles, probably deleting them all, certainly templating and noindexing. Dougweller (talk) 20:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes, delete them all. Additionally, they are WP:FAKEARTICLEs created solely to circumvent the community consensus that his articles should be deleted. MER-C 02:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Marshallsumter's continued Wikiversity activity

Over at Wikiversity, Marshallsumter is recreating many of his synth/copyright pages - i.e. . You can find a catalogue of them at his userpage , although there are several more. --S Larctia (talk) 21:56, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Are any WikiVersity admins watching this discussion? I have no idea what the policies are over there, but I would assume that copyvios are verboten there too. LadyofShalott 03:26, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmmmmm. Count Iblis (talk) 04:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Judging by his talk page on 'versity, I'd assume that at least someone is aware. I couldn't locate anything akin to WP:AN to leave a general notice at, however, so I didn't try to get more eyes on it. Cheers. lifebaka++ 04:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The closest there is to WP:AN over there is . However, don't expect to get a positive response. Abd, a banned sockpuppeteer on en.wikipedia is a custodian there, and has essentially told Marshallsumter on his talk page that 1) his en.wiki block was uncalled for 2) his research is suitable for Wikiversity 3) he should copy all the pages that were deleted from Misplaced Pages for copyright reasons to Wikiversity. Apparently original research, hoaxes and minor copyright violations are alright there as long as they are "educational". Good grief. --S Larctia (talk) 07:46, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikiversity got exactly what it deserved, if they chose him as a custodian after all the bullshit in wikiversity:Wikiversity:Candidates_for_Custodianship/Abd_2. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:02, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

So the Foundation doesn't care about copyright there? I don't understand that, but then Wikiversity seems to be a place where almost anything goes - if you write a rubbish article here and it's deleted because it ignores all our policies and guidelines, you seem to be able to add it there. It's almost a reason not to donate to the Foundation. Dougweller (talk) 15:21, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there a general Wikimedia noticeboard to comment about the way that banned Misplaced Pages users are now running Wikiversity ? :S --S Larctia (talk) 16:02, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Guys, this isn't exactly on topic. I'd suggest starting a thread at one of the village pumps or the mailing list if there's more to discuss. We ain't gonna' be able to solve any such problems here. Cheers. lifebaka++ 16:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Just popping a few words here from the perspective of someone who has had some positive experiences with the English Wikiversity:

1. Wikiversity is actually a pretty good place for university-level instructors to organize collaborative projects. That's mostly what goes on these days if you look at the RC feed.
2. Wikiversity's mission and scope is poorly defined. This has been good in some ways, but very problematic in others.
3. Like most WMF wikis that aren't the English Misplaced Pages, there's a certain resistance to following the lead of the English Misplaced Pages. This sometimes reaches the point where anything the en.wp community says is just assumed to be wrong-headed.
4. There's been a disproportionate amount of "drama" over the past 3 years or so, which has led most of the admins to give up and just ignore anything that might involve yet another drama, so the only people willing to "take on the mantle" these days tend to be people like Ottava Rima and Abd. Speaking for myself, I've pretty much given up now that Abd has yet again become an admin.

If you want to fix en.wv, just become an admin there and fix it. Seriously: I'm a 'crat there, and will happily give tools to any sane admin from WP who's willing to spend a minimal amount of time watching over a very slow project. --SB_Johnny |  23:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Just one more thing to put out there: Abd is pretty much the guy in charge of RC patrolling and doing admin chores these days. He's also done his share of doing experimental research on the WP community. --SB_Johnny |  00:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The only good thing about Wikiversity is that no-one outside the project has heard of it. If anyone does re-open a "Close it all down" movement, please flag it clearly here too. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be consensus here for a ban...

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

...and for deleting all the articles. I know that we try to give ban discussions a good amount of time to come to fruition, but in the meantime, I would think a mass deletion of all the articles would be a good thing. The ban discussion can continue, but deleting the articles protects the project from potential harm -- and DRV can undo any mistakes. I'd like to say again that our rep is at issue here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. I withdraw my previous statement that the articles should be refactored. With this much copyvio, it becomes easier to write new articles from scratch instead. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 05:18, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Agree, having participated in discussion with this editor (for example, at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Dominant group (Moon), it is obvious that nothing short of a ban and a wholesale delete will adequately protect the project, as the user in question seems to want to intentionally cause a problem as part of his "research" and so many issues exist with current creations. Moogwrench (talk) 05:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Ban - Marshallsumter's extensive copyright violations and deceptive responses are a major issue. Deleting all the articles per CSD G12 is probably the way forward if the copyright violations are ambiguous. --S Larctia (talk) 06:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Delete all of the articles, and block the individual Offer them due process before a ban. I'm up to checking about 6 articles, and the story was the same on all of them. As an article, random gibberish. A random collection of related material from elsewhere, each piece of material correct and legit elsewhere, but the collection is uninformative random gibberish as an article. And for those topics where an article is in order, the current state is less-than-zero. It would be much easier to start from zero than trying to modify those random messes. Also, all of the 6 IMHO either shouldn't have been a topic or didn't need to be a topic. So even keeping these as one-sentence stubs (which I contemplated suggesting) may be a less-than-zero value situation. Again, this was based on reviewing about 6 articles. My theory is that this is a big hoax which successfully showed a Wikipedian weakness...that (except for copy vios) our policies/guidelines look much more favorably on random messes such as these than they do on the editor activities like summarization and material selectivity that create informative articles. North8000 (talk) 10:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose to deletion of all his articles without review because some of them appear to be valid (see my comments above). There is an ongoing review process using prods and AfDs, and this is way to go. Biophys (talk) 15:20, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose deleting all articles without review. Some are okay. Binksternet (talk) 15:46, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose deleting articles. How about some people do something totally amazing and actually do a little research before giving a dismissive shrug and saying "delete everything"? I've spent a day and a half now picking through these articles one by one and checking the references for them. A majority of them are so filled with OR and SYNTH issues that they are totally beyond redemption, but there's still a sizable chunk of legitimate articles here. Trusilver 15:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Any examples of legitimate articles which make sense, aren't made up of copyvios and non-attributed CWW and are devoid of OR? Jebus989 17:28, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, even ONE example of an article which informs, makes sense, and was actually written about the topic vs. a random collage generation would certainly sway me to say slow down. North8000 (talk) 17:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I went through fourteen articles yesterday that this individual created, about half of them I am in agreement to delete, a few I'm unsure of, but I'm supporting keeping Propulsion system, List of human hair color genes needs work by someone that knows what they are talking about, but is still legitimate. List of solar X-ray astronomy satellites is good. Sounding rocket X-ray astronomy looks like it has some potential or at least some worthwhile information to merge into Sounding rocket but I've spent 10 hours in the last two days reading this guy's writing, and I'm too burned out at this point to even consider doing any more today. Trusilver 17:56, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I have yet to see an articlre for this editor that held up under close scrutiny. Propulsion system, for example, has massive WP:CWW. -- 202.124.73.164 (talk) 23:22, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Not only that, but IMHO that "better" article Propulsion system isn't even a legit article topic and as an article is worthless. That's like writing an article on "wheels for movement" and then putting in material on various things in the world that move with wheels. A section describing automobiles, a section describing trains, roller skates etc.

I spent time fixing articles months ago (e.g. HY box and degenerate nucleotide) but I've seen enough in the thread above and in this user's contribution history to honestly think deleting everything is going to save a number of users a lot of time and effort, at little or no loss to the encyclopedia. When you add to this the legal implications of the copyvios (which appear to be widespread in these articles) and to a lesser extent the CC violations of copying from other articles without attribution, I think a quick mass delete becomes the only viable option Jebus989 18:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I hate the idea of deleting content that is good, but at the same time I DO have a very easy time seeing your point. I have wasted two days worth of free time reading and researching just a small fraction of this user's articles. So I'm not about to say I don't see the benefits of your suggestion. Trusilver 18:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

That's fair. And I'm not trying to 'drive the point home' but taking a look at List of human hair color genes, which you give as an example of a legitimate article, 'White hair' section is copied from Achromotrichia#Grey and white hair, the dermal matrix melanocyte section is copied from melanosome and possibly others, each other section is copied from its respective "main" article (all unattributed, falling foul of WP:CWW). The table at the end appears to be synthesis, as it bears no reference and links together several gene functions Jebus989 18:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC) edit: I just picked this one out of your examples as biology is my subject of interest, a quick look at the others suggests the same issues.

• Nuke articles created by MS, reluctantly. I don't think salvage is worth the effort. I'd like an alternative such as propose-delete each, but then we're trusting that someone who removes the tag has also vetted the article against copyright and other problems. I don't think we can choose that alternative. We are aware of many copyright problems, so it is our duty to find them rather than just wait for a copyright holder to complain. I don't think there is a viable half step. Glrx (talk) 20:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• Plan B. Propose delete all articles on the list for copyvio, or, and synthesis. After that cycle has run, look at the surviving articles on the list and decide their fate. If too many remain, nuke could still be on the table. Esoteric subjects will still be a problem to judge, but many may not survive propd. Glrx (talk) 01:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I support a community ban. It seems clear that most of this editor's contributions have been deliberately designed to disrupt the project a la the Sokal affair. There's always the Misplaced Pages:Standard offer. The condition of which that I would like to see enforced is that this editor must make a full public disclosure of his attempts to inject nonsense into the project. It is clear to that this was willful disruption: the admission of a research project is particularly damning in this regard, but the pattern of nonsensical articles also speaks for itself I think. As for whether his articles should be deleted, I also prefer to deal with them on a per case basis. However, I am inclined to err on the side of accidentally deleting possibly good, copyright clean content, rather than to allow bad, misleading, nonsensical, or potentially infringing material to remain in article space. If there is a question about copyrights, plagiarism, copying from other Misplaced Pages articles without attribution, or OR/SYNTH/nonsense, I am prod'ing or AfD'ing them. About 80% of the articles I have reviewed have had multiple such issues (the other 20% were inconclusive). I don't wish to be overzealous in issuing prods. I would welcome the opportunity to work with any editor on improving any article that I prodded, if someone sees that the content can be rescued. Please stop by my talk page if you wish to discuss this with me. Sławomir Biały (talk) 20:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
• Comment  I spent a few more minutes on Greenland ice cores, and verified a source, .  It wasn't a source that would reveal a copyvio.  There was an error in the citation, in that the page listed, 23, was the page that the Acrobat PDF reader reports as the page number, not the page number, 21, that would be found in hard copy.  Here is the comparison from another source with the article:

• We report here measurements of and in firn samples spanning the period 1895–1978. Samples, each covering 1 yr, were taken from a 70-m core drilled at Dye 3, South Greenland; and both increased by a factor of ˜2 during the period.
• Dye 3 1978 to 90 m, measurements of and in firn samples spanning the period 1895-1978 are from the Dye 3 1978 core down to 70 m,

In conclusion for this source, no copyvio.  I'm new to the issue of WP:CWW, but at Greenland ice cores it seems that the articles from which the text is copied are clearly identified.  My initial impressions continue to be "keep".  Unscintillating (talk) 22:36, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

But this article has image copyvio problems. -- 202.124.73.164 (talk) 23:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• (e/c) I've found copyvios in that article that I won't repeat. See the AfD discussion if you're interested. Let me reiterate an observation that I made there, though: with this editor, if you don't find a copyright violation, then you simply haven't looked hard enough. Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• I found even more textual copyvios in the same article. See the AfD for details. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Delete all articles. There is too little value, and too much copyvio. -- 202.124.73.164 (talk) 23:22, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
  • 202, that's not on point: much too vague. Drmies (talk) 23:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

"Too little value" -- the overwhelming majority of articles have WP:OR and WP:SYNTH issues, and even articles that looked OK to me (e.g. on astronomy) have turned out to be problematic when experts looked at them. "Too much copyvio" -- most articles I've seen from this user have copyvio of some kind: copying from sources, WP:CWW, or image copyright problems. The presumption has to be that copyvio exists in them all, unless someone does a very careful check to exclude it. -- 202.124.73.164 (talk) 23:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

We still have to look at these on an individual basis. I cited Vertikal, below, as an article that in my opinion (now) is unproblematic. Drmies (talk) 00:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

202 is overstating the case about image copyright problems and it is not helpful.  One of the "image copyright" issues mentioned at WP:Articles for deletion/Greenland ice cores is a public domain NASA image of Greenland used in 50 articles.  There are two new issues posted within the last hour on two other images from the Neils Bohr Institute, issues that I don't understand, but appear likely to be resolved with return email.  Certainly none of these "image copyright" issues rises to the level that they should be given any weight whatsoever at the current time toward a consideration of banning.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that anyone ever suggested there was a problem with the NASA image at Greenland ice cores, just the others. And it turns out that Greenland ice cores also has text copyvio problems. -- 202.124.72.232 (talk) 02:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ban but not nuke. Some articles are OK (see Vertikal), and as tempting as it is to delete the lot and not deal with it, that's probably not something we can do. It's not all gibberish or plagiarism. Drmies (talk) 23:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

@Drmies - Even in as simple an article as this, there are copyvios. Consider:

Vertikal#Vertikal 10: Electrostatic analyzers aboard Vertikal 10 detected fluxes at night of cold ions moving from the mid-latitude plasmasphere to the ionosphere after launch on December 25, 1981, at 22:35 MLT. The flux velocity is approximately 1000 m/s with a flux density of 0.8-4.0 x 108 cm-2 s-1.

Original source: Electrostatic analyzers aboard the Vertikal'-10 rocket (launched on December 25, 1981 at 22.35 MLT) detected fluxes of cold ions moving from the midlatitude plasmasphere to the ionosphere at night at L = 2. The flux velocity was observed to be approximately 1000 m/s, and the flux density was (0.8-4.0) x 10 to the 8th/sq cm s.

The passage is reffed to the abstract, but the degree of difference between the original and the resulting text is not enough to take it out of the realm of copyright violation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:29, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Marshallsumter is currently working on his page on Wikiversity, by integrating the discussions we have here about him. His page on Wikiversity even link to delete discussions on Misplaced Pages. Example: His article "Dominant Group (moon)" was deleted because it was not a valid subject. The discussion about it is now used as a reference in his own research: http://en.wikiversity.org/Dominant_group#Astronomy. He is using us as a jury to decide the existence of some concepts he put as titles for new articles.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin7x (talk •contribs) 00:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - he started editing in October 2008. How did this not get picked up before? What was the earliest article created and is it possible to create a complete list of all articles created (including those deleted before this discussion started) rather than have just Category:Articles created by User:Marshallsumter? A complete list of all articles edited might be needed as well. Carcharoth (talk) 02:01, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Manually crawling his contributions and adding the cat is likely to be the best we can do, unless someone wants to write a bot to find everything (and it'd need viewdeleted rights to see many of them). As for the earliest, it appears to be Inhibitory peptide (admin-only link), which was deleted via Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Inhibitory peptide. The second, Riboside, looks fairly kosher at first blush (though I haven't checked for copyvios myself). And the third article he created, List of human ATPase genes, is currently at AfD for the same reasons many of his other articles have problems, so I don't know what can be concluded other than what we already knew. Cheers. lifebaka++ 03:07, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - Is it good for Misplaced Pages to have a contributor who presents himself as a possible impostor? http://en.wikiversity.org/Dominant_group#Hoax_hypothesis If he is not an impostor, he should clarify it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin7x (talk • contribs) 02:55, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I just took a close look at the first article Riboside that they put up as they initially put it up in 2008 and the gibberish-regarding-being-an-article pattern is already there. It started with a 6 word sentence "defining" it: "A riboside is any glycoside of ribose" and linking to the entire articles on those two words. End of explanation about Riboside. Then it immediately changes the subject to all kinds of sophisticated material which is not about the topic. The only thing in the rest of the article that was about the topic is a brief statement stating that a particular item is an example of a Riboside (taken from a source). I see no attempt there to really write anything about Ribosides nor inform the reader about them. North8000 (talk) 03:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Delete all and ban the creator - I've just been looking at astronomical X-ray source and that is another mish-mash job that seems to have involved pasting together bits from different articles. This is all absolutely horrendous, and I'm still puzzled that no-one spotted these before now. I can only think that they were a walled garden unto themselves and people searching for articles vaguely on these topics were ending up at the real articles with different names (which would rank higher in Google searches, I hope) and that these fraudulent articles were only linked to themselves. Carcharoth (talk) 04:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing on two common scenarios on how they "got by" this long. #1 Someone reads it, looks impressive, but they get nothing out of the article. They just think: "I guess I'm not smart enough to understand this article" #2 For folks who know better, but don't have the big-picture context of the overall suspicions, it just looks like one badly written article. There are also sincerely written technical articles with issues that look similar. A lot of piecemeal material which sort of "talks around the edges" of a topic without really explaining / defining it. It takes someone with the rare combination of empathy for the non-expert reader, strong expertise on the subject, ability to write/summarize (violating wp:nor if taken literally) & willingness to spend the time to fix the article. North8000 (talk) 11:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ban I was initially inclined toward just letting the indef stick. But no fewer than seven articles have been found that are laden with copyvios. Additionally, his behavior at Wikiversity could put the WMF in great legal danger. Seal the vault. Blueboy96 12:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
• Ban to protect the project, for the reasons given above by Carcharoth and Blueboy96 above. Moreover, even after the mass-deletion of articles created by this user, there is still an immense amount of material to wade through checking for copyvios: the effort involved will soak up many editors' efforts for some time to come. The Wikversity hints about this being a "research activity" are the last straw. -- The Anome (talk) 13:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
• Exile to WikiVersity. Count Iblis (talk) 17:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Needed: Bold appplication of WP:IAR

I think this situation is precisely the kind of circumstance that IAR was designed for. Sure, we could limp along dealing with this with our usual processes, but as we do, our exposure is greater and greater, and the probability that people will try to use these articles becomes higher. I think it would be much better to speedy delete them under IAR, then if people have concerns that perhaps a good article or two was deleted in the process, specific ones can be userfied for expert examination (or looked at on Wikiversity). Doing it the other way will be much too slow, and too dangerous. Let's start undoing this mess instead of worrying away at it.

If a bold admin (or two or three) isn't willing to step up and do the right thing, then the only other option to cut short our slow-motion car crash would seem to be opening an arbitration case, and who the hell wants that? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

 Doing..., using the list from X!'s tool. T. Canens (talk) 06:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The category might be better, because it list those that already survived AfD or otherwise not kosher (ie in AfD). Also gave you barnstar.--Cerejota (talk) 06:15, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, T. Canens!! I hope you don't get a lot of blowback from this. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Orphaned talk pages and broken redirects can be handled in the usual course. No objections to any admin undeleting at their own discretion without consulting me. T. Canens (talk) 06:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

This is one of the most awesome things I have seen any admin do in a big while... this should go into WikiHistory--Cerejota (talk) 06:52, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, excellent work! I think we are supposed to have spent at least another week debating whether obvious junk should be deleted, but sometimes common sense does win. Johnuniq (talk) 07:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I'm impressed. Did we get the ones he userfied too? Also, does someone want to judge consensus for a ban? N419BH 07:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

All the self-userfied pages and drafts are also gone. -- The Anome (talk) 11:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

An editor who is indef blocked and just had every article he ever created deleted from the encyclopedia is unlikely to be unblocked any time soon, so there's a de facto ban in place -- but it might still be a good idea to formalize a community ban, just in case somone comes along who doesn't understand the enormity of what this editor did. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:13, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Now formalized. --SB_Johnny |  17:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• (←) Kudos, T. Canens. AGK 11:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
• Full support for this sensible action. Dougweller (talk)

11:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Good move on the deletions Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
• After reading the Wikiversity page, this action was more than needed. I thought we were just dealing with sneaky copyvios, but what this guy is doing is so far from what Misplaced Pages is that it isn't even funny. Blueboy96 12:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

ATTENTION

If you think any of these articles was worth it, or the topic notable, simply userfy a deletion and work from that (if you are a regular user ask any admin to userfy it for you). Otherwise, simply start the article from scratch - but be careful with WP:CWW issues if you userfy. In my case I already got me one userfied, but I am planning on skipping any WP:CWW by only using infobox and the bare sources/links. I want to minimize giving credit, but do it in a legal way.--Cerejota (talk) 07:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Existing article contributions

While the creations have all been deleted, there are still other articles that have to be checked. e.g. X-ray astronomy. Between this revision and this revision he has added more than 160KB of content to the article, there were a few minor edits by others, but I don't doubt that at least 95% of the added content is from Marshallsumter. In fact, the amount of content added to this article is more than the size of many of the creations. I'm sure there are other articles like this, but these need someone from the relevant wikiprojects to look at them for OR/SYNTH issues and possibly a CCI to address copyvios. —SpacemanSpiff 09:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

On further looking at the history, I see that content was split off from the above example to X-ray astronomy detectors, X-ray astronomy history, and X-ray astrophysical sources and also partially merged to X-ray astronomy satellites etc. So, it's not just direct contributions that need checking. —SpacemanSpiff 10:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Geez, that is a nightmare. What we need is some magic way to lift his contributions out, leaving behind everything else, and then fix the article from there. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm working on a list of the articles he edited that weren't article creations. I've gotten through 2008 & 2009. I'll post again when I'm done.Cloveapple (talk) 10:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The contribution survey does that automatically. (It's intermittently broken, just hammer reload a few times. I have a copy saved to my hard disk.) MER-C 10:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, Sounds like I should quit working on my list. Can we put a copy of the contribution survey somewhere central so people could see what articles have been checked and what remains to be done? Maybe something like the list on page Category:Articles created by User:Marshallsumter? Cloveapple (talk) 11:01, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I've dumped it at User:MER-C/Marshallsumter for now. It may be moved under WP:CCI. MER-C 11:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow. I'd gotten farther on the list then I realized. The list on page Category:Articles edited but not created by User:Marshallsumter has 198 out of 221 contributions. Should I put it up for deletion or would adding the articles to a category be helpful? (I'd only categorized one so far.)Cloveapple (talk) 12:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I think in this case a diff listing is more helpful. I have no opinion on the categorization. MER-C 13:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

A big chunk of that diff are blatant pastes from various NASA articles, including . Although it's public domain, it doesn't look good. The duplication detector fails on the most used source. I should note that all a CCI is is a listing of major contributions by one editor. While the intention is to look for copyvios, a contribution survey can also be used to eliminate (say) systematic additions of OR or poorly sourced BLP material throughout Misplaced Pages. MER-C 10:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I would agree with MER-C that a diff listing is more helpful. Also, the other articles he has touched have also been edited by multiple other editors and most of them are likely to be regular topics (for lack of a better term), so adding the category, even if it's hidden isn't really a necessity IMO. The article list is available, based on the categories within the articles they could be divvied up to wikiprojects and at least announced on their talk pages as those needing some special attention. —SpacemanSpiff 15:15, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

contains a copyvio from . MER-C 10:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I took a look at Pulsar, Astronomy, Earthworm, Mosquito, Lightning, Gliese 412, Brown dwarfs, Comparative anatomy, SN 185, Phosphate, and Nuclear Fusion. None had the problem where the article was significantly gibberish. I just gave those articles a quick overall look for that problem, nothing else. North8000 (talk) 14:11, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Just because an article was created by this editor doesn't mean it needs an out of process deletion, which is what has happened here (anytime somebody invokes IAR you know they've broken rules). I can't get uncited BLPs deleted as fast as you've deleted all of Sumter's articles!! So how do you justify THAT?

Because of this "bold" move (why don't you bold people go work on the 1000 BLPs with no source?), I now can't go over gamma-ray production or list of astronomical gamma-ray sources to see what it salvagable. I did contribute some to the first article (as I recall) and that's gone, too. If the second article involved copying a lot of lists from NASA, so what? Many list articles are straight copies, and if the original is a government document meant to be disseminated and copied, so much the better. As a result of this purge (what else to call it??) Misplaced Pages no longer contains a list of astronomical gamma ray sources. I can invoke WP:IAR to point out that you've harmed the encyclopedia thereby. SBHarris 17:33, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Read the "ATTENTION" section above. If you'd like one of the articles userfied in order to fix it, please ask any admin. N419BH 17:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There was a pretty strong consensus for the move, a strong rationale for it, and consensus that it was important for doing so. North8000 (talk) 17:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, neither of the two pages you cited has ever existed on Misplaced Pages. T. Canens (talk) 19:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, the exact names are Gamma-ray generation and Astronomical gamma-ray source. Consider this an asking of an admin. SBHarris 19:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I've restored them. If they contain copyvios, it'll be up to you to identify and remove them. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Gracias. I will attempt to do so. SBHarris 20:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You may also want to spend a bit of time searching for similar content elsewhere in Misplaced Pages. M had a history of copy/pasting and forking content, so I'd strongly suspect that the contents of the two articles you link are already represented in some form. If so, consider merging any useful content back into them (after googling phrases and checking the in-article references to check for external cut/paste work). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyvio is not the only problem here. Given that Marshallsumter has exhausted any benefit of the doubt, these should be deleted again unless Sbharris can positively vouch for the contents being of a coherent and encyclopedic nature (unlike the vast majority of Marshallsumter's work). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 20:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Chris. I think this situation is exactly analogous to what happens when a banned editor makes a productive edit, one editor comes along and deletes it by right (as the contrib of a banned user), and another restores it because it's good material. The editor who restores it takes responsibility for the veracity and quality of the edit, as if they were the originator of it. The same thing needs to happen here: articles should probably be userfied rather than directly restored, so that the requesting editor can go over the article and vouch for its contents. Then it can be moved back into articlespace, under the auspices of the vouching editor. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:08, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

No problems with deleting all the contributions - there is a provision within WP:CCI that this can be done. In this case, I'll give Sbharris a day or so then follow up with him as to what he's done. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I've read the article Gamma-ray generation, it seems to be ok. except for one paragraph. I don't know anything about the copyright violation issue that is suspected to be at play here, but that can be dealt with by rewriting and expanding some sections. Count Iblis (talk) 21:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Are you serious? The article was constructed as a pasting together of stuff copied from other articles with the editor demonstrating no understanding of the topic. The articles I looked at that were like this appear to have been machine-generated following a fairly simple and formulaic algorithm. This becomes clear when you compare the content listings for articles such as astronomical X-ray sources and astronomical gamma-ray source:

• 1 X-radiation/Gamma ray
• 2 X-ray source/none
• 3 Astronomical source/Astronomical source
• 4 Celestial X-ray source/Celestial gamma-ray source
• 5 Astronomical X-ray object/Astronomical gamma-ray object
• 6 Extrasolar X-ray source astrometry/Extrasolar gamma-ray source
• 7 X-ray astronomy/Gamma-ray astronomy
• 8 Spectral energy distribution/Spectral energy distribution
• 9 Temporal distribution/Temporal distribution
• 10 Spatial distribution/Spatial distribution
• 11 Diffuse X-ray background/Celestial gamma-ray background
• 12 Visibly dark X-ray source/Visibly dark gamma-ray source
• 13 X-1 X-ray source/First gamma-ray source
• 14 Astronomical X-ray source catalog/Gamma-ray source catalog
• 15 Astrophysical X-ray source/Astrophysical gamma-ray source

And the wording of some of those sections is identical, and nonsensical to boot: "An astronomical source is the start, beginning, or origin of something that suggests or indicates the presence of an astronomical object or astronomical body, where a source is the start, beginning, or origin of something." That is meaningless and self-referential. The same applies to : "The terms astronomical objects and astronomical bodies differ from "celestial objects" and "celestial bodies" only in that the latter terms do not include the Earth." That is not a meaningful thing to copy and paste into articles and seems to be there only for padding due to the lack of having anything really meaningful to say. Ditto for: "Astronomical objects are naturally occurring physical entities, associations or structures that current science has demonstrated to exist in outer space. Such an astronomical object may be only an astronomical gamma-ray object. The term astronomical object is sometimes used interchangeably with astronomical body. Typically an astronomical body refers to a single, cohesive structure that is bound together by gravity (and sometimes by electromagnetism). Examples from visual astronomy include the asteroids, moons, planets and stars. Astronomical objects are gravitationally bound structures that are associated with a position in space, but may consist of multiple independent astronomical bodies or objects." This is just pasting together poorly worded definitions to pad the articles. And the extensive and similarly identical 'see also' sections just confirm that these are walled gardens of formulaic cookie-cutter articles pasted together using extracts from other articles. If you look at a version of gamma ray generation edited by this editor, such as here, you will likely find the text in question copied over from the articles linked to as the 'main article' for each section. The equivalent 'article' for X-rays is X-ray generation, which was turned into a redirect but should probably be deleted. In fact, the articles created by this editor that were turned into redirects should go as well. Carcharoth (talk) 23:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that version of "gamma ray generation" clearly reads like written by someone who doesn't understands what he writes about. But this particular article has undergone some editing by knowlegable editors (like Sbharris), and it seems to me that one can keep this article, rewrite and expand some sections, add some other sections etc. etc. I think that Sbharris who was aleady involved with that article is going to do that. Count Iblis (talk) 23:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It would be better if any remedial work and initial seeding of any potential article was done by someone who has studied astrophysics to some verifiable level, or is prepared to rigorously use sources (i.e. not making unsourced corrections and additions of proofs like you did to 'Helmholtz free energy'). This can't be left solely to those with an interest in this area of science, or to physicists or doctors who studied different areas of science. There will be those at the Astronomy WikiProject able to do a proper assessment of what is needed here. Please don't risk compounding the mistakes made here by building on something that may mislead those trying to correct it. There are those on Misplaced Pages who study astrophysics who are able to correct what has happened here. It is those people that need to step up to the plate here. Carcharoth (talk) 00:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The thing that amazes me is how he was able to keep this up for over a year--an eternity in Wiki-terms--before getting caught. Especially since he was editing in an area that gets a lot of traffic. Blueboy96 22:14, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

These aren't the most prominent astronomy related articles, so they don't get the scrutiny other articles get. But I have seen much worse cases. Some core thermodynamics articles were fundamentally flawed for many years. I rewrote quite a few of them in 2008, e.g this article. The problem here was a lack of expertise among the regular editors at the time. At the time, I argued on some policy talk pages that one has to re-think the approach to editing articles on technical subjects, but most editors didn't want to go there. A year later, after a bad experience with an editor on the entropy page, I thought that it is high time to propose a new policy, so I wrote up WP:ESCA, but that went nowhere. It's Wiki-politically incorrect to make such suggestions :( . Count Iblis (talk) 22:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

That edit you made to Helmholtz free energy may have corrected things, but it still reads like a high-level textbook page rather than an encyclopedia article. Not many readers will actually learn anything from that article in the state it is in at the moment. Most will just walk away more than a bit befuddled and wondering why there was a need to include a proof and lots of mathematical symbols and formulae. Carcharoth (talk) 23:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

In contrast to many other thermodynamics subject, Helmholtz free energy is mostly a theoretical physics subject and things like the "Bogoliubov inequality" are notable and they are also used a lot in computations. I would guess that many people do read this page, people who read the technical stuff are mostly physics students and professionals who want to quickly look up things.

The Gibbs free energy is similar to the Helmholtz free energy, but this quantity is used a lot more in chemistry, and then there is more to write about those applications. But there is still some fair amount of math in that article. I have never edited that article though, because the math wasn't flawed when I checked all thermodynamics and statistical physcis articles back in 2008.

And then there are other statistical mechanics articles that are even more heavy in math, some have only been edited by math editors, like Yang–Baxter equation. This article should be rewritten more in the spirit of my edits to Helmholtz free energy, i.e. expanded with more context so that studens can read how it is used. Count Iblis (talk) 15:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

At least it is coherent and has explanatory statements, a step better than many highly technical articles in Misplaced Pages. But doesn't achieve the ultimate which would be to explain it to the average person of those who would be trying to learn from the article. North8000 (talk) 15:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I was looking for the proton antiproton annihilation article, for which the links exist but not the page. In following up to see what the problem was, I stumbled on this page. Gosh. I just cannot believe you all spend so much time on such discussions, and I am unsure whether to be grateful for your vigilence, or disappointed at your subjectivity. I don't know all the details about the infringements, but in a quick perusal I didn't see any actual factual evidence of copyright infringement -which seemed to be the main complaint - and the whole decision-making process seemed simply a lynching. So you just go and 'nuke' (your words) every article that this person has ever written, regardless of merit? You feel that is a rational response? I'm glad I came and sat in the court spectator gallery - but I don't think I saw a fair trial. John Pons (talk) 08:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It frequently takes something more than a "quick perusal" to uncover copyright violations, and since all the editor's original articles have been deleted (properly so), you have no basis for evaluating the original research and synthesis they contained, so perhaps your judgment might be a little hasty. It may seem like a "lynching" to you, but it took four or five days of evaluation, consideration and debate from a large number of editors before someone acted for the good of the project on the consensus which had formed. If you are familiar with any of the deleted articles, and want to have a go at fixing it up to be a useful and informative contribution to the encyclopedia, you can ask an admin to userfy it to your usespace, where you can work on it until it fulfills our requirements.

On the other hand, with 53 edits in 4 years, 10 of them deleted, and a deleted article which apparently was WP:FRINGE, you may not be in the best position to pass judgement on the proceedings here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

There's plenty of evidence above, some provided by myself. I urge editors entering this discussion to assume good faith and read the above investigation in its entirety before commenting down here and jumping to conclusions Jebus989 09:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this most recent thread seems to be missing the main stuff from the main discussion. North8000 (talk) 10:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• I know nothing about this user, but I checked a few biology-related articles created by him. Although relatively poor quality (just as many other[REDACTED] articles), none of them deserved deletion. This is my conclusion, and I work in this area. Biophys (talk) 12:58, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

There might be a mixup. Which articles did you check? The recent thread went off the section topic and into articles that are already deleted. The more recent listings (and this section) are about articles where they we just a contributon and deletion looks unlikely on those. North8000 (talk) 14:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there's a mixup. This user has commented several times demonstrating a misunderstanding of copyright policy, saying it's perfectly acceptable to copy verbatim from pubmed abstracts (which it's not). Article quality had nothing to do with the deletions, they were entirely copypastes from other[REDACTED] articles or from sources under copyright. Any original text was unreferenced and synthesis or original research. None of the users involved above were able to produce a single reliably-sourced article composed of original text... Jebus989 14:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. With the added note that the result was things that were random gibberish rather than articles. North8000 (talk) 15:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I am talking about articles like Perinuclear space, which was placed for AfD discussion, where no one provided a single example of copyright violation, and no one provided valid arguments for deletion during the AfD discussion.Biophys (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

By all means ask to have a copy of the article userfied, before doing so I thoroughly recommend reading the above conversations and all the evidence presented; you may especially be interested in the above section where another user asked for articles to be restored (Gamma-ray generation and Astronomical gamma-ray source, for reference). They were (unsurprisingly) exactly what we expected—unattributed CWW, synthesis, incoherent jumbled together sentences etc. Jebus989 16:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have no intention to userfy and restore any of these articles (there are more interesting/important subjects to edit). They had to be simply kept to allow contributions of multiple editors, as time allows. Biophys (talk) 17:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

With respect to that specific article, I did a search on a few random text strings: first string, closely paraphrased from a journal, second, copied from another article, third was copied either from Nuclear envelope or this 2001 page. I need to go look into that content at Nuclear envelope. :/ --Moonriddengirl 11:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Which means I was wrong about this. Sorry. T.Cannes was right by doing the blanket deletion. In fact, all relevant information should be in Nuclear envelope, and we hardly need Perinuclear space. Biophys (talk) 18:13, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, how about:

• Centaurus XR-2
• Centaurus XR-3
• Centaurus XR-4
• Neutron-antineutron annihilation
• Sagittarius XR-2
• Scorpius XR-6
• Scutum X-1
• Index table for X-ray and gamma-ray sources

Are they properly stubs? WERE they previously stubs and are now deleted? You see, if you just delete long lists, nobody else can TELL what was in the deleted articles. Given the extreme specificity likely from looking at just the titles, it seems to me that there isn't much room here for anything but useful information. Considering the totally squalid state that most WP articles historically start in (do you all really get the historical idea of Misplaced Pages??), I think the level of picky-ness being shown here decends very far toward DICKishness. Vandalism, I cannot abide. But deleting every article created by a poor writer (I mean a writer who writes poorly), not having even looked at some of them first, is really going too far. Especially on Misplaced Pages. SBHarris 16:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Really, from the articles I've had a closer look at, anyone willing to "restore" these article is much better off starting from nothing than from what was there previously. If you're unable to create a stub on these topic from nothing then you're not the right person clean up what was there previously either. —Ruud 18:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

That's quite a bold inductive statement from somebody who hasn't seen any of the aricles in question. But let's do a bet: take Index table for X-ray and gamma-ray sources. I haven't seen it, and neither have you. You go ahead and start it from scratch, and I'll watch. Keep track of your time. By and by, I'll obtain the old copy and cut it, or add to it. Then we'll see who made the foolish prediction, you or me. How about it? If the possiblity of black swans doesn't bother you, then you should have no problem. SBHarris 18:46, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

"from somebody who hasn't seen any of the aricles in question" Wrong. "go ahead and start it from scratch" I know next to nothing about astrophysics, so I'm not going to do that. "I'll obtain the old copy and cut it, or add to it" Unless you do happen to have a degree in astrophysics, you won't be able to differentiate between what's right and what's nonsense and just end up copying and pasting more factual inaccuracies and gibberish. —Ruud 19:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It is better to have no article at all than a deliberately disruptive article which consists largely of garbage which looks sensible enough for well-meaning editors of an overly inclusionist bent to consider salvageable. There's already strong consensus for that above. Unless you are quite literally promising to remove the garbage from these articles then there is little rationale for keeping them, as potential is not a guarantee. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 19:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Eh? I have no evidence that an article like Index table for X-ray and gamma-ray sources is a "deliberately disruptive article." Here you are claiming knowledge of another editor's malicious intent-- do you have prima facie evidence of this? Let alone that this article "consists largely of garbage which looks sensible enough for well-meaning editors of an overly inclusionist bent to consider salvageable." That's a complete straw man, if you mean to apply it to every one of the articles we're discussing, or even the ones I've named above.

Right now we don't actually have a case where we can say this or that article clearly does not belong on Misplaced Pages, and how in the world did it ever get there? In the one I've just looked at, on the contrary I see an editor who seems very pleased with himself that he's finally been able to get rid of gamma ray generation and redirect it to segments of gamma ray, which essentially merges the two at the cost of absorbing one. Alas for this approach, it's not really very respectful of the way Misplaced Pages naturally grows. The astronomical parts of gamma ray that gamma ray generation is now redirected to, had been expanded by myself, starting last May. Before that time, this article was almost entirely about radioactive decay, and had only a few thumbs about anything else. I expanded the astronomical sections largely using information from gamma ray generation, gamma-ray astronomy, their sources, and some web content. In other words, in no small part from articles you just deleted (gamma-ray astronomy is left, but it doesn't have all this info). The gamma ray article needed a summary of the astronomical content and the astronomical mechanisms of gamma production, per WP:SS. Apparently this worked so well, that somebody has now decided that the main articles on astronomical gamma sources are no longer needed, or can be subsummed under gamma ray astronomy. Guess my writing was better than I thought, hey? But none of it really makes the case that Marshallsumter is there writing "deliberately disruptive articles full of garbage." In fact, the worst I can find from him (I did not know him) is bad writing. And if we removed all the bad writing from Misplaced Pages, there wouldn't be much left. And if we are committed to that, could we please start with the soccer trivia, the comic book trivia, and the local sports stars BLPs? Including the thousand BLPs still with not a single source? Not the astronomy articles where I hate to re-create data on astronomical objects and instruments just as much as any of you do? SBHarris 21:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Sbharris, there is a policy that when someone gets over a certain level of copyvio, all of their contribs can be deleted, which is what happened here. You want any of these articles, just ask - only proviso, could you check for copyvio promptly, and if you don't think they are worth anything, just let me know and I'll delete them again. How did you find the two I restored yesterday? Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I picked an article at random that Marshallsumter had contributed to (SN 185) and ended up having to delete essentially everything that he added. Only about 25% of the article is left, and the only one of his additions that I didn't remove was adding an image. Seems like there's going to be an awful lot of hatchet jobs required. Modest Genius 21:32, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

That is an excellent example. Sbharris, please look at this and compare it to the current version. That is typical of what Marshallsumter was doing, which was dumping lots of references into articles (often copying and pasting directly from the source) without properly integrating the information into the text, or being selective about what he was adding. If you are really prepared to do this tidying up for all the X-ray source articles listed, please do so, but many people agree that it is better just to start from scratch as there was too much indiscriminate copying and pasting. I've looked at three of the deleted articles you listed above, and Centaurus XR-4, Centaurus XR-3 and Centaurus XR-2 are all of the form (with slight variations): "1 Extrasolar X-ray source astrometry; 2 Astronomical visual source; 3 Astronomical X-ray source; 5 Visibly dark X-ray source; 6 Astronomical gamma-ray source", with an essentially incoherent catalog listing in prose form of the discoveries made in this region of the sky in these wavelengths. What Marshallsumter appears to have been doing is generating bot-like articles from journal papers and catalog listings. The same is true for Sagittarius XR-2, Scorpius XR-6 and Scutum X-1. For an example of a restored and remediated article, see Abell 2147. See here for how another editor handled that. That is what you (sbharris) need to do here if you want to work on some of these articles. Please, just take one article, ask to be provided with a copy, and see what you can do with it, and then come back here and see whether you have changed your mind about this. Carcharoth (talk) 22:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I've been going through a few of these, and I haven't yet found an example that wasn't better off being deleted and then either turned into a redirect, or re-started from scratch. -- The Anome (talk) 22:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, let us start with the example you both started with, which is the article on SN 185, in which all the X-ray and optical remnant work that Marshallsumter added was deleted by user:Modest Genius as being "gibberish". Well, I beg to differ. If you read you see that what Marshallsumter added is a rather compact but essentially correct description of the work going on to identify a possible X-ray and optical remnant of this supernova remnant (RCW 86) G315.4-2.3, a.k.a. MSH 14-63 which would strengthen the case that it was indeed a core-collapse type supernova (type Ib/c or II) because it left us a core. That would be a neutron star, but perhaps not a conventional radio puslar but an anomalous X-ray pulsar. This work is not easy to summarize because there isn't a clear object where X-ray and optical images overlie, the ROSAT and Einstein observatories don't always give perfect alignment with optical telescopes (ROSAT has an attitude error), because data is limited, and because the putative optical counterpart of the ROSAT/Einstein X-ray source, a star in the USNO-A2.0 catalogue, is faint and not pefectly placed. That's a typical problem in astronomy, and actually the authors of the preceding paper are inclined to think that their X-ray source in this area is NOT from a remnant of SN 185, but is rather the active star they have from USNO-A2.0 catalogue. The SN 185 article mentions that (or used to). However, I don't see any cut and paste, and I don't see any "gibberish." The references are to the correct literature, which is about this supernova remnant and this area of space, which contains X-rays sources, SN 185, and RCW 86 which is the remnant of SN 185. I see no statements that are clearly wrong, save perhaps one statement that suggests that the well-known Centaurus X-1, a very well-known X-ray-emitting neutron star in orbit around a massive companion, is the remant of SN 185. It probably is not. However, Misplaced Pages now contains very little data about the X-ray sources in Centaurus, and I cannot find out if that error is repeated or systematic. If the ones it did contain before you all deleted them were badly formated, you should gone to the author and complained (I have to deal with format-box-happy editors all the time, and using headers in format-like style is always annnoying).

In any case, if sections of articles are too compact, and do not lay out the problems they address clearly enough, there are remedies for this, other than to simply delete them entirely with the comment "gibberish!" Perhaps they are gibberish to a modest genius, but a super genius could see what they were driving at, and could fix or tag them to be fixed. Or use the TALK page of article or TALK page of the author (okay, I admit attempt at humor).SBHarris 00:31, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

That's the problem with a lot of this user's contributions - they do indeed present 'facts' and cite them to literature, but as a whole they're completely unintelligible. I'm a professional astronomer, and well aware of the uncertainties involved in this sort of research. But I couldn't follow the text, which just listed sources and positions, without any indication of what they meant or why. That's the sort of material that should on a page of a researcher's notebook, not an encyclopaedia article. If you can add a coherent description of the studies to the article - perhaps based on what you said above - then please do. But what was there before I deleted it was worse than nothing. Modest Genius 11:36, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I see your point. I think you should edit that article to add what you are saying above, and discuss with other editors on the talk page of that article to work out how best to present this. If you can demonstrate this approach works for a number of articles (some were in a far worse state), you may be able to file a successful DRV (deletion review) for selected articles. But given the other concerns expressed above, it looks unlikely that more than this will happen. You may disagree with that approach, but that looks like how this is going to be handled. Carcharoth (talk) 00:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• The community might be interested in this thread: Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Astronomy#Marshallsumter. -- I have listed four more articles of interest there. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 01:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• This has been consolidated at WT:AST#Articles edited by Marshallsumter. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 05:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Astronomy/User:Marshallsumter Incident Article Fix-up Coordination Page

The contents of the category have been moved there.--Cerejota (talk) 18:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Unblock request/block review of indef-blocked editor

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Hi all, some time last week, Ezekiel53746 was indefinitely blocked by Courcelles for disruptive editing after canvassing inappropriately on an MFD against a few of his user subpages. CheckUser data shows that while blocked, Ezekiel logged out to vandalise and make personal attacks, something which he admits. Courcelles and Tnxman307 both declined an unblock request on the basis of the checkuser results, but I have offered to step in to mentor Ezekiel under strict conditions laid out at User:Ezekiel53746/Mentorship 2011. I am asking the community give him one last chance on my debt, and to give me the chance to at least attempt mentorship before writing this young editor off as a lost cause. I have made it abundantly clear to Ezekiel that if he messes up even once, any admin is free to step in and renew his indefinite block without discussion. I ask the community/admin corps to please consider an unblock. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:15, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I would like to get assurances from Ezekiel that (s)he not only wants to be unblocked, but that (s)he wants to be mentored. I think that the understanding of the MfD should be a prerequisite before any discussion of an unblock. But, I'm not an admin, so it's really not up to me. VanIsaac_WS 03:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I notice that Ezekiel has not actually "signed" the agreement on that mentoring page. At the very least, I would expect him to do that. In addition, his behavior in engaging with Strange Passerby about setting up the mentoring does not really make him look great. I see a lot of "ok, if you say so" and "well, I guess" and not so much "yeah, I'm totally on-board with this and want to improve." I just don't have the impression that he wants to work on this stuff so much as he just wants to be given his head.

That all said, however, I could live with him being unblocked if the community agrees to it - as long as there's an understanding that one strike, and he's out, and any admin who sees him misbehaving or disrupting will remove his editing privileges accordingly. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 03:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

He can't sign it as he's still blocked. I have made it very clear to him I will personally request an indefinite block if he messes up. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:33, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Then he needs to get back his talk page editing privileges so that he can actually join the conversation and speak for himself. VanIsaac_WS 03:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

As a point or order, he still has talk page privileges, but the page linked to is not his talk page. Courcelles 03:50, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Then the conversation needs to be taken there. You can still link/transclude to the preexisting pages, but the one person we need to hear from cannot currently contribute. VanIsaac_WS 03:52, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The conversation is there too. The conditions laid out on that page are also on his talk page. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:54, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The link is at User talk:Ezekiel53746, and hoy! I'm not impressed. It doesn't seem like he even understands what he did in the past to get himself banned. This is not looking good. VanIsaac_WS 05:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Overall I'm not impressed. I'd like to see more evidence of a user who wants to improve. Seems more like he's just trying to get off the hook. Nevertheless, I'm willing to support giving the guy a chance; rollback is quick and blocks are easy to reinstate if he messes up. N419BH 07:06, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

No comment on block/unblock right now, but someone should point this user in the general direction of Misplaced Pages:Guidance for younger editors. This sort of thing is what it's there for. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:09, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

'Twas the first thing I mentioned when I proposed the mentorship restrictions. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 16:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Just to point out...he was not blocked solely for canvassing on the MFD. He was blocked for his overall pattern of disruptive behaviors. Like, for example, this edit. I'm actually becoming convinced that Ezekiel is just here to troll us. He knows what he's doing and is asking this way for his own satisfaction, attention, and entertainment. either way (talk) 20:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

A younger editor under the immense stress of having one of his user subpages put up for deletion ≠ a troll. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The user, at 13 years old, just seems to be keen to me, under tutelage I think he could contribute something here. If he's unblocked he'd have to seriously understand that he can't vandalize and needs to read up on the guidelines, but I'm all for supporting his unblock. Aranea Mortem 02:46, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

As I said on Courcelles's talk page when Strange Passerby asked for an unblock there, I really can't believe anyone is entertaining a thought of unblocking him after the edits he made (post-block) with his IP, 70.57.205.20 (talk · contribs). And here we are 10 days later saying "no, it's cool, he's just immature and needs a mentor"? Why did he use that IP? Well he saw another IP do it and wanted to do it himself. Let's let him explain:

The IP got mad for reverting his edits, so he put the message "Fück Off Paul you zealot cünt" twice on his userpage; One of a userbox, and another on a sectioned (Titled "My brag sheet"). It was so funny, I had to do this myself, vandalizing my own talk page. However, this make me go into a state of craze, and led me to anonymous trouble.

Do we really want to unblock someone who acts like this and is prone to "states of craze"? either way (talk) 11:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Your point has been sufficiently made. It's abundantly clear you're against unblocking, there's no need to continue to ram that down the throats of people who want to give him a chance with someone guiding him. I will ask that you stop trying to negatively influence the issue further. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

And your point's been made. Several users you asked rejected you asking for an unblock for him. Later you went on to say "well, don't unblock him for his sake...unblock him for my sake so I can mentor him." It seems like you're more in this for proving yourself than for his benefit. Can you please explain what benefit you think we'd gain if we allow him to be unblocked? How will his unblocking lead to positive contributions to Misplaced Pages? I'm not attempting to "ram that down the throats" of supporters any more than you're attempting "ram down the throats" your view. I'm sorry that presenting the other side of the case is an attempt to "negatively influence" the outcome. In my opinion, your asking for his unblock will lead to a "negative influence" upon Misplaced Pages and I am well within my rights to present that. either way (talk) 12:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Get your facts right. I only asked Courcelles, not "several users"; when he declined I informed him I would be seeking a wider community consensus. I don't appreciate your attempts to skew the facts. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 12:20, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

My apologies. I thought that you had asked Tnxman307, too, but I remembered it incorrectly. either way (talk) 12:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• Having seen the edits made while this user made while logged out, I think they should remain blocked. Calling other users c***s is simply not acceptable. TNXMan 14:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I might have spotty Internet the next few days. If this editor is unblocked while I am away, I have arranged for Demiurge1000 to temporarily step in for me. Again, I urge the community to give Ezekiel a chance with a mentor. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 14:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• In glancing at the user's own talk page, it seems that he can't even be patient with the people who are trying to help him get unblocked. If this is the case now, what are the chances of him being patient enough to work with a mentor at all in the future? I vote oppose to the unblock. NJZombie (talk) 21:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Oppose to unblock as well. I went through his talk page, the AFD and many of his contributions and it's clear that this editor has issues with selfcontrol, respect, and understanding WP procedure. While the latter can be worked with, a lack of self control is an issue deeper than a mentorship is equipped to handle. Nformation 08:27, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Oppose for now, in order for the mentorship to 'take' Ezekiel needs to stop talking and start listening. He was non-committal to Strange Passerby's offer at first, made an unblock request after being asked to leave it to SP, and even now seems unaware of how imporant it is that he should be taking in what his mentor is saying. He needs to soak up some of the nuances of WP, and learn to work with other editor's viewpoints instead of darting past them to the 'goal'. There is every possibility he can do this, but that would involve stopping rushing around and being more receptive, and this unblock request itself feels like it's being rushed. If Ezekiel can slow down a second and work with Strange Passerby then he should be able to draw a line under this and move on, without that the mentorship is WP:ROPE, which is the polar opposite of Strange Passerby's good intentions, I'm sure. Someoneanother 16:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism and slanderous commentary added to Ektoise page

New user Buddhifer is persistently editing the page for Ektoise, adding derogatory and personal comments about the group. The information has not been backed up with any references and has been implemented in a scattershot manner without any use of standard formatting.

The content is clearly intended as an act of vandalism as no attempt has been made to support any of the claims and several of the edits made at 4:18, 13 September are of aesthetic value only and seem to have been executed for the sole purpose of making the page appear to be improperly formatted. Several attempts to correct the vandalism have been re-edited by the user, with the degree of vandalism increasing each time the page is re-edited.Tetsuo the cat (talk) 04:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Can you please provide some DIFFS of some of the vandalistic edits? I can't tell from your most recent edit to that page where the "vandalism" is. Dayewalker (talk) 04:46, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

, , , and will prolly suffice, although thats only about half of them. Seems like a disgruntled former fan or member. Heiro 04:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I gave them a warning and directed them to the article talk page. Also, Tetsuo the cat, you are required to inform editors when posting about them on ANI. I have done this for you. Also, it would have been nice if you had tried to contact them before coming here. Heiro 05:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

My apologies, this is the first time I've had this sort of thing happen, I'll read through the procedure more thoroughly so I can do it properly if anything like this arises again Tetsuo the cat (talk) 05:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

HR, it looks like you were right about the editor's motivation. Good call. Dayewalker (talk) 05:13, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I took to 3rr noticeboard after their last revert of me, since they are way past 3. So, if anyone wants to deal with this guy.....Be my guest. Heiro 05:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

(e/c)In the future he can be reported to WP:AIV for a quick block. Nformation 05:20, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

(Somehow your last EC removed my last post, restoring) Wow, hadn't had a chance to look at that yet, upping it to LEGAL threats I guess. Shouldnt be long now. Heiro 05:19, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

And the crazy just keeps on coming haha. Reported to AIV. Nformation 05:33, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Whilst the user clearly needs to be blocked, they are absolutely correct in that the history of the band has been airbrushed from our article, presumably by sources close to the current incarnation of the band. The article is, as a result, now very misleading. I'm going to work now, but I'll fix that shortly. I'm also not sure that the band is actually notable at all, given that all of their releases appear to be CD-Rs on their own label, but that's a separate issue. Black Kite (t) (c) 06:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
• Shouldn't this addition to ANI by User:Buddhifer be considered a legal threat and the user be indeffed immediately? VanIsaac_WS 07:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Guess he was.VanIsaac_WS

(edit conflict)The user has been indeffed per NLT. Having just looked at the article in question, I'm not sure that it meets WP:BAND, so I've PRODded it. Mjroots (talk) 07:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I felt that notability was established through the group's involvement with the international electronic scene, including working with several established artists. Also there are numerous references that are independant of the group themselves. I can understand that notability would be questioned as the group is not signed to a major label but the music industry is at a point now where many acts are following the lead of Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead and releasing their own music independantly of a major and this will likely become more evident on Misplaced Pages as time goes on. Tetsuo the cat (talk) 13:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• Seems to me, then, that User:Buddhifer was a victim of WP:DOLT. If true, then this should be used as a learning experience for the involved editors, and not dismissed so quickly. --64.85.216.130 (talk) 08:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it's actually the exact opposite of the scenario in WP:DOLT. The editor in question is using WP as a means of promoting what could be considered defamatory and slanderous claims - claims that are distinctly and unambiguously unsourced. Prior to this editor's additions, this was a very neutrally written article that was well sourced, and presented a narration that seems consistent with those sources. There was nothing even about this particular person in the article. Now there seems to be a considerable history between this editor and the subject of the article, but without documentation, we have no evidence of the nature of that relationship, nor any means of writing about it in WP:NPOV. Let me repeat: there was absolutely nothing, negative or otherwise, written about the editor in this article, so the legal threats defense in WP:DOLT that he was somehow harmed by the contents of this article do not hold any water. VanIsaac_WS 09:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

No, you're wrong there. It wasn't neutral at all, because the blocked editor is clearly mentioned in the sources that are currently in the article (i.e. discogs.org). He's even mentioned on the band's own website! I agree that there's nothing negative about the article, but the blocked editor has simply been written out of the article completely, along with practically all mention of the previous incarnation of the band (presumably because he was in it). Do you realise that the "first album" of this band is actually just a re-release of their album under that previous name, with the track that the blocked editor sang on removed? This is wrong, and needs to be fixed; if the article is not PRODded out of existence, I will do so. Black Kite (t) (c) 10:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Then the course is very simple here. You simply add mention of him, based on the contents of those sources, and you cite that content. That's it. Just because the content is not currently comprehensive does not mean that WP:DOLT is any more applicable. He was not slandered, nor was anything unflattering written about him. I repeat, WP:DOLT applies when a person is removing unflattering information, not when they add it. VanIsaac_WS 11:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

No mention was made of the blocked editor in the article as there are no sources that I can find that discuss his part in the group. He was listed in the former members section which he himself deleted though. It seems as though the blocked editor's contribution was limited to the one removed song, as the band shows continuity of sound across releases regardless of whether he was in the group. A browse on the cited reference Discogs.org shows the blocked editor has not been involved with any other musical project and has not released any music of his own. Tetsuo the cat (talk) 13:19, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

"They started in 2007 and changed their name to Ektoise partway through 2010 due to the departure of founding member Steven Cameron." (), thus, technically, he was right to remove his name from the "former members" section because he was technically never a member of this band - however it is the lack of mention of what was effectively the same band under a different name that appears to be the issue. Having said that, the more important discussion seems to be whether this band is notable. I note that the PROD has been removed, so it looks like AfD may be the next stop. Black Kite (t) (c) 15:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

No, I agree that DOLT doesn't apply - my "you're wrong" was referring to the neutrality of the article. Black Kite (t) (c) 15:59, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

And I vehemently disagree with that interpretation. Simply not having mention of former members of a band is not a violation of neutrality. Having a section on former band members that fails to mention inconvenient former members would be a violation of neutrality, but that was never the case. If what Tetsuo says above is true, then the user himself is the instigator of that supposed NPOV problem, though like I said, I do not believe it is the case. VanIsaac_WS 18:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

There were several former members listed but again, no mention was made of any of them in the text as no info was available other than on the Archive page on the band's website, which lists only what performances they attended. The user was not being singled out, it's just impossible at this stage to determine what his role was in the group. What he is asserting is that he was of primary influence but this is not evident from any sources online. If the question is the absence of information on the Wiki about these former members, I could certainly add a section noting what they played and when they were in the group. I could not comment on what they did or did not compose though. Tetsuo the cat (talk) 00:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

PROD was removed, so I nominated for deletion, even though I am on the fence. Hopefully, we'll get some good feedback and resolve this. VanIsaac_WS 19:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Being spammed

Help please. User:My password is qwerty is spamming my wiki email with hundreds of this message:

Subject: dirty rag head

Go back to Arabia. Tiamut 15:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

May I suggest first that you change your password? --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln) (talk) 15:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

My password is qwerty (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I think he means that a user called "My password is qwerty" is spamming him. The most obvious things for the OP to do are (1) disable receipt of[REDACTED] e-mails and/or (2) add the sender to his e-mail spam filter. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah. I misread the issue. *pours another cup of coffee* --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln) (talk) 15:37, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Why would Tiamut need to change their password? User:My password is qwerty has been reblocked without email access--Jac16888 15:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) You can ignore those emails, and I reblocked User:My password is qwerty without email access. Your password isn't compromised; it's a troll abusing Special:EmailUser. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems the spamming user's username is misleading .... Nil Einne (talk) 15:34, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

This is Jarlaxleartemis (aka "Grawp"), who has been using a vandalbot to mass-send emails for the sole purpose of harassment. –MuZemike 15:43, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't really want to give him any attention, so I left him out of my reply, but that's why I also semiprotected Tiamut's talkpage. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I have previously reported similar email abuse and death threats from accounts My password is foo and My password is acalamari. This is clearly the same person. I suggest that someone finds a way to filter out similar account names in the future. Also, Tiamut will also have the email address from which this racist abuse was sent; perhaps she could forward this to an appropriate admin, who could take steps to block future account creation from this address. RolandR (talk) 15:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't know about anyone else, but I already report "My password is ..." usernames to UAA on sight. I can't think of a good reason to have a username like that, and I haven't seen a single one that didn't turn out to be a troll. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

But the problem is that these accounts are not being used for visible vandalism, but for email spamming. I don't know whether there is any way to check what accounts have received such spam; we may only know of those who report this. So we really need a way to stop this from the start, ie block the creation of such accounts, rather than just reacting after pages are vandalised. RolandR (talk) 16:54, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I blocked every account beginning with "My password is ..." without talkpage or email access. Most were already blocked. Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:19, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Someone familiar with MediaWiki:Titleblacklist, i.e. not me, might inert a regex there to prevent the creation of accounts whose username is "my password is..." or something along those lines, though usernames such as these make it very easy for us to catch these trolls and quickly block them... Salvio 17:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The email he used is from mailinator.com and it contains an abbreviation of death to Arabs in the user name. I can send the exact email to whoever wants it. Its obviously not a personal account. Thanks to everyone for their prompt attention and help. Tiamut 17:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

"This is Jarlaxleartemis (aka "Grawp")"........ really?? STILL???? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:45, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, he's the reason for things like this. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

After this many years of gross harassment why won't the Foundation step in and file criminal/civil complains against this miscreant? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:25, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Usernames that begin with "My password is" ought to be on a bot list to be immediately reported at UAA. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:46, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Isn't there some sort of e-mail throttle built into the software? Or can somebody just sign up for an account and immediately send out 10,000 messages? 28bytes (talk) 17:54, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

No, there isn't. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:13, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, that sounds like something that ought to be fixed. 28bytes (talk) 19:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Until then, as the folks at WikiAlpha wanted you to do (a while back), disable your email. –MuZemike 21:19, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I assume the idea behind these "My password is..." accounts is to trick people into logging in as that account to see if that really is the password, thus triggering autoblocks for themselves? 28bytes (talk) 17:57, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

GADZOOKS! Think of the children! -- Atama頭 22:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I LOL'D--Cerejota (talk) 00:24, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

If only there was a whole group of users who automatically have ipblockexempt so they wouldn't have to worry about that... lifebaka++ 00:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Seriously tho, this account was created a long time ago, so there seems to be a farm somewhere. Can we WP:IAR on the prohibition on fishing CU and find out all the related accounts to this one? In this case the issue is not just massive disruption to the end user, but the possibility of the Wikimedia email servers being graylisted as spam is pretty urgent, and  Sounds like a duck quacking into a megaphone to me so it stands to reason all of these accounts are intended to be used only to harass editors. Am sorry if I am breaking WP:DENY, but I like the email facility and think we should protect it above any other considerations.--Cerejota (talk) 00:24, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

CU data has expired for all these accounts. Reaper Eternal (talk) 00:38, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

We use time rather than item/diskspace as our logs? Dayum, no wonder long-term vandalism is so prevalent. Best practice in most high volume sites is to have an item/diskspace limit on user logs, rather than a time expiration precisely because of the sleeper account problem. Are user creation logs also expire like this? Its been a while since I looked at the guts of MediaWiki but I will check...--Cerejota (talk) 07:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Best practice is moot when the foundation considers time is necessary for privacy reasons Nil Einne (talk) 08:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

There is a facility to retain information on persistent and trackable vandals in the Checkuser wiki. Data on dearest Grawp, or Bambifan101, for example. If this joker is a persistent threat, and there is any meaningful data, he should be put in there.Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:13, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I should mention that as I go through piles of unchecked email, I found more spam in my mailbox, this time from User:My password is foo. Those were titled 'Arab whore' and the text said 'I will behead you and blow up your house. Get the fuck out of Israel and go back to your shithole country Saudi Arabia, you towelhead bitch.' That account has a hotmail address if anyone is interested. I'll let you know if I find more. At my talk page at commons, I've also been left a charming one word message from a User:Bloated, semen-stained corpse. seems like I have a dedicated fan? Creepy ...Tiamut 19:37, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

User:Bloated, semen-stained corpse has been globally locked 2 weeks ago, and I blocked all the "My password is ..." accounts without email or talkpage access, so that should help stop the problem. Reaper Eternal (talk) 19:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

My password is foo sent me a similarly charming message from a hotmail address; the same address was also used by My password is acalamri and My password is poopvomit. That last account sent me almost thirty abusive emails; at the same time, User:Captain Thoster, using a gmail address, sent 85 abusive messages and death threats before email access was removed. I made abuse reports to Microsoft and Gmail, but nothing seems to have come of these. Surely it can't be that difficult to devise a tool to filter out such vandals before they abuse the email system. RolandR (talk) 19:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

How long ago was this? I found one from him from August 1st threatening to kill my husband by hanging him from our roof and torturing me to death via something called Slow slicing. I shouldn't be worried right? Tiamut 19:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Foo and Acalamari on 6 August; Poopvomit and Thosteron 30 June. It is particularly worrying that he was able to use the same email address for abusive messages on both dates. RolandR (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Accusations of racism, bigotry etc by User:JesseRafe

Can I have a second pair of eyes please as I'm really not happy with the accusations being tossed against me by this user? The situation has occurred during this deletion debate. JesseRafe is the page creator and has stuffed the page with several dodgy refs which in my opinion don't merit notability. One of them is simply a newspaper endorsement by El Diario La Prensa a newspaper described as having "an emphasis on Latin America" of a candidate of Puerto Rican origin, with them saying: "His election could pave the way for fresh representation of our communities. We back Gonzalez’s bid. More than half of the more than 127,000 residents of District 54 are Latinos. September 13 is an opportunity to usher in a new leader. Grab it!" I asked: "Does such sycophancy (basically a Hispanic newspaper endorsing one of their own) establish notability? I'd say no."

The user in question has taken umbrage at this: "How can this vote be taken seriously with such an ignorant blatant racist such as yourself?" with an edit summary of "Valenciano's opinion on article deletion should have no merit as an unabashedly anti-Latino racist agenda." This is way out of order.

I responded: "if a newspaper called the "Voice of Canadians in New York" endorsed a Canadian candidate for a seat, I definitely would be sceptical of the notability that that confers on the candidate, being mindful of WP:POLITICIAN."

Despite my reminders of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA JesseRafe responded with a further diatribe against me: "I called you out on being racist (which is a generic term to include being prejudiced to ethnicities as well, as the term "ethnicist" has no usage that I'm aware of, and also is often extended to those who are prejudiced against others based on national origin). And I said it was hard to be civil to you, because you're clearly guilty of bigotry saying it's no surprise "a Hispanic newspaper endorsing one of their own"" I referred to you as being a racist with regards to Latinos, something that I know first-hand exists in Spain (I've lived in Barca for a while and have seen how dark-skinned Mexicans are treated and looked-down upon there."

I never mentioned anything about it being "no surprise", nor said anything at all about Mexicans, nor expressed any hatred of particular races or ethnicities, either there or in the 11,000 plus contributions I've made over six years here, not surprising considering I don't hold such views. I would like this user to stop these unfounded accusations immediately. Valenciano (talk) 18:53, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I've issued a 48 hour cooldown block.--v/r - TP 19:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Um, we don't do cooldown blocks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately it wasn't phrased that way on JesseRafe's talk page. 28bytes (talk) 19:32, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Uhh ok, I must have missed that meeting. Noted. What I meant to say was, the NPAs were ongoing despite warnings in the AFD and requests to stop and I've issued a block to prevent further disruptive personal attacks. Hopefully, when the block expires the user will no longer engage in personal attacks that disrupt the AFD. If they do not, another admin may want to extend until after the AFD is closed.--v/r - TP 19:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Bit late here, but I see no reason not to deal a cool-down block if a user is being disruptive and isn't heeding warnings. Obviously, sysops shouldn't go blocking solely because they think a user may be upset - however, Tom's usage of the term to describe this block seems acceptable. m.o.p 21:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

TParis's block was perfectly fine: he blocked a user for personal attacks and/or disruption and said so on their talk page. Calling it a cooldown block (as above) generally raises eyebrows and/or hackles, though, given WP:COOLDOWN. 28bytes (talk) 21:54, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Understandable, but a bit silly. Just because it's taboo to say something doesn't mean we have to gasp in horror when somebody uses the term to describe a perfectly-suitable action. Just my take, that's all. m.o.p 22:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Any block short of indefinite is a de facto "cooldown" block, whether they want to use that term or not. Obviously, the reason for the block is disruption, etc. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:45, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Really? Blocks are to protect the wiki from disruption, and are subject to appeal and discussion (unless they are part of an indef ban or indef for puppetry). Cooldown blocks are not cool themselves, and I find it alarming that admins think they are or that any block is for the purpose of "cooldown". This implies that they cannot be ended before they are over, that they are punitive etc.

Maybe a big ass RfC needs to happen to clarify the question, if the reality on the ground has changed and I am no longer speaking consensus speak. --Cerejota (talk) 01:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Cooldown blocks are not necessarily punitive, but can be preventive - if an editor is agitated and committing stupidities a cooldwn block may be preventive of further disruption. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:24, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

That is not a cooldown block, that is preventing this user from disrupting the wiki. The difference is not semantic, but explains some of the weird blocks I have seen in the last few years. The issue is that blocks should never be punitive, period. They are to prevent disruption. The minute a user shows reasonable understanding that their behavior was seen as disruptive, that's when the block is lifted. Calling it "cool down" implies a fire-and-forget attitude, with no intent on the part of the blocking admin to deal with the issues at hand in any manner other than tool use. This is why I say perhaps the principle needs renewed attention from the community, because if admins are taking a different road, this needs to be known. --Cerejota (talk) 02:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree primarily with Cerjota here. It depends on if, but at a point where a reasonable request shows the blocked party understands their error and agrees to constrain themselves, the purpose of the block is achieved. To leave it in place solely to effect a "cool down", would be an improper extrapolation, IMO. My76Strat (talk) 03:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

There is a point missing here

While it is true that User:JesseRafe shouldn't have called User:Valenciano a "racist", I find, upon reflection, that his comments weren't very kind either.

Calling sources that belong to the same ethnic group as the subject "sycophantic" is extremely problematic - in his first use, in his clarification using "Canadians" and in the general attitude that his argument was not a problematic one at all - he seems to think his comments are true and not a provocation.

User:Valenciano is suggesting that British sources mere sycophants when it comes to Her Majesty The Queen, or that Jewish sources are mere sycophants of Israel. People have been banned from British or ARBPIA topics for saying those things. User:Valenciano is skirting very rocky territory with this comment, and people seem to be distracted by the other behavior to look at it this way.

Such blanket dismissal of sources because of their ethnic affinities is problematic, and the punitive 48 hour (48 hours for a first offense, with a clearly communicative editor is punitive) block of a user for not wording his opposition in a correct fashion is pretty disheartening if not accompanied with community reaction to what prompted the misbehavior. Two wrongs do not make one right, but addressing one wrong and not the other is not right either.

I am not asking for a block, but a rather large trout and a formal warning not to use provocative language like this. And a general reminder that reliability of a source shouldn't be linked to their ethnic provenance or other basic criteria, it should be linked, as per policy, to how other RS see it, its general reputation, and when neutrality is at hand, its general political outlook on a given topic.--Cerejota (talk) 02:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, using the phrase basically a Hispanic newspaper endorsing one of their own was completely uncalled for and JesseRafe is justifiably pissed about it. It's the same as if Jet magazine endorsed an African American politician and it was dismissed as "a black magazine endorsing one of their own". Don't poke the bear. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Given the AFD, would you not agree that ample warnings were given and not heeded? Nearly 50% (est) of that AFD was over this issue and it was disruptive to the discussion.--v/r - TP 02:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not questioning the need for a block, I am questioning the need for it to be 48 hours - and that for example, you haven't declined or accepted the appeal.

However, that is not the issue I am raising here, as that is done and no need to dwell on it: the issue I am raising is the disruptive ethnic baiting on the part of User:Valenciano. Or you do not agree his comments where offensive, against Hispanics, Canadians, and in a more general sense, the entire project? --Cerejota (talk) 03:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Cerejota: FYI, the blocking administrator does not accept or decline an unblock request. That is done by a different administrator (in this case, me.) 28bytes (talk) 05:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)If JesseRafe believed in good faith that systemic bias was over half of the problem, it is not disproportionate that they would devote over 50% in effort to expose its affect. Racism, prejudice and systemic bias is an inflammatory subject, and I strongly suggest participants who engage in such debate prepare themselves to hear comments they may not have imagined, like: "did you know how racist you are perceived?". My76Strat (talk) 03:19, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

What to say here? First off where I live Hispanic isn´t a pejorative or even racial term. It refers simply to any Spanish speaker. You speak of systematic bias, are we now to define/prohibit terms purely how they´re seen in North America? Cerotaja, according to his userpage, is a Puerto Rican from New York, same city as Jesse where Hispanic appears to have different conotations. I´m sorry if my comments caused offence and will word them more carefully in future.

That said, I don´t believe people should cast votes in any election based on the colour of a candidate´s skin, their national or regional point of origin or their religion. An endorsement which says: "His election could pave the way for fresh representation of ′′′our communities′′′. The challenge now is to get out the vote. ′′More than half of the more than 127,000 residents of District 54 are Latinos′′ definitely seems to me to be a call for a vote based on those factors and is therefore reprehensible. I definitely reserve the right in a deletion debate about sources to call a source into question on that basis and if, by some convoluted logic, I´m a racist for opposing endorsements on ethnic/racial/religious lines or whatever, then I´m afraid this place seriously has lost the plot. Valenciano (talk) 11:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not from New York, I live in New York. I am from Puerto Rico, and only moved here well into adulthood, so some of these issues are even today bewieldering to me . I understand what you are saying, and really appreciate your commitment to be careful and your apology.

I think this all begs an explanation: just like calling someone a "racist" even if it is true is something not to be done (and hence Jesse needed to stop), claiming a source that makes an ethnic call is unreliable is in itself reprehensible, a form of both WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:UNCIVIL - Jesse's reaction was wrong, but understandable because we are human beings who make mistakes - he simply became blinded with rage and forgot where he was and lost decorum. It reminded me of users who have been (rightly) blocked for accusing others of being "antisemitic" when responding to incorrectly formulated criticisms of a source by saying variations of "This source cannot speak of the Palestinians because it is Jewish". An editor who says that is not necessarily antisemitic, in fact, probably isn't, but I can completely see why a Jewish person, or a non-Jewish person who is sensitive to issues of antisemitism, could think so. What you did was exactly the same thing - I know this was not your intent but Jesse's reaction was not a blind one either. We are not here to fix how other people think, and in the interest of civility such arguments should be avoided. For example, in this case, instead of focusing on the ethnic loyalties of the source, or a critique (as you do above) of "ethnic voting", the fact that the source in question was endorsing the candidate made it a partisan source, and hence unreliable. No need to go into commentary or other potentially rocky or uncomfortable terrain. I have learned that even cooperative relationships can be built with people you share very little in common, if we avoid such emotionally sensitive issues and concentrate on the actual task of building an encyclopedia.--Cerejota (talk) 19:32, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You're right, my comments were badly phrased and unfortunately led to unnecessary controversy. I do regret that. I didn't mean any offence but apologise to anyone who took offence and that includes Jesse. I was simply pissed off at being made out to be some kind of anti-Hispanic third reich revivalist when Hispanic to me means someone from a Spanish speaking country and I've spent a lot of time on here writing about Spanish politics and other Spanish related issues. I rarely edit articles about American politicians but like I say I'll definitely tread more carefully if I do. Valenciano (talk) 20:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Unblocked

I have accepted JesseRafe's unblock request on the condition that he refrain from further commenting on the statements of Valenciano's that he found objectionable. 28bytes (talk) 05:01, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

User:Linas

I set this aside for about a month assuming that it was flagrant enough for someone else to catch it without me having to step in. As that is not the case, I'm hoping I can get someone to address this.

Thanks,

— Bdb484 (talk) 22:13, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• Bdb484, blocks are punitive, not preventative; they exist to prevent violations of policy. If you've left it for a month - in other words, if the most recent thing you can complain about is a month old - no admin worth their salt is going to block. There's nothing to suggest the behaviour has continued; if it has, provide evidence accordingly. Ironholds (talk) 22:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Dude, you reversed it... blocks are punative? Have another beverage and try again LOL (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:25, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry! Too little sleep :P. Ironholds (talk) 23:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it's not worth anything, but the only reason I'm bringing it up is that it's a continuation of past behavior that has needed to be dealt with, as you may have seen from the block log.

If that kind of post is not worth addressing, though, that's a decision I'll leave to the admins. — Bdb484 (talk) 22:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Please don't template the regulars. If you're not being courteous, don't expect to be treated politely yourself either. —Ruud 22:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yep. He's lecturing, on fundamentals, to a guy who's been here for nearly 7 years... and then reported him a month after he has apparently left wikipedia. Not good. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:41, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Because the template made him react like that. Was there a bullet hidden in the template code? If some regular loses their marbles over being templated then we really don't need them here to be honest.--Crossmr (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, but when a user cops a patronizing attitude, he shouldn't be shocked when he gets yelled at for it. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:19, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

We actually do need more bright editors like Linas. It's quite unfortunate he isn't as active any more as he was a few years ago. —Ruud 23:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Bdb484 - we issue blocks here in ANI for immediate protection of the project. If you are trying to show a long-term pattern of activity, that's what an WP:RFC/U is for. This user has not edited in some time, and immediate protection is not required. If you think you can prove long term behaviour, and if the editor is likely to repeat that behaviour, see RFC/U. Otherwise, poking sleeping bears is not wise. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 23:27, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Bdb484, when you template an editor , it would be courteous to sign your post. Moriori (talk) 00:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• This is the same slow-moving pattern of questionable behavior within the past 2 years at least, and absolutely nothing has changed since then. See the following pages:

• Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette assistance/archive72#Perhaps a third party could say a few words?
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive564#Nuclear meltdown at User talk:Linas
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive567#User:Linas again
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive570#Linas, soapboxing on wikiprojects (and userpage)

How long is this going to keep going? Indefinitely? –MuZemike 06:21, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The user does have issues. - and it is a repeated pattern - leave a note - last warning - Off2riorob (talk) 06:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Linas (talk · contribs) seems utterly incapable of behaving in even a marginally civil fashion. On the other hand, he's only very sporadically active, as MuZemike has outlined. I don't think it's right to give Bdb484 (talk · contribs) a hard time for reporting this, or for templating Linas. Surely Linas' behavior is orders of magnitude more problematic than templating a regular, or forgetting to sign a post? Forest, trees? Anyhow, I'm not saying we should block Linas - it's probably equally effective to just ignore his consistent outbursts - but let's not jump all over someone who's been the victim of one of Linas' outbursts either. MastCell  18:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

My interactions with Linas never been anything less than polite, so I'm not sure were you get the idea from he is incapable of civil behaviour? —Ruud 19:43, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Those discourteous words from Linas (talk · contribs) do deserve a warning, but nothing more as they're a month old and anything further would be solely punitive. That said, I can see why Linas may have been frustrated. Bdb484 gutted John Henry (folklore) and, when that was reverted, rather obstinately edit-warred with Linas and at least two other editors to keep his version. This was followed by a frankly absurd tag dumping, further gutting, and digging in his/her heels on the talk page. This was an example of an editor's good-faith contributions being detrimental to actually improving article content and facilitating collaborative editing.

To take an example of a good-faith-but-actually-unhelpful edit, Bdb484 deleted all discussion of John Henry as a literary figure as "uncited". However, just going to the articles John Henry Days or John Henry (novel), or reading sources already cited in the article, one could readily fashion a cited, comprehensible discussion of John Henry folklore as a subject of literature. (Roark Bradford's works on Henry alone merits a lit section.) However, the content was just deleted and the present version of the article notes nothing of this topic...Furthermore, when viewing the proximate cause of the above outburst, I interpret Bdb484's templated warning as rather snide. In particular, the line "The verifiability policy is really a very easy one to comply with, and I hope you'll take the opportunity to do so" is condescending to someone who has edited since 2004 and hypocritical because Bdb484 made no apparent effort to verify the content prior to deleting it. I'm not calling for any action against Bdb484, nor excusing Linas's outburst, but this occasion of incivility didn't occur in a vacuum. If Bdb484 spent as much effort on building the article's content as he did deleting and defending his actions with policy wonkery, there could be a useful, informative literature section in John Henry (folklore) right now...and he probably wouldn't have raised anyone's ire. — Scientizzle 19:07, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

HJ Mitchell

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No real administrative action sought. HJ Mitchell should have asked another admin to remove MONGO's rollback rights, but the end result would have been the same and we are not a bureaucracy. lifebaka++ 02:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs) and I have had some disagreements as of late....

• Here HJ Mitchell stated, "and this comment sent what sympathy I had for MONGO out of the window. I think the article would be better off without people who hold opinions like that."
• Also, "And the idle threats of the likes of MONGO are more of an amusing occupational hazard than anything to be concerned about."
• And "I think it would be helpful if John and MONGO kept their interpersonal dispute and their own personal biases out of the question of whether or not the article the article meets the GA criteria." ( I am opposed to even a link to 9/11 Conspiracy Theories)
• ...In response, I stated here "We have a plethora of 9/11 related pages dedicated to conspiracy theories...this one should be dedicated to the facts"
• .....HJ Mitchell returns with,his retort, "In your opinion. And it's because vocal people like you are used to getting their way on the talk page, one way or the other, you've forgotten that your opinion is no more or less valid than anybody else's. But the fact of the matter is that any article that omits—suppresses, even—relevant, notable, and easily sourced details about its subject cannot possibly meet criterion 3a or 4. Frankly, I don't think the article ever will meet the GA criteria (never mind the FA criteria) until you depart from it or start considering that, just because you and the clique who behave like the article is their sovereign territory hold a contrary opinion, does not mean that a topic is not up for discussion."
• HJ Mitchell states, "The problem is that the local consensus on that talk page is that the article is dandy, and that anybody suggesting otherwise is just being stubborn or disruptive"

Subsequently, HJ Mitchell unilaterally removed my rollback ability for a series of both accidents (I learned the hard way to not edit from my blackberry)...and carelessness on my part. I deserve to lose my rollback ability and do not want them back...the question is, does an administrator, who has had some disagreements with an editor on set pages, have the right to use his administrator ability to remove user rights when that editor misuses them on the same pages there have been some disagreements on?...shouldn't a neutral administrator be involved?

• Rights removed
• I responded that this instance was an accident, which it was...
• and he reinstated it
• here I recommend he should take such matters to a neutral admin...but after seeing a few more examples, he
• disabled it again
• I again urge him to seek a neutral admin at AN/I repeatedly..but instead he
• retorts "you're wikilawyering over a technicality (and you're wrong; the removal in no way advances my interests or diminishes yours in any area where we disagree). If you think I've abused my tools, you're welcome to take me to ANI or ArbCom, but they'll tell you the same thing."*Yet again I suggest AN/I and urge him for feedback from AN/I...yet, he doesn't...so here I am. Is HJ Mitchell abusing his administrator tools by removing user rights from an editor who has misused the rollback tool on articles they have had disagreements on?--MONGO 00:29, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:INVOLVED: "In cases which are straightforward, (e.g. blatant vandalism), the community has historically endorsed the obvious action of any administrator – even if involved – on the basis that any reasonable administrator would have probably come to the same conclusion." A completely uninvolved admin has already endorsed HJ's action against you. Furthermore, you still have not undone your "accidental" reversion of me at September 11 attacks, nor have you provided any explanation for the other two good-faith edits you reverted on the same article, which I pointed out on your talk page. I do not feel it is necessary to go digging for any more. Even if HJ crosses the threshold of WP:INVOLVED, and I don't know you nearly well enough to make that determinnation, any administrator would see your recent reverts, and lack of self reverting, even after the mistake is pointed out, as blatant violations. N419BH 00:41, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It depends if the removal of the tools was justified or punitive. In this case it was justified, and you recognize this. Hence, his action was both correct in content (ie you shouldn't have rollback rights) and correct in form (he is an admin, explained the reasoning, and was not being unilateral - he has the implied support to protect the wiki using his discretion). I do not see WP:INVOLVED being violated in letter or spirit, although perhaps he should have asked an admin with a bit more distance to take the action he did. Also, losing rollbacker doesn't affect your ability to edit the topic area in anyway, so sanctions etc do not apply in this case. I try to never use rollbacker, even against vandals, in controversial areas for this reason - I value the usefulness of the tool in fighting vandalism, and don't want to lose it because of misinterpretation and accidents. And yes, never edit from smartphones.--Cerejota (talk) 00:45, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

My violations were mostly accidental...seriously, I learned the hard way now to never edit anything other than my own talkpage when on a blackberry. One of the rollbacks cited was carelessness..the issue is whether HJ Mitchell should have sought out a completely neutral admin to deal with this...since he and I have had disagreements on the content in question that I did the rollbacks on. Based on his commentary to me and about me, this appears to be partly based on an effort to get me.--MONGO 00:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you really think I have nothing better to do than watch you so I can vindictively use my tools against you when you abuse rollback? You need to get out more. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Your commentary indicates otherwise...and your insults here do you no justice...you should have sought out a neutral administrator.--MONGO 01:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I have insulted nobody, please provide evidence for that accusation or strike it. And I am a neutral administrator; I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary, just vague assertions that because we hold differing opinions, I must refrain from removing your rollback rights even though you are clearly (ab)using them to edit war. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Above..."You need to get out more" Below..."even if he chooses to manufacture one with me"...I stated correctly and checkuser would validate it that it was inadvertant...however, admitted one wasn't...a neutral admin that has NOT had disagreements with me on the subject matter would have been better suited to revoke the user right. Explain why YOU and YOU alone is best suited for this role.--MONGO 01:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. He was the one who saw your misuse of rollback on his watchlist and as an administrator chose to act, then gave you the benefit of the doubt, then acted again after making the determination that you didn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Even if he is involved with you, and you have shown no evidence that he is, his removal is completely within process and multiple editors have now told you so. N419BH 01:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it does matter...admins should never use their abilities/tools against another editor they have disagreements with and especially not when those disagreements are on the article in question.--MONGO 01:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• I have no dispute with MONGO, even if he chooses to manufacture one with me. He and I (and dozens of other editors) hold differing opinions in a discussion, and it is nothing more than wikilawyering to suggest that that might make me "involved" when it comes to removal of rollback for obvious abuse of it in an edit war. If admins were barred from using their tools in a way that affected any editor they'd ever disagreed with, nothing would ever get done. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  Your absolutely wrong, admins should never use their abilities against anyone they have had disputes/disagreements with...it can lead to desyopping and there is ample precedent of this.--MONGO 01:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  WP:INVOLVED states otherwise, and you have yet to show where exactly this "dispute" between you and HJ took place. N419BH 01:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  That way lies madness. There are only about 700 or so active administrators, and it would likely be fairly easy to engineer some kind of disagreement with at least the most active of them, thus rendering them powerless in your scenario. Malleus Fatuorum 01:21, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  Agree with Malleus and N419BH; HJ Mitchell was within his rights. Saebvn (talk) 01:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• MONGO, you have successfully shown that you and I hold different opinions. You have successfully shown that I acted against in my capacity as an administrator. You have not shown that the level of disagreement rises to a level of dispute between you and I that would preclude me from taking an administrative action against you. I have shown (on your talk page) that you have a pattern of, at best, very poor use of rollback and have given ample justification for its removal (an action which you do not contest). Thus far, not a single editor has endorsed your unusually conservative interpretation of WP:INVOLVED. So what do you hope to achieve here?

  If I may say so, you seem to take any suggestion that you might be wrong as some sort of insult, which may explain your increasingly heated responses, but I can assure you I bear you no personal animosity. I am an administrator enforcing a behavioural guideline (and an editor who holds a differing opinion on a tangentially related matter); nothing more. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:31, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  "a pattern of, at best, very poor use of rollback and have given ample justification for its removal"...you best check my full editing history....I made one real error with my regular computer, 2 with my blackberry and those 2 were accidents. You didn't give the benefit of the doubt...you had the opportunity to ask me, but you didn't, you just acted, and you acted after we have had some disagreements as to that very link I rollbacked. Never use your admin tools against anyone you have had disagrements with...always seek out a neutral admin.--MONGO 01:44, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  That's a very self-serving version of events, but even if it's true, it more than justifies removal—misuse because you can't use it properly does not somehow justify the misuse. One use of rollback in an edit war (and you were edit warring, to believe that you reverted a similar edit by two different, well-established editors twice in a few hours and that it was an "accident" because you were using your phone stretches credulity, and I say that as somebody who has been criticised for assuming too much good faith in the past) would justify removal, but three in 36 hours? Now, it has been made clear in the posts here that I acted reasonably and properly—I even gave you the benefit of the doubt until a pattern of misuse emerged—so what do you want this thread to achieve? How many editors have to tell you that you're wrong before you believe them? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:59, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  This is part of the dispute resolution process.--MONGO 02:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but a very specific part: this is the place to request urgent admin attention not covered elsewhere. There is nothing in your report that requires admin action - except perhaps reversing the rollbacker rights removal, and this is something you explicitly said you didn't want back. --Cerejota (talk) 02:05, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Question: What administrative action is sought here? N419BH 01:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• MONGO claims no injury here because he admits he should lose the rollback rights (though he backtracks a bit). He does not complain about the dispute. What's left is moot. There's no cause for any sanction again HJ Mitchell because his judgment was appropriate even by MONGO's standards. There's no remedy to render here. Glrx (talk) 02:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
  • My thoughts exactly. I'd close the thread on that note but MONGO would probably cry involved and we'd have even more dramaz. So I'll let an uninvolved editor do it. HJ was acting completely within policy and this thread confirms. Nothing more to do, moving on. N419BH 02:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Incorrect...HJ Mitchell should not use admin tools against anyone he has had a dispute with. He needs to openly state this.--MONGO 02:11, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
      • You should try listening to yourself MONGO. You're talking crap, of which you seem to have an unlimited supply. Malleus Fatuorum 02:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
        • Thanks...your addition to the first post is even better.--MONGO 02:19, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Wow. After reading the first couple responses I actually believe something is needed from the admins. The guy should not be stripped but he needs to be publicly admonished since his behavior is not OK for an admin and if he does it again a few months ago an editor should be able to point to it.

1. He should not have used his tools. He and the guy have a poor history and it would have been in the best interest of everyone if he would have requested someone else (IRC is fast). Since he didn't, the question was raised (as it should be) and now he is drug here (maybe a little far). Asking for an assist from someone who has never had tense conversations with the editor would have been simple and the right thing to do.
2. But then he made a a snide comment: "You need to get out more.". That is condescending and a lame thing to say to someone. I think the bigger deal is that he actually does not understand why that comment that would needlessly raise the tension during a discussion: "I have insulted nobody, please provide evidence for that accusation or strike it."Cptnono (talk) 02:20, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

   You seem to be missing the point, perhaps deliberately. Has anyone argued that MONGO ought not to have been stripped of his rollback bauble? Has even MONGO argued that? Malleus Fatuorum 02:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

An admin has attempted to close the discussion but was reverted by MONGO. Are we now straying into WP:BOOMERANG territory? N419BH 02:29, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

How about a completely neutral admin?--MONGO 02:32, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict... again and again!)Consider that you missed the point. He should not have pulled the trigger himself. This thread is part of that reasoning (no possible transgression means no dispute). And since he followed up questionable behavior with snide comments I think there is reason to have a discussion. Instead of saying "maybe I should have asked someone else" he decided to be rude. And then he did not understand why it was rude or chose to pretend it wasn't.Cptnono (talk) 02:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) According to everyone here except you and Cptnono, HJ is a neutral admin. Several of those commenting are totally uninvolved admins too, and they have all endorsed HJ's action. I'm sorry if you don't like it. N419BH 02:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You assume that everyone in a 24 time zone world is on wiki at once but then again, perhaps this is the judgement, sadly, of some neutral editors as well as some partisan ones, who used IAR as an excuse to override 2 previous Rfc's and months of discussion...for which I will not apologize for using rollback to revert their IAR vandalism.--MONGO 02:42, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict response to N419BH)I'm sorry you are wrong. Was that a comeback to your IDONTLIKEIT argument? An admin has previously had less than colegial discussions with the guy. He might be neuteral in the editing dispute but he is not neutral when it comes to his impression of the editor. He made it clear by being rude to him. How is he getting a pass on this? Instead of discusing BOOMERANG, admins should be focusing on why this situation became so tense. Admins should consider telling the other admin that he could have gone about it in a different way. I know it is fun to be contrary (what BOOMERRANG and this whole discussion seems to be about) but it is better for the project to not have editors being jerks to each other. If asking another admin to pull the trigger makes that a better possibility than HJ should have done it. And no, I am not asking for a discussion on stripping him. I just want a simple acknowledgment from HJ that he could have done it better and that he understands why his follow-up was out of line. Cptnono (talk) 02:44, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

After saying "the likes of MONGO are more of an amusing occupational hazard", it would have been better for HJ Mitchell to ask someone else to take a look at Mongo's use of roll back. There doesn't seem to have been any particular urgency. Once Mongo suggested it shouldn't have been him that did the action, it would have been better for HJ Mitchell to bring it here for a check. Tom Harrison 02:45, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

So we're left with, "okay, maybe HJ shouldn't have done it, but he did, but he was right to do it, and this has been endorsed by uninvolved admins." I will actually agree with the negative analysis of the gruff comment above, but MONGO's insistence in the matter is partially to blame for it being said in the first place. By the way, I did NOT use IAR to override the previous discussions, I used IAR to implement expressed community consensus at Talk:September 11 attacks, which was that the link to 9/11 conspiracy theories should be included. You then edit warred with rollback to remove my good-faith edit, a serious breach of WP:ROLLBACK. The only reason why I have not re-added it is because of the ongoing RFC, which by the way is running at an overwhelming percentile toward including the link. At its conclusion a completely uninvolved editor will judge consensus and act as appropriate. I will say it again, HJ was within policy to remove your rollback right, a completely uninvolved admin on your talk page has already endorsed the removal, and all we're doing here is creating drama on the board that's designed for issues requiring immediate attention from administrators. You've got your uninvolved admin there's nothing more to do. N419BH 02:54, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That community consensus is still being debated...it is not yet closed, nor was there any consensus when you implemented IAR, and based on precedent of those who come and go adding the CT tag to the article, on first inspection, my use of rollback over your IAR justification would have all the appearances of what it was, a vandalism revert!...but this is another matter for another day. Today, it's time to see if administrators will acknowledge that they should never use thir tools against others they have had disputes with.--MONGO 03:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Obvious sock

Can someone block an obvious sock? User:Gadaiiad See their contribs and then User:Oinsighiads and User:Sain123s, the sockmaster. Thanks, Heiro 03:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

 Sounds like a duck quacking into a megaphone to me. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln) (talk) 03:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Haha, nice one. But seriously, can someone block now? He is still at it. Heiro

The user is at AIV. --Σ _contribs 03:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Blocked. Elockid 03:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I need some eyes on an article

I am dealing with an editor who has done a lot of work on Haven (TV series), and am encountering a lot of resistance to changes. I am not going to go so far as to suggest an OWNership issue, but it's moving in that direction. To whit, the editor seeks to include just about every reference to the works of Stephen King alluded to in the series (which is a lot, but at least three editors thus far have considered it a lot of trivia). I sought to bridge the gap and stop the revert-warring (of which I was admittedly a part) by converting the list to prose and trimming out all but the more prominent references. I even found a citable reference to X-Files, which the editor removed. The recent edits by the author seem like sour grapes, and I am running out of ideas on how to respond.
I need a little help. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

May I suggest WP:DRN?--Cerejota (talk) 03:31, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Cerejota - I filed there. It must be one of them new-fangled noticeboards; I don't recall hearing about it before. Does it work? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 05:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

G.-M. Cupertino, once again

I'm doubt blocking his latest sock in itself is worth an entry here, especially based on the comment to his edit here. However, there are a couple of points worth a second pair of eyes -- with more time to devote to this matter than I -- to look at.

(1) I'm a bit concerned that the IP address may be part of a DHCP pool, which means it shouldn't be blocked indefinitely.

(2) More entertainingly, a couple weeks after I asked this question at WP:FT/N about G.-M. Cupertino's spamming references to the work of one Christian Settipani, I found this post on my user page, with Mr Settipani's signature to it. I'm a little surprised that an outsider would know about WP:FT/N, let alone look there for a chance mention of his name. Further, G.-M. Cupertino has demonstrated an obsession on Settipani, inserting references to his works in hundreds of articles, some arguably useful & relevant, but in many cases Settipani is clearly not a reliable source, or his books are irrelevant. Maybe I did have a message from Settipani himself -- at the time I assumed it was & answered accordingly. Or maybe our sockmeister is taking his game to the next level. (Or maybe I'm just seeing things that don't exist, & ought to just keep to providing sources & cleaning up articles on early medieval European history.) -- llywrch (talk) 06:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Personal attack by KoreanSentry

User:KoreanSentry reverted my edit with an edit summary "Undid revision 449302007 by Phoenix7777 (talk) WTH is Ba-gua? reverted edit done by right wing Japanese" without any reason of the "right wing Japanese". The user violated WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. Please note I am not discussing the revert itself here. However the revert is unconstructive because Ba gua is clearly the origin of the South Korean flag which I will address later in the article's talk page. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 08:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

What are you looking for here? A block? Page protection? This is for immediate administrative action. If you'd simply like for an editor not to call you names you'd be best taking it to WP:WQA. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I reposted to WP:WQA#Personal attack by KoreanSentry thank you. Please comment there. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 09:45, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You say you're not discussing it, you but you go ahead and discuss it anyway. While Koreansentry's edit summary is crass, we do have a history of calling a spade a spade here, and a google image search does not a reliable source make. You creating that conclusion based on an image source is original research, and no reason was given for the replacement of the image. You also introduce speculation in violation of WP:CRYSTAL with the sentence about what "could" be done.--Crossmr (talk) 10:43, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

No. I just presented a clear evidence contradicting KoreanSentry's revert. I am preparing the more reliable source like and more. Please wait for a moment until I am ready for the reliable source presented to the talk page, thank you. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:58, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

A moment? You came here to complain about the edit summary nearly 3 hours ago. If it takes you that long to assemble your reliable sources, you probably weren't ready to be making that edit. As for being a reliable source, that book doesn't provide anything about the Korean flag and that symbol.--Crossmr (talk) 11:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry but 3 hours are quite precious time for me. Please note I am not a frequent editor here. Please be patient until I am prepared for the discussion. And the book says "The Bagua is found on the Korean flag" ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 11:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah okay, I see it now. I typed Korea in as a quick search on the left and it didn't show the reference to the flag. Keep in mind though this doesn't appear to be an academic source. This is a self-help book on relieving pain, not a book written by a recognized historical expert. Who knows where he's pulling that conclusion from.--Crossmr (talk) 11:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The username "KoreanSentry" did raise an eyebrow. It suggests that he's here to "guard" a "Korean" point of view and a look at his contributions supports this. Many of his mainspace contribs are reverts and undos, a few with similar crass edit summaries such as Undid revision 416406252 by Imbonwwwww (talk) Again, Chinese nationalistic views. However, to his credit he does discuss his edits but he really needs to stop with these "defensive" edit summaries and consider changing to a neutral sounding username. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 11:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

GiveWell, user:Green Cardamom, and assuming good faith

I'm in the midst of a somewhat uncomfortable situation on talk:GiveWell this week. Green Cardamom (talk · contribs) is a long-term maintainer of the article, and was not at all pleased when attention was drawn to it on Metafilter and users, including me, started making changes on the article. There is a dispute about how promotional the article is/was, but that's actually getting resolved quite well through general user comment, and it's not my big worry. What I am worried about is how glaringly and repeatedly Green Cardamom is failing to assume good faith of anyone who's not him/her on that talk page. Comments like "a hotbed of angry editors who appear on occasion to paint the company in as negative light as possible within Misplaced Pages guidelines" and "It seems evident you want to emphasis the negative aspects of GiveWell" were GC's opening shots, and despite me begging, pleading, and cajoling them to please, please AGF, hits like "Ask yourself, when will you stop hating GiveWell", "Further example of the inability of people to edit this article in a neutral manner even when they try", and "it seems like a way to highlight or emphasize it over other shortcomings, which is a form of bias" kept rolling in.

GC does genuinely seem to be trying to moderate their ABF-ing, but minutes before saying "Yes I fully admit my behavior was inappropriate. I will no longer assume bad faith in Misplaced Pages/Metafilter users unless there is clear reason to support it.", they posted this to the talk page of a user who been engaging extremely openly and calmly on the talk page. This is not the first time GC has accused someone engaging on the GiveWell talk of canvassing, and after being warned and reminded so many times, I'm concerned that he or she is simply unable to AGF on the topic of GiveWell.

My desire here is for someone uninvolved on the topic to look over these diffs of GC's behavior and either do what I've been unable to and convince GC that it needs to stop, or make the call about whether this may be a case where a well-intentioned user must nevertheless be restricted from a topic on which they cannot engage constructively. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Given that GC's very last comment was the apology, it would seem that the prudent way forward will be to wait and hope it improves. To be quite honest I'm far more concerned about Jessamyn West's blatantly instructing MetaFilter users to game 3RR and try to stealthily add negative material to other articles to skirt around it than I am with GC's having called her out on it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 15:58, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I see Jessamyn's post as mostly explaining how DR works on Misplaced Pages, not as instructing users to game. Step 1, engage. Step 2, if engagement fails, find an admin. If the person is reverting while not engaging, 3RR comes into play. Her point seems to be that the Metafilter users posting angrily in that thread should be aware that Misplaced Pages does have processes to handle stonewalling. The point about adding something to Astroturfing is debatable; given that Jessamyn is an experienced Wikipedian and serves on our advisory board, I'm inclined to think she probably meant it in the sense of "this is a notable controversy and could probably be added to the article about the topic" rather than "yes, my shock troops! go spam!" But obviously I'm seeing all this through a filter of frustration with GC's behavior, so i won't be making any definitive claims about who meant what on this one. Since her behaviour has been brought up, I'm going to go drop her an ANI notice. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:20, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Fluffernutter, I posted on your private talk page an honest and open question so that I could better understand the situation, your interpretation of that as a hidden accusation is an assumption of bad faith. You are also a member of Metafilter, you did not mention in your post above the thread at Metafilter contaning 196 posts concerning "giving GiveWell hell". You will find in this thread users giving a call to arms to manage the GiveWell[REDACTED] article along with a deep assumption of bad faith of the GiveWell Misplaced Pages article, some examples from that thread:

• "Maybe we can fix up their Misplaced Pages page?" posted by LarryC
• "GiveWell stooge cleaned up their company's Misplaced Pages entry.." posted by Blazecock Pileon
• "the[REDACTED] edit is deeply suspicious.." posted by Durn Bronzefist
• "I know some Mefites are very active in Misplaced Pages -- what on Earth is going on here?" posted by pH Indicating Socks

Jessaymn, who is on the advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation and I believe also an administrator and paid employee of Metafilter, then posted a series of instructions on how to edit Misplaced Pages in disputes including tactics like "involving your favorite admin" and trying to force a 3RR block to get problem users out of the way. Her post was in response to the question "I know some Mefites are very active in Misplaced Pages" ie. she appears to be encouraging users at Metafilter to get involved in the GiveWell page.

Some users expressed discomfort with the Metafilter thread, and even requested the thread be shut down:

• "This thread is kind of weird and stalkery." posted by empath
• "this thread, which IMO should be closed because it's turned into little more than unsubstantiated "I think GiveWell is still awful" comments." posted by mkultra
• "Turning this MeTa post into a back-channel forum for discussing changes to GiveWell's Misplaced Pages page is lending a lot of credence to the Wiki editor's claim that MeFi is continuing to hold onto this grudge way too long." posted by mkultra

However Jessaymn rejected any calls to shut down the thread, saying:

• "We're not closing this thread. Folks can do what they want with that information."

We have no direct control what happens at Metafilter, but a look at the time stamps of that thread, and the time stamps of the GiveWell Misplaced Pages page activity will show a one to one relation. Further the number of new editors who showed up at the GiveWell article is overwhelming and can only be explained by that Metafilter thread drawing in editors within minutes. Is this canvasing? I honestly. have. no. idea. I don't know if this is against the rules of Misplaced Pages, or not. To me it just feels deeply wrong, in a moral sense, in particular when two senior members of authority are involved. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Right, you may be just misunderstanding canvassing here, since I know you said on Jessamyn's talk that you're not too familiar with it. Asking me where I "posted" to bring people to the discussion? That was an accusation of canvassing, whether you used the word "canvass" or not, and it was assuming incredibly bad faith of me.

To address your hinting that I am trying to hide my affiliation: I am a Metafilter member, which I openly acknowledged both on my talk page and on the GiveWell talk page. I am more than happy to have anyone examine my behavior both on Misplaced Pages and on the Metafilter thread in question if they'd like, because there is nothing untoward there, though my preference is to not publicly link the two usernames.

Now, as to your highlighting the contents of the Metafilter thread in general, I find that to be beside the point, in the same vein you have been operating in for days: we are on Misplaced Pages, we are working in a collegial manner, no one has made horrid, abusive changes to the GiveWell article. And yet you are attempting to discount people's neutral contributions on the talk page because you believe they are linked to metafilter. Let me say this clearly: It does not matter if they are from Metafilter. It does not matter if people are commenting, on Metafilter, unfavorably about GiveWell. It matters if they are editing on Misplaced Pages in accordance with our NPOV and COI guidelines. Your assumption that people on the GiveWell talk intend destruction, when there is no evidence that anyone is doing anything on Misplaced Pages but talking, calmly and rationally, is exactly what I am concerned with, and exactly what I am asking be addressed here. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:07, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I think now is as appropriate a time as any to remind ourselves that Misplaced Pages is not the only online community where people discuss issues and go for support. It is not self-evidently nefarious to start a thread on a forum or participate in a thread which mentions a[REDACTED] article. Where we should be concerned are when those discussions concentrate on gaming the system here. We should welcome outside discussions on articles from reddit, metafilter and other sites rather than immediately assume those sites are bad because they aren't us. Protonk (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

In case this is useful, I think people may have been concerned with my use of the word "trick" in talking about the 3RR. I have, in the past, been involved in problems on Misplaced Pages with people (since banned, if that's useful for perspective, it may not be). In the past examples I've had to deal with (visible on my talk page) the issues were sometimes resolved because the user did not abide by the 3RR and wound up hamstringing themselves. There were other problems, and in many cases I found the admins to be helpful and friendly in assisting me with working some of these things out. So, MetaFilter is a website where we talk informally amongst people who know each other, at least somewhat, and I may have used language that sounded informal enough that it obscured my meaning. I certainly didn't expect people to go swarming on to the GiveWell page and start hassling any other user or even doing anything but working to improve the page. I understand that tempers are a little hot here, but as an admin at MetaFilter and a regular old editor here, I can assure you that all I was trying to do was encourage some fruitful cross-site communication and understanding. I made this clear to Green Cardamom on my talk page and while I'm a little surprised at what I perceive to be an accusation, it's pretty easy to sort it all out, though I get a little confused with timing and converting between UTC and EST as far as what exactly happened when.

If anyone has additional questions about how MetaFilter works, relevant to this duspute or not, feel free to contact me. We almost never close MetaTalk threads unless there is a totally dead issue or some sort of emergency situation. Not closing that thread is a matter of policy more than preference. Jessamyn (talk) 20:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Persistent copyvios by User:Nosadahmed

Nosadahmed (talk · contribs)

Not sure if this should have been filed at AIV or CCI. Feel free to redirect the complaint to a more appropriate noticeboard if necessary.

Noasadahmed has been blocked multiple times in the past for constantly creating copy/paste articles. It appears the user is back at it (see Hi-Tech Medical College and Hospital, N.C. Autonomous College, and Dhenkanal Autonomous College, the last of which was what led to the prior blocks). The user does not seem to understand that Misplaced Pages does not allow copy/paste articles from non-free sources. Given the escalating blocks for the same reason, I reluctantly think an indef block is required. Singularity42 (talk) 19:47, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• After looking at and deleting a couple of them, and after seeing the block log, it's clear to me: I've blocked indefinitely. If anyone feels this is too stern a measure, feel free to change the block--and then to mentor the editor, which strikes me as impossible. Thanks Singularity, Drmies (talk) 20:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I made the mistake of unblocking a persistent copyright violator upon request that they would be mentored and still regret that decision. The only article this user has created that still exists, also started as a patent copyvio. I note also that File:MIET logo.gif , apparently the official seal of the Mahavir Institute of Engineering and Technology, was uploaded by this user and tagged with cc-by-sa-3.0, with no other information provided. I think we better delete this or at the least assume it's a copyvio and place a FUR in its place. Given the warnings and blocks without response, I certainly endorse an indef block.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:47, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
    Aha. Same user originally uploaded the image to the Commons and it was deleted as a copyvio there. I have deleted it under F9.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Get User:U-Mos of wikipedia - vandalism only account

User Enforcer22 has created an account purely to, well, campaign for my removal from Misplaced Pages. I'm assuming this is IP 78.145.115.98, who has taken up certain ideas about me due to the discussion that can be seen on his and my talk pages concerning the letter "e", which for my part I considered to be perfectly civil. Oh well. Clearly needs sorting in whatever way is correct. (Apologies if this is in the wrong place also, wasn't sure of the correct way to bring this to admin attention.) U-Mos (talk) 22:53, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yu klose and WP:COMPETENCE

Yu klose (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Unfortunately I have to bring this user here. He is a Japanese editor who likes to come through and update the Asia League Ice Hockey rosters. The problem is, communication is basically impossible without a translator and he frequently introduces issues in the article, makes errors, messes them up, and without several warnings and a translator, won't provide any sources for his edits. The one time he did provide a source it didn't say anything to support what he wanted it to support. He does seem to get information ahead of official league updates. I'm not sure where he gets it as he won't source it. Recently he introduced issues on High1 by adding several foreign imports to the roster but failing to remove ones which had left the team. Per league regulations they can only have 3, and he'd listed 5. Several days later when the team finally updated its roster on their website I was able to clean it up. However at that time, neither the league (in English or Japanese) nor team website had this information. Attempts to communicate with him went unanswered. Today he just moved all the foreign players on China Dragon to the past import player section, but only removed a single one from active roster, thus leaving several players as both active and past players at the same time . In the past he's introduced incorrect citizenship about players like this: , unlike Japan, Korea didn't have dual citizenship laws at the time, and it was impossible for this player to be a dual citizen (dual citizenship was only allowed until 18 at which point they had to declare one or default to Korean). He tried to introduce a source , but of course it didn't call him a Korean citizen. It called him an American one. We'd had similar issues over some Japanese players that have dual Canadian/Japanese citizenship, you can see that outlined on his talk page, I had to bring in a translator for that one. While I appreciate his work in updating the rosters, trying to deal with him as become a burden and a time sink trying to verify the things he's doing and correcting mistakes he's making. His inability to communicate makes the task even more difficult, so I'm asking he either be blocked or banned as it seems he's not able to effectively work with this community.--Crossmr (talk) 23:13, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Admin has left

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No action required. 28bytes (talk) 01:00, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Grutness has announced that he has stopped editing on Misplaced Pages due to one editor on his talk page. If he doesn't edit for awhile, should it be requested for his admin privileges to be revoked? I personally find what he did very drastic. SL93 (talk) 23:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

If he was engaged in copyright violation as this revert alleges, that is indeed drastic. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

That should be discussed first between the editors and on the article talk page. I'll add a note there. Walking away never solves anything. If someone has made a false (though good-faith) allegation, that needs to be addressed as well. Carcharoth (talk) 01:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

We do have procedure in place at Misplaced Pages:Inactive administrators for administrators who do not edit for a year. So, either we wait for that year to come, or he would have to resign the tools voluntarily. either way (talk) 00:00, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Alright. I wasn't sure in a situation where the admin said that he quit. SL93 (talk) 00:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Per this comment it seems that Grutness is taking a break, not quitting. People can and do change their minds, especially when they make a declaration at an emotional moment. -- Atama頭 00:50, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

He posted that he was just taking a break after I posted this. This can be closed. SL93 (talk) 00:56, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Gratuitous insult

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closing per OP. 28bytes (talk) 01:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

This kind of engagement is unhelpful and inflammatory. Could someone urge the user to avoid remarks like this? Tom Harrison 00:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Really, Tom? What do you expect to come of this? It's hardly a flattering comment, but it doesn't really lower the tone of that discussion any further than it already is. Besides, it was made hours ago. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:42, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Tom - The general level of all that was pretty bad. But Mongo hasn't complained and asked the others to leave him alone, and it's his talk page.

He's a big boy and if he feels put upon he can do something about it, either responding himself or asking them to leave or asking for an uninvolved admin to intervene.

As an attack out of the blue I'd be more concerned about this, but there was clearly a lot of back and forth that preceded it. Jumping on the first person to break some arbitrary threshold in a multi-way insult fest is not exactly well balanced or drama reducing.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:48, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

There was worse than that, before that comment. I question the "being provoked" part. You can't be provoked unless you choose to be. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:54, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think this level of incivility is inappropriate and damaging. We should avoid direct insults. Name-calling is bad for the project, and makes it that much harder to collaborate. I first asked the user on his talk page to avoid saying stuff like that, but he dismissed my request. I thought maybe someone else would have better success. I hope this hasn't become the community standard for how we talk to each other, but if it's generally thought to be okay, I guess it has. Tom Harrison 01:00, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree that it's inappropriate. But the both of them are throwing insults at each other, so maybe they should both be blocked. Would that fix anything? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

If blocking could fix it, we wouldn't be where we are now. I tried asking him not to do it and was dismissed. If remarks like this are contrary to community standards, could someone urge the user(s) to avoid making them? Tom Harrison 01:07, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't know that warning both, blocking both, or any other admin intervention would actually help things, personally.

I understand the "this is inappropriate and damaging" feeling, but I don't know if we can respond in a drama-reducing manner. It's not bad enough to justify intervening in a likely drama-increasing manner, IMHO. We've had far far worse elsewhere in the past.

Even a "Please knock this off" to both of them is likely to increase drama. So... Shrug. For the moment, at least. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:09, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Feel free to archive. Tom Harrison 01:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I really wish editors wouldn't talk to each other that way on user talk pages, because readers from the general internet population might stumble onto it and wonder what kind of operation we're running here. Blocking established users for incivility causes so much grief for the blocking admin, however, that I'm not surprised that the policy is enforced so inconsistently and selectively. Cla68 (talk) 01:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

1. Farlex (2009). "The Free Dictionary by Farlex: Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition". Elsevier. Retrieved 2011-09-07. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)

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